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Invitation to Seattle Arts North Studio Tour, October 12 & 13, 10-5 PM

October 6, 2019 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Summer Storm Archival Print by Iskra
“Summer Storm,” Archival Pigment Print on German Etching © Iskra Johnson

 

Please join Laura Brodax and me at Modern Glaze, in our first time as part of Seattle’s

Arts North Studio Tour
October 12th and 13th, 10 AM – 5 PM
Studio 10 | Modern Glaze
14800 Westminster Way, Shoreline, WA 98133

Visit 10 North Seattle Studios in one weekend, and see a wide range of beautiful art, glass, jewelry and ceramics from some of Seattle’s best artists. Click these links to download the Studio Brochure or Map.

I will have a wide selection of prints, framed and unframed, as well as mixed media work on Venetian Plaster. Laura will be showing her highly collectable ceramic ware and photographic works. We are both photo based artists, but we have taken the medium in very different directions. I love the opportunity for our work to be shown together, and look forward to meeting new friends and old.

Brodax blue platter Arts North Studio Tour

Brodax Modern Glaze platters
Laura Brodax Ceramic Ware at Modern Glaze

 

Filed Under: Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past Tagged With: Arts North Studio Tour, Iskra Fine Art Shows 2019, Modern Glaze Seattle, Seattle Art Studio Tours, Seattle Autumn Art Events

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 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, The Garden Tagged With: botanical art, Iskra shows, PNW Art shows, studio sale, vashon island studio tour, venetian plaster, VIVA Studio Tour

Save the Date! Vashon Island Artist Studio Tour May 2018

April 9, 2018 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Cathy Sarkowsky and Iskra Johnsonstudio Vashon tour
The vista from Cathy Sarkowsky’s lovely Vashon garden

This spring I am excited to show work in the Vashon Island Visual Artist’s Studio Tour (VIVA). Vashon artist Cathy Sarkowsky has generously offered her satellite studio to me so I can be part of this annual event on one of the Northwest’s most idyllic islands. Over 100 artist studios will be open the first two weekends of May:  Saturday and Sunday 10 AM – 5 PM May 5-6 and 12-13.

Sarkowsky studio vashon island May 2018
This is the studio cottage I will be showing in.I cannot wait to settle in with a cup of tea and watch for hummingbirds.

If you recall the Gardener’s Almanac of Irreproducible Phenomena (a title designed expressly to confound google search) you may remember that I have done a large body of botanical natural history work. The Almanac is a series of vignettes that appear without warning, documenting the cycles of death and rebirth in my little backyard Eden. On Vashon Island I will have many of my garden-inspired Venetian plaster miniatures for sale, as well as a variety of prints of all sizes, including a collection of very affordable mini-prints. If you would like to see the Venetian plaster work in advance it is currently up on my site and is available for pre-sale. More work will be added in the next few weeks, so check back there or follow me on Instagram, where I will be posting these pieces throughout the month.  There will also be work from other series, including Industrial Pastorale and The Floating World.

I hope you will mark your calendar and come visit as the sunny season begins. If you live in Seattle I promise you the island will erase your urban mood in about five minutes and leave you in a bucolic trance. At least, that’s what it does to me. . . . .

Keep up with the latest on the VIVA studio tour on Facebook. A studio map is provided here.

Happy Spring!

Iskra

Iskra Mini Print Hydrangea
Logic Study, with Hydrangea, mixed media on Venetian plaster, © Iskra Johnson

Filed Under: Botanical Art, Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, The Garden Tagged With: Cathy Sarkowsky, Iskra Botanical, Iskra shows, PNW arts, Vashon Island Visual Artist Studio, VIVA

Ode to Beauty: New Contemporary Botanicals

February 28, 2016 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Hydrangea contemporary botanical art on plaster by Iskra
Logic Study, with Hydrangea, mixed media on Venetian plaster, © Iskra Johnson,

Early spring has brought torrents of rain, warm Chinook winds and precipitous bloomings to the garden. Tulips, plums blossoms, the wild yellow flame of the forsythia, a riot of colors and scents that inspire bursts of energy and shifting moods.

I have two very different shows coming up this spring with radically different themes. There is a method to the madness, as I go back and forth between the grime and grit of urban construction sites, the urban streets, and the refuge of nature. Both series are about the interplay of structure and surface, and the narrative of impermanence. With both subjects I use my camera to capture moments on the edges of transition. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mixed Media, The Garden Tagged With: art process, contemporary botanical art, mixed media botanical, venetian plaster, watching paint dry

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Subtractive painting study and ground experiment: Subtractive painting study and ground experiment: I added baking soda to my gesso. Pretty wild texture here, not sure yet how stable it is. You can see the test of the edges in the second piece— the rugged edge only works if I get a pristine background and unfortunately the tape I used to mask it did not work consistently. Hello tape, my old friend and nemesis. You work differently on every surface. These little barn structures give me great comfort as the bigger structures of our government and nation seem to be crumbling.
Today’s landscape to quiet the mind. Out in the Today’s landscape to quiet the mind. Out in the fields somewhere, on the road to Edison. Acrylic on prepared ground, sketchbook.
MUST SEE! Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai We MUST SEE! Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei at Seattle Art Museum.
I am thinking this morning about the phrase Americ I am thinking this morning about the phrase American Heartland. Learning to paint a barn means studying the neutrals. Our political discourse has pitted the barn people against the city people and there are no neutrals, just shouting. But if you walk out into the horizon lands, all you hear is the wind and a kestrel. Walk in boots, hard-pressed against your toes, walk on stubble barefoot and get acupuncture for a lifetime. Study the intervals: how the clouds can be in the upper one third neatly or one sixth, precarious, the future disappearing with the sun as it falls making the barn your whole world if you’re three years old and looking up; one big triangle with a square in the center, and so many mysteries inside the square. 

There is also the question of what kind of light seeps between the verticals and is the light coming in the evening or at midday when you can finally begin to make out all the other tiny squares within the big square, which would be called hay. Reach for the rope and swing out over the canyon, that great big canyon from bale to bale.

Collage studies: painting neutrals
A hybrid study, mixed process. Reading the New Yor A hybrid study, mixed process. Reading the New Yorker this morning, about the global population crash. This will upend urbanism, for sure, though it will very good for veterinarians and dog groomers:
“Only two communities appear to be maintaining very high fertility: ultra-Orthodox Jews and some Anabaptist sects. The economist Robin Hanson’s back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that twenty-third-century America will be dominated by three hundred million Amish people. The likeliest version of the Great Replacement will see a countryside dotted everywhere with handsome barns.”
First Thursday. Such a beautiful night. First Thursday. Such a beautiful night.

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