Art Studios at Mission Mill – Page 2

A Studio Story

I recently changed studios. It all happened rather quickly and unexpectedly, but I jumped on the opportunity to make the switch. I’ve been in Studio F since the Art Studios at Mission Mill opened in October of 2014. I started out sharing the space with my good friend Tory, then she moved out into Studio B sometime in 2015. For the past year, Studio F has been my space.

Two weeks ago, one of our studio members decided not to renew her lease, creating an opening for Studio A, a lovely corner studio overlooking the stream and the Willamette Heritage Center. Two artists were interested in the studio, Rollie and myself, so it required a dual, I mean a drawing, which occurred a week ago Friday. We sought out an independent person to do the drawing. Max Marbles, our resident bookbinder was selected, and the drawing took place, with Max’s son Spencer, doing the actual drawing.

My name was drawn and I set to work putting my mark on Studio A, rushing against the clock in time for our monthly Art After Dark Open Studios. First up was painting, which I accomplished (with the help of my husband) on Sunday. tick tick tick

Monday and Tuesday of last week were moving days. As I moved my stuff out of Studio F, Rollie was moving his stuff into Studio F, all part of the grand studio shuffle.

Mission accomplished by Tuesday night, with fine tuning happening on Wednesday and Thursday, all in time for last Thursday night’s Open Studios.

Studio glimpses:

I am using Studio A as my special projects studio, and accordingly I moved the bulk of my oil and cold wax supplies to my painting studio at home. In my Mill studio I’ll be working on a project I’ve had in the works for several months: What’s Your Story? Real or Imagined. . . . telling stories through black and white photos. More on all of this later.

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.

Abstracted Play: Three days of oil and cold wax

The paint was flying last week when I hosted a three day oil and cold wax workshop called Abstracted Play. The class was held in the classroom at The Art Studios at Mission Mill, so I kept the number of students to five to maximize space. But we had a kitchen, an espresso machine, lots of snacks, and a lovely art lounge to hang out in, so we made do.

The class consisted of demos, work time, one-on-one assistance, more demos, feedback and support. Photos tell the story better than anything I could say.

The artists created some lovely work during the three days. Here is a sampling.

Such a fun, hard-working group of women. They assured me they cycled all the way from number 1 to finally landing at number 6. Whew, but it was touch and go for a while.

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.

Magnetic Pull

New year. New month. New gallery. New show. All of this means I have been busily and happily painting in plaster, oil, and cold wax.

I wrote about my new gallery last month, sharing the happy news that I was joining with Tory Brokenshire and Bonnie Hull to be the new owner-artists of the Compass Gallery. Our January show, Magnetic Pull, represents what art is tugging at our hearts as we begin 2016. All three of us recently wrote briefly about our individual magnetic pulls. I thought it would be fun for me to share what all three of us wrote:

Bonnie Hull

A person who makes art experiences the magnetic pull of the creative urge every day. As she goes on with it, the methods and media change, overlap . . . . collide maybe. “Mark-making” has become the single thread on which my own art practice hangs and I’m in the midst of discovering the commonality of what mark-making really means across a spectrum of activity. In 2016 my idea is to continue examining the relation between drawing and quilt making.

Tory Brokenshire

Magnetic pull is more than just a thought, it is a reality for anyone who is passionate about anything they do. I’m pulled towards the human figure, drawing, sewing, or sculpting in clay. Teaching and sharing figurative sculpture has also become a very important part of my passion. I believe everyone can feel a little bit of that pull to create.

Dayna Collins

Texture. Intersections. Excavation. Layers. Marks. Lines. Words. Color. Scratching. Scritching. These are the things that have pulled at me for the past several years. During 2016, I am hoping to dig deeper, incorporating more marks, more lines, more layers. A year of more, seeing how far I can push the processes I love.

The newly formed Compass Gallery has a fresh show in January with a fun twist. Throughout the month, weekly Wednesday – Saturday, from 11 am – 3 pm, one of us will be in the gallery working on our art and available to chat about our process, inspiration, and techniques. The show, Magnetic Pull, runs January 11-February 3, 2016.

Throughout January, join us as we work on our art in the gallery from 11-3 on Wednesdays through Saturdays. Here is the schedule:

January 13-16 Bonnie Hull will be stitching and drawing (and she invites people to bring their own projects and join her).

January 20-23 Tory Brokenshire will be creating whimsical characters in polymer clay.

January 27-30 Dayna Collins will be painting with her favorite mediums on pre-plastered boards: oil, cold wax, and oil pigment sticks.

Here are photos of some of my new work that will be included in the show:

The exhibition begins January 11 and the artists will host a simple reception in the gallery on Thursday, January 14, 5:00-7:00 pm, as part of Art After Dark, when the second floor studios will be open and Max Marbles, bookbinder, will be in his first floor studio demonstrating a publishing technique. These events are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday-Saturday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm. The exhibition will be on view through February 3.

Compass Gallery Update

Pinch me. I never thought I would have the opportunity to band together with two artists I love and admire to form our own gallery, but that is exactly what has transpired. Back in October, I shared the news that a group of five artists had formed a new art gallery cooperative in Salem. We had decided we would give it a trial run from October through December to see if it was something we all wanted to do. Three decided not to go ahead with the gallery, but we gained a new member, leaving three of us with the gallery. Besides yours truly, I’ve partnered with Bonnie Hull and Tory Brokenshire and we’re signing the lease on the gallery space before the end of the year.

We are already plotting and scheming for upcoming shows. In January it will be the three of us hanging our own art, plus the added bonus of each of us spending a week in the gallery creating art and being available to visit and share our process, techniques, and inspiration.

Our January schedule is:

January 13-16 Bonnie Hull will be stitching and drawing (and she invites people to bring their own projects and join her).

January 20-23 Tory Brokenshire will be creating whimsical characters in polymer clay.

January 27-30 Dayna Collins will be painting with her favorite mediums: oil, cold wax, and oil pigment sticks.

The exhibition begins January 11 and the artists will host a simple reception in the gallery on Thursday, January 14, 5:00-7:00 pm, as part of The Art Studios at Mission Mill Art After Dark. The second floor studios will be open and Max Marbles, bookbinder, will be in his first floor studio demonstrating a publishing technique. These events are free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday-Saturday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm. The exhibition will be on view through February 3.

If you want to follow along on our upcoming activities, we have a Facebook page. Click Compass Gallery Cooperative to head over there and click like. We also have a website, which we update with upcoming shows. Click HERE to be taken there.

New Love: Oil Pigment Sticks

I have a new obsession: R and F Oil Pigment Sticks. I’ve been experimenting with them for several months, mostly creating little abstract landscapes, but recently I decided to take the plunge and start using them on bigger canvases. But back to the smalls for this post. I’ve used other brands of oil sticks, but nothing, NOTHING, compares to R and F for pigment load, creaminess, and application luciousness (I don’t even think that is a word!). The sticks are made from natural wax, linseed oil, and pigment. You can paint with them as is, you can use a palette knife, you can even mix colors on a palette and apply with a brush. Versatile and beautiful, that’s what they are.

Here’s a sampling from a series I’ve been working on. All of these are 3×3, 4×4, or 5×5 inches.

Some of these Art Snippets are currently on display, through December, in my new gallery, Compass Gallery Cooperative, in Salem, Oregon. (I’ll share more about this exciting gallery venture in another post.) I regularly share new work on both Pinterest and Instagram, as well as my Facebook art page, so if you want to follow my art, take a look.

A New Art Gallery in Salem

I have exciting news to share. There is a new art gallery in Salem and I’m one of the five founding artists. The gallery, located at the Willamette Heritage Center, borders downtown and is across the street from the Amtrak Station and Willamette University. A recent press release gives all of the pertinent information:

After a successful year at the Willamette Heritage Center (formerly Mission Mill Museum), Compass Gallery celebrates its first anniversary with a transition to a cooperative gallery under the auspices of the Art Studios at Mission Mill. The gallery will represent five artists who are members of the Art Studios: Dayna Collins, Bonnie Hull, Leonard Kelly, Kathy Shen and Rollie Wisbrock. The artists will curate monthly rotating exhibitions of their artwork in the gallery space. The first group exhibition opened to the public on October 1 and an opening reception is planned for Thursday, October 8 from 3:00-5:00 pm in the gallery. This event is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are Monday-Saturday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm. The exhibition will be on view through November 4.

On Thursday, four of us gathered to hang our first show.

For our first exhibit I created a new framed series of plaster, oil, and cold wax pieces.

"The Whisper of Truth," 8x8 framed to 12x12, plaster, oil, and cold wax. — “The Whisper of Truth,” 8×8 framed to 12×12, plaster, oil, and cold wax.

"A Quiet Confidence," 8x8 framed to 12x12, plaster, oil, and cold wax. — “A Quiet Confidence,” 8×8 framed to 12×12, plaster, oil, and cold wax.

"A Light Wind Pushed at the Lace Curtains," 8x8 framed to 12x12, plaster, oil, and cold wax. — “A Light Wind Pushed at the Lace Curtains,” 8×8 framed to 12×12, plaster, oil, and cold wax.

"All Suffering Erased," 8x8 framed to 12x12, plaster, oil, and cold wax. — “All Suffering Erased,” 8×8 framed to 12×12, plaster, oil, and cold wax.

"Forgetting is the Only Way Back," 8x8 framed to 12x12, plaster, oil, and cold wax. — “Forgetting is the Only Way Back,” 8×8 framed to 12×12, plaster, oil, and cold wax.

"The Return of Memory," 8x8 framed to 12x12, plaster, oil, and cold wax. — “The Return of Memory,” 8×8 framed to 12×12, plaster, oil, and cold wax.

"Beyond the Reach of Reality," 8x8 framed to 12x12, plaster, oil, and cold wax. — “Beyond the Reach of Reality,” 8×8 framed to 12×12, plaster, oil, and cold wax.

We are still figuring out shows and what direction we want to take the gallery, but we are going to let it evolve and morph over the next few months of experimentation.

Studio Shuffle

Last fall, my good friend Tory and I were invited to join a newly forming studio group at the Willamette Heritage Center. We were thrilled to be part of what became The Art Studios at Mission Mill. We leased Studio F and had great fun making it our own.

What I discovered over these past nine months is that I can’t work in a small space and when I’m painting, for the most part, I need solitude. So when two studios opened up in June, Tory and I both put our names in, hoping that one of us would get one of the two studios. Bingo. Tory’s name was drawn for Studio B.

Tory moved her stuff out and I helped her paint her new space (a mere 10 steps from Studio F). I purchased a new work table and a funky chair, then spent an afternoon rearranging Studio F to function as my axillary painting studio.

I ordered signage for my two doors and installed it this week.

Our next Open Studio is Thursday, July 9, 2015, from 5-7 pm. If you ‘re around, please stop by and see our new studios.

Art After Dark Open Studios

Last night was our monthly Open Studios at The Art Studios at Mission Mill. All of the events, referred to as Art After Dark, took place at the Willamette Heritage Center. Two galleries had openings . . . .

New show by Molly Reeves was happening in the Compass Gallery

Mission Mill's newest gallery: The Willamette Trading Company — Mission Mill’s newest gallery: The Willamette Trading Company

Max Marbles did a book-binding demo.

And I did a demo on using oil and cold wax. Not only did I demo how to use the mediums, I provided little canvases and 300 lb. watercolor paper for anyone who wanted to give it a try. I had lots of takers.

Molly Reeves, who was having a reception for her work in Compass Gallery downstairs, popped upstairs to see what I was doing.

Delores Wisbrock showed no fear and created a beautiful little abstract. Watch out Rollie!

Delores and Tanna choosing paint colors.

At the end of the evening, I snapped this photo of the view from my studio.