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.
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.
I have a small collection of shoe lasts, and would have a wall full if they let me. What a marvel, the antique craft of cobblers, and the making of wooden feet. This particular last was for someone named Joy. I keep her on the windowsill above my drawing table where I can be reminded that each one of us gets to walk on this earth in our own way, and we might as well walk. . . in joy.
Coming Up, Rite of Spring at Chatwin Arts
In gallery news, I am happy to have work included in a spring-themed show opening in May at Chatwin Arts. This piece, Plum Wine, is a combination of watercolor, photography, and cold wax on cradled panel. I hope to be at the First Thursday opening. A terrific collection of work here from Tim Cross, Niki Keenan, Joe Max Emminger, June Sekiguchi and others.
If you have a garden, and are drowning in pollen, I send you my sympathies and a box of Kleenex. Any minute the shotweed will scatter and then the weeding begins. Until then, back to the studio. Hope to see you in May!
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