On the way back to the Coast from Yosemite, Mr. F and I decided to spend the day in Napa Valley to do a little wine tasting. Serendipitously, we happened to pass through St. Helena where there were a few galleries I couldn’t wait to peruse. As we walked into Caldwell Snyder Gallery, Mr. F and I were both immediately drawn to the enigmatic work of Cole Morgan.
One of the best things about gallery hopping with Mr. F is when we’re both intrigued by the work of the same artist and share what we love about it. Morgan’s use of circles and shadows, along with carefully crafted yet spontaneously appearing layers give his work an interesting crypticness. Spheres seem to float yet are grounded with shadow, so which is their reality?
“I love going out of my way, beyond what I know, and finding my way back a few extra miles, by another trail, with a compass that argues with the map…nights alone in motels in remote western towns where I know no one and no one I know knows where I am, nights with strange paintings and floral spreads and cable television that furnish a reprieve from my own biography, when in Benjamin’s terms, I have lost myself though I know where I am. Moments when I say to myself as feet or car clear a crest or round a bend, I have never seen this place before. Times when some architectural detail on vista that has escaped me these many years says to me that I never did know where I was, even when I was home.”
I arrived in Toronto, ON at well past midnight. The nights have become my most favorite times both on and off of Toronto Island, where I was a resident artist for the first two weeks of August at Artscape Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts. I was greeted during my first twenty-four hours in my travels by painter, Genevieve Robertson, carpenter and leather worker, Shane Trudell, and of course Finn, their trusty marble-eyed hound. Robertson is a community-based visual artist and painter who paints abstract landscape paintings. We first met in 2012, when we were in residence at The Homestead in Willow, Alaska. It was here that we bonded over a mutual obsession with Payne’s grey, mountains, migration, and abstraction. We began what is now a collaborative, durational project entitled Call and Response.
Binary, 2014
As day became evening during my first twenty-four hours residing and working on Toronto Island, I made my way over to the Toronto Island Fire Parade, an annual celebration organized by Shadowland Troupe. By far, this had to be the best introduction to a locale and residency that I have encountered at this time. The fire had to be at least 25 feet tall, which, we arrived at after following a troupe of paper lantern wielding gymnasts who fire danced as a crowd of onlookers followed them to the beach. Later in the evening as young beach dwellers took to splashing in the blue-black lake, samosas in a pan rested over the coals of what once was the raging bonfire. The sparks flew up as we prodded the glowing coals with sticks and added logs to the fire to keep it going. Not that the fire needed much encouragement.
“Could you paint that campfire?” … “No, it is too beautiful.”, 2014
Lake Ontario appeared to push forward, endlessly into the night, and the moon and stars were covered by clouds. Everything glowed orange, yellow, and red, as light reflections danced across the water’s surface. Everything was at once open and insulated. As I walked away from the fire that night and into the darkness, all felt surrounded in blackness and the soft sounds of laughter and ocean. My walk back to studio was shrouded in green leafy trees whispering softly as if in conversation with the waters that sloshed rhythmically in the distance. This was how my trip began and I thought of Alex Katz’s night paintings. Of temporality, ephemerality, the fleeting nature of night, and the intense shroud that night surrounds you in: a veil that encompasses both comfort and uncertainty.
The days that followed were filled with planning and making. Robertson and I prepared ten works from our Call and Response series for the opening at Milk Glass Co. Since meeting at The Homestead, we had mailed each other small triangular paintings and responded to what was sent by the other. A result of this on-going durational project is some 40 sets of triangles that represent a painterly dialogue between Robertson and myself over the course of two years.
Exhibition install at Milk Glass Co., Toronto, ON, Canada
Images courtesy Genevieve Robertson and Stephanie Clark
Exhibition install at Milk Glass Co., Toronto, ON, Canada
Image courtesy Genevieve Robertson and Stephanie Clark
I spent three days in Toronto aiding in the install of the show. After the opening and a few days spent in the city, I returned to the Island and my studio.
The air on Toronto Island was often thick with water and rain. Through the tall windows of my studio at Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts—which was once a classroom—I could see the full trees. As I made my way to the shore in the early mornings and late evenings, I watched the gulls migrate in traffic patterns across the skies while drifting on air currents. During these evenings, the sun receded into the horizon again and again and night beckoned. The fires along the beaches jumped and popped, exploding into the night’s cool and heavy air. These were nights filled with campfire smoke, hazy purples, murky blackish blues and clean, deep blueish greens that were bordered by horizons that seemed to stretch deeply. It is a darkness that at once retreats and pushes forward into the distance.
Thanks so much, Stephanie for sharing your experience with us! If you’d like to see more of Stephanie Clark’s work, please visit her website. You can also read my thoughts on the Call and Response series in this post, just in case you missed it!
I am always amazed at the way an artist’s mind will interpret a given subject. I believe artists “see” in certain palettes, even when looking at a thing that is obviously one color, the artist feels it as another. Such seems to be the way of Australian abstract painter Jo Davenport, whose expressionistic interpretations of landscape, instead of being literal regurgitations of a scene, are spontaneous bursts of color and mark.
As we transition from summer into autumn, these paintings remind me of how utterly changeable and temporal our landscape is. As branches, grow, then break, soil erodes, flowers seed, and light changes, a given scene will never be exactly the same as it is in one exact moment.
As we get back into the swing of normal life following our week in the wild, I’ve been struck by the obvious artificiality that surrounds so much of our landscape. Plastic flowers where real should be, fountains instead of waterfalls. In their In Pieces series, photographer Dean West and Nathan Sawaya present highly stylized, manipulated representations of modern life.
Upon first glance, these may appear as simple photographs, just as that strip mall facade from a distance might appear to be a row of historic buildings. But on closer inspection, we see that these are carefully crafted tableaus combining West’s photography with Sawaya’s LEGO sculptures to create an unreal reality. ( click on each image to enlarge the photo and see the LEGO elements better ).
To see more from the In Pieces series, please visit the collection website. You can check out more work from Dean West here and Nathan Sawaya here.
While Mr. F and I are camping in Yosemite, I’m resharing some posts you might have missed the first go ’round! Enjoy!
If there is one thing we learned during our time in the desert, it is that Mr. Forager & I are water people. We need to see it, smell it, hear it. Whatever form it make take, whether the ocean, the Puget Sound, a lake, or river, something about it is essential to us. In her work, Rhode Island artist Jessica Pisano invites us into the sense of stillness and timelessness the water gives us.
Watermark, oil and silver leaf on panel, 60×48
In water, there is such a delicate balance. It’s presence, when contained, calms us, but when loosed, it can be an incredibly destructive force. It is essential for growth and life, yet slowly erodes what is in its path.
Fog Ascending, mixed media on panel, 36×36Fog on the Horizon No. 6, oil and silver leaf on panel, 40×30Sea Legs, oil and silver leaf on panel, 36×36
Pisano works her water series in translucent layers, creating a depth that reminds us of how the waters overflow and overtake.
Still Waters, oil and silver leaf on panel, 40×40
If you’d like to see more of Jessica Pisano’s work, please visit her website. You can see her work in person at a number of galleries in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, as well as Stellers Gallery in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL.
While Mr. F and I are camping in Yosemite, I’m resharing some posts you might have missed the first go ’round! Enjoy!
Although I love the cold winter months, for many, January is a tough month to swallow. All the gaiety of the holidays now in the past, it seems such a long time before the warmth of spring and the ease of summer. So on what may be for many of you a cold, dreary Monday, I thought a little sunshine and warmth from German artist Nina Nolte may put a little spring back in your socked & booted step!
Forgotten Dreams, acrylic on canvas, 100x16x4 cm
Nolte’s depictions of stylish ladies lounging by the pool recalls, to me, a modern-day version of traditional European works depicting the wealthy socializing and at play, such as Fragonard or Boucher. The richness of the color ( that yellow! )and details in the folds of fabric bring to mind the sumptuousness of the textiles of Vermeer.
The Days of Wine and Roses, acrylic on canvas, 100x200x4 cm
The works do hearken back in some ways to European traditions, but it is done in such an enchantingly modern, yet elegantly timeless way.
Some of Those Days, acrylic on canvas, 100x160x4 cm
The viewer is given the position of voyeur, thanks especially to the bird’s eye view angle of many of the pieces. It feels a bit like we’re eavesdropping on some really juicy society gossip!
You Must Believe in Spring, acrylic on canvas, 65x65x4As Time Goes By, acrylic on canvas, 100x160x4 cm
To bask in more of Nolte’s bathing beauties, please visit her website. Think of these while you’re sloshing through freezing rain and snow!
Featured image is How Deep is the Ocean?, acrylic on canvas, 1oox200x4 cm. All images are via the artist’s website.
While Mr. F and I are camping in Yosemite, I’m resharing some posts you might have missed the first go ’round! Enjoy!
Our memories of places and experiences are not simply visual recollections of what we saw, but a culmination of all that our senses absorbed at the time. The sounds, the smells, our impressions of and reactions to our surroundings. It is in this intuitive way that Portland artist Karen Silve translates her own memorable moments into abstractions of rich layers, swirls and drips of paint.
Market VI, acrylic on canvas, 50×60
Open air markets are cacophonies of stimulation– full of mounds of colorful produce, people talking, laughing, fragrances of coffee, freshly baked pastries and other yummies– all swirl around us. ( Can’t wait for the market here to open for Spring! ) Silve captures the friendly frenzy in her Market Series. ( above & below )
Market IX, acrylic on canvas, 42×46
For her Sacred Places series, she explores the impact of a different kind of stimulation, those stolen moments found when we are surrounded by the quiet of nature. Being in Portland, Silve has access to some of the most spectacular natural spaces in the world ( can you tell I love Oregon?! ). A favorite of hers, and mine, is the Columbia River Gorge, whose lush and quiet beauty she captures in paint.
Sacred Veil II, acrylic on canvas, 58×68
Through our travels, many times I find myself feeling like I’m a bit more attuned to my location and experiences. Perhaps because we are experiencing new places so often, that each one seems enchanting and special in its own way. But there are also times when we fall into the repetition and monotony of every day life and forget that each place and day is unique. Karen Silve’s intuitive expressions of her experiences are reminding me to be fully in each moment, immersing myself into making of a memory.
Market VII, acrylic on canvas, 50×60Morning Glow, acrylic on canvas, 48×48
To see more of Karen Silve’s work, please visit her website. In Portland, her work can be seen at Portland Fine Art, but check out her website for representing galleries in New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, California and the UK. Featured image is Yellow Rapture, acrylic on canvas, 96×48. All images are via the artist’s website.
While Mr. F and I are camping in Yosemite, I’m resharing some posts you might have missed the first go ’round! Enjoy!
Just the other day, I was saying to Mr. Forager, “Can you believe it’s been almost two years since..” We seem to say that to each other a lot these days. Time just moves really quickly, especially when you’re looking back. In her work, Toronto artist Monica Tap investigates the line between movement and perception, resulting in dazzling abstracted landscapes.
Six Ways from Sunday: Tuesday, oil on canvas, 100×60
Tap bases her work on Quicktime videos of the streaming landscape as seen from the windows of cars, buses, and trains. Reproducing that magical effect of obscured color and light we so enjoyed as kids.. staring out the window as the world passed us by.
Six Ways from Sunday, oil on canvas, 100×60Six Ways from Sunday: Thursday, oil on canvas, 100×60
During those long car or train rides, we couldn’t wait to get where we were going, so often we enjoyed just letting the blur go by. But as adults, I wish I could just stop the blur sometimes and enjoy it for the wonderful time it is.
Six Ways from Sunday: Friday, oil on canvas, 100×60
Is life moving too fast for you these days? Or maybe, like me, you’re impatiently waiting for a change and things don’t seem to be moving fast enough?! Want to see more of Monica Tap’s intriguing landscapes? Visit her website here.
Kickin’ off a new month with a holiday ( for most of us ) and a new Featured Artist, you say? Well, I’ll take that! I’m excited to feature the abstract work of South Florida artist Brenda Hope Zappitell all September long!
These abstract intuitive paintings have such a delicious rhythm to them, they almost seem to pulsate! Brenda paints on a large scale, most paintings clocking in at more than four feet square, giving her work an enveloping nature. There are also subtle layers of paint and beautiful little pockets of color and line that become so much more powerful at a larger size.
To see more of Brenda Hope Zappitell‘s work, please visit her website and watch the blog all month long! Click over to the Artsy Forager Facebook Page to see what gorgeous Zappitell is gracing our cover, along with an album of some of my personal favorites.
Being an artist can be a lonely endeavor. We’re often toiling away alone in the studio for hours, even days at a time! And while we usually need that solitary time to work out our thoughts and feelings into compositions, it can be isolating. We long for an exchange of ideas. Santa Fe artist Stephanie Clark teamed up with fellow artist Genevieve Robertson for a long distance, collaborative project appropriately titled, Call and Response.
In this artistic game of Marco Polo, one of the two artist creates an image, then sends it to the other artist, who creates her own “response”. What I find fascinating is how the two artists are challenged with creating a unique, yet complimentary response to the original call. Some responses repeat colors or patterns, while others hardly reference the call at all yet they still create a harmonious finished composition.
