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For great posts about the business of art, check out The Artsy Shark HERE!
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Artists Workshop Plein Air Event Show and SaleComing July 1, 2017On the front lawn at Art Presence Art Center in Jacksonville, Oregon!
The Artists Workshop is holding their 2017 Plein Air Event this year from June 28-July 1, 2017. Participating artists will paint on location for three days, then present their work for judging, a show and sale on the front lawn of the Art Presence Art Center in Jacksonville, Oregon on July 1 from 9 am – 3 pm. There will be an exciting quick-paint competition from 10 am to noon, and the awards ceremony takes place at 2:30 pm. Over 30 artists are participating in this year’s event, which means there will be a wide range of plein air painting styles available to interested collectors. Jurors are Willo Balfrey and Richard McKinley, so you know the awards will be decided by two of the most highly respected artists in the Valley! The event takes place side by side with the July reception for the new art exhibit at Art Presence Art Center, so be sure to come inside and view the paintings and other art works in the gallery too!
Art Du Jour Gallery and Central Art Supply Present “An Afternoon with Stefan Baumann”Friday, June 23rd, 2017Enjoy an afternoon lecture/demo by renowned artist Stefan Baumann of The Grand View (PBS/SOPTV) at the Medford Library, from 1:30 – 3:30pm. There will be a reception immediately to follow, with a chance to meet Stefan! For information, call (541) 770-3190.
Ten years ago today, I started the Wordbody blog before flying off to a tiny island in Micronesia. To celebrate, I compiled an entirely random assortment of things I learned between then and now.
1) Earplugging fear. Might as well start with the main event. Ten years ago, I flew to Saipan to teach public high school because I was afraid of public speaking. I decided it was time to face that ol’ fear. A wise man once said, “The dogs of doom bark at the door of your destiny. But when you step through the door, you usually find a Chihuahua with a megaphone.” Truth. Today, I teach locally and globally. And I do love it. It is part of my destiny. When those dogs start barking, plug your ears and keep walking.
2) Own compassion. We’ve all heard it before: we can only be as compassionate (or honoring, or respectful, etc.) to others as we are to ourselves. But it’s really, really true. We can’t give what we don’t have. Speaking of giving….
3) Give like a river. I read this somewhere, once upon a time. What you put in from where you stand on a river’s shore will likely be carried downstream. And what you receive may come to you from upriver—from an entirely unexpected, unseen source. As I continually learn this, I’m getting better at releasing the illusion of reciprocity (bonus: this is a great antidote to bitterness).
4) Some reflexes & assumptions can kill you: While driving over the Siskyou Pass in sub-zero winter behind mud-spraying semi trucks, don’t reflexively squirt the cleaner fluid on your windshield. (If you do, you have about two inches of visibility beneath the wiper line to see enough to pull over!) Assumption scenarios with fellow humans can be equally dangerous.
5) Happy day. Years ago, while traveling in Asia, I read Eric Weiner’s The Geography of Bliss. By that point, I had lived and worked on several continents, and all but North America knew to take more than two weeks of vacation a year. In Weiner’s search for what makes people happy in Thailand, he found that the Thai people are less likely to take big, long vacations. Instead, they have learned how to build breaks and rest into their everyday lives. I loved that idea. Since reading that, I’m constantly reminding myself to intersperse my freelance work day with hammock time, cups of tea, reading poetry, or just staring out the window. Happier (and more productive) me.
6) Metaphors for the “Big Lessons.” As a writer, I love metaphors. As an artist, I also love visual ones. You know the adage about giving people a clean slate? I remind myself of that figurative clean slate by keeping a literal slate (aka a mini chalkboard) above my door. It’s clean—nothin’ on it. A nice reminder.
7) Low fat! Low carb! Paleo! No! While standing in a wedding buffet line in my early thirties, I picked up a piece of bread. One of the women across from me noticed and pointedly said to her friend how great she felt when she avoided bread. That comment felt like a slap on two levels: it felt shaming, and it showed me how my own “didactic diet” had likely annoyed or even hurt others. Sure, if a person has a serious disease or food intolerance, it’s wise to let people know. Otherwise, food trends come and go. Unless someone asks, it’s probably better to figure out what works for ourselves and eat it—not preach it.
8) We are spirit, mind, and body—in that order. I wrote about that in a 2011 post called “Bikini Season for the Spirit.” Reading it again was a good reminder.
9) The best investment. As a poet/painter, I’m not exactly a Fortune-500-level investor. But a couple of years ago, I decided to give up financial insecurity for Lent. For 2-3 hours a day after work, I read books, watched instructional videos, and navigated websites to figure out how to build a nestegg. When friends asked me what I was up do, I would tell them, and we’d end up sharing our good and bad financial adventures. Over those 40 days, I realized something. The best investments are relationships. My Roth IRA may fluctuate, and the few stocks I bought certainly will, but investing in people—regardless of reciprocity (see #3)—is always savvy.
10) Mistakes are often creativity in disguise. When I first returned home from the island of Saipan, I missed the 180-degree views of sea and sky. I had watched most sunrises and sunsets. One afternoon back in Oregon, I wanted to paint with some leftover red wine. I made myself a cup of coffee but bumped into something as I went to set it down. I splashed just enough over the rim to leave a coffee ring on my paper. At first, I was annoyed. I wanted to use that sheet of watercolor paper to paint! But then, as I looked at the common “mistake” of the ring, I saw the beauty in it. I dipped the cup in wine, and voilà: a tribute to watching sunrise with one beverage and sunset with another. Here’s to seeing coffee rings and other mistakes with new eyes. Rogue Gallery & Art Center Art Blast – June 2017
 “A poem is not simply words on a page but a way of touching the stars and having the stars that have fallen into the sea touch us.”—Sawnie Morris
“I don’t think that art or poetry needs to set out to change the world but I think that it can change the world and make us more compassionate, more just, more aware.” —Michael Wiegers
“The struggle of the poet is to reach the natural sensations, emotions, and feelings that are often concealed or hidden by the mechanisms of civilization.”—Donald Hall
“My feeling is that poetry is also a healing process, and then when a person tries to write poetry with depth or beauty, he will find himself guided along paths which will heal him, and this is more important, actually, than any of the poetry he writes.”—Robert Bly
“A poem, like an oar, extends inner life into the waters of story and things, of language and music. There we in turn are changed, moved by the encounter’s supporting buoyancy, and also its useful resistance.”—Jane Hirshfield
“Poems are really messages to me whispering, Be calm, go deep, go slow.”—Susan Goldsmith Woldridge Please join us for the inaugural show and studio opening Becoming a Mother/Losing a Mother
New work by Megan Headley and Sarah F. BurnsMegan, mother of a young child, explores the transformation and sacrifice involved in procreation using the inspiration of the octopus. Sarah lost her mother suddenly in September 2016 and she journals her grief and memories through paintings. They both embrace the epic and the mundane, the beauty and the hurt in these biggest of life’s transitions that all of us have experienced, or will experience. Opening Party! Join us 10:00 am – Noon on Saturday, May 6 at Project Space, 106 Talent Avenue Studio #5, Talent, OR 97540.
The show will be on view one weekend only, Saturday and Sunday, May 6 and 7 from 10 am – 4 pm.For more information about classes and events at Project Space, visit www.artprojectspace.com
 Celebrate Ashland’s Visual Arts during the AGA First Friday Art Walk, May 5th, from 5 to 8 pm!Stroll the galleries and take in all of the visual delights in downtown Ashland and the Historic Railroad District. Hop on the Allaboard Trolley for a fun ride around town and out to the Schneider Museum of Art.
Enjoy this free year-round community event, filled with spectacular artwork, live music, artist demonstrations, refreshments and lively conversation! For more information about all of our exhibits and to download the May Gallery Tour map, please visit: www.ashlandgalleries.com Studio A.B.Bruce Bayard: Video ProjectionsBruce Bayard continues his exploration into time-based imagery with video collages created for installations and performances. The video compositing process he uses is similar to that of the Photoshop process used in all his still images, interjecting stressed surfaces and multiple layers of interacting images. The resulting video clips are further combined in a program that randomly selects and runs portions of the clips in constantly changing sequence. This batch of work contrasts trains, airplanes, forests and calm water surfaces. No soundtrack exists for the videos, but are created improvisationally in the moment using a Buchla Music Easel, and additional modular electronic sound sources. During the First Friday Artwalk the projections will run continuously, with a combination of pre-recorded and improvisational soundscapes.
Ashland Art WorksMichael Gibson’s PaintingsThis month Ashland Art Works features new work by Michael Gibson: Surrealistic “Winescapes” with homage to Dali and Chirico. “I had fun with this series,” says Gibson. “I got into their heads, appreciating the originality of their compositions, use of color and love of life. Michael’s style is unique and at the same time inspired by works of post-impressionist artists. He received his BFA from Houston Museum of Fine Arts and has worked as a designer, art director, and taught life drawing, illustration, painting, graphic design and photography at Art Institute of Houston and the Art Institute of Seattle. 5 GALLERIES AND THE SCULPTURE GARDEN:As always, you will be more than pleased by our selection of Fine Art and Crafts.
Image caption: “Surrealistic Winescapes” by Michael Gibson American TrailsAlebrije or AnimalistasIn May, American Trails Gallery we will be featuring the woodcarving folk art out of Oaxaca, Mexico. Fanciful carvings called alebrije or were first done by artist Pedro Linares Lopez in Mexico City in the 1930’s. He made elaborate piñata’s, carnival masks and religious figures out of paper mache and cardboard. This caught the attention of prominent gallery owners who began to market the pieces. Diego Rivera and Frida Khalo began commissioning the fanciful alebrijes, which means monsters. Linares returned to Arrazola in Oaxaca and began sharing his designs with fellow artisans. Manuel Jimenez Ramirez was the first to carve the colorful creatures out of copal wood in the 1970’s. The art form exploded in the 1980’s with folk art galleries in the US becoming more and more interested. Today, there are three main villages that the carvers reside; Arrazola, the pueblo of Manuel, San Martin Tilcajete, and La Union Tejalapam. We are proud to have over 80 families represented in our gallery. American Trails Gallery proudly features the art and crafts of the indigenous peoples of the America’s. Weavings from the Navajo’s and Zapotec’s, carvings from the Hopi, Zuni, Haida, Kwakiutl, Inuit and Oaxaca, ceramics from many of the pueblos in the Southwest, Acoma, San Ildefonso, Zuni, Cochiti and the Mata Ortiz of Mexico, handmade historic and contemporary jewelry from the Pueblos, Zuni, Santo Domingo, Navajos as well as from Taxco. The largest selection of Historic Basketry in the Pacific Northwest including Pomo, Maidu, Hoopa, Karok, Wintun, Shasta, Modoc and many more. We also feature Regional artists depicting the Wildlife and Landscapes of the area. When you purchase a gift from American Trails you are helping to support hundreds of families who are working hard to keep the traditional Arts and Crafts of their communities alive and well. The American Trails Gallery which for 23 years was located at 250 East Main Street on the Plaza in Ashland is being reopened at a new location 250 East Main street. Open 10 am to 6 pm everyday excluding holidays
Image caption: “Animalistas” woodcarving folk art Hanson Howard GalleryWataru Sugiyama & Lewis Anderson, ceramic sculptures & digital photographyThe influence of the aesthetics and imagery of Asian art will be strong in our May exhibition. Wataru Sugiyama slyly infuses a contemporary charm and, at times, humor into what we recognize as traditional Japanese motifs in his ceramic sculptures. Lewis Anderson digitally blends photographs of the Pacific Northwest into landscapes that exist in a world of his own invention but have distinctive undercurrents of traditional woodblock landscapes. Large in scale, at times up to 80” wide, these landscapes have the ability to draw you in and hold you. Show runs May 4th-30th. Join us for an artist reception on First Friday, May 5th, 5-8 p.m. Wataru Sugiyama has cultivated an appreciative audience for the Haniwa type imagery in his sculpture. Elements of Japanese history and mythology are almost the exclusive focus of Wataru’s creations. He interprets imaginary and existing objects and gives them a modern twist by bringing his personal vision to these subjects. His sculptures are truly inspirational, have a powerful presence, sense of humor, and make a strong impression on his viewers. Besides historical elements, extremely fine detail and exquisite facial expressions are featured on his sculptures. Lewis Anderson accurately describes his art as being somewhere between photography and painting, somewhere between East and West, somewhere between contemporary and ancient. The images invite the viewer to explore quiet moments in diverse landscapes full of light and shadow and symbology. An ancient river winds through tall foreign mountains, full of soft golden light and blue fog. A single silhouetted figure in a small boat appears to be slowly rowing into the unknown in one of the three scroll-like panels of Boatman. This timeless image, like the others in Lewis Anderson’s Dynasty collection, emanates a strong sense of peace, solitude and mystery.
Image caption: “Boatman,” digital print on aluminum by Lewis Anderson
Beauty is a bank of clouds and the riverbank
Beauty is the fine tip of your favorite pen
Beauty is the butter churn, the salt mine, and the breakfast plate
Beauty is a dozen eggs, a dozen cookies, a dozen months
each year Beauty is an infant’s hand grasping your ear lobe
Beauty is the osprey nest, the eagle’s nest, and learning
the difference between them
Beauty is primary—a blue stamp, a yellow letter, a red mailbox
Beauty is bare feet on a warm beach, toes sinking slow
in the surf-soft sand
Beauty is the Moroccan orange tree and the Californian lemon
Beauty is the cat purring, and beauty is the cat
Beauty is the grandmother’s garden of tended and amended soil
Beauty is the hemisphere and the blogosphere
Beauty is a screen of pixels shaping the face of your love,
and beauty is your love
Beauty is quick—a glimpse through the train window
Beauty is slow—a dinner with as many conversations as courses.
Beauty is a pair of dancing shoes with holes worn through,
and beauty is the music that wore them out
Beauty is the staircase and every shadow ever cast across it
Beauty is a sink on a second story, water piping up
from deep below the earth to wash your hands
Beauty is a hot shower
Beauty is a sky of stars and planes and satellites
Beauty is the embroidered pillow and the night full of dreams
Beauty is the truth, told straight or slant, with pen or brush
or body or sound or tongue or hands or clay or glass or stone or flowers or tile or might
Beauty is Creator and created
Beauty is here
and beauty is now |
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