January Class Offerings

The following classes are being offered at the Phoenix Center for the Arts, 1202 N. 3rd Street.  Click here to register.


WHAT A RELIEF!

In this class we will explore mark-making and alternative materials - gomuban, borco board and sintra.  Beginners are welcome!  This low stress, meditative endeavor: drawing, carving, inking and printing will help you recover from all the holiday craziness.  Five week sessions beginning Thursday, January 10th 1-4 pm or 6-9 pm. All materials provided. For adults of all skill levels. 

SOLARPLATE ETCHING

Turn those drawings or photos into artistic masterpieces! In this class, you will learn how to take your drawing or a photo you have taken and turn it into a fine art etching. You will learn the non-toxic etching process and how to put the artist's "hand" into your image. Most materials provided. Paper and additional plates can be purchased from instructor. For adults of all skill levels. 
Five Wednesdays beginning January 9th 1-5pm or six Saturdays January 12th from 9am-12pm.

2 COLOR REDUCTION RELIEF 

Forget linoleum! Discover a new and wonderful relief printmaking surface: Gomuban. In this hands on printmaking class, you will learn to make the complicated simple in producing a 10 print edition of your two colored image through the carving and inking of the buttery Gomuban. For adults of all skill levels. All materials provided. Six Saturdays beginning
January 12th from 1-4pm.

Phoenix Center for the Arts - Teaching Update

 TRY ME! SOLARPLATE ETCHING

It's been awhile since I had students with no art training.  Tonight I had four and their solarplate etchings were all so different and successful that it made me love printmaking all the more.  It was a "Try Me" class at the Phoenix Center for the Arts and offered through Groupon.  They brought in photos, we discusseD the best ones to use, used a copy machine to size and adjust the density, and made transparencies from which the plates were made.  Then they inked, wiped and printed editions of two.  Three hours and done.  I am hoping they got the print bug, even a little.

TRY ME! RELIEF PRINTMAKING

Yesterday I had a makeup session for a "Try Me" relief class and my student chose a challenging image of someone's dearly departed pet poodle.  She had a great attitude and understood that even if it isn't perfect, it  is an artistic interpretation that in the end really looked great.  Another really nice first effort.  Cute, isn't it?

CLASSES START IN JANUARY

I am teaching 5 week sessions of Relief and Solarplate at different times and dates so check out the schedule and see if any fit into your schedule.  Click here to see the offerings.

FIRST FRIDAY DECEMBER 7

The teachers at the Phoenix Center are featured in the Art Gallery this month.  The reception is 7-9 pm Friday night which is also the kickoff  to the Phoenix Festival of the Arts.  Come by to see the art and

stop in the print studio.  I will be printing for fun tomorrow night!

HOLIDAY SALE AT FIVE15 ARTS GALLERY

AVOID THOSE MALL CROWDS!

HOLIDAY SALE AT FIVE15 ARTS GALLERY

and last 3 days of IN, OUT AND UNDER

515 E. Roosevelt

THIS FRIDAY, SATURDAY AND SUNDAY

11 AM TO 5 PM

Holiday sale: featuring paintings, unframed hand-pulled prints and

handcrafted jewelry by AZ artists Donna Atwood, Diana Hartley, Marlys Kubicek,

Wendy Willis; and CA artist, Nancy Willis.

(Nancy will be at the gallery on Saturday.

Diana will be there on Sunday.  I will be there Friday

and Saturday.  Donna will be there all 3 days.)

Third Friday Reception at Five15 Arts Gallery

I had a great time at the reception last night.  IN, OUT AND UNDER received lots of positive comments and I felt gratified.  I appreciate my friends, students and collectors, for coming to share in my excitement and visit a spell.  I was especially happy that Daisy and Lindsay came with their families.  These kids provided me with two days of fun in my pool, while I took pics of their play and enjoyment of just being in cool water on a hot day.  Here are some photos from last night.

 

 

My favorite muse, Daisy, in front of two prints she inspired me to make.

My latest muse, Lindsay, in front of her underwater image.

Try Me! Classes at the Phoenix Center for the Arts

The Phoenix Center for the Arts is offering 3 hours mini classes to introduce students to new media.  If you would like to learn a new printmaking technique, I am teaching single color relief and solarplate etching.
Here is a link to see all the Try Me! classes.  They are listed for $60 but when you call in ask for the Groupon rate and it will only be $29.  My classes are at the end of the list so keep scrolling.

IN, OUT AND UNDER Opens Friday

Marlys Kubicek and Catherine Ruane helped me hang my show today (with an emergency call for assistance to Catherine's son Aaron, who muscled screws into the formidable brick wall.)  I am so grateful for their cheerful assistance.  

In, Out and Under, opens Friday at 515 Arts Gallery, 515 E. Roosevelt in Phoenix. I will be there from 6 - 10pm Friday and 1-5pm Saturday. If you are out and about, come by and say hello!  

IN, OUT AND UNDER

I have a one-person show at Five15 Arts Gallery in Phoenix for the month of November.  So you are all invited to the First Friday opening, November 2nd or the Third Friday Artist Reception November 16th.  Things will be hopping at 515 East Roosevelt, so stop by and say hello and see what I have been up to lately.  If Friday nights are not your thing, I will be at the gallery for regular Saturday hours 1-5 every Saturday in the month.

New House and Studio

We got the keys to our new home yesterday!  Hooray!  We aren't moving right away but will before the end of the month.  The house is all set and now the studio is ready for move-in too with a fresh coat of white paint and floor mopping.  Here are pre-paint/clean pics of the studio space.  The before pics, as it were.  

Fast Forward - Five

And the errors just keep on coming.  I don't want to sound like I am complaining because I make mistakes on every print.  On this one, I marvel at each print I pull with each color, noticing how off the registration is or how that layer improved the previous errors.  In my zen cutting mode today, listening to old podcasts of "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me", I cut away a whole color i hadn't printed yet.  OOPS. But I am plugging on...very curious to see how many will be acceptable in the end.  I am printing 13 but know at this point that several are beyond saving.  Honestly, I will be happy with one.  I am jumping ahead from my last photo of Color 5 to 10 completed colors.  I have 5 more to go.

Closing In

We had our home inspection on our new home and agreed that we were ready to close.  We sign papers Tuesday and get the keys Wednesday!  We are going to move all the art stuff on Saturday (by we I mean the movers)...and until then I am hoping to finish the reduction print of Dad and Nancy.  I printed colors 3 and 4 yesterday and color 5 today (Saturday).  The goal is to do two colors everyday...trusting in cobalt drier to keep me on schedule.  Once all my art is moved from storage, I can find the work that needs to go to the framer for my exhibition in November.  My one person show opens November 2nd at Five15 Arts Gallery in Phoenix:  In, Out and Under.  More on that later.

Also, my stepson, Chris Isaacs is getting married in San Francisco to his lovely fiance, Mika, who has finally arrived from Japan for good with her fiance visa.  They are getting married where Steve and I married - City Hall in SF on November 1st.  So I will make a quickie trip right before my opening.

But first we need to pack our apartment and move into the new house.

New Print in Process!

Two colors down

I am very excited to be printing again.  It is another print I feel strongly about, a print of my sister and my Dad.  It is meant to be a companion piece to a print I did of my sister and my Mom.  I don't know how many colors there will be in the end (WHAT?) because I am trying a new method this time...I have already encountered some big problems but hope I can figure out resolutions that will save the print.  For now I will post some images of my process and progress.

Summer to Fall Exhibition Openings

I have a couple of exhibitions opening in the next few months.  First up will be the "Water: An Exploration in Prints" exhibition at Tohono Chul in Tucson.  They hang the show on Monday, and it will be up until November 11th.  This is a group exhibition with many members of the Arizona Print Group also contributing.  I have 2 pieces in the show (see last post.)

Next up will be the "Arizona Print Group:  Celebrating Ten Years" Exhibition at Glendale Community College.  This runs from September 10 - October 3.  See sidebar for more details.   This APG exhibition will travel then to Paradise Valley Community College in November and to Yavapai Community College in January 2013.  This is a beautiful print show which I hope you will get to see at one of these locations.

Lastly, my solo exhibition at Five15 Arts Gallery in November now has a title:  "In, Out and Under".  The First Friday opening is November 2nd and the collector reception is Friday, November 16th.  I have some Saturday events at the gallery planned during that month, so keep reading my blogposts to see what's going to happen next!

Impromptu Studio Visit with Kathryn Polk

Heartbroken II

I moved too much, packed away so much and suddenly when it came time to send off my two prints which had been selected for the Water themed exhibition at Tohono Chul in Tucson, I couldn't find one of them.  Looked in the storage space with art from my last studio and all over our little apartment...not found!  Edie at  Tohono Chul was understanding and let me substitute another print.  But my delay meant I needed to drive the work down to get it there in time.  Temporarily lost is Heartbroken II.

Luckily for me, Marlys agreed to go with me and at 7:30 this morning off we headed for Tucson.  We love these girl-trip just-a-coupl'a-artists moments in time - especially since we no longer share a studio.  So we had dedicated time to catch up and collaborate over the whole life spectrum: our recent moves, our aging doggies, our upcoming one person shows at 515 Arts Gallery and our other work problems, scheduling problems, life problems.  We had an errand to run for Marlys and afterwards we decided to call Kathryn Polk and see if she would be up for lunch.  Not really, she said, but come over and say hi.  So we ended up with a lovely studio visit.  Kathryn is one of my hero artists.  Printmakers who print like crazy and contribute to the betterment of the print world through their art and educating others.  I connect to her prints on very personal levels and am awed by her drawing skill.  I follow her blog so I don't feel disconnected, but it feels so nice to get some face time in this digital age!

Kathryn Polk work in progress.

The visit was unplanned and provided such a fun, rich memory - seems everytime we go to Tucson we have this kind of experience.  So thanks to Kathryn for letting us come and hang out and ogle her fabulous art and artifacts (appropriated this photo from her website non-indigenouswoman.com).  LOVE her.  Beautiful inside and out, funny, smart and a highly talented printmaker/painter.

We left her to print and had lunch at Feast on Speedway (OMG that was wonderful!) and dropped off my prints at Tohono Chul.  We drove home with big puffy white clouds dotting the big, blue sky.

It was a good day.  Oh yeah, Steve and I also bought a house today.  The seller agreed to our counteroffer and signed on the dotted line!  More on this later. 

Letting off Steam

 August heat can really get to those of us who can't escape to Idaho or San Diego or Colorado.  But sometimes there is a reward for being here.  First Friday at 515 Arts Gallery was such an event.  Even with air conditioning and lots of fans, the crowds made it downright sizzling inside.  Enjoyed a nice steady stream of the most interesting people for people-watching...saw old, old friends from a past life, and some who are quickly becoming new friends.  The artists of 515 invited 5 artists to join them in showing a 12 x 12 piece and hung their little grouping together.  Prices were set by each artist.  The work ranges from $90-$600 and several pieces have already been snapped up!  I am missing a few pieces from these photos, so you have to come in to see them in person!  The gallery is open Saturdays from 1-5 and Third Friday will be a special reception from 6 to 10 pm.  All are welcome!  Friday, August 17th at 515 Arts Gallery, 515 E. Roosevelt, Phoenix, AZ

Making Art At Last

I hadn't realized it until I finally got back into the studio, I hadn't printed since JANUARY.  A whole half a year lost to family passages and selling our house, moving into a temporary apartment and moving out my studio and into storage.  It is almost all over.  For now though, I am back at the press.  I planned a two color reduction print. But when I started printing,  I had so much fun experimenting I ended up with a 3 to 5 color edition where each of the 13 prints is different from the next.  It is what is known as a variable edition.  It's 8" x 10" and is named "Diving Miss Daisy."

"515 TO THE POWER OF 5"

We artists of the 515 Arts Gallery have each invited 5 other local artists to exhibit a 12" x 12" piece during the month of August.  My invited artists are Kimberley Boege, Manuel Burruel, Kimberly Harris, Diana Hartley and Rossitza Todorova.  I have so much respect for these artists, their passion for their work, the fun and involvement they have in LIFE.  Many of us have created new work for this exhibition so stop by  to see 60 works by 60 different local artists.  First and/or Third Friday in August and all August Saturdays from 1 to 5:00 pm at 515 E. Roosevelt in downtown Phoenix. 

 I had planned another 2 color reduction which ended up being a 5 color reduction/collage.  Also variable, a tad.