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You are here: Home / Archives for Photocollage

Collage Life, Refiguring Art and Friendship in the Pandemic

August 30, 2020 by Iskra 10 Comments

Correspondent Letter collage by Iskra

The Correspondent, ©Iskra Johnson

(This late summer dispatch breaks all the rules of “newsletter.”  August is a time of slow thinking and revision, thought and word pasted and lifted and re-placed in an order based on considerate disorder and association, ie. on the structure of my mind. If there is no news (I have been immersed in art history which is by definition old news) there is still, however a “letter.” This post is about letter writing itself, and how personal correspondence can mean the world and re-make the world of our creative lives. Settle into a deep chair, with good light or a rustling tree and a cat at your feet. Consider that the post office would love it if you bought some stamps.)

On this particular morning, about 214 days since the pandemic became the official organizing principle, I am sitting at my kitchen table drinking Earl Grey and looking at a stack of books and magazines and letters accumulated since spring. In April my friend Jennifer began sending me her monthly Poetry subscriptions along with pages torn from magazines. Every page is pre-read and annotated with trenchant scribbles in the margins, curated personally just for me. Jennifer has reached the place in life of casting off. I am still bringing things into my house, desperate for distraction, but seem to have confused doom scrolling and pulp novels with The Great Books. I gather romances from the Little Free Libraries on my walks and have not made it beyond chapter 1.

When the first poetry letter arrived I was ecstatic. Mail! Brown paper and string! And delivered by a man in blue socks and shorts, as though it was 1958, a sandwich meant Mayonnaise on Wonder Bread, and Lassie the Collie still roamed the earth in his white socks, teaching us what heroes look like. The letters have ignited a connection that feels bigger than just the two of us, my friend and me sitting alone dangling face masks on our wrists in our separate homes. Over 20 years we have corresponded by email and post, with a dedication that is Victorian. When we compose a sentence to send to each other it is with the knowledge that we are writing, not just the tourist postcard’s “wish you were here,” but miniature novellas painting scenes or memories that cross space and time. We write to bring each other actually here, and we take great care. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Collage, Digital Collage, Essays, Photocollage Tagged With: collage art, collage life, Curation, history of collage, Pandemic art, Pinterest critique, W.H. Auden, women friendships

Spring Shows & Notes on Travel

April 21, 2019 by Iskra 1 Comment

Travel Quote Airports by Iskra
Lost in dreams at the airport…..

Lots going on this spring! This post will share updates about spring shows, new work, and some notes on my recent trip to New York. Many pictures, so you may want to view in your browser if you receive posts via email.

The annual Garden Show at Whidbey Island’s Museo is lovely, and runs through April 28th. Open 11-5 Wednesday through Monday and Tuesdays by appointment. Sundays open 12-5. Shown here, Magnolia Eva, a mixed media print in a limited edition of 5.

 

Museo Garden show Iskra
Museo Garden show in Langley on Whidbey Island

Opening Saturday May 4th is The Arty Party, in the Barrel Room Gallery at Domanico Cellars. 5-9. 825 NW 63rd St. Ballard 98105. I will be one of 18 artists showing a collection of work meant to move you and move from the wall to your home: all work will be under $500 (!). The Barrel Room is a wonderful alternative gallery space on the ungentrified edge of Ballard. In the gallery Nancy Stentz and David Harto create an ambiance of elegance and fun. Visit the art, have a glass of wine, go out in the courtyard and talk motor parts or gardens with the eclectic mix of patrons. This should be a great party, just in case you were in need of one.

 

The Arty Party at the Barrel Room Gallery

On to New York:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Architecture & Sense of Place, Art Reviews, Digital Collage, Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Photocollage Tagged With: art blogger, Iskra Shows spring 2019, museo gallery, New York Armory 2019, Rebecca Solnit quotes, Sarah Entwistle, Seattle Art Source, Signs and Symbols Gallery, The Art on Paper Show 2019, The Arty Party

Iskra Spring Shows 2018

March 20, 2018 by Iskra 2 Comments

“The Spool,” archival pigment print, 22×30 and 14×20

A big thank you to everyone who came out to the opening of Industrial Pastorale at Perry and Carlson! It was a wonderful gathering of friends and family from throughout the Salish Sound. I had long conversations with many new art appreciators, some of whom I knew only by Instagram avatar. It is a lovely surprise to see the internet unfold into real life. A big thank you too to those who went home with various prints like the one above, from the Wild Color series inspired by the Anacortes Shipyard. Most of the work is collected now in a print gallery on my site, so if you cannot make it to Mt. Vernon take a look here.  The show continues through April 1, Hours: Wed-Sat 11-6, Sun 12-4 and by appointment. 504 S. First Street, Mt. Vernon, WA.

To recuperate I went to the studio the next morning and cleaned out my sink. A long pause that was. Lots of scrubbing. Absolutely nothing will get stains out of a cheap plastic utility tub. I could really drag this task out. Baking soda, bleach, five kinds of scrubbies, soya solvent, the Gypsy Kings. Very helpful, I recommend doing this at least once a year.

 

Iskra Studio Sink

It is going to be a very busy spring, with four shows between now and the middle of May. I hope you can stop by whatever fits your mood. Each event is an entirely different kind of scene, and I am excited to broaden my world to new communities in the Seattle and East Side.

Ryan James Fine Arts 3rd Biennial Exhibition with 50 Selected Artists

Opening April 12 5-10 PM

11905 124th Ave. NE, Kirkland 98034

Show runs from April 1 – May 31st

* * *

Layered, Presented by the Sammamish Arts Commission

Sammamish City Hall Commons Gallery

April 23 – July 20, 2018

Artist Reception Thursday, May 24th from 6-8:00 pm

* * *

Seattle Artist League at Galvanize 1 Night Only!

April 5th 5-8 PM

111 S. Jackson

* * *

Vashon Studio Tour (Now called VIVA)

First Two Weeks of May, details to come

 

Although I have loved being in the landlocked meadowscapes of the Skagit Valley, my work for the summer show at Taste will return to the water. Think the light in August, think of that pink haze of condensed heat and rose petals, how the sun shines diffuse like thistle fluff and in the distance the sound of the ships turns the clouds blue in the bay. There may be some pink, some yellow too, definitely some very hot color. Here is a glimpse.

 

Tethered waterscape print by Iskra
Tethered 1, © Iskra Johnson

Filed Under: Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Photocollage, Prints Tagged With: Iskra shows, Layered, PNW Art shows, Ryan James Fine Art, Seattle Artist League, Taste Restaurant

You Are Invited to the Opening of “Industrial Pastorale” at Perry & Carlson

February 15, 2018 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Iskra in Industrial Pastorale at Perry & Carlson“Windscape,” © Iskra Johnson 2017, 22 x 33 limited edition pigment print

 


 

I hope to see you at Industrial Pastorale at Perry & Carlson this coming March 3rd! The early opening hour is timed to encourage people to come up to the Skagit Valley for the day, take in the landscape and visit Edison’s thriving art scene or La Conner as well.

This show explores the liminal edge between urban and rural landscape. The prints merge recent landscape photography from the Skagit Valley with urban surface to create visual narratives of rural archetype, contemplation and place. Through blends of painting, traditional printmaking and photographic techniques the work pushes digital printmaking into new territory, with images that live beyond category, as mysterious “works on paper.” The complete artist statement for this work can be read here.

There will be over 20 new limited edition prints in different sizes, ranging from 22 x 33 to 15 x 15 inches, framed and unframed. Once the show has opened I will post a complete gallery here of all the work in the series. Meanwhile, here is a glimpse of one of my favorites, inspired by the pony farm memories of my childhood.

The Horse's Dream print by IskraLe Rêve du Cheval (The Horse’s Dream)

The horse dreamed in black and white
just the way they told him to
but he could not stay away
from the red barn.

One night he drank it.

From then on his dreams were in color
the way he always knew
they were supposed to be.

Filed Under: Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Photocollage Tagged With: Industrial Pastorale, Iskra shows, Mt. Vernon Art Gallery, Perry & Carlson, Skagit Valley shows

Industrial Silence | (And Save the Date!) #MakeAmericaCreateAgain at CoCA

March 20, 2017 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Industrial Light Photograph by Iskra Johnson
Industrial Silence, © Iskra Johnson

Industrial silence is a three part harmony of dripping rust, heavy metal and the slanting light of late afternoon. If you listen carefully you can hear walls corrugating and wire mapping a path through the milky green of ancient skylights. In the distance, there is the hum of large trucks idling, and close up the interrogating roar of generators programmed to shock a tourist out of reverie. There is always the cantor and the choir of crows and gulls, one shrieking, one mewling, and sometimes thin coils of rubber poised like snakes. Most of the written words are warnings. Wear your steel toe boots, don’t touch, don’t trespass, turn this crank to the left and then up, do not drink what is in this barrel, although I always hope somewhere in the sans serif commands I will find an anthemic “raise high the roofbeam carpenters!”

Every silence is different, but each one reminds me of the other, so as I walk through train yards and factories on Sundays when everyone is gone I also think of Berlin, [Read more…]

Filed Under: Drawing, Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Photocollage, Prints Tagged With: Charles Sheeler, CoCA, industrial art, Iskra shows, precisionism, writing on photography

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I have been obsessed for well over a decade by the I have been obsessed for well over a decade by the line between the photographic and the drawn. This is simply a media test, or an “under drawing“ for something else, but it gave me pause. It suggests so many different qualities of mood: Foreboding, calm, dichotomy, a family photo poorly developed, the cloudy skies of the Pacific Northwest, or the fugue state one falls into after turning the pages of our days as a failing empire. “Our“ refers to those of us who live in the USA although now it should be called the DU USA, as in disunited United States. That disunity is a powerful disruptive pain that I feel daily. Also, as we phase out medicine, research, medical care, and with that presumably self-care, this was created, for those who are curious, with a cotton ball by #JohnsonAndJohnson (my father’s Swedish ancestors) on a Talens sketchbook. As I said, I’m testing. How much of the world can I take in before I shut the door and become an art nun and don’t look up until the last minute?
Sunday concentration drawing, testing a new notebo Sunday concentration drawing, testing a new notebook( and my attention span. . .)
Today’s mood, from the morning walk. Today’s mood, from the morning walk.
A metaphysical idea waiting to become a drawing. A A metaphysical idea waiting to become a drawing. All day I have been studying graphite, the most evanescent of mediums. Fragility. Once you break the egg, scatter the nest, leave the children without family on an abandoned beach, what then? 

I have spent the day drawing. In the background, which becomes foreground with one click, is the news of the rounding up of another thousand or so human beings by bounty hunters given a quota, thrown into concrete cages and disappeared because someone decided that America is no longer the home of the #huddledmasses.

The plaque on the Statue of Liberty says:

“Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Noem and Holman have not, apparently, run their hands over these words.

How do you continue making art at a time like this? You chase the metaphor. There is always a constant truth beneath the chaos.
Media studies. Addition and subtraction. Media studies. Addition and subtraction.
Somehow, between checking the news and the usual d Somehow, between checking the news and the usual distractions I managed to complete a drawing. Going back to the beginning: drawings in dust. 9.5 x 12” Charcoal powder, compressed charcoal, charcoal pencil on Moleskine. I feel peaceful for the first time in weeks.

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