Showing Seattle Love

Love

Art and Inspiration in the Big City

Gold Mountain playing out at Golden Gardens

 I've been enjoying some art-filled time back in Seattle while house-sitting for some friends:

"Congregation Over Annihilation (beehives)" by Jesse Link at the COCA exhibit

A poignant and interesting quote spotted on a car parked outside my old home downtown.

COCA's Heaven and Earth Exhibition at Carkeek Park

"Organica/Mechanica" by Zucker, Turner, Jacobson

"Conversation with a Forest" by Stephen Rock

"Deconstruction of Babel" by Miguel Edwards

A Gorgeous Afternoon

Studio Clean Up = Art Play

Studio Installation 4/18/11
I went to "clean" my studio today and look what happened!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 One week ago from today I enjoyed an artist date with my east coast friend, Kecia Deveney. She has a wonderful photo blog post over here which captures the day spectacularly. We toured some of my favorite "local" spots in Seattle which was quite fun.

Ballard

Georgetown - Corson Building

Someday, I want a fairytale cottage garden just like this.

Kecia was quite taken by the Seattle street art, which of course meant we had to stop for a Henry photo op!

Kecia at Discovery Park - the colors were spectacular that day!

Oh the Re-Store - how I love your treasures.

Sprouts in Progress

Remember all that excitement I had over getting to play in the studio? I think I must have pent up the muse a little too much before letting her loose because the outcome was an all out art explosion! I went wild playing with acrylic wood staining techniques on a piece of alley found wood. Luscious!

I'm looking forward to continuing work on this piece tonight. Along with starting an new piece on fabric - one of my firsts in over a year. I will be participating in the City of Hope Benefit where artists were encouraged to decorate a slip or a corset to be auctioned off on September 11th at Stylus in Belltown. And my muse is actually looking forward to it!

Speaking of great events - I was able to attend one this past weekend. I was blessed with a ticket and some friends to join in the very first Seattle Sprout dinner! Sprout's website describes the event perfectly:

Sprout: Sustaining Emerging Artists is a locally sourced, community dinner that funds emerging Seattle artists with a vote.

Participants will pay a sliding-scale entrance fee for which they will receive a home-made dinner and a ballot. Diners will vote on a variety of proposed artist projects. At the end of dinner, the artist whose proposal receives the most votes will be awarded funds collected at the door. The work will then be presented during the next SPROUT. Artistic genres of all kinds are accepted and are encouraged to be works that are sustainable, local and forward-thinking. 

The food was delightfully donated by local businesses and P-Patches and they even had a gluten free dinner option on hand which had me quite impressed! My friend Grace Willard was one of the presenters and she did an amazing job sharing her work. (She also shares an excellent blog post covering the evening here) Grace was beat out for the $1000 raised though by a pretty amazing community service project for Women's dance. “Central District Women’s Community Dance Classes” was presented by Whitney Aguirre who did a demo dance performance for the class. Her proposal for the funding would have benefited the most people by not only supporting the continuation of the classes but the $ from the classes goes on to help fund REST that helps sexually exploited women. Kind of hard to argue with. 

It was a tough vote though because all of the project proposals were incredibly interesting. It was yet another moment of truly feeling blessed to be a part of Seattle's varied and diversely rich art scene. 

With so much inspiration going on all the time what else is a girl to do but have an art explosion in her studio?

   

Art! and Robots!

First Thursday Arts Walk = good for Robots of all ages!

And Star Trek babes!

And of course... well... art!

The whole evening was mega fun - Art of Comedy at the Comedy Underground was assisted by some stellar robots and a Star Trek hottie. (aka friends Kirsten, Shawn & Spike - thanks guys!)

La Familia Gallery was packed with super gorgeous work by Chris White and Weston Jandacka - I was completely floored by the energy of Chris White's work and the velvety detail of Weston's. I still can't believe that I share a gallery with these guys!

And lastly I stopped by Mikal Whoberry's studio on my way home to check out the new encaustics he has been up to and of course he has taken to the medium flawlessly. The piece above is titled "Love Letters and Elephants" and it was one of my favorites.

Oh sweet Arts Walk - how you infuse my museful soul!

Bonnie Weekend

The Moore Theater, Seattle - twilight prior to Bonnie 'Prince' Billy show

I'm posting less and less during the week these days. Partly it's because things are just so much more interesting during the weekends... this past one for instance found me at a Bonnie 'Prince' Billy show in Seattle with my best friend Katie (which was undoubtedly awesome!) before heading south to Portland with Andy to visit with my folks. My Mom is recovering from a minor surgery and we went down to visit and help out around the house. There was much cooking and lounging to be sure - it was quite nice!

During our Portland "must-have" trip to Powell's and the mecca of Stumptown I came across these stop-you-in-your-tracks-jaw-drop-wowza yarn paintings. Yes, that is right. YARN PAINTINGS. I immediately had to geek out and take a gazillion pictures because I just knew that I'd want to share these with Betsy. Whoa.

They are by an artist named Jo Hamilton. Check out the site for more incredible fiber art: http://johamiltonart.com/

The dude on the right kinda sorta looks like Betsy's boyfriend even... sometimes the parallels of the universe are just too much for me to handle...

It has been a busy and fulfilling week. Most of my energy was pulled up with preparations for the grand opening of a building through work. The party was held in the penthouse with this incredible view of the city. After two years Seattle still never ceases to amaze me - it is such a spectacular city with such a soft quality of light to it. And Seattle really put the shine on for the party yesterday afternoon. The whole place just glowed...

See what I mean by glow?

Aside from the party (which was a fabulous success!) my energy was also spent with three successful attempts at getting up early to meet Rosalie at the gym pre-work instead of post-work. Such endeavours are certainly aided by knowing there is a friend waiting. I doubt I would have made it at all without her. It was still super tough though - I'm SO not a morning person but I'm working on it... =)

And thirdly my most favoritest of energy powerbars - painting sweet sweet painting!

Turtle Tap

Turtle Tap
Originally uploaded by Rekoj Design

Last week I took my first trip to the Woodland Park Zoo. It was freezing cold and there was still some snow on the ground, but I had a pass that needed to be used before 2008 came to a close so off I went armed with my armwarmers, hat & camera.

My mission was to get some good source photos for paintings. I didn't quite end up with images of animals I expected due to the weather, but the ones I did capture came out darling. Even though not quite source material this one of my friend the turtle is definitely my favorite.

I enjoyed the Zoo way more than I expected. The exhibits were informative and designed really well with the types of habitat that allow for plenty of viewing with minimal imposition on the animals being viewed. I think I might need to go back =)

I've uploaded a few more favorites to my Flickr page if you want to check them out.

Today in Seattle

Today was a perfect piece of Fall in Seattle so I went for a walk right after work instead of doing my usual gymwork. I was enjoying my stroll so much that I kind of had to force myself to stop and take pictures - (Andy, I know, would be appalled at such a thing) but I'm glad I did. It's nice to share a bit of the evening with you. And besides - I haven't dropped in to say hello in a few days. Pictures give me an excuse to amidst all the Fall busy-ness like Calendar project finalizations and painting commissions - which is the short of what I've been up to!

But I had to take a break from all that to go wander through the Olympic Sculpture Park and take artsy sunset photos:

On my way home I finally found the sidewalk gallery that I had heard rumours of. It is put on by the Center on Contemporary Art and is simply called the Belltown Gallery. Basically, it is a sidewalk showcase. I have no idea how I had missed it before. The work currently on display totally made me do a double take.
This round painting on a drum head particularly got to me. One, the content and detail is amazing and two, well... I'm totally a sucker for round paintings.

Thanks for the inspiration infusion tonight Robin Oliver!

Seattle Ferryboat Rides

Seattle Ferry Boat "Yakima" photo taken 5/8/08 from neighboring ferry boat

Yesterday, I determined that if I was forced to make a commute, I would chose to do so via ferry if at all possible. a) you can read, nap or journal b) unlike a bus, you can get up and walk around and last but not least, c) you can take a piss without the other passengers thinking that you are mentally unhinged.

AND to top it off - how else would you get to hang out with THIS lovely lady?

Yep - living in the NW with an easy access to ferry boat rides sure is sweet.

That was my Thursday - how bout yours?

I've been busy busy busy in the studio preparing for this Sunday's I Heart Rummage and reading this Seattle Living article just gave me a new burst of energy and inspiration!

I'll be posting again later to give you all a sneak peek of some of the new designs showing up at the Crocodile Cafe this Sunday...

The view from my Roof

Much time has passed. I successfully moved from little ol' Oly to bustling downtown Seattle. My day job is a mere BLOCK from the Pike Place Market. I walk to work. I daydream while staring out the window to the Puget Sound.

After months of exploring and adjusting to this new life I'm beginning to ramp the business momentum back up. My art never took a hiatus during this time, but the business of art did. Now is time to return. To get back on the bike of the Website and the Etsy and Blogging.

It Officially starts for me this coming Sunday. I will be selling all my hand painted goodies once more at IHeartRummage. You can find me in the middle of the front room. Look for the green dresser and come by to say HI!