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You are here: Home / Archives for Print Sale

Arts North Studio Tour: Save the Date!

September 8, 2019 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Modern Glaze studio North Seattle Arts Tour

Please save the date for the Arts North Studio Tour in Seattle this October 12th and 13th!  Ceramic artist and photographer Laura Brodax has opened her new (and spectacular) studio space at the edge of the Broadview neighborhood, and will be hosting me as her guest artist for our first time on this tour.

Check out Modern Glaze on Instagram to see what the fuss is all about. I have admired Laura’s photography and ceramics for many years, and it is an honor to show with her. I will be displaying unframed prints of various sizes as well as some larger framed works and mixed media panels. Below are some of Laura’s ceramic works incorporating her photography, collage and serigraph.

Laura Brodax Ceramics
Laura Ceramics, courtesy of Modern Glaze

 

Iskra Studio Sale 2019
“As Above, So Below,” archival pigment print, ©Iskra Johnson

Be sure to visit the Arts North Studio Tour website and Facebook for a preview of work and a map of all 10 studios. Modern Glaze is located at 14800 Westminster Way N, Shoreline, WA 98133. Tour hours, 10-5 October 12th and 13th. I hope to see you there!

Filed Under: Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Print Sale Tagged With: Arts North Studio Tour, Iskra Studio Tour, Modern Glaze open studio, North Seattle Artists

Last Weekend of Vashon Island Visual Artist Studio Tour (VIVA!)

May 11, 2018 by Iskra 1 Comment

Vashon garden idyll VIVA tour

This is the last weekend to visit Cathy Sarkowsky and me to see our work on the Vashon Island Artist Studio Tour (VIVA!). Last weekend was amazing. I met many new art lovers and had a rare opportunity to share my work with people directly and talk (in person, what a concept!). Cathy Sarkowsky’s garden is a dream and is rewiring my brain for green. Her brilliantly colored paintings, some made with her own ground pigments, are flying off the walls, so don’t miss this chance to visit her work and her beautifully designed studio. It will inspire you in every way.

The satellite studio where I am set up opens to the garden. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Artist Studio Visits, Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Print Sale, Recent Posts Tagged With: Cathy Sarkowsky, Iskra Art Shows, Iskra Studio Sale, Vashon Artist Studio Tour, VIVA

Vashon Island Visual Artist Studio Tour Preview

April 29, 2018 by Iskra 1 Comment

Two Tulip Prints by Iskra
Two Tulips, prints based on Venetian plaster pieces, available here.

Just a few days until the Vashon Island Visual Artist’s Studio Tour! I will be showing work in the lovely satellite studio of Vashon artist Cathy Sarkowsky, and will be there for the entire show which goes from Saturday and Sunday 10 AM – 5 PM May 5-6 and 12-13. Check out the studio map here. This studio tour is a chance to explore new directions and show work that hasn’t been seen before. Although I will have industrial work on hand, most of the prints and mixed media pieces will be nature inspired, and come from the contemplative side of life, based on my garden.

When I bought my house 16 years ago I was self-identified as a Capitol Hill Person. Like my neighbors, I insisted the city ended at the Montlake Bridge, and my idea of a garden was a window box with a struggling coleus and some pansies. So when the realtor told me the house came with a 7,000 square foot lot I almost fainted. The first glimpse was daunting: chain link, a 60-foot RV pad, and a patchy lawn covered with broken bits of landcsape lighting chewed by a dog. Plus, the leaking pond with a pug-faced gargoyle with a broken wing. The owners handed me a tube of black sealant, fish pellets, a pair of size 4 hip waders and waved goodbye. I vowed to stay inside and do important things, like read and make art in the funky but promising studio.

And then the Heron arrived.

Visitation The Heron print by Iskra
The Heron | Visitation, limited edition print available here.

It was early on a November morning, in that watery oyster light the Pacific Northwest does so well. The heron stood perfectly still outside the picture window. I didn’t realize until he had flown away that he had taken all the goldfish with him. In flight his wings seemed to cover half the pond, and I felt like I had been visited by royalty. From there it was a rapid ride towards the obsessive life of the newborn Earth Goddess. I went out and bought as many plants as possible that looked good next to each other but required different amounts of water and light and which promptly keeled over from enthusiastic miss-treatment. I told anyone who would volunteer to advise me that I had taken a stand against flowers and that the only thing that mattered was winter, fall, and how different greens and textures played against each other. In other words I was completely deluded, and missing the whole point. I eventually grew into the fact of the changing seasons, and the matter of fact magic of death and rebirth and its necessary angel: color. (Read about that here.)

Over the years I grew flowers and stole flowers and found them by the side of the road and fell madly in love with each one and yes got my heart broken by the sound of their petals falling. Here are two miniature works about just that, the sound of orchid leaves and what gets left behind. Autumn leaves in color are heart stopping, but equally lovely is the roadkill of leaves run over by cars.

Botanical orchid miniature on venetian plaster

I like to use these small pieces as points of focus with other objects. They can live framed or unframed:

Venetian Plaster Stil Life

Here are a few more of the mixed media plaster pieces that will be available on Vashon. I am posting more each week in the Venetian plaster portfolio.

Snowdrop flower on Venetian plaster by Iskra
Snowdrop | mixed media on Venetian plaster | 12×12 inches | $600
Autumn Rose Venetian plaster by Iskra
Autumn Rose | mixed media on Venetian plaster | 12×12 inches | $600
Red poppies on Venetian plaster by Iskra
At the Pond | mixed media on Venetian plaster | 12×12 inches | $600

As any gardener knows, impermanence is the name of the game. Change or die. Or, change and die. What better icon of that than the dragonfly, symbol of transformation? I have revisited the subject of impermanence through this print numerous times over the years, each time seeing some new way to shift detail or value. The latest iteration is subtle, a brighter variation, with a larger edition and smaller size to make it more affordable (click anywhere on these three images to see it in my shop.): Dragonfly print by IskraLastly, here is a piece I have never shown, based on my walks around Greenlake and the favorite inlet where the willows drape over the water and the ducks find their bliss.

Water Kimono Print by Iskra
Water Kimono, archival pigment print, a new addition to The Floating World series.

Give me a shout if you cannot get to Vashon Island or would like to see any of this work in advance. And keep up to date on the latest additions to the studio sale on Facebook and Instagram. I look forward to seeing new and old friends next weekend!

dragonfly by Iskra

 

Filed Under: botanical art, Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Print Sale, Recent Posts, The Garden Tagged With: botanical art, Iskra shows, PNW Art shows, studio sale, vashon island studio tour, venetian plaster, VIVA Studio Tour

Summer Print Sale!

July 27, 2017 by Iskra Leave a Comment

The Crimson Monarch print by Iskra“The Crimson Monarch,” 15.5 x 15.5 ” 1/20, available during the Summer Print Sale

I have been super busy this summer finishing the body of work for Industrial Strength, a three-woman show opening at SAM Gallery on Wednesday September 13th. Something about wrapping up a set of work and being “done” just seems to lead to more ideas. I keep coming back to The Floating World as a source of inspiration, and each time I find something new. Sometimes all I see is the sky and the water, and sometimes I see the shore, the anchor and the fine tethers that keep one from floating away. The great ship the Crimson Monarch was moored beneath the Elliott Bay grain elevators a few months ago. By May it had rained for eight months and on the first sunny Sunday of the year I could not wait to get out to the waterfront with my camera. I fell madly in love with this ship and the way it faced the sun, owning the bay. I use real names in my ship portraits. If you want to kick back with a beverage that puts you in a nautical frame of mind and a pair of binoculars, you can follow the Crimson Monarch on shipspotting.com. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Artist Studio Visits, Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Press, Print Sale, Prints Tagged With: artist process, Ben Calhoun, Chittendon locks, Crimson Monarch, industrial art, nautical, Northwest artist, print sale, uncommon union, water prints

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Iskra Fine Art Blog

the creative process | conversations with artists | the contemplative impulse in art

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Instagram post 2198113025205017025_1682569995 “The Brighter Day.” No.2 in this very small edition of 3 has just found a home in a collection through @museolangley (Thankyou!). Only one is left, available through first link in bio. I have been reading Pam Houston’s latest book #DeepCreek, and there is a passage in it about writing that is exactly how this piece was created. It’s a long excerpt, but worth it:
“ I have always believed that if I pay strict attention while I am out in the physical — and that for me often means the natural world — the physical world will give me everything I need to tell my stories. As I move through my day, I wait to feel something I call a glimmer, a vibration, a little charge of resonance that says, “Hey writer, look over here.” I feel it deep in my chest, this buzzing that lets me know the thing I am seeing/hearing/smelling on the outside is going to help me lock some part of a story I have on the inside. I keep an on going record of these glimmers, writing down not my interpretation of them, not my imagined connection to them, not an emotional contextualization of them, but just the thing itself. . . . When I have some time to write, I read through the glimmer files on my computer and try to find a handful that seem like they will stick together, that when placed in proximity with one another will create a kind of electricity.” I recommend her book, by the way, good winter reading while being indoors next to a fire.
Instagram post 2196819254605750083_1682569995 I am honored to be part of @arcade_nw ‘s latest issue of Arcade Magazine! The theme is “Liminal Space” which is pretty much the house I live in. Available at @petermillerbooks and many other bookstores. Check out their page to see what’s going on in Seattle architecture and design thinking.
Instagram post 2196168705874965274_1682569995 Industrial Rorschach: If the on-site psychologist was to open his briefcase and show you this card and ask you what it meant you would say:

1) Textural Carpet made by Berber weavers sampling Cy Twombly and S&P histogram.  2) Pandora’s Box  3) The third movement of Brahms’ Concerto for Late Stage Capitalism.  4) A mostly neutrally colored Square containing Grief which remains obstinately blue and unprintable (out of gamut) as are most intense emotions
Instagram post 2194492950900180841_1682569995 A large travel piece, 24x36, for the discriminating trucking company that sees the beauty in grime. I can’t seem to get over trucks. I remember shouting out to them on road trips when I was 6. My mother had married a new man who was a gambler, and they would drive all night to Las Vegas. For me, day dreaming in the back seat, the trucks made it all worthwhile.
Instagram post 2193017376281226308_1682569995 The Travelers Suite of 8 new prints is in my shop today, first link in bio. Postcards from the edge, between stillness and motion. This one is called “The Journey Through.” 16x12” image on a 22x17 sheet of German Etching rag paper.
Instagram post 2191258353097851975_1682569995 Please Come Back Before I Forget You. (Coast Starlight Journey)

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