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You are here: Home / Archives for museo gallery

Eat Dessert First….What Would Eve Say? The Winter Show at Museo

January 10, 2022 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Elves in a sugar coma

When Museo Gallery announced “Eat Dessert First” as the theme for January’s show I was not enthused. You may be one of the millions of the happily deaccessioned who, exiled from the office, went home to become the master sourdough bakers you’ve always wanted to be. I however haven’t cooked dinner since March 2020. Since then I have been living on Purell cocktails and roasted cashews. How would I be able to tell which comes “first” when I still have not been able to distinguish the days of the week much less my “meal times”—? For two years it’s been a desert of silent meals spent doom-scrolling with a napkin, a votive candle and my phone, and waiting for the world to stop turning in the wrong direction. Appetite. Hmmm.

Nonetheless, I spent a lifetime as a designer taking assignments I didn’t want to do. My training is to catch whatever stick is tossed out and carry it back to whoever threw it. And so I thought about my resistance to this title and worried it, word by word, into the snow-frozen ground. For my personal holiday hashtag I took #sugarcoma, and looked for every situation in which it might apply. Against all odds, which included an alert from the state that I had been exposed to Covid and an emergency test on the morning of Christmas Eve, I had, astonishingly, a picture-perfect and rhapsodic Christmas surrounded by family, throughout which I ate spritz cookies and chocolate for breakfast. For three days I walked in a happy trance from the Betty Crocker cookbook to the cookie tins with their waxed paper petticoats peeking out. When you are an adult home for Christmas after two years of absence nobody says you can’t eat dessert first, or for that matter all day. There is no more perfect state than sitting in a rocker with a blanket and a book after three salted caramels watching snow fall just on the other side of the Christmas tree.

Mulling over the pleasures of indulgence, the ever-lurking punishments of guilt, and the lucrative self-help industries that promise to lead us not into damnation but into boundless self-love, the riddle of the title became clear. It’s the parable of all time. Eden, Eve, and the Apple: The First Dessert. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Botanical Art, Collage, Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, The Garden Tagged With: 2022 Arts Pacific Northwest, botanical drawing, collage art, Eat Dessert First, museo gallery, The Fall, The Garden of Eden

Iskra in A Wing and A Prayer at Museo Gallery

January 19, 2021 by Iskra Leave a Comment

A Wing and a Prayer at Museo Gallery

I am excited to be part of A WING AND A PRAYER opening at Museo Gallery January 20th, with artists Elena Korakianitou, Michael Dickter, Faith Scott Jessup and Jean Whitesavage.

“A celebration of our ultimate optimism for our world, our embrace of transformation, and a recognition that we may need a little divine help along the way.  Opening on a significant day both politically and astrologically, January 20th,  Museo hopes that this show will encourage peace and hope.”

Museo is open 11-6 Thursday through Monday.
Tuesdays & Wednesdays by chance, or by appointment.

The show will continue through March 1st.

MUSEO GALLERY
215 First Street | P O Box 548
Langley, WA 98260
360.221.7737
museo@whidbey.com

I will be showing my recent series of limited edition images based on statues of angels, some available framed or mounted on panel, and others available unframed at the gallery or through the Gallery website. The language of statues is one of many ways I’ve explored the distance between sky and earth. This piece, a variation on the myth of Icarus, will be available at the gallery to see in person.

Icarus 3 by Iskra
Icarus 3, © Iskra Fine Art, variant edition print, several sizes, available to see now at Museo.

If you have the time to make a day of it I suggest a walk on Double Bluff. Eastern clouds may take their shape from the land, but island clouds listen only to the sky.

Cloud forms at Double Bluff Whidbey Island by Iskra
Cloud Forms, Double Bluff ©Iskra Fine Art

Filed Under: Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Photography, The Spiritual in Art Tagged With: A Wing and A Prayer, angel art, Celestial themes, Double Bluff Beach, Iskra Fine Art Gallery shows, Langley Art Shows, museo gallery, wings

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

Terrain and Digital Maneuvers: Two Shows Opening in October

September 29, 2018 by Iskra Leave a Comment

My work will be in two new group shows opening this week. I am very curious to see how my fellow artists interpret Terrain: Exploring a Common Ground, at Museo Gallery on Whidbey Island. “Terrain” is one of those lovely words you just want to savor with a good beaujolais and fresh bread ripped, not sliced. Clay, dirt, wind, grass, and everything that lies above and below. My pieces in this show explore two different landscapes, the canyon light of city streets and the messy edge where city and country collide. Museo Gallery is in Langley, Whidbey Island, 215 First Street, 98260. The opening is Saturday October 6th from 5-7 and the show continues through October 28th. Hours: 11-5 Wednesday – Monday, Sunday 12-5.

Relic Iskra Print
“Relic,” archival pigment print, 15 x 15 inches

Digital Maneuvers at SAM Gallery presents Kate Sweeney, Troy Gua, Stephen Rock and me, in a show exploring the paths from analog to digital and back again, each of us testing the boundaries of media in different ways. This is the first time I have shown Flatbed, inspired by one of my helpless crushes on a large Industrial Object.

Flatbed print by Iskra
“Flatbed,” archival pigment print, 22×30 inches

I hope to see you at the opening this First Thursday, October 4, 6-7:30 SAM Gallery, 1300 1st Ave, 98101.

Upcoming, some surprises. I hosted the Port of Seattle for a video interview in my studio this week – Yikes!  It’s a long trail from the inner space of making art to talking to the public in front of a camera. (Note to self: Writing is not the same as talking. Maybe I should get out more and practice?) Speaking of which, if you have not yet made it to Taste Restaurant to see ColorBath, give me a shout, and I will be happy to meet you there and explain it all over a glass of wine.

Filed Under: Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past Tagged With: Digital Maneuvers, Iskra shows, museo gallery, Port of Seattle, SAM Gallery, Terrain Exploring a Common Ground, Whidbey Island Art

LaConner & Whidbey Island Summer Art Finds (Roadtrip!)

July 2, 2017 by Iskra 1 Comment

artis roadtrip in the Skagit by Iskra
Pacific Northwest Pastorale, with Lombardy poplar (that would be a French tree….)

Let’s say you kick back for the 4th and check your social media and once again all your friends are posting vineyard photos of the South of France and the rest of them are gloating about having immigrated to Canada. You could be consumed with a terrible envy, or you could do what we did and make a tiny trip up the road and around the Sound and come back sated with beauty right here in the Pacific Northwest. Instead of waiting three hours in a ferry line we started the weekend art tour by skipping up the road to LaConner by way of Conway. The plain, thrilling ungentrified beauty of the Skagit reminded me there is life outside of Crane City and brooding about the hyperventilated cost of a 175 square foot room with a bed. Did I mention those trees in the photo above are French?

Also, there are cats. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Road Trips Tagged With: Claudia Pettis, Deloss Webber, Meg Holgate, museo gallery, Northwest art news, pacific northwest summer, PNW art, RoadTrip, Skagit art tour, Whiting Tennis

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I am getting ready to start a new photographic-bas I am getting ready to start a new photographic-based series that I’ll be working on for the next six months. A friend here on Instagram gave me these praying hands years and years ago. They are quietly gaudy, and awful and simultaneously completely wonderful. I see them every day when I wake up in a house that I will confess is filled with devotional objects. This image is composed of two photographs, the sculpture and a street kiosk. When I walk down the streets, I cannot resist documenting kiosks, particularly when they are empty. The shredded strange paint residues and the battered metal frames are just waiting to be re-purposed as though the entire street was my personal goodwill junk department. Or you could call it a library. My cross training for the series is reading Virginia Woolfs stream of consciousness, novel, Mrs. Dalloway. Virginia Woolf’s writing gives an artist permission to own their interior world. Of course, letting the exterior world in on the secret can be quite a task. That is, what studio time is for…
I am thankful today for the symmetries of friendsh I am thankful today for the symmetries of friendship, even when they are asymmetric; for the guidance of those in the temple, who have practiced for years and send us their notes and their breathing lessons; thankful for the leaf that my friend saved for me of all the leaves in her neighborhood and thankful to the man who came yesterday when my back had laid me flat to sweep and to blow, as he noted in his documentation, 95% of the leaves in my garden, into piles then compressed with military precision into small liftable bundles stacked like muffins under the eaves. Now we can look out at the spare empty spaces. Feel the freedom of silence and space between branches. Rest, as growth goes quiet and invisible in the best growing season of the year.

May your Thanksgiving be bright✨
Artist Reception at SAM Gallery tomorrow, Seattle Artist Reception at SAM Gallery tomorrow, Seattle Art Museum First Avenue level, 2-4! Hope to see you there for our group show celebrating 50 years(!) This piece is called Water Kimono, a reverie on the ever-changing patterns of light on water.
My Narnia My Narnia
Last night I tried to get through more than 20 min Last night I tried to get through more than 20 minutes of the Golden Bachelor. It was Pickleball-date afternoon. The Golden Bachelor, truly a lovely man to observe and listen to under normal circumstances delivered this line: “Pickleball is a regular part of my life. Any woman who is going to share my life must also share Pickleball.” 

God help us. I’ve never been able to hit a ball with a paddle or a sock or a bat or anything else. Combat sports, like music, are abstract. No matter how much I pre-visualize the zen moment, the ball somehow remains in the air unrelated to my weapon of choice. I want to see the next Golden Bachelor rewritten for painters. “He said, fingering the smear of cadmium on his eyebrow, “Painting is a very big part of my life, and any woman who marries me is going to have to live with Painting.” Will he also say “I hope she paints too?” And we’ll have a full time maid and cook? Or will he say “She must be able to bring me my pipe and my slipper at the end of the day. And take the dogs for long walks alone while I try to decide the color of the sky?”

Feel free to write the script below.
A time and memory experiment. Photography captures A time and memory experiment. Photography captures a moment in light. You put the moment away for 30 years, lose the album several times, and then it resurfaces, the old analog print in perfect form. What happens if the small print is then scanned and enlarged? And revisited as the half-forgotten? This image from Koyasan was printed small in the first run and did not look like much of anything. On 17 x 22 it is lovely, and at full size of 24 x 36 it is something else altogether. Unlike enlargements of digital photographs analog images are simply soft, without the artifacts of pixel interpolation. How curious that what was originally 4x6 looks best at least 400% larger.

Photography is such a powerful tool to explore memory and what it means to forget and remember. The idea that we must live authentically in the “Now” (or that there IS a “now” unfiltered by the past) is perplexing for a meaning seeker. I always have a memory, no matter how small and distant, crumpled in my back pocket. Perhaps like homeopathic tinctures the smaller the memory the more space it can fill.

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