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“Making and Breaking” at Linda Hodges

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I am excited to be part of the December show at Linda Hodges Gallery, curated by Dale Cotton. The artists gathered for this exhibition share my fascination with the aesthetics of the urban industrial landscape and its emotional undertow, the demolition of place and sense of home.

“Making and Breaking”

Dec 4, 2014 – Jan 3, 2015
1st Thursday Artist Reception, Dec 4, 6-8 pm

316 First Ave. S. Seattle, WA 98104
Gallery Hours: Tues. – Sat. 10:30-5:00
Tel: 206-624-3034
www.lindahodgesgallery.com

“Making and Breaking” is a group exhibition of paintings, sculpture, and photography devoted to things that are built and then erode, are altered, or destroyed over time. We are very much aware of this in the rapidly growing city of Seattle. Change is the operative factor, and technology, economic decision-making, and time are the implements that guide it. From Kevin Wilson’s steam shovels and Dan Webb’s wooden tools, to the weathered and abandoned barns of Daphne Minkoff and the proliferating housing developments depicted by Ryan Molenkamp, to Dara Solliday’s Regrade images, each artwork tells a story of growth, destruction, and change.”

Other artists in the show include: Patti Bowman, Laura Hamje, Daniel Hawkins, Jeff Mihalyo, Michael Paul Miller, Daphne Minkoff, Ryan Molenkamp, Jeff Scott, Dara Solliday, Timea Tihanyi, Sylwia Tur, Thuy-van vu, Dan Webb, Kevin Wilson, Dane Youngren

Below, one of the prints I will be showing. This piece is part of a series looking at the construction projects at the University of Washington. I stood for many hours on the University Bridge studying this dormitory as it went up. The complex is now finished, but I dearly loved the tarps and scaffolds: the “making” phase revealed, and here frozen in time.

Invisible Children, Archival Pigment Print
Invisible Children, Archival Pigment Print, © Iskra Johnson

Finding Contemplative Time In Modern Life

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Contemple--les-Fleurs
Contempler les Fleurs, transfer print, 1/2 edition variable, 16″ x 21″, © Iskra Johnson

           “Joy is being willing for things to be as they are.”
― Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special

I would also say that joy is seeing and delighting in things as they are, which can be an elusive concept when your life gets caught up in a construction project. Construction projects by definition require making things different. Better. Fixed up. Everything is most definitely not ok as it is, otherwise why are you going to all this debt and trouble?

As I approach the move-in date for my new studio I’ve become aware that for much of the past five months I’ve been completely not-here, now, at all. My tattered meditation practice [Read more…]

“Any Day: Artists on Death” | August Exhibit at Gage Academy

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Gage Academy hosts an unusual exhibit this month guest-curated by talented artist Elana Winsberg:

“Any Day is dedicated to the sensitive exploration by artists who are compelled to make work illuminating the many facets of death, life before death and life after death.” The exhibit runs through September 19th, and the opening is Thursday August 14, from 6-8 PM.

Gage Academy of Art

1501 10th Avenue E.
Seattle, WA 98102
(206) 323-4243

When I was asked to be part of the exhibit I initially told Elana I had nothing to offer on the subject. Ha. This must be denial at a pretty strong level, since I have done several bodies of work on the theme, both from a personal and political perspective. With a little bit of coaxing I submitted a piece from “What Does Heaven Look Like” and two others of a more personal nature from “Drawings in Dust.” This is a great opportunity to show among artists I admire greatly. Participants include Mitch Albala, Josie Furchgott Sourdiffe, Sam Hamrick, Emma Jane Levitt, Kathy Liao, Greg Lundgren, Memuco, Pamela Durga Robinson, Kurt Vance, Margaret Swanson Vance and Elana Winsberg. Greg Lundgren will present a lecture on ritual, legacy, memorial and the role of the contemporary artist Thursday, September 18 at 7:00PM. Greg is an innovator in the field of contemporary memorials and monuments and this will be a lecture not to be missed.

You will have to attend the show to see my three drawings, (suspense….) but here are some additional ones from the series I did on mourning and loss, using the vehicle of the decoy as a resonant object.

Cygnet_charcoal_dust_pigment_drawing
Cygnet, charcoal dust and powdered pigment, 13″ x 21″

[Read more…]

Jim Dine at Wright Gallery | The Last Days of Dexter Avenue (As We Knew It)

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It’s a day when the news provokes long discussions of despair and bewilderment on my social media feeds. I find myself in a desperate ricochet between fear of plague, spreading wildfire and epic drought, and I can’t stop thinking of the numbers in Gaza, numbers attached to bodies, bodies attached to the fact of children and hospitals and schools and what can only look to me like slaughter of a trapped people. I hold up a dollar bill and consider what part of it to tear off to protest my taxes going to mortars and grenades.

As I sit in miles of hot stalled traffic I feel increasingly bludgeoned by things beyond my control. This traffic jam is brought to the Emerald City by the Blue Angels. Each summer the freeway closes to honor the Navy’s elite flight squad and the quaint ritual of military preening that carves the sky with white ribbons and shatters eardrums of those below. All I feel as I watch the jets dive between skyscrapers and lilt upward from my rear view mirror is dread. Gaza seems right here, right here in my lap.

I am on my way to see the Jim Dine exhibit at Wright Gallery. [Read more…]