Iskra Fine Art

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Spotlight North Studio Tour Preview Part 2 + New Spring Stationery

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Ballast of Light pencil drawing by Iskra
Ballast of Light, pencil and graphite drawing

 Spotlight North Studio Tour Preview Part 2

As the studio tour approaches I am framing the last pieces, a task which always takes far longer than anticipated. It seems there is often something that could be revised, and before I know it it is 1 AM and I am blowing graphite dust off of plexiglass. Falling graphite easily becomes a fingerprint, which might be my new signature. Insert facepalm.

The 3 small egg drawings are all egg-sized, matted and framed in polished glass and clips ready to slip into an 8×10 frame. One has pre-sold, and I hope to have one more completed by end of week. My hope is that they are hung above the frying pan, just out of reach of splattering grease. . .

I have also framed three sequences created with washes of ink, graphite and colored chalk. These are miniatures, roughly 2×3″, matted with glass and backing to fit an 8×10 frame. I think of these as quiet conversations. They happen late at night, when images emerge from experiments in media, my new favorite being water soluble graphite. They have the scale and feel of etchings or lithographs, although they are one of a kind. [Read more…]

Save the Date! Spotlight North Artist Studio Tours 2026

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Petal and Cloud, graphite and pencil drawing
Petal and Cloud, graphite and pencil drawing © Iskra Johnson 2026

 

I am excited to announce the 2026 Spotlight North Studio Tour May 16-17. I have been hard at work preparing for this event, which is an opportunity for neighbors, friends, and a wider community to meet North Seattle artists in their native environment. What I love about the open studio environment is that I can show work from every phase of my career: the finished, the unfinished, and the experimental. I like nothing better than talking to people about process and media and seeing how people respond to new directions.

Each artist will have their individual studio open from noon to five. The map will go live on the Spotlight North website in May, and there will will be another post coming in May with additional previews of work I will be showing. This time I will be offering framed and semi-framed drawings (protected with glass and clips) as well as my ongoing print series, framed miniatures ranging from botanical to abstract, and a new card line just introduced this week. [Read more…]

New Graphite Drawings: The Fragility Project

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The Nest ( Fragility No.1)
The Nest (Fragility No.1)

 

During Pandemic and during the crash of 2008 I turned to drawing as a form of psychic survival. Our current times echo the sense of upheaval I experienced then, and I have once again gathered my pencils and opened my Moleskine journals. In 2008 I drew tulips and convicted bankers, in Pandemic I drew locks, doors, and a tiny lightbulb made large, as though to clear a way through the darkness. The constant barrage of headlines from the Epstein files has created a sense of a world with too much malevolence to bear. And so I am drawing fragile things, the most fragile I can find: the shells of eggs, and nests. These subjects are phenomenally challenging, and symbolically healing. While I draw I must forget everything except the shape of light and how a line becomes a real thing, woven into a place of safety.

If you visited me now without warning you might think I had gone feral, as there are egg shells everywhere, placed so I can study how light moves across them throughout the day. Each time I draw I think I have never drawn before, and am convinced I have no idea how to do it. Each time I draw I am stunned that the pencil itself knows something, and it’s a matter, more than anything else, of pure, sensory observation: What is the sound of lead when it hovers above reflected light? What is the sound when it is pressed too hard and violates the grain of the paper? What happens when I step away and come back a day later? These drawings are made in very slow time. Each one evolves over several days, and as much happens when I am walking in the forest studying the shapes of trees as when I am appear to be “working.” [Read more…]

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

[Read more…]

Elusionary Landscapes: New Drawings and Collages from the Rural Heartlands

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Symmetries Interrupted a barn collage landscape
Symmetries Interrupted, limited edition archival print from original photography and painting ©Iskra Johnson Available here

An entire season has passed since I last posted here. It has been a long sun-filled summer filled with concentrated studio time and a pivotal week spent in Eastern Washington in the long awaited Tieton Residency. A dear friend moved to Tieton in Eastern Washington two years ago, with the intention of creating a residency in her farmhouse for visiting artists and writers. The pandemic intervened and the residency did not happen for two years – until this August! I had the farmhouse, the upstairs studio, and the landscape to myself during the day, with hours to wander, photograph and draw. It was an unforgettable time of slow communion with my pencil and camera, with evenings spent in good company getting to know the Yakima Valley in new ways with my hosts. 

Drawing in situ, a skill I had forgotten, and a way of being that feels like home.
Yakima Valley Cuisine Scene
Yakima Valley Cuisine Scene, local, fresh, innovative. Top row, two very different approaches to the idea of soup; below, the wildly wonderful counter at Crafted, with chef-owner Dan Kokomo keeping his charm and his cool on a busy Saturday night.

The White Barn, landscape photography by Iskra

The farmhouse is situated on a road with a front row seat to sunrises and sunsets over the orchard valley. The muse of the property is The White Barn, which I have taken roughly a hundred photographs of (and which is available as part of an ongoing portfolio of Western Photography.) The architecture on the immediate property was my primary focus during the residency, with road trips to document alternate forms of my favorite structure, The Shed, in its native habitat. During this time I used drawing to sharpen my concentration, and apps like SnapSeed to experiment with new ways of combining digital and drawn imagery, which became final works in the studio once I got home.

[Read more…]