I’m excited to announce a new website!

It has been in the works since last summer and it is finally here: my new website. I am kind of over the moon excited for the clean, new look. I am grateful to Phil Webb of Dial A Tech who met with me frequently to discuss my ideas and then to figure out how to make it all work. The website went live about a week ago, but we’ve been working out little bugs since then. As of today, it has officially been launched. Phil was able to transfer all of my previous blog posts as well as my earlier archived posts beginning in 2009. This will be my ninth year of blogging.

My website is meant to be an introduction to who I am and the type of work I do and it will be periodically updated. However, this blog and my various social media sites are where I will be posting the most current content as far as my ever evolving art. If you’re interested in what I’m working on, where I’ll be teaching, and what shows I’m participating in, please subscribe to my blog, and follow me on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook.

Thank you for your continued support of the arts.

What’s Your Story, Real or Imagined: Telling Stories Through Black & White Photos

I’m excited to share a project that I’ve been working on for many months. Someone recently asked me where the idea came from and I realized it has actually been in the works for years. I told them: It has been inside me for a long time and most of my mixed media art has been leading up to this special project, although I didn’t know it at the time.

It was 2007 when I created a class called Itty Bitty Pretties. It involved creating little tiny mini collages on 1-1/2 x 1-1/2 inch squares: a background, a cut out black and white photograph, a word, and finally, an assemblage piece; each one represented a different family member. Here is 64.

It has been inside me for a long time and most of my mixed media art has been leading up to this special project, although I didn’t know it at the time.

Jump ahead to 2012, when I started creating mixed media collages on playing and flash cards. During the summer of that year I lived on a boat at the Portland Waterfront for 29 days; I created a card for each day I was there.

In the fall of 2015, I made a travel journal in the style of my current project, creating about 60 pre painted pages, which I embellished throughout the 40 days I was gone.

At the beginning of this year, I started to lay the framework for an idea to take all of these past projects and incorporate them into a new one. It gets a bit blurry about the timing. I remember working on page backgrounds when we went to Arizona in February, where I slathered paint and created texture using plaster and gesso, always writing and embedding text into the wet paint and over the dry plaster.

I remember returning to my studio and beginning the process of gathering textiles, ephemera, and little found objects to eventually incorporate into my collage pieces. I also began gathering dozens of black and white photographs, mostly of strangers.

In May of this year, I went on an art retreat with my Portland Art Collective, where I spent three days composing and auditioning layouts.

After returning from the retreat, I continued building my collages and gave them a name, What’s your Story, Real or Imagined: Telling Stories Through Black & White Photos. My collection of ephemera expanded, as did my obsession with black and white photographs.

I continued building my collages and gave them a name, What’s your Story, Real or Imagined: Telling Stories Through Black & White Photos. My collection of ephemera expanded, as did my obsession with black and white photographs.

These are a sampling of my mixed media collages and all are a work in progress. When I’m at my studio, I am continually digging through my bits and auditioning that one more thing to add another layer of interest and mystery.

My plan is to continue working on these pages and in the fall of 2017, I’ll be offering a workshop at Salem Art Association’s Art Annex in conjunction with a collaborative history project, which is in the works.

Art for Everyone: An Affordable College Art Textbook

Over a year ago, I was invited to submit art to be used in a college textbook being published by Chemeketa Community College. The book was being put together by the Chemeketa art faculty in response to the steady rise of textbook prices. The textbook being used for ART 101 had risen to $214. For the past year, a beta version of the faculty-produced textbook was used by students. During the year, the textbook was revised, edited, and fine tuned.

The college recently published the first edition of the textbook, Art for Everyone, and it is available for only $28. To celebrate the launch of this beautiful book, artists who submitted art to the textbook were invited by the art faculty at Chemeketa Community College to participate in an art exhibit at the Gretchen Schuette Art Gallery, located in the heart of the campus.

The reception was held on Wednesday, November 2nd in the afternoon so students would be able to attend. There was a steady stream of visitors, students, and artists, with introductions and the story behind the book shared with everyone present. Here I am standing in front of my piece, The Essence of a Thing, which appeared in the chapter titled Nonrepresentational Approaches, in a subsection on Color Field Painting.

A few photos from the afternoon reception . . . .

The other piece I had in the book (but not in the show), was Freedom in the Silence, which appeared in the chapter titled Formal Elements: Value and Color; my art was featured in the section on Complementary Color Schemes.

I’m Teaching! Four Days of Oil and Cold Wax

If you’ve ever been interested in working in oil and cold wax, I have a great opportunity to immerse yourself for four consecutive days of art making in a beautiful new space. I will be teaching my Abstracted Play class at the Salem Art Association’s newly revamped and remodeled Art Annex on October 6-9, from 9:30-4:30. There will be plenty of time to dive in, learn new techniques, experiment, be inspired, inspire each other, work hard, and, of course, play. But first, this is the bright, airy, new space, located in the heart of Bush Park, where we will be meeting. And my class is the very first to be offered!

This class is for everyone. If you have previously worked with oil and cold wax, this class will help take you to the next level, but it also works well for beginners with no experience at all. Oil paint mixed with cold wax is a versatile medium that creates rich luminosity and interesting surfaces. We’ll experiment with laying down paint, adding texture, scraping paint away, and then doing it all over again. And maybe yet again.

During the four days, we will work on multiple pieces, working intuitively and abstractly, exploring texture, layers, composition, design elements, and use of color through oil paint and pigment sticks. We will explore making marks using graphite pencils, twigs and awls, solvents to remove paint and leave marks, and oil pigment sticks. We will be working on wood substrates as well as Arches oil paper.

Oil paint mixed with cold wax allows the layers to dry quickly (and without much odor), and clean up is done with mineral or baby oil, so our use of solvents is very limited (or even unnecessary).

The cost for the four full days of class is $350 with a $20 supply fee. I provide some materials and share all of my paints and pigment sticks. To register, just go to the Salem Art Association website using this link.

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.

Waterlines: Life On and Near the Water

My fascination with waterlines started the summer of 2014 when I was floating in the Columbia River and I saw the waterline of our boat, Rapture. I was captivated by the beautiful colors and thought it looked like an abstract painting.

I continued to love the idea of waterlines, at first the hulls of ships, then shifting to more natural waterlines, defining waterlines as “Where water meets an edge. A shoreline. The hull of a ship. The sea meets the sand. A passage of water.”

A few months ago it was decided that our July show at Compass Gallery would be titled Waterlines. I started painting with that theme in mind. The paint flowed easily because I was excited about the topic and the vast possibilities.

At the last minute we decided to spend two weeks on board Rapture at the Portland Waterfront. Our show would be hung two days after we returned, so I had no choice but to pack up my substrates, oil paints, cold wax, pigment sticks, and the tools associated with laying down and scraping off paint. I set up an impromptu studio in the galley of our boat and painted whenever I could.

I spread out plastic table cloths in the helm, on the coffee table, and on the back deck. Things dried quickly because it was warm, windy, and bright – all three things that encourage oil and cold wax to dry.

I’m sure the gentle rocking of the boat influenced my work, as did the view out of every window and porthole. I created a couple dozen pieces, ranging in size from 6×6 inches to 12×24. Fortunately they were dry by the time we made the cruise from the Willamette River back to the Columbia where we moor our boat.

Here’s a look at some of the pieces I created during our two weeks living on board Rapture.

"Caught Up in Waterweeds" — “Caught Up in Waterweeds”

"A Thrilling Release of Earth and Air" — “A Thrilling Release of Earth and Air”

"A Small Current of Power" — “A Small Current of Power”

"The Air Was Perfumed" — “The Air Was Perfumed”

"Mist Rose From the Water" — “Mist Rose From the Water”

"Memory Floating Up" — “Memory Floating Up”

The show at Compass Gallery, Waterlines, runs July 8 through August 3, 2016. The opening reception is Thursday, July 14, 5-7 pm.

In addition to my work, the current show features the work of Bonnie Hull and her interpretation of waterlines.

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.

Mentorship Program: Emma

I had the good fortune to participate in Salem Art Association’s mentorship program again this year (here’s a link about my mentorship a year ago). During the program, high school students are paired with professional artists, who work with their student for several months helping the student build a portfolio of work. This year I had the pleasure of working with Emma, a sophomore at a local high school.

Emma chose to work in plaster and acrylic so during the past several months we met for Emma to prepare her boards and then do paint on them.

It was great to watch Emma work: she worked intuitively and was very confident and self-assured when it came to painting her boards. We met last week for our final session, where Emma signed her pieces and then applied a layer of cold wax to bring out the luscious and rich colors of her boards.

We loaded up Emma’s boards for transport to the reception site in downtown Salem.

Here are the five pieces Emma created during our mentorship:

Last night was the reception for all of the students and their mentors. What a fun evening!

And here’s beautiful Emma standing in front of her work.

Studio Revamp

We moved into our current house about three and a half years ago. I claimed a bright and airy upstairs space for my painting studio. I’ve reorganized it a couple of times over the past couple of years, but never made such a huge transformation until a couple weeks ago. When we moved in, this is what the space looked like (beige was the only color throughout the house).

I painted the walls a buttercup yellow, had shelves put up,, and started hauling in all my funky objects for display.

Lately I had begun to feel slightly claustrophobic in my space. It felt like it was packed with stuff (it was).

So I hauled all of the stuff on the shelves to the basement and rearranged the furniture and supplies. I went from this . . . .

. . . to this.

By removing the shelves, I created an entire wall where I can working on large paintings.

More glimpses of my revamped studio space:

And I corralled all of my dolls from around the house and put them together on one long shelf in the closet.

All the stuff I carted to the basement? I revamped my basement assemblage studio, too. Maybe I’ll share photos of that wacky space next.

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.