Working with Blue

Started a couple of blue paintings today. For one, I embedded undergarments under cheese cloth, then painted over with Prussian blue. I had an idea for this painting, with the undergarments covered over with layers of materials and paint. At the moment I love the effect these layers have created, the leaching out of paint around the fabric, giving the painting a cyanotype feel. Will have to wait for a couple of days of drying to see what the final color will be and what I will do next. I am making a piece on Heather Fong for the AAWAA Salute to the Muses exhibit in Sept. I've laid down blue paint on cheesecloth for my second painting and am vaguely considering a paperdoll of HF.

Tour des Artists - Round #2

Zannah Noe, the raven painter, in her studio at Hunter's Point


Tanya Wilkinson, mixed media artist, in her studio at the Noonan Building


Blowing glass in David Patchen's studio at Public Glass

Rebecca Fox in her metal works studio at Islais Creek

Dimitri Kourouniotis in his painting studio at Hunter's Point

This time the Tour visited five artists near Third Street and Hunter's Point. As in the first Tour, the group got to meet a variety of artists in their studios in a work-setting (well, sort of). The artist has to clean up their space a bit so that people won't trip or be frightened off by the dust, trash and unwashed coffee cups that usually litter the scene. The first time, six artists were visited, some in studios that were too small to fit the nearly 20 people on the tour. Five artists in larger studios was just about perfect. A limo bus shuttled us from studio to studio so no one had to do the driving. For me, it was a nice, relaxing break from the everyday work in my studio and an opportunity to see other's works. David Patchen put on quite a show, creating a Venetian-style vase during his 45 minutes with us.

J-Pop in J-town

TsuShiMaMiRe - an all-girls punk band rocks out. The song is silly - about stinky American microphones. Lead singer went all-out to get the snuffling noises down just right.


Women dressed up in Lolita and Goth fashions at the J-Pop summit in Japantown this weekend. Actually this event seems like a hyped out opening for a new Japanese mall called New People where the old bowling alley used to be. A long line of people waited to get into this mall and it was a definite "no" for me. I'll visit later, when the excitement dies down. Cannot imagine a lot of people buying into the Lolita look here. For one, hard to fit into those clothes. Cleaning bills would be prohibitive. And it would rate a real laugh at the office. I may, however, buy a sun umbrella with lace trimmings.

What About Tomorrow?

Piece #1: Love Me Tomorrow


Piece #2: Thinking About Tomorrow Clears Away the Cobwebs


What About Tomorrow? is our new roundrobin theme. I had to think about it for a while - a rather nebulous theme that sounds lighthearted, hopeful and yet foreboding. For my first piece I decided to make another altered book. My imagery came from a skanky women's magazine from Japan. Many women alter their looks via makeup, hair color and surgery, with the belief that their idealized anime character looks make them desirable. I wonder what they will look like in old age - will their fans love them as before? The song "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" came to mind while making this book. I looked it up on Youtube and found a great rendition by Amy Winehouse http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ludxpkyrab0. My instruction to Gwynn was to have her listen to this song while going through my book.

I received a framed humming bird print & collage from Patricia. It was a beautiful piece of work, with colors I love - turquoise, gold, oranges and reds. But how to relate it to the theme and my next work? In the end I took the frame idea and moved it forward in piece #2. I found this image in an old book I picked up from a thrift shop. How sad and tired these girls look with their younger siblings strapped to their backs! They are not far in age from the girls in my first piece. Life was difficult for girls back then for quite different reasons. I lifted the image with packing tape and adhered it to two postcards. I got the idea of the two postcards from some works I saw recently. They are adhered to glossy black paper that looks like dried seaweed. I found a kitschy bamboo frame at the thrift shop and repainted it. Now I'll need to put the picture together. I'm going to send Gwynn a Youtube link to Broadway musical Annie's song "Tomorrow" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nnjkb4q6FKU. Pairing art with music is something new I've discovered in this round of collaborations.

Control Reception

Guerrilla Girl hands out pamphlet


The pamphlet!



Opening Reception of Control

By Jessica and Beatrice at the Muriel Right Residential Center

Over 500 people attended the opening of Control at the SOMArts Gallery on August 6, 2009. Lots of great works by women, the Guerrilla Girls showed up with pamphlets in hand, and everyone agreed it was the best show they've attended in quite some time. Now there is talk about traveling the show. Also wonderful: works by girls at the Muriel Right Residential Center and Peninsula WCA Youth Project were also exhibited.

Painting on Vintage Cards

Went to an opening of works by Marin artist Mike Shine called Flotsam's Wonder Tonic. The location was The Soap Gallery, an alternative space at 3180 Mission St, SF. Shine paints on all kinds of unusual surfaces - just not on canvas. His graphic paintings were devilish and pretty cool. I especially liked a series of painted cards, which seemed too small to be postcards. He found these greeting cards at a flea, the front are family portraits. He liked the aged paper of the reverse side and the deckle-cut edges. He used housepaint and guache and put them inside vintage tramp art frames that he scored on EBay. Very cool!

Visiting Crab Orchard Cemetary

Yesterday I went to the opening reception of Crab Orchard Cemetary Revisited at the Peninsula Art Museum. This exhibition of the late Jo Hanson's installation was curated by NCWCA artist Eleanor Dickinson, a good friend of Jo's. As soon as one enters the gallery, one steps into a different world. Recorded birdsong and other ambient sounds plus the black and white photographs of cemetary vegetation printed on clear plastic sheets form the backdrop for these tombstones carved out of styrofoam. Jo returned to the actual cemetary in Illinois several times to capture the feeling of this solitary and creepy place.

Sweet July 4

Each year our neighborhood has a July 4 celebration. There's a small parade, the declaration of independence is read, then all make a mad dash for free hotdogs, chips, cupcakes and lemonade.

Some New England Vignettes

Selecting tomatoes at Boston's Copley Square farmer's market


Portuguese parade in Provincetown

Children's games at Hartwell Tavern

Men line up and wait for George Washington at Hartwell Tavern

The desk where Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women

Shalinee Kumari: Mithila Painter

Shalinee Kumari is having her first solo show in the US at the Frey Norris Gallery. She is from Bihar, India and paints in the Mithila style. Her interpretations of Krishna and world events are fresh and beautifully conceived.

Sketch Tuesday at 111 Minna

Looked in on Sketch Tuesday at 111 Minna last night. Featured artists were elbow to elbow at the center table. Their works were up for sale later. Loitering on the side tables and sofas were lots of young artists sketching too. Next time I'm going to bring my baseball photos to sketch. Fun!

Audrey's 60th Birthday Bash

We celebrated Audrey's 60th birthday by dancing the salsa at the Cheryl Burke dance studio. It was a lot of fun learning the salsa and marenge. Afterwards we feted at the Axis cafe.

Polyglot: Expressive Media in Bookarts

I went to the Polyglot reception last night at the Gualala Arts Center. The Arts Center was in a wonderful setting, nestle among redwoods. Lots of beautiful and unusual books in this show, made with all kinds of materials. I'll add a slideshow a little later.

Shadowplay #3

I've been participating in a round-robin art project with members of NCWCA with the theme, "Shadowplay." This is my third piece, inspired by Judy Shintani's second piece and South African artist, William Kentridge. It's an altered book incorporating dictionary pages, old postcards from the Uffizi and a Rolling Stones song. What a pleasure to make this piece and to play back all those sexy Stones songs.

ArtSpan Tour des Artistes #1

ArtSpan conducted its first Tour des Artistes for 18 art-loving viewers. They visited six studios in the Mission District and got to learn first-hand how artists work and create. The artists visited were Cynthia Tom, Jennifer Ewing, Clare Kuo, Katja Leibenath, Silvia Poloto and Liz Mamorsky. The viewers were exposed to different artists' media and styles, saw completed works as well as works in progress, listened to artists' presentatons, asked questions and enjoyed a variety of refreshments and drinks.

Southern Exposure Fundraiser at Electric Works

Last night we went to a crowded fundraiser for SoEx at Electric Works. Lots of young, hipster art collectors and interesting pieces up for silent and live auctions. The bidding was spirited and art pieces went quickly.

Hearts of San Francisco: Rebecca Fox

Finally viewed Rebecca Fox's "heart" at Mission Creek Park. I loved her meticulous metal work and the gorgeous patina on this bound and open heart. It's perfectly positioned across the water from San Francisco houseboats.

Third Street Bridge - Memorial Day

The view from AT&T Park: the Third Street bridge being raised for a sailboat

Bergamot Station

Most of the art galleries were closed when I arrived at Bergamot Station on Friday afternoon. I did manage to take in a wonderful photographic exhibition of works by Asako Narahashi. And I took a pic of sidewalk art posted on the outside of the buildings.

Experimental Artists: Photo Alteration Techniques

texturized photo




distressed, hand-tinted photo




bleached photo

I was invited to a workshop with the Experimental Artists' group while I was visiting Pasadena. Avinger N. showed us several techniques to alter photos. Last week I picked up an old movie still from the "free pile" at the recycling center's artists' reception. The old black and white photo was perfect for hand-tinting. I soaked the photograph in water for about 30 seconds to loosen the emulsion, then sanded it lightly. My watercolors took to the photograph easily and I was impressed with how well they blended into the image after drying. Avinger also showed us the effect of liquid Draino and bleach on color photographs. We used photographs printed on photo paper (versus inkjet photopaper) to separate the cyan/red/yellow colors. I used a bleach pen (which is like a gel pen) to draw "steam" on the photograph and left it on for about 30 seconds before washing it off. Left too long, the bleach strips the colors off entirely. It was more difficult to control the color stripping with a pan of liquid bleach - you had to paint areas you wanted to keep by painting gel medium on the photo first. The liquid Draino was very tricky - you dipped the photo in it for a split second, then put it face-down on paper. If done properly, you got a mirror image of the photo without the cyan colors. More often, we managed to smear color onto paper - the images were lost entirely. Another neat technique was using textured surfaces (you can buy textured plates in the scrapbooking section of Target) to create interesting effects on photos. You simply wet the photo, then rub over the texture with a fine-grain sandpaper. I had an old black and white photo I took of a train barn, and it came out fabu.

Pasadena

Avinger N lit in pink light at Don Cuco's


Retro movie theater closed for renovation


A funky bar in an alley in downtown Pasadena

I drove down to LA to participate in an experimental artists' workshop and to speak at a Collage Artists of America meeting. Arrived around 4:30 and Avinger took me to old town to walk around and discover alleys. Very cool architecture (Moorish influences) and narrow alleys. It was a perfect Southern California afternoon with bright skies and balmy air.

MACLA Fundraiser - San Jose

We went to the annual MACLA (Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americano) fundraiser last night. It was quite an exuberant affair with lots of beautiful artwork donated by latino artists up for auction.

SF Recycling & Disposal Artists-in-Residence

View from the dump of train tracks and fog drifting over the hills



Gallery space - actually the artists' studio cleared away for this show



Outside the studio - a place to hang out


Some works made by previous artists

We went to a reception at the dump on Friday. They have a wonderful artists-in-Residence program there, started by Women's Caucus artist Jo Hanson in 1990. Artists work 40 hours/week for 4 months at the dump to create artwork from recycled materials. At the end of their residency, they get a show and leave their creations there for 12 months. This was my first reception and I was inspired by the materials available. Perhaps I will apply for a residency one of these days.