Anne Siems by Anne Siems

Last week after delivering a painting to a friend, I stopped by to see Anne Siems’s exhibit at the Thurston Gallery in Pioneer Square. Luckily, the owner was there a little early so I was able view the exhibit undisturbed and at great length, which her paintings require. They are even more amazing in person. Today I discovered that she has self-published a book of her favorite paintings through Blurb. I can’t afford one of her paintings, but I can order this and I have.

Anne Siems by Anne Siems.

I adore Lisa G.

Emotion and imagination drive self-taught painter, Lisa G., to create her whimsical paintings. She is passionate about color and loves to create short stories with each wildly creative, often humorous painting. Fish and birds are reoccurring symbols in her paintings. Born in Montreal, she now lives near Paris in Sartrouville. The artist says that her main topics include love, peace, tolerance and freedom and the act of painting is to her, breathing. She takes mine away with her body of work. You can see more of Lisa’s work on her blog and to translate it from French go here.

The Zealot and the Excessively Pious Person

Red Feathers

The Blue Wave-Those Which I like

I want to thank Lisa for giving me permission to share some of her work. You can Like her on Facebook here.

Three Sisters

I’d like you to meet Julia, Celia and Beryl, three sisters who showed up this weekend as I was playing around with various supplies in preparation for Jane Davenport’s Joynal online class.

Julia

Celia

Beryl

Work in Plaster

Just finished my first painting in plaster and I am so excited about this method. While at Artfest, I purchased Stephanie Lee and Judy Wise’s Plaster Studio E-Book. What a wonderful gift I gave myself! It’s fabulous and so wonderful to hear them share their extensive knowledge. I did get to meet them as they and Katie Kendrick sat quietly at a table on the side in my Misty Mawn Portrait Class. I had three of my plastic stencil “trades” left and gave each of them one. Mindy, too, of course.

I’ve got four more plaster boards drying in the garage and can’t wait to start the next lesson. Thank you Stephanie and Judy for opening open a whole new world to play in.

The Harlot and A Lord

The Harlot

Lord Hapton

Two more layered transparent pieces. Each piece has three layers of images.

Sage

My new assemblage box inspired by the work of Portland assemblage artist, Greg Hanson. Greg and five other artists were recently awarded grants to glean materials from Portland’s Metro Central Station (aka “the dump”) for six months. Each artist will produce 10 pieces from the materials that they find and will show collectively at Portland’s Disjecta in September 2012. Note to Mary, let’s put it on the calendar.

Artist Belen Segarra

Meet illustrator Belen Segarra, a young illustrator from Valencia, Spain. Her whimsical work is just delightful.

Flores, lágrimas y tiendas de lámparas

Groenlandia: Laura

Rojo, Postcards from Paris

I found her on Natalie Walstein’s The Flood, Creative Arts and Cultural Zine and Blog.

You can see more of Belen’s work in her Portfolio or on her blog.

Farewell to Artfest

This year’s Artfest was my last, since the organizers, Teesha and Tracy Moore, have decided that they are moving on to something bigger and better. As this is one of the largest art gatherings across the country, if not the biggest, we are all waiting to see how they will top this.

Tracy and Teesha Moore at the opening ceremony.

My first Artfest was last year and since then I have stayed in touch with a few people including Cheryl McCloud, Sunny Carvalho, Mindy Lacefield and Andrea Matus (deMeng).  Cheryl and Sunny are from out of state so they flew to Portland to visit before traveling to Port Townsend for Artfest. My friend, Mary Kinney, and I drove down from Gig Harbor and met them in the Alberta District where we met a few other former Artfesters,  and Michelle Allen and Janne Robberstad (all the way from Norway).

After a brief stop at Scrap, we drove to Jesse Reno and Lana Guerra’s studio.

Jesse in his studio. I had to get a picture of his easel that he made to show my husband
--a future project?!

Lana Guerra

Jesse describing his new treasure and where it might fit--it's going to be BIG.

We then traveled across the bridge to Vancouver, WA to visit Michelle in her beautiful new home and studio which I think is destined to be in Where Women Create.

Pictured from left to right, Sunny Carvalho, Michelle Allen, Janne Robberstad,
Mary Kinney and Cheryl McCloud (sitting)

I learned so much from Andrea Matus last year that I signed up again for her Collage the Translucent class and here are the treasures that I made.  I really love Andrea’s approach to her art and learn a lot from her. I am quite pleased with how these turned out and since there are three layers, it is very difficult to photograph.

My second class was with Mindy Lacefield’s Expressive Color class and here is what I made in that class

I finished with Misty Mawn in her portraits class.

Some of this year’s activities included Lana performing a belly dance for us, ending with her throwing her scarf over Sunny’s shoulders and Michael DeMeng and Jesse opening Purgatorio, Pardisio at Artisans, a local gallery in Port Townsend.

Capturing Jesse before he made his "picture face" with Sunny Carvalho (left)
and Cheryl McCloud (right)

The talented Sunny Carvalho in her one-of-a-kind sweater with Cheryl McCloud

My treasures made by Sunny.

I ended this monumental event but getting a speeding ticket on the way out of town just outside of Fort Worden where the local police were obviously revenue generating that night.

Ciao, Artfest!

Drawing a Drawing 365 by Michael Shapcott

Drawing a Drawing 365 by Michael Shapcott — Kickstarter.

Painter Michel Shapcott is celebrating his 30th birthday by funding his livelihood in a very unique fashion. He has asked for pledges at different levels that will fund the making of an instructive video of his painting method from creation to finality. To do this he has pledged to draw a drawing every day for a year and for a certain pledge level, the drawing can be of you or the person of your choice. Oh yes, and he sings and plays a guitar, too, also part of his lively character. His goal was to raise $10,000 and as of today, he has raised (including a  pledge from me) over $26,000 with 17 more days to go. It’s an interesting concept, and I’m always one to support someone who is “half a bubble off” (referring to the bubble on a level). I think his paintings are beautiful and I can’t wait to see the video.

Update: At the end of the campaign, Michael raised $62,736 and it is the number one Most Funded Kickstarter in the Painting Category. Congratulations, Michael, and now get to work!

Agostino Iacurci

"Art Conventional 2"

Working five stories high in a lift, Agostino Iacurci paints colorful murals to bring public art into the urban fabric in redeveloping Rome’s recovering areas. An acclaimed muralist and illustrator, he started as a graffiti artist at age 12 in Foggia, Italy, and now at 26 he is an assistant professor at IED, the European Institute of Design. He also collaborates as a lecturer in illustration at Workshop B5, his alma mater at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome where he now lives.

His work includes huge murals in public spaces from the Saba School in Algeria, two huge installations at the Rebibbia maximum prison, to working with Waves, an organization that focuses on Public art and urban renewal, developing and promoting creative talent, and educating and involving citizens to improve the space in which they live. Iacurci’s work has been shown in exhibitions in Italy, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States.

"Rome 3"

"Fish 'N Kids," Port River, Rome

"Over the Rain" is a 3x2 m panel made for the Contest for Urban Art Curated by Walls at Circo Massimo, Rome, 2011

I love the juxtaposition of the modern art in this exhibit to the scaffolding and construction going on behind the installation, right down to the shadows in the background that look like people hovering over the site.

Iacurci says that he builds illustrations on which everyone can build his or her own novel. He believes his own work “is about human relationships seen from an ironic viewpoint.” You can read more about Iacurci here, and at The Citrus Report an article in January written by Ronnie Wrest. You may want to take a moment to search this interesting website as well.

In this video you can see Iacurci and five other artists in the Making of Outdoor Urban Art Festival 2011 in Rome, Italy.

Outdoor – Urban Art festival 2011 – making of from NUfactory on Vimeo.

Can you imagine installations like these in your hometown? That would be way cool. Bellissima!