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Check out the latest from the Studio Visits on the City Arts Blog.

Lauren Klenow‘s delicate visual sensibility translates into a world of wonder in her assemblages and sculptures. She finds rocks, scraps, uses wax and other items, at times re-purposes her old sculptures to make new treasures and shows us the simplicity of beauty that the artist’s eye can see. While installing her show for Gallery 40, curated by Todd Jannausch, in my backyard, I got a sneak peek of her exhibit that goes up at PrintZero studios tonight.

One of my favorite works is this little truck. She found the rock and the wood with nails as two separate pieces on the beach one day. Her eye saw them, her brain put them together, her vision shared the magic. Check out her stuff tonight! One Night Only! August 14 – Art Attack.

In honor of the 30th anniversary of the film Xanadu, released in August of 1980, I have curated a show at SOIL, written an essay for City Arts magazine, and on August 8th there will be a screening at Print Zero Studios. I hope you can check out some of the crazy magical fun going on this month!

This past Saturday I caught a ride with SOIL member Saya Moriyasu to the New Members talk. 7 of the 10 new members were present to share about their work. Each person articulated with ease about what they do as artists. I often enjoy artist talks, partly because I am an artist, but I think too, that the art can take on another level of meaning based on conversations around it. Here’s a brief synopsis of what I saw and heard from Saturday July 10^th, 2010 at SOIL.

Susanna Bluhm is working on a series of paintings based on her interpretation of The Song of Solomon; also known as The Song of Songs. Her paintings are meant to create new visual representations of the biblical work. In dealing with this love story that takes place within a lush paradise, she is using a rich palette and working on abstract landscapes. She mentioned that people can know the meaning or not, and if they only see an abstract landscape that is fine. Her paintings are vibrant and flat, and on closer view deep and luscious. In the end she plans to create 40 paintings for the entirety of the project.

Chris Buening discussed his work as portraits that are often about memories. He draws and outlines with whiteout, then cuts shapes to make new forms within the topography of the surface. He also talked about using whiteout as a metaphor for covering up life’s mistakes. His work reminds me of complex explosions as seen under an electron microscope. For me his use of layering, hiding, and cutting away is both formally and metaphorically beautiful.

In Cable Griffith‘s work he is inventing, improvising and exploring elements of control. He said, When do you stop? How do you organize? Both the aquarium piece and the painting are using flattened shapes, but he extends the flatness. In the aquarium, the layering of panels creates a heightened dimensional space; he calls it a thriving artificial environment. In his painting titled The Mountain, he is playing off old renditions of the Tower of Babel paintings, and commenting on what he calls the Tower of Academic Painting. It is also a playful study of space, piles, and it reminds me of the children’s book Hope for the Flowers. I think the comparison might be fitting in terms of where, as artists, we think we are supposed to go, and where we are really able to go, and accepting, creating and living life.

In general, Tim Cross uses basic materials like pencils and paper, but for the SOIL show he shared some amazing transparencies on light boxes. Each of them had to do with some type of transportation and failure. One was a plane crash the other a bridge under construction. In his work he considers breakdown, failure, and re-building, like Beuning’s work, also a nice metaphor for life. I see it as a re-use or possible expansion of materials. Tim is one of those artists who takes on the exploration of man in his industrial environment, and uses industry to promote thought and ponder the beauty, creative and destructive forces within and around us.

Derrick Jefferies reminds me of the artist Tim Hawkinson. He’s interested in nature, biology and the human body. During a root canal, I wanted to watch the process with a mirror and was asked if I was either a scientist or an artist. Perhaps because we like to thoroughly examine our world, artists can be classified as scientists. In Jefferies work he layers and builds materials hoping to transform and perhaps transcend the object and image, he said, your eyes can’t grasp it, what they see is not what the mind comprehends. Some folks may wonder, “What is that?” He likes and encourages the guessing games. Often using simple materials like chewing gum and latex gloves, he seems to be making internal fleshy organs as a way to turn ourselves inside-out, and possibly create an entry into exploring some of our deepest fears about our own sexuality, identity, and humanity.

Curtis Erlinger‘s background in collage gives him multiple access points to glue concepts together. Using photography, painting and time-based video he makes work about the past, present and future. He discussed his painting based on an old negative his mother had taken. On the opposite wall he presented a live projection on a monitor, in between the painting and the monitor is a camera that is shooting the painting and then sending a live feed of the inverted positive image to the monitor. Erlinger is thoughtful and curious in considering the past before he was born. In listening to him share about nostalgia and the potential dangers there in, it had me thinking of my past, the potentiality of living in the present, while also considering future endeavors. I often ponder the richness of knowing where I came from and digging deep can offer treasures as well as a skeleton or two. Erlinger mentioned that he is trying to illuminate and retrace the past, and in doing so he owns it.

The last to share was Timea Tihanyi. Ellen Ziegler, the fabulous MC of talk, first let us know that Tihanyi had studied medicine before her studies in art. Again here’s the science and art connection. She discussed her work in relation to the physical experience of being in the body. In sculpture, there can be a multitude of variables and unknowns, she related this openness and organic quality of those unknowns to the organic quality of our own bodies. Explaining that her previous education was in neuropsychology made sense. Her sculpture, consisting of toothpicks dipped in plaster and set betweens panels of pink insulation, reminded me of illustrations of synapses firing in the brain. Tihanyi has a delicate yet powerful sensibility with materials and the subject matter. The height of her piece matching her own height; perhaps suggests a self-portrait that shows strength, malleability and fragility, like our own tenuous human experience.

Not present but also new to SOIL are Kirk Lang, Joey Veltkamp, and Philip Miner.

End of June I finished my MFA in Visual Art through the Art Institute of Boston @ Lesley University. This past residency I presented work, defended my thesis and gave a final talk/lecture/performance that included a sing along. There were many fine aspects on this final visit, one of the highlights was an elective seminar with Cesare Peitroiusti, a brilliant artist/thinker/person who challenged us to re-think the USE of items/ideas/encounters and as a class we discussed all sorts of notions in relation to art/life/everything. Other highlights included some wonderful objects created by my colleagues. See below for a few images from the residency. And check the gallery link to the side for more.

Last weekend it was a tiny bone hand, yesterday three mystery shoes. My dear friend Todd J. witnessed the entirety of The Shoe Story, so if this sounds like the ramblings of a loon, you can verify with him. The first one appeared at my middle school. Just a little lonely green shoe, stuck outside a locker. Waiting, wanting, curious perhaps. I saw it on the floor as we walked down the music hallway. We came to school on saturday to get a few things from my classroom. I am leaving my teaching position in middle school to move to a high school in the fall. I thought the shoe was poignant and a little sad.

After clearing out a car load of things (and there will be more sessions for clearing out, but not until early July) we headed over to Belltown to the Form/Space Atelier run by Paul Pauper. He gave us a tour of the show and then we visited The Underground, a fabulous venue for The Punk Rock Flea Market and various other shows. It was there that I saw this little blue shoe hanging from the latch to the back door. Odd, lovely still life, and it’s curious visual similarity to the first shoe, left me wandering, is this a sign?

Then a bit later, we’re in Georgetown for Art Attack, the super-great 2nd Saturday Art Walk in the heart of the Georgetown neighborhood of Seattle. Now, the third shoe was even more mysterious. When I saw it, I knew this had to be about something. Three little lonely shoes in one day? This one was high up on a pole, on a nail, that pierced a book onto a phone pole. A little black Converse, hanging in the air. Todd lifted me onto his shoulders to snap the photo. What could all the shoes mean?

all images taken with my cellphone.

I found this tiny bone hand in my driveway yesterday. Some friends were outside working and I spotted it in the dirt. At first it scared me and I didn’t want to touch it. One friend dug it out, as he released it from the soil I stuck out my hand to take it and then I knew it was sign. So many hands have helped me, so many connections, like tiny bones we are forever linked. I know it must seem morbid…but I think it’s beautiful too.

Ambrotype wet-plate photo by Daniel Carrillo

Tomorrow Night. Look for a one-night only exhibit at the Gallery 40 mobile space on the corner of Prefontaine, Yesler, and S. Washington. Photographer Todd Jannaucsh will be showing new photographs and musician Caleb Thompson will be accompanying with live music. Todd was recently awarded an Individual Artists’ Project grant from 4Culture to fund the Gallery 40 installation. He’ll be using the funds to help support and showcase artists throughout the Summer and into part of the Fall. Read more about Gallery 40 at their website Gallery40.com.

Walking around Seattle with his Hasselblad, Todd takes long exposures of what he sees and perhaps what many of us don’t see. He calls the show “Welcome to Fold City,” to view more of his work go to his website: toddjanausch.com

Check out the latest studio visit with artist extraordinaire – Robert Hardgrave – Click the picture to go to the CAB (City Arts Blog)