Art Shows – Dayna J Collins

Full of Delightful Mischief: A Grid of 25

I had an idea for a painting I wanted in my show at Guardino Gallery. I envisioned a grid of smaller paintings hung together to create a large 40×40 inch piece of art. I decided the small paintings would be 8×8 inches. But the initial problem was how to hang 25 paintings in a manner that would allow me to work on all 25 at the same time, as if I was actually painting a 40×40-inch piece of art. My studio assistant came to the rescue. He devised a system using Velcro. He attached Velcro to the back of the 25 8×8-inch cradled panels, then matched up the other piece of Velcro to the wall, allowing all of the paintings to hang together, but could easily be removed for me to 1) paint the edges, and 2) work on each piece individually when it became time to resolve each piece as a single painting.

After I secured the 25 panels (thank you Art Department for ordering so many boards for me), they were primed with fluorescent pink and orange acrylic paint by my studio assistant. I decided to start the painting process using acrylic paint to get lots of layers of color and marks. It was such fun to paint across the surface with grand swaths of paint, and occasionally pull the panels off the wall to wrap paint around and onto the edges.

Howard measuring and attaching the Velcro.

Acrylic paints below the works in progress.

A section of painted panels. Can you see where they are nestled close together?

Art quotes were added across the surface of the 25 pieces.

After a few layers of acrylic, I switched to oil paint mixed with cold wax, and began enhancing and adding more layers, words, and marks.

Layers, layers, and more layers of oil and cold wax.

Making progress. The view from standing on a chair.

Drying across the bathtub on a warm, sunny day.

A stack of completed paintings. I love the edges!

And today the grid was hung at the gallery!

One by one, Howard got all 25 pieces hung.

My art next to three of Nadine Gay’s beautiful sculptures.

It was sure wonderful to hang the show with three red dots!

New Studio? Almost . . . . .

I came very close to signing a lease on a new studio this week. It was bigger, in a great location, and an affordable price. I’m in the middle of preparing for two major shows in 2021, so I was feeling cramped in my current home painting studio and felt like more wall space would help reduce my anxiety.

It was election day that I looked at the space and I was initially excited about the possibilities. Then I came home and really began thinking about it. I would need to cover the floor with canvas and the walls with plastic. Did I really want to paint in a Dexter kill room? The lighting wasn’t great, but that was solvable. One thing after another and I began to feel more and more unsettled. Or maybe it was just election jitters. And then late into the evening, I knew that this new studio space was not the right fit for me. I conveyed my decision to my most ardent supporter, Howard, and at around 11:30 pm he popped out of bed and walked into my studio, turned the lights on, and just stood there. What can we do to make this space work better for you?

A couple of ideas emerged from our midnight chatter. My shelf of vintage dolls and doll heads would need to come down so I could appropriate that space for studio storage (what!?!). I would move my bookshelf so that that wall space could be converted to an area to hang a painting and make my painting supplies more accessible. But probably the best idea of the night: Howard would build me a movable wall so I could hang and work on two additional paintings.

The next day, Howard headed to the hardware store, bought supplies, and spent the rest of the day in the garage building me my movable wall. I’m in love! Not only with that guy in the garage, but with my new wall.

I took down all of my dolls.

I moved my bookshelf (with a little purging) to the closet and moved all of my boards at various stages of completion to the top shelf where the dolls used to live.

My space isn’t perfect, but it is sure a lot more useful. And I still need to use our upstairs landing for storing larger boards and for boards that are drying. Boards are still drying in our bathroom on top of the bathtub, but it is better than moving into a space that wasn’t the right place or the right time.

If you are curious about what my studio looked like last week, go take a look at the fall issue of Subjectiv: A Journal of Visual and Literary Arts, where my previous studio is featured on pages 89-96!

Salvage Collage: A Sort of Magic

My show is hung. After working on a variety of pieces over the past year and a half, I can take a deep breath and revel in the accomplishment of creating a body of work and getting to share it at Guardino Gallery. All of the pieces I have been working on for this show have been created out of old books. My Artist Statement pretty much says it all:

Dayna Collins has always loved old books. She hyperventilates at the sight of books which are stained, defaced, torn or marked up. She rips battered books apart, reclaiming their faded fragments, and creates collages using only materials she has excavated. Dayna’s mixed media pieces reflect the passage of time, repurposing the scraps that are worn and weathered, transforming the aged and tattered pieces into something unexpected and beautiful, celebrating their fragile decay.

Here’s the tiniest glimpse of what has been going on over the past 18 months:

Then it became time to begin putting the pieces together into some sort of format for presentation. I ended up using six different formats.

Book boards floating in a custom black frame.

“A Lulling Possibility of Happiness,” salvage collage on book board.

“A Shattered Sense of Normality,” matted and framed in white.

“Secrets Spill Out,” salvage collage on vintage piece of wood.

“Hope Carson,” salvage collage on watercolor paper, mounted on cradled panel.

Then there was the Herculean task of titling, mounting, photographing, inventorying, and packing. There were a few hiccups with the floating and the mounting, but after a few tears, I nutted up and found a solution.

Prepping for the “floating” of the book board collages.

It was fun to work in so many styles, using the same materials to create entirely different looks. Unfortunately, it was a challenge for Donna and Gail to hang such disparate styles of work. But they did a magnificent job and created combinations I never would have imagined.

One of my favorite things about having a show at Guardino (this is my fourth one!), is designing the window. As soon as I got notice that I would have a show in July, I started plotting and planning for the window.

It turned out just as I had hoped.

Photo courtesy of ceramic artist Michelle Gallagher.

The show opens on Thursday, July 25, from 6-9 pm. I’m sharing the Feature Gallery with my friend and fellow artist, Michelle Gallagher, who has created a delightful series of ceramic corvids. Their dark beauty compliment my pieces perfectly and we were excited to share this show. Michelle took some great photos, so here is a peek at our show. . . . hopefully this will entice you out tomorrow night for a summer evening of merriment and refreshments (and to experience Last Thursday on Alberta).

Photo courtesy of ceramic Michelle Gallagher.

PS Last weekend our local YMCA had their final book sale in their old building. Of course, I was there first thing on Friday morning, restocking my art supplies . . . .

2017 Was a Wild Ride!

The past year has been the most exciting and exhilarating of my art career. It all stared in the fall of 2016 when I told people, I have nothing major on my calendar for the upcoming year. I plan to just play and explore. And then everything changed . . . .

I’ve blogged about most of these events, but here is an abbreviated summary of my 2017 art life.

Spare Parts Show at the Salem Public Library

Art Featured in New Book: Cold Wax Medium

Solo Show at Guardino Gallery: Waterlines

Salem Art Association Mentorship Program

Taught an Oil and Cold Wax Class at Sitka Center for Art and Ecology

Private Master Class with Pat Wheeler

Two Person Show at Borland Gallery

11th Annual Day of the Dead Show at Guardino Gallery

Artist in Residence at the Salem Art Association Art Annex

Salem Art Association Panel Discussion

What’s Your Story Workshop

Symbols Show at the Art Annex

Guest on KMUZ Talking About Art

Sitka Art Invitational

17th Annual Guardino Gallery Little Things Show

BEST IN SHOW Something Red Art Walk

It was a great year. And I’m not making any proclamations about 2018. Mum’s the word.

Passage: Caught in the Flow of Life

Nine months ago I had the opportunity to become part owner in an art gallery. Along with Tory Brokenshire and Bonnie Hull, the three of us took over the reigns of Compass Gallery, located at the Willamette Heritage Center, where all three of us have upstairs art studios. We came up with nine months worth of shows and each of us took on a monthly task (Tory created the show cards, Bonnie kept our website current, and I produced the press release). Then there was the Herculean task of creating a steady stream of art every month (for those of us who didn’t have art in basement vaults). Yesterday, we hung our final show, Passage: Caught in the Flow of Life, which about sums up our nine-month grand experiment.

We all enjoyed our time as gallery owners, and we especially loved having lunch together after hanging a new show. Yesterday was no exception. We enjoyed a long, leisurely lunch at Taproot in downtown Salem, plotting and scheming about future projects. You knew we weren’t going softly into the night, didn’t you?

Fortunately, Compass Gallery will continue, reverting back to the original visionary, Catherine Alexander. There are some other changes in the wind with the gallery. . . . but all of that is for another day, another post.

Tulips-ish: Let’s Just Call Them Tulips

What? Tulips? I don’t paint flowers, at least not specific flowers. In the past I’ve painted a couple of paintings that could be considered flowers, but they were wonky and highly abstracted. But amazingly, they both sold . . . . ummmmm.

My heart sank a bit when Tory, Bonnie, and I met the end of 2015 to decide our 2016 show schedule for Compass Gallery. January was Magnetic Pull and reflected what art we felt pulled to create. February was Light As Air, and I had happily been working on my Funky Junkyard Birds for a couple of months. When it came time to decide on March, Bonnie suggested we have a show about tulips. I gulped and resolved to push through the fear and just make the art.

I decided I needed to start early for the March show. On a rainy day in January, I spent the day in my studio. I was playing with the idea of painting a close up of a tulip, abstracted beyond recognition. My first go round went like this:

Then I started another one and the first layer looked like a misshaped lemon (I’m not even sharing the photo of the big yellow painted lemon!).

I decided this idea wasn’t working for me. I eventually left the studio that day feeling like I had spread a lot of paint, but feeling uninspired and unsuccessful. I was missing something. I remembered a favorite children’s book titled ish by Peter Reynolds. Why couldn’t I paint tulips in the ish fashion? I felt myself getting inspired and motivated again, motivated to get painting, big and small.

I started in using three pre-prepared boards that were a wee 6×6 inches. I had fun adding splashes of color mimicking bouquets of tulips. I felt like I was on to something.

Then I prepared four 12×12-inch boards in my usual fashion, applying paint, a layer of plaster, and then sealing them with a layer of acrylic. I was ready to paint my version of tulips using oil and cold wax. I laid down paint, I scraped it back. I told myself I didn’t need to paint exact replicas of tulips, but just to use color and texture to create something tulips-ish. It was working.

I ended up with a series of three paintings where I used black and grey as a backdrop to really make the color of the flowers pop.

I wanted to create one bigger piece for the show, so I dug out a 24×24 inch painting that had been in a show in 2013. It was begging to be repurposed and given new life.

I had fun covering the bright stripes of color, leaving the essence of a flower, which I then went in and defined using an ebony pencil, a combination of reds and alizarin crimson mixed with white to create some lovely pinks.

The result of my push/pull transformation is Echoes of Summer.

We hung the show on Thursday and I was happy with my nod to tulips. Once again, our disparate work came together to form a lively show.

Just Tulips will be on display at the Compass Gallery at Willamette Heritage Center through March 30, 2016, and the gallery is open Monday-Saturday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm. The Opening Reception will be held Thursday, March 10, from 5-7 pm.

Behind the Scenes . . . . of a new show!

My current show with Cynthia Herron, Ricochet, was hung last Tuesday and our opening reception was Saturday, but I’ve already been working on pieces for my next show so I thought I would give a peek inside my world of board prep.

I picked up my order of boards from Matt in Portland last October, then during November and into December I painted all of them, applied plaster, sanded, and sealed. I’ve already started to apply oil and cold wax to several, but for this post, I’ll leave it at the prep. And I’ll save the information about the show for a later post as well. It’s all very exciting.

Picking up my boards from Matt's workshop in Portland — Picking up my boards from Matt’s workshop in Portland

Preparing to stain the plaster with acrylic

I whipped up lots of fun colors to seal the plaster

Okay, a little hint: Guardino Gallery.

Upcoming Art Shows and Sales

I’ve been invited to participate in two upcoming shows. The first is at Guardino Gallery in Portland, Little Things 14. This is a group show where all the pieces are 7×7 inches or smaller. I have 12 little plaster, oil, and cold wax paintings in the show. The opening reception is Thursday, November 28, 6-9 pm, and the show runs through December 28th.

The other show I’m a part of is the Left Coast Artist Collective Artful Gift Sale. It will be held for two days, Friday, December 5 (10 am – 8 pm) and Saturday, December 6 (9 am – 5 pm). This event will be held in the gym at the Multnomah Arts Center (7688 SW Capitol Highway in Portland). There will be jewelry, photography, glass art, paintings, book arts, fiber, and mixed media arts. I will be selling paintings, Funky Junkyard Birds, Curious Elements, and a big assortment of cards.

If you are looking for gifts or something fun for yourself, both of these events will have a great assortment of art by local artists.

Group Dynamics

The Salem Art Group: Dayna, Kathy, Tory, Woody standing in for Celia, Katy, Nancy

I’m a member of the Salem Art Group, a closed, close-knit group of six women. We get together once a month, varying our activities. Some months we meet for coffee and to share what we’ve been up to, other months we take field trips. Regularly we meet for art play dates. And once a year we go on a multi-day art retreat in the woods. Earlier this year we decided it would be fun to do an art show together and last night we hosted our opening reception at The Art Department, a downtown Salem fine art store. Our show, Group Dynamics, will be up through the end of November.

The south wall, artist's work left to right: Katy Vigland, Nancy Eng, Dayna Collins — The south wall, artist’s work left to right: Katy Vigland, Nancy Eng, Dayna Collins

The north wall, left to right, the art work of Tory Brokenshire and Kathy Shen

I created three pieces for the show, which I started at our retreat back in August.

Here are my completed pieces:

My art work, all are 16x20 inches, plaster, oil, and cold wax on cradled boards — My art work, all are 16×20 inches, plaster, oil, and cold wax on cradled boards

"Fairy Tales & Poetry," 16x20 inches, plaster, oil, and cold wax on cradled board — “Fairy Tales & Poetry,” 16×20 inches, plaster, oil, and cold wax on cradled board

"Curiosity & Tolerance," 16x20, plaster, oil, and cold wax on cradled board — “Curiosity & Tolerance,” 16×20, plaster, oil, and cold wax on cradled board

"Insight & Imagination," 16x20, plaster, oil, and cold wax on cradled board — “Insight & Imagination,” 16×20, plaster, oil, and cold wax on cradled board

And here are photos from last night’s reception.

Cynthia and Susan try on clothes created by Celia

Tory and Becky, an old friend from when my son was in school

By the end of the evening, we were all a bit rummy

Walkabout: Paths, Journeys & Destinations: The Opening

Last Friday was the opening of the Salem Art Association Radius 25 show, a show for established and emerging artists living with a 25-mile radius of Salem. The theme for the show was Walkabout: Paths, Journeys & Destinations, with creative interpretations of this theme encouraged. I wrote about my pieces and how I chose to interpret the theme in a previous blog post. You can see it by clicking here.

I didn’t take many photos, but here are a couple.

Me with Cameron Kaseberg, the guest juror for the show.

With fellow artist and friend, Julie Jeanseau (and her adorable daughter).

The reception was so crowded and I did so much visiting, that I never got to see the entire show. I want to go back when I have time to enjoy all of the wonderful art. The exhibit, at Bush Barn in Salem, is up through Friday, August 29.