Iskra Fine Art

  • Prints
    • The Tarmac Residency: Airport Landscapes
    • Immersions | At The Shore
    • ColorBath: Images of the Harbor
    • The Floating World
    • Industrial Strength | Urban Industrial Landscape
    • The Scaffold
    • Industrial Pastorale: The Rural/Urban Landscape
    • Botanical Prints | The Natural World
    • Construction | Reconstruction : Urban Landscape
    • Infrastructure
  • Drawings
    • Pencil Drawings: Pandemic Pause
    • Drawings in Dust 1
    • Signs & Symbols (Archive)
    • Botanical Drawings (Archive)
  • Photography
    • New Work Inspired by England
    • Seattle Waterfront Park Photography
    • Architectural Photography | Construction Sites
    • American West Landscape Photography
  • Mixed Media
    • Modern Botanical | Mixed Media on Plaster
    • From the Sea | Water Paintings
    • Sleep Studies
  • Wabi Sabi Abstract
    • Minimalist Modern
    • Ink Painting Abstractions
  • Shop
    • The Water Tower Project
  • About
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  • Blog

Contact

If you have comments or questions about my work please feel free to contact me via phone, email or the form on this page. To inquire on availability and price for specific piece, please note the artwork title in your message.

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    INSTAGRAM

    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.

    Contact Iskra

    Phone: (206) 367-2643
    Email: iskra(at)iskradesign.com

    PDF Resume

    Iskra Johnson, artist resume

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