Iskra Fine Art

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Iskra December Shows, and New Forest Series Prints and Stationary

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I don’t know how you celebrate Halloween, but I spent the evening with small humans disguised as dinosaurs, observing the effect of sugar on developing metabolism. In an adult dinosaur, the consumption of three Almond Joys and a slice of pumpkin pie results in near-immediate narcolepsy. In a child of three it means competing for gold in Bouncing Off the Wall. . . for hours. I am now (almost) recovered from the excitement, and busy preparing work for the holiday shows.
 
In December I will be part of two events to lift the spirit. I hope you will join me at SAM Gallery for a first look at Gathering on Thursday, December 4, 5:30-6:30 pm, or for the artist’s reception on Saturday, December 20, 2-4 pm.

Iskra Johnson and Katie Metz in Gathering at SAM Gallery

I am looking forward to joining the artists at Building C for the December Open House as a guest of Meegan McKiernan. This thriving hub of artists is a mainstay of the Ballard art scene, and I love being part of the community during the holiday season.

Open House at Building C 

Saturday, December 13th, from 2-9pm  4818 14th Avenue NW, Seattle, WA 98107

“The big brown warehouse across from the Ballard Office Max” at Leary Ave NW & 14th Ave NW. More information and directions at the Building C website.
 
At the open studio I’ll be offering a variety of cards from my England, architectural and botanical lines, prints in sleeves or framed to suite a range of budgets, and the Water Tower Project prints and book. I have completed several new sets of forest cards (see below) that make lovely winter or solstice greetings. 

 

Forest Cards

Leaf Sequence [Read more…]

Spring Tulip Suite Stationary and New Rural Landscapes

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Pink Tulip Arabesque colored pencil drawing
Spring Tulip Arabesque, from an original drawing in colored pencil on Moleskine

It’s Tariff Week, and the stock ticker has gone missing from Fox News today, presumably to indicate what a special moment this is. It’s beginning to feel a lot like 2008. That was the spring I sat stunned at my kitchen table watching the securities auctions fail, the securities that TD Ameritrade had said “were as safe as a money market but better.” My kitchen table became my oasis for reinventing sanity and meaning through drawing. There was no internet, only a radio and a tape cassette. Silence, doom, music, repeat. The silence was at first excruciating, but as I drew, it became an enveloping calm and helped me through a time of instability and fear I had not known before. The blog post of that moment has come in handy several times since. Kitchen tables stand the test of time.

In honor of that memory I have returned to the work created then and refined the drawings as the Spring Tulip Suite in my stationary collection. It has been a quiet revelation to pick up a pencil and to go back into work done 17 years ago. As part of my TariffWeek sale, subscribers to my newsletter receive a 10% discount on items in my shop (excluding stationary.) If you would like to receive a discount code I would love to welcome you as a subscriber!

Tulip Suite Stationary
The Spring Tulip Suite, from originals in colored pencil on Moleskine, available as fine stationary cards in my shop.
Tulip Leaves Fine Art Stationary
Tulip leaves are pure sculpture…As a leaf emerges it turns on its axis towards the light, and each turn creates a ripple of subtle greens and earth shades, at times picking up the blue of the sky.

In other print news, Seattle Art Museum Gallery has added a selection of unframed work from gallery artists, which you can peruse in the front of the gallery by the painting racks. I am excited to have a rotating collection of my limited edition prints there!

Farm Structures sketchbook
Farm structures, acrylic on prepared ground
Sky waiting for cloud form

As in 2020, the eerie lack of rails on society and the economy has brought the opportunity of time to explore and develop new ideas without external pressures. It is a great comfort to go “back to the land” and the farm structures and pastoral patterns of rural life that surrounded me as a child. If, at the end of the next four years, I can paint a convincing barn I’ll be happy. Here are a few quick glimpses of work in the studio: surface, abstraction, atmosphere and architecture.Farm Building 7

Regardless of the weather ahead, the sun today is lovely. I hope you can find the time to take a walk, gather camelias, and admire the incorruptible beauty of spring.

New Forest Card Designs and Sketching the Future

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Black and White Windows Sketchbook

The New Year has come in with a roar of ice, snow, rain and broken pipes. It seemed fitting to learn to mix the colors of January, although washing paint out of my brushes has been difficult with frozen pipes! Above is the first spread of my new industrial sketchbook, through which I hope to learn to paint some of my many obsessions: backs of trucks, kiosks, factories and scaffolds and the ever changing sky which they reflect. To move myself from the digital world fully into the work of paint I have joined the #InsightCreative30DayChallenge2024, brilliantly guided by Cheryl Taves. I met Cheryl about 4 years ago when I visited her studio with friends on Vancouver Island. Her studio and process was a revelation, and I knew I wanted to continue a connection. Through her coaching at Insight Creative, the Sketchbook Challenge brings together artists from all over the world to create audience and accountability for taking risks and finding ones own vision. [Read more…]

New Images from The Gardener’s Almanac: Hydrangea!

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From the Gardener’s Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena: The Hydrangea

As the autumn rains come, I notice the squirrel’s moods are completely unaffected. The squirrel has never bothered to look up, whisker the the winds of change and pause for melancholy. His job is to keep his head down, dig up every newly potted bulb and chrysanthemum and shred the babytears growing between the pavers – and he does not stop to admire the hydrangeas. Praising flowers with long and homely names is my occupation.

The delicate colors of Hydrangea macrophylla normalis are welcome distraction from the calamities unfolding beyond the garden. I hope you will find respite in the Autumn Suite from the Gardener’s Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena, just published and available today in my shop. For my fellow writers and thinkers and keepers of friendships far flung, these are excellent with ginger biscuits and strong coffee or black tea with honey. All you need is a table, a pen and a quiet moment.

Hydrangea in Amber botanical image and greeting card
Hydrangea in Amber

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From One Tree: Botanical Watercolor Paintings as Fine art Greeting Cards

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Laurel leaves watercolor

“From One Tree”, A new offering from The Gardener’s Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena

Before the Gardener moved onto land with a house she spent many years in a brick tower in the city. There her rooms were lit by the changing colors of the Sycamores outside the windows. Summers were dark, with a heavy cast of green oxide. Autumn showered the walls with gold, and in winter the air became blue.

The apartment building shared one side with an alley and here, on her daily walks, the Gardener began to notice unusual leaves scattered in the mud. The leaves were mottled with curious patterns and glowed with ruby, burgundy and lime. They seemed to have fallen from an ordinary laurel hedge, but all the other laurels in the neighborhood were monotonously dull and one color of green. She picked up one leaf and then another, and soon she was a collector, arriving each day to her rooms with pockets filled with fragile specimens. [Read more…]