new and improved studio

my working environment has been in a disarray for quite some time.  some of my posts (including my profile picture) include shots of my dining room where most of my painting takes place.  well i'm happy to say that my dining room has been returned to the dining part of our lives and the painting and everything else art-making wise has been appropriated to the "studio".  we are fortunate in this city to possess a detached 2-car garage in which we store bikes, scooters, skateboards, luggage, hand me downs and everything else imaginable that does not fit in our flat - all of which resides in one side of the garage.  my studio has occupied the opposite side and has been a STRUGGLE to keep as such due to the overflow of kid-equipment and debris that blows into the space.  it's been a total nightmare to keep clean - which is why i do all my "mess-free" work indoors in our living space.  i have recently however, converted my studio into a more private space and created a very obvious border between kid-stuff and my-stuff.  i've even organized every single screw, stick of graphite, adhesive, solvent, pigment, paper and so on and am working on the labels simultaneous to completing this post.  i thought i would include some shots so i can one day look back on the space in it's clean and orderly manner and "tisk" myself in the coming months as the orderliness reverses and it becomes more mine and less an idealized version of what that means.

this is the garage - in it's entirety. 

the studio - i forgot to mention the immense quantity of materials and supplies i own.  these storage drawers are full of such

inside looking out

okay - this is the cave, it exists behind the wall (shown below) and is also full of gawd know what....just in case

these added walls are from Open Studios 2 yrs ago, they used to be leaning and were unfinished wood - not no more

the wall straight ahead covering the cave is a moving wall that i will be using to photograph the work on

my most exciting addition is the TABLE in the middle - $25 from scrap and it extends to 10' and weighs is solid wood (and it's level.  the garage resembles the topography of a sand dune with rolling hills - rather, our entire property is a sand dune.  i guess after 110 yrs the buildings have "settled".  anyway, my working surfaces are LEVEL - and i'm damn proud of it as a lot of blood, sweat and tears went into making it so.

and yes, more "supplies"

a view of my beloved work table.

i think this was a bit ridiculous, but i feel it must be stated that this is the first time since my time in grad school where i had a work space that i can actually work in.  the table is rad, i have so much room to lay things out, it's clean and i don't have to clean up before dinner or risk my sweet children's hands signing the works in progress, and i don't have to eat with splatters of paint under my water glass.  i'm happy.  chris is happy and i can't wait to get cracking!

outburst

Here are the shots of this piece (each panel is 6"sq).  This was the very first series - ever - of the screen prints and gouache on paper and some ways it is my favorite.  Please be advised, the orientation shifts in the 1st and last images. 

totally finished with stain  - hung on my studio wall

the Compound

I thought it might be interesting to include a couple of shots of the workspace at the Compound.  This place is really awesome as it draws in a very talented and committed group of artists - in both the studio space as well as the lockers (which is the route I went).  The have some great shows and Lena and Matt do an incredible job curating.   I wish we lived closer or they were closer to me so I could continue to work there. 

my locker and screens

one of 3 very large work surfaces with a peek into the back area

print mania

These shots are from the latest round of printing at the Compound.  I splurged and stocked up on what seems like a million wood panels and printed all of them at the same time.  One of the enviable perks at the Compound Studios is the enormous table space to lay work out - it's awesome!  and very rarely have I had to share the tables with anyone while doing this print sessions, which is priceless for me. I also printed a STACK of paper and will enjoy painting them for months to come ;)

the beginning

3 rounds of prints/screens

session over

Slate

I've been given an awesome opportunity to show my newest series of pieces at Slate on Telegraph in Oakland. Admittedly, Danielle invited me last year to show them for the month of December, but given the dates of my posts, it's probably a little obvious that I'm WAY behind on keeping business updated. The good news is, the work will be up through January. 

Here are a couple of shots of the space:

The titles of this series are "Screen Tapestries".  The are each 10"sq but 1.5"D, the ones with black around them are actually framed and are coated in resin.  The unframed pieces I call "matte" are also not resin-ed.  Each piece consists of 4 6"sq abstracts of 4 larger print-drawings.  These are in a way, a larger version of my Fingerprints, and instead of digital prints, they are hand printed and painted -  my current M.O.

I also sell and show my digital prints series - available only through Slate. For inquiries about pricing, please contact the gallery.

PS  Thanks for looking!

Rainy Day

It's a wet and chilly first day of Open Studios.  I thought the rain would have seriously deterred traffic, which it probably has, however the flow has been quite nice and I've been anything but lonely.

Here are some shots of the studio today - the fruits of many weeks labor are up on the walls and have received good response.  Now, let's hope it continues over into to tomorrow.  Fingers are crossed.

just too darn pretty

to cut up...not that the ones that get the chop aren't nice, but some I just can't bring myself to divide.

summer

so it NEVER occurred to me that summer meant, no school. duh. well, with that said, i had the opportunity to take Zander, my 5 3/4 yr old with me to the MCCLA to print, one fine sunny and scorching hot day. it was quite an exciting adventure as the fire dept showed up and evacuated the building as one of the alarm sensors was having some "issues". no fire, but who knew that the fear of it would such a thrill ride for a youngish child.

These pics of of tmy digital drawings. I have been hoping to step away from the digital process and get my hands back into the messy stuff and have
found screen printing to be a perfect solution to replacing the digital media.

once the drawings are finished (i'm done layering), I'm dividing them up into 6" squares and reassembling them on 10" or 6" panels. I'm letting the lines and color dictate how they are reassembled.

summer studio

This summer has been amazingly productive for me, which is a bit shocking since this is the first summer in which I had my kids home more than not. I've also started working again part time which also eliminated many of my "free" days when the kids are off on adventures on their own (no, this doesn't mean I give 'em a bus pass and direct to go explore aimless through the city) (it's an organized thing). Regardless, it's all good stuff and has really allowed my to use my time as efficiently as possible. I've been learning screen printing as was fortunate to meet a fellow named Ryan McJunkin through the Compound Gallery (of which I'm one of the Art In a Box Artists). I really love his work and the line quality of his prints and he graciously facilitated a private workshop for me to teach me the basics.

This view shows the prints underneath the FingerPrints pieces that are comprised of digital drawings. These drawings are 27x32", and are layers of the screen printed drawings with layers of gouache and dry pigment.

I'm pretty happy with this so far. I hope it's not beginners luck. ;)

more from the wax

When I started these pieces I used an ink dropper to make small circles with various inks, and then would rotate the paper around creating a freeway of lines and drips, allowing the ink to merge into itself. Where the lines would merge, I would inject more ink with metallic flecks and various colors which would give depth and iridescence to the lines. Once the inks cured, the water would evaporate from the lines and surface of the ink line would be striated and reminiscent of an oil slick. I then added dry pigments such as pastels and graphite to the negative spaces between the lines, pulling forms from the lines.

now...they've evolved into entirely new creatures.

I promised Chris I would stop futzing with them....I will do by my best.

threadings

I began this little body of work early this year when I was really deep into the sewing-my-drawings phase. These 9 little pieces are sewn from a drawing on the other side of each piece of paper. Done by hand and experimenting with black and white thread only, I feel a sense of calmness when I look at these. I'm a wee bit reminded of Charlotte's web, when her baby spiders fly off into the world, carried by a single thread, with nothing but enthusiasm and vigor to lead them into the unknown.

Perhaps I will revisit these in the upcoming months. It's hard to say, I haven't touched my sewing machine since spring. Somehow, despite the pleasure sewing gives me...I've moved on.

the studio

This my "working wall" - currently covered in wax pieces.

These little ditties are a new series I'm creating for Compound Gallery's Art In a Box.

I'm still interested in boxes and crates. I've got quite a collection and am getting closer to actually finishing something. The black pieces on the bottom are soap/bath trays from Ikea and the top natural box is a flatware organizer (with the organizer part removed). The artwork inside are pieces from the inkjet-gouache series.

The "wall" and the wax table (the chopping block). The long plastic container is the "catch-all" for my latest process - scraping off the wax and starting over, which is precisely what I did. More 'bout that to come.

back tracking

A lot of things have been happening since Open Studios last fall and for the purpose of my own need to document this stuff, I will spend a few posts on covering those events...

In July of '09 I was contacted by SF Perinatal Associates about showing a large series of work for a 6 month period of time. Ironically, I had all of my prenatal testing for Desmond done at this amazingly beautiful and contemporary space in 2006. The clinic itself is located on the 2nd floor of a high rise condo building on the corner of Van Ness and Daniel Burnham Court, and the clinic sprawls throughout 3 space, 2 of which are the exam/medical rooms. The lobby has beautiful light and is surrounded by windows. anyway, the needed a lot of work so I decided to show my encaustics, which were before, ink drawings that I showed at Lotus (aka: Sproos) in 2007. While ink drawings they were very colorful and vibrant and one of the Perinatal physicians found me there while getting her hair done. The transformation into encaustic took the drawings from vibrant into a more organic and visceral place - one that in hindsight, I think wasn't really a good fit. Whatever, hindsight is the past and going forward I will approach an opportunity like this in a different way. The only other thing to note is the beeswax in the encaustic caused a bit of a disturbance in that it was too fragrant for pregnant women. Duh. Personally I would have been the crazy lady licking the paintings, however, that was not an elicited response from the other and more current prego ladies. Going forward, and note to self - no beeswax for pregnant audiences

...some shots of the pieces in the Perinatal clinic can be seen in a much more previous post.

So what I am doing now is showing a few before and after shots of these pieces. They've really changed a lot:

heads up

Wow, how embarrassing that it's been 6 months since I've visited my own blog. I'm trying to recall what exactly I've been doing this whole....oh, yah: WORKING!! Okay, so things are good, actually great and my New Year's resolutions are just kicking in as the beginning of the year has been a s*&tstorm. I've got a lot of pieces and their progress to write about so heads up! For now, here's a shot of one of the series I've been working on...

These pieces came back from the SF Perinatal Show from last year. The white drawings are new - I think it may be important to note that I've been layering these pieces for nearly 10 years. One of the next posts will be about their "finished state".

back to the basics

Because it has been so long since I've kept up with this little project, I feel I need to reflect on all that has gotten me to now. I feel like I've participated in a lot of events and show, relatively speaking and each one has offered me an opportunity to mutate a bit and grow. My work has changed substantially in the past couple of years and each time I present my work or sell a piece, something in my overall interest in what I make, changes. I also get bored quickly, so maybe that's what's really going on.

At Open Studios last fall, I focused primarily on the thumbnails Fingerprints, collaging a bunch of different drawings together. Now, I'm taking it back a step and instead of chopping them all up, I'm leaving the drawing once it's been sewn as is, and adding resin. I'm using the 10x10 finished as the thumbnail though I haven't quite collaged them together yet. It's still just an idea because it seems like when I finish enough to do so, I sell a few and then I have to start over. What a conundrum, eh.

BTW, the glossy stuff is resin. These have all been sewn and are now framed and the property of the BaySide Oral Surgery Group.