Foray IV

On the opening night of the Treasure Valley Artists' Alliance's exhibition, Foray IV, it was snowy and icy here.  I, like many other people, did not want to drive in the conditions and did not attend.  I heard it was a quiet gathering.  Because of that, they decided to have a re-opening a couple of weeks ago.  The weather was unseasonably warm and I did go to that one.

Foray IV is the annual, no theme exhibition of the group.  It is at the Boise State Public Radio offices in the Yanke building on Park Center Blvd.  and will be open during office hours through Jan. 30th.

Here are just a few of the artworks.

Houseghost IV by Michael Chambers

(There are some reflections on this piece since it is under glass.)

Dark Matter Phoenix by Mo Mapes

Ethnic Dress by Shirley McCarter

(made with paper)

Mount Rundle by Heather Hainsworth

(There are some reflections on this piece since it is under glass.)

Stockholm Seaside by Dennis Hayzlett

Shady Acres Sunset by Toby Davis

Serene Waters by Laurie Gibbons

photograph

And my artwork, Vertical Nature VI, is also in the exhibition.

If you need a break from holiday activities, you might stop by and take a look.  Remember it is only open during office hours.

Befriending Time and Place

This post is a little late, but there is still time to see Rachel Teannalach's exhibition, Befriending Time and Place, at Gallery Five 18 in Boise.  It is up for the month of November.  You can read her artist statement for the exhibition on her blog.

I attended the opening reception because I was excited to see Rachel's 365 paintings.  Rachel is a plein air painter and she has been painting a small (3" x 3") canvas every day for a year and posting them on her Facebook page as she completed them.  But seeing photos on Facebook doesn't compare to seeing them all together in the gallery and realizing what a great commitment the project was.  It "reads" like an artist's journal, recording the place and moment each painting was made.

As you look more closely at the individual pieces that make up the whole, you might recognize some familiar places in Boise and  around Idaho.  You might also notice images from foreign lands where Rachel has travel within the past year.  You definitely need to spend quite a bit of time to take it all in.

Other artworks in the exhibition also record a passage of time.  Some sets of paintings were made in a time lapsed manner with each painting being created at a regular interval of time.  The viewer gets to see the progression of changes in color and lighting of the same scene within a day.  It is a good reminder for us to take some time to linger in a place, get to know it and notice what is around us.

Expanding the time interval even longer than hours or days, Rachel painted four pieces that show the changes of sagebrush in different seasons.

There are plenty of time periods to contemplate in viewing this exhibition.  But there is not a whole lot of time left for you to see it.

Silvercreek Art

Tomorrow is the opening reception of a new exhibition at Silvercreek Art in Ketchum, Idaho.  I am one of the featured artists, along with Reham Aarti.  Last weekend, I drove to Ketchum to do the installation.

A few weeks before that, I was thinking that I would like to have three new artworks finished to include in the installation.  I managed to finish two new pieces.  One of which I had spent 11-1/4 hours in one day to get the quilting done.

The two new pieces are Foliaris VII and Foliaris VIII.  Here they are together in the gallery (VII on the left, VIII on the right).  The sculpture is by Ken McCall.

Here are some more installation shots.  I didn't get the lights redirected last week, so I am planning to do that this weekend before the opening reception on Saturday evening.

In this last picture, you might recognize my Leaf Anatomy monotypes.  I had a few of them framed for the exhibition.  The metal sculpture in this picture is by D'arcy Bellamy.

The other featured artist for this month is my friend, Reham Aarti.  I am so glad that we were put together.  Reham is a mosaic artist and creates colorful, whimsical two and three dimensional pieces. Even though our mediums and styles are completely different,  the colors we use seem to be similar in some cases and I think our work looks very nice together.

The opening reception is tomorrow night from 5-8 p.m. and the exhibition will be up through Nov. 28, if you happen to be driving through Ketchum.  The gallery is at the corner of Leadville and Sun Valley Rd.

Quilts=Art=Quilts 2014

With all the different social media platforms, it's sometimes hard to keep up with what information has been put where. In addition to this blog, I have a personal Facebook page and a business Facebook page for my art stuff.

On Facebook and in my newsletter, I mentioned that I had two artworks, In Vein II and Foliaris VI, juried into this year's Quilts=Art=Quilts exhibition (and now I'm mentioning it here).  This past weekend was the opening reception and awards ceremony.

My friend, Kathleen Probst, won a Juror's Choice Award for her artwork, Dipped Dimension.  This is the second year in a row one of her artworks has won an award at this exhibition.  I am proud of her!

The Schweinfurth Memorial Art Center, where the exhibition is being held, has posted a list of the award winners with images on their website (scroll down the page to see them).

They also posted some pictures of the reception on their Facebook page, including this one where you can just see part of my In Vein II in the background.

More pictures have also been posted on a community site here.

It is nice for those of us who can't actually travel to the event for them to post some pictures.

The exhibition is up through January 4, 2015. If you happen to be in the Auburn, New York area before then, you can see it in person.

Weaving Soul Threads at Track 13

Last week was the opening for a new art exhibition at Track 13 Gallery in Nampa.  I went to the Preview Night for Lisa Cheney's Weaving Soul Threads: The Art of Visual Journeying.  

Lisa works with mixed media and creates layers of texture, details and meaning into her work.  She has incredible visual journals that document her personal journey and stories.

In the gallery, there are several original artworks, such as this one, entitled Release.

Lisa Cheney

Release

encaustic

There are also reproductions of pages from her journals.  At the preview, Lisa had employed the help of several guys, her "book keepers,"  who were holding her journals (with white gloves) for people to look through them.

Lisa Cheney (on the left) with friend and one of the "book keepers."

I was fortunate enough to have already seen some of her journals when we were both artist-in-residence at the BOSCO space downtown earlier in the year.

The remaining artwork in the show was inspired by Lisa's trip to Paris and Southern France earlier this year.  She kept a journal of her travels and collected ephemera while on the trip.  Upon returning home, she created original "Postcards from Paris" and several encaustic paintings.  Large reproductions of her journal pages from the trip are also on display.

Lisa Cheney

Village Doors I, II, III, IV

encaustic

 Lisa Cheney

Postcards from Paris

mixed media

I like the creative hanging method for the postcards, since they were two sided.  The glass would spin around so you could see both sides.  I also like the shadows they created on the wall.

 Lisa Cheney

Postcard from Paris

mixed media

Lisa Cheney

Café au Lait

enlargement of journal page

Lisa Cheney

Marais Circuit and Metro

enlargements of journal pages

The exhibition will be up at Track 13 through Oct. 5.  Lisa will give an artist's talk on Oct. 4 at 7 p.m. Track 13 is located at 13 12th Ave. South, Nampa, Idaho.

Silvercreek Art

I have been invited to be part of the Silvercreek Art Gallery in Ketchum (Sun Valley), Idaho.  This is a new co-operative gallery that just opened in June.  It is being run in conjunction with Silvercreek Realty.

I came onboard for July and have some of my artwork there for the group exhibition this month.   The opening reception is tonight (corner of Leadville and Sun Valley Rd).  Unfortunately, I already had other plans and will not be there.  But I did drive up to help with the installation.

Next month will begin a series of featured artists exhibitions.  I will be the featured artist, along with Jerri Lisk, in November.  Artists in the gallery are:

Rachel Tennalach installing artwork.

Reham Aarti
D'Arcy Bellamy
Nolina Burge
Susen Christensen
Sue Dumke
Lisa Flowers Ross
Jerry Hendershot
Karen Klinefelter
Jerri Lisk
Melissa Osgood
Samuel Paden
Rachel Tennalach

Overview

Overview

You can see one of my newest artworks, Foliaris VI, on the right.

Entrance with one of D'Arcy Bellamy's sculptures.

Five 18

Last week was a busy week.  After returning from Montana, it was time for First Thursday in Boise. My friend and I went to Gallery Five 18 to see the exhibition of our friend, Anne Peterson Klahr, and another artist, Randy Van Dyck.

Both artists are painters with very different styles.  Anne's work is often vibrant with an emphasis on strong color and/or dramatic lighting and is often abstract.  Figures are also abstracted into soft, almost other worldly, forms in some of her works.

Anne Peterson Klahr with her artwork, Small Window of Time.

Opportunity Knocks by Anne Peterson Klahr

Forest through the Trees III (top) and Immigration Reform (bottom) by Anne Peterson Klahr.

The other featured artist is Randy Van Dyck.  He works on a smaller scale.  His paintings are photorealistic and somewhat surreal due to the juxtaposition of objects within the painting.  A landscape is the backdrop for birds and other floating objects.  A sense of humor is demonstrated with the titles.

Facebook by Randy Van Dyck

Their exhibition will be up for the month of July. 

Surel's Place

Not this past weekend, but the weekend before, I stopped by Surel's Place to see my friend's pop-up art exhibition, Formidable: The Touchable Sculptures of Betty Maguire Hayzlett.

Surel's Place is relatively new and is a live-work artist-in-residence space.  The place used to be the home of local artist, Surel Mitchell.  Artists-in-residence usually spend a month living and working in the space.  An event or two is usually set up during the month to meet the artist and see what they are working on.

You have probably heard of pop-up shops.  Formidable was a pop-up art exhibition, lasting only a weekend in the space.  It was the transition time between the artists-in-residence.

The key word in the exhibition title is "touchable".  You don't see many art exhibitions inviting you to touch the work. Of course, a hand washing is required first.  It is so ingrained in me to not touch other artworks on display that I forgot about that word and did not touch.  And I didn't really need to.  I could admire it without having to touch.

Betty creates her fiber vessels from wool roving and other materials and uses felting, as well as other techniques.  She creates interesting shapes and sometimes embeds different materials within the felt, which you discover as you look closely.

Betty Maguire Hayzlett

Crustacean, 2014

hand-made felt and wrapped wire

Betty Maguire Hayzlett

Effervescence, 2013

hand-made felt

I'm sure it was a lot of work for just a weekend.  But it looked lovely and it is great to give local artists another opportunity to get their work in the public eye.

Works on Paper

Today is First Thursday here in Boise.  A good day to see art, as many of the galleries host receptions and/or stay open in the evening.  We will probably check out some places this evening, but I want to tell you about some art I saw last week.

Artist Maria Carmen Gambliel had an exhibition, Works on Paper, at La Tertulia Gallery.  Club La Tertulia is a spanish learning center, so the gallery is off the beaten path, on the bench in a business building.  Gambliel is originally from Brazil and earned her BFA there.  She completed master degrees at University of New Mexico and has worked for the Idaho Commission on the Arts.

Works on Paper exhibited her monotype and mixed media prints.  Warm rich colors and signature textural marks create interesting abstract work.  Many of the pieces related to the areas where she lived in Brazil.

 Tordesilhas (2012) and Casario Mineiro (2011)

New Mexico Sunset (2012)

I am fortunate to have one of Maria Carmen's small prints from the Leftovers print exchange.  I had only seen a few of her works previous to this exhibition.  A large selection of 25 works was shown and it provided a good sense of the artist's style.  I'm glad I took the time to go see it.

It is unfortunate that the exhibition was only up for a short time and not in a well known location.  I hope in the future she can have another exhibition as I think her artwork is a hidden treasure.  

Local Color: Boise 150

Last Friday was the opening reception for the Treasure Valley Artists' Alliance first juried exhibition entitled, Local Color: Boise 150.  The exhibition was juried by Jacqueline Crist and celebrates Boise's sesquicentennial.

There was a good turnout for the reception.  The exhibition is in the offices of the Boise State Public Radio in the Yanke building on Park Center.  Here is a picture of the Yanke building in case you have not been there yet.

As you first walk in, you are greeted with bright colors in the artwork of Brian Schreiner (on the right) and Christine Raymond.  You really need to see the texture of Schreiner's piece in person, as well as the gold leaf shine of Raymond's artwork.

All of the artwork was suppose to relate to Boise in some way.  Here you might recognize the Capitol in Pat Kilby's painting (middle).

Starting from the left below are artworks by Cyndy Lounsbury, Cassandra Schiffler, David Schwartz and Lauren Kistner.

Mike Chambers paid homage to Boise Blue, an art supply store that shut it's doors years ago.

From left to right artwork by Amy Nack, Betty Hayzlett, Felicia Weston and Ellen Crosby.

Several artists chose the same places to depict in their artwork.  I believe there were three pieces of the Capitol Boulevard Memorial bridge built in the 1930's in Art Deco style.

An exhibition catalog has been published with all the artworks and the artists' statements explaining the artwork's relationship to Boise.  They are available for purchase on the Treasure Valley Artists' Alliance website.  And you can go here to get a preview.  It is a very nice catalog.