Iskra Fine Art

Summer Solstice Flower Suite

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Chiaroscuro of the Garden

The Summer Solstice is a day to revel in color and light. Only a few peonies bloom in my dappled shade, but for a week I live in the intoxication of their perfume. Placed with a stray branch of mock orange, the blaze of peony against the darkness of night seems like a Solstice anthem, holding all the mysteries of darkness and light. When I was a child I thought the longest day of summer was July 15th, in the middle of those three calendar months I filled in with yellow crayons. The adult knows better. I could start brooding now about the coming darkness. Or I could take a walk in the garden . . .   

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Seattle’s Iconic Landmarks: New Fine Art Print and Stationery Series

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The Atlas of Memory
The Atlas of Memory, Iconic Landmarks of Seattle

For the past few months I have been working on a series of prints and stationery brought to you by a new (somewhat fictional) entity called The Atlas of Memory. The Atlas is a repository for images of Seattle’s landmark buildings, parks, and iconic wonders that hold an enduring sense of place. You could say the Atlas is where I live and where I would like more people to dwell with me: in appreciation for the history of Seattle as a frontier town with all of its ungainly aspirations for the culture and grandeur of Europe and “The East” (ie. Chicago and New York.)

What remains of Seattle’s historic legacy is vanishingly small, and all the more important to preserve. My hope is that this series of works, which will eventually number a dozen or more, will encourage enthusiasts of rapid change and the transformation of Seattle into AnywhereUSA to pause, sit down on a bench or a boulder and just look. See what’s here. Study the history of this little outpost at the edge of the world. Think about how change might be accommodated in a way that does not just erase, but that brings history forward, maintaining the best of design and artisanship that created treasures like The Fox Theater (Music Hall), demolished in spite of years of preservationist efforts, in 1992.

My subjects will range from official landmarks like the the Volunteer Park Conservatory to the oversized kitsch of 1950’s signage to the left-over furniture of the World’s Fair. I take the Space Needle personally. It’s where my 6th grade class went, at graduation, for its first formal dinner. I wore green tennis shoes and a purple Nehru ensemble with pleated skirt. Some kid named Bob picked up chicken with sauce on it with his hands and ate it like a drumstick at a picnic. Hashtags had not yet been invented, but it was #etiquettefail. As I mentioned above, Seattle began as a frontier town . . .

The Smith Tower Limited Edition Print
Smith Tower in Vintage Light
Smith Tower in Vintage Light ©Iskra Johnson

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Thoughts on Sebastian Junger and Life After Death

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Baroque Morning, printing ink and sgraffito on paper, ©Iskra Johnson
 
An Evening at Town Hall in Seattle with Sebastian Junger

How long should the mood of Memorial Day last? It seems to have extended here past the weekend and the Monday holiday to Tuesday night, when I went to hear one of my heroes, war journalist Sebastian Junger, talk about near-death at Town Hall. His book, In My Time of Dying, is just out. I searched for reviews and was disappointed to find nearly identical 5-star summaries of content, 2-star disappointment from those seeking spiritual epiphany, and little else. A book like this is a contribution to our culture, crossing boundaries between the private and the public, between personal and professional, between atheism and belief,  in ways that should, I hope, provoke far more meaningful reviews. That said, my thoughts here are not a “book review” as such, but a personal response from an artist and seeker who has been preoccupied with the borderlands of life and death for as long as I can recall. [Read more…]

Memorial Day Letter (to a Fellow Gardener)

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I am sitting in my garden, appreciating the beauty of the layered leaves. The cloud cover is that particular shade of Memorial Gray, neither dingy nor celebratory, but softly understanding of all griefs, personal or military. In just four weeks the air will be perfumed with firecrackers yet now, with similar flags flying and jets crisscrossing overhead it is wistful with the scent of suntan oil still confined to its bottle and smoke from rain-dampened barbecue.

Earlier I took a walk along the shore where low tide exposed 5 feet of  barnacles white as tombstones and rank with rotting seaweed. Golden Gardens had been strung with nets and swarmed with the hopeful and half-dressed leaping and shouting and willing the ball to land on the right side. The glory of the season’s first bare feet, and sand rising in slow motion like salt spray around the players. Along the edge families shivered and fussed with potato salad and waited for heat to reach the searing stage, impatient for plates to fill and for conversation to become interesting. Miles away in a sea of asphalt the Veterans of Foreign Wars handed out red poppies and tried to explain poetry.

Flanders Field
Now, becalmed from half a mile of stairs and the discipline of the walk I do think I could spend a month or so just gazing at the Stewartia as it peels its bark and offers the miraculous evolution of blossom from polished green pearl to alabaster brooch to intricate ink-black pod. Right now it has almost everything on it at once except for the white flowers. When they fall they are purely nuisance. When they bloom it is a five-petaled rondeau that stops all thought but wonder. 

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Spotlight North Open Studios 2024 Available Work

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Magnolia Blossom, mixed media on panel 6 x 6″ ©Iskra Johnson

Spotlight North Open Studios 2024

I have been busy this month getting ready for Spotlight North Open Studios, showcasing the work and studios of artists in Shoreline, Lake City and North Seattle. This is our third year, and it has been exciting to see attendance grow. The 2024 map is now up on the Spotlight website for planning your visit. This year’s tour has nine locations and ten artists, each with a very different way of working. Each week recent work and an artist profile is featured on our Instagram.

A gallery show is usually a consistent theme and subject matter. An open studio on the other hand allows an artist to show old work and new, and to share the process of how change evolves. In 2022 I focused mostly on prints and my botanical cards. Cards and prints will be available this year but I will also be showing drawings, paintings and mixed media pieces, many of them framed. Most of the work is small and very affordable, ranging from $175-$600 depending on size, medium and frame style. This newsletter shows a portion of the work available, and if you are interested in a piece and would like to inquire about price and put it on reserve please send me a note. Pieces that have pre-sold are not listed.

Mixed Media Studio Process: Juxtapositions

The spring has been a creative time of working in many media. I have always been interested in juxtapositions and technical media experiments of phenomena. Some of these explorations have become what I am calling “Quartets” of individual panels that form a single painting. My career in advertising and publishing was an omnivore’s life, always embracing new languages and means of expression. I love screaming orange, neon green and tasteful neutrals. Futura Bold and Spencerian script. Purely from a process point of view it is a great gift to take the time to look at the influences, absorb the languages of style and give each voice its time on stage. 

As I’ve gone through my archives I’ve found pieces to revisit with a fresh eye and sometimes hair-raising refinements (what was that color I mixed five years ago? Can I keep on drawing over a final varnish?). Some of these pieces are on paper and will be traditionally framed, but others are mounted on panel and floated. I have always reveled in the freedom of working on paper, but glass can create a sense of distance between the viewer and the art. It has been satisfying to embrace the craft of framing and find just the right alternate forms of presentation. 

Equilibrium, calligraphic abstract on paper, mounted to panel. 8 x 8" in 10" frame
Equilibrium, calligraphic abstract on paper, mounted to panel. 8 x 8″ in 10″ frame

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