Marginalia is hitting the road!

Last fall I participated in an exhibition in Anchorage, Alaska co-curated by my good friend Jimmy Riordan. The show was a comprised of work by fifty artists and all of it was inspired by Le Roman du Lievre, a French novella from the early 20th century about St. Francis of Assisi, a hare, and the after-life.

On the 17th of May a van full of artwork and show curators/maestros Leslie Rosa and Jimmy Riordan will leave Anchorage and begin heading east. Around the 12th of June it will arrive in New York. Between these two dates, it will zigzag across Canada and the US, meeting up with all of the artists that participated in Marginalia (or at least those that are on this continent).

Leaping into the Blue, Lara Hoke, 2009

 Below is the list planned stops.  Don't miss this opportunity to see the bunnies in person!

Anchorage: Starting Point
Cooper's Landing: Artist Meet-up
Vancouver: Artist Meet-up and Reading
San Francisco: Mini-Exhibition at Royal NoneSuch Gallery in Oakland's Temescal Neighborhood
Los Angeles: Artist Meet-up and Mini-Exhibition
Joshua Tree: ??
Santa Fe: Pig Roast and Reading
Houston: Mini-Exhibition at Skydive for Cultural Affairs and Book-making Workshop for FREE SCHOOL
Lincoln: Mini-Exhibition and Printmaking Workshop
Chicago: Artist Meet-up
Milwaukee: Artist Meet-up and Film Screening
London: Artist Meet-up
Annandale-on-Hudson: Artist Meet-up and ??
Baltimore: Artist Meet-up and ??
New York City: Huge Artist Meet-up and Artist Dinner

MARGINALIA ARTISTS:

Elysa Lozano, Kayla Spann, Brian McNearney, Vlad Smolkin, Samuel T. Adams, Ted Mineo, Ali Aschman, Azikiwe Mohammed, jsun, Lindsay Clark, Ed Mighell, Sam Bornstein, Enrique Marty, Holden Attradies, Leah Schreiber, Anna Raupp, Stefano Minzi, Collin LaFleche, Gretchen Weiss, Beka Goedde, Jimmy Riordan, Brian Hutton, Mark Muro, Rosie Cooper, Florence Boyd, Ben Cove, Constantin Andiel, Emily Foden, Lara Hoke, Esy Casey, Lisa Rybovich Cralle, Emily Noelle Lambert, Lucy Ward, Colleen Asper, Trish Tillman, Alison Blickle, Nathan Manuel, Diann Bauer, Anda Saylor, Krista Peters, James D. Kaiser, Marisa Favretto, Anick Gosselin, Simon Woolham, Doug Williams, Craig Updegrove, Reverse Retro (Lukas Bouvrie and Tony Olexa), Hal Gage, Lawrence Stumpf, Mother Father Ghost(Stephan Koweluk), Bruce Farnsworth, Gretchen Sagan, Austin Lashley, Tommy O'Malley, Rachel Weber.

Help fund this great project and get a piece of it in return -  visit the Kickstarter page to learn more!

NonprofitNext Blog Post

In non art-related news, I recently wrote a post on La Piana Consulting's NonprofitNext blog

Gulf Coast Oil Spill Relief: Databases to the Rescue!

How Open Source Internet Crowdsourcing Technology is Revolutionizng the Gulf Cost Oil Spill Relief Efforts

Databases rarely engender feelings of excitement or empowerment but Ushahidi,  a  crowd-sourcing tool developed as an open-source platform to map reports of violence in Kenya, is doing just that.

As described in the New York Times, Ushahidi is being used by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an advocacy group dedicated to reducing accidents at Louisiana refineries, to collect and log reports of the effects of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  It relies on witnesses to self-report via tweets, texts, e-mails and online submissions spill-related damage.

Read the rest of this entry »

W.P.A. Inspired Wedding Invitations

W.P.A.-inspired wedding invitations

Last fall I wrote about W.P.A. Posters and mentioned how Ben and I met with artist/printmaker Kim Vanderheiden, founder of Painted Tongue Studios to explore the possibilites of making W.P.A.-inspired wedding invitations. 

We were so impressed with Kim and Painted Tongue Studios that we happily jumped right in.

Kim and her team were a joy to work with. She facilitated a relationship between us (client) and her (vendor) that felt like a true collaboration- that we were equally invested in the outcome.  

Ben and I love how the invitations capture our aesthetic and the spirit of the location (Yosemite).

Oakland Corner at Night Round 2

I spent another hour working on this painting after taking a fresh look at this morning and being dissatisfied by the color and contrast.

Oakland Corner at Night

Oakland Corner at Night

This painting is based a photo of our neighborhood corner store from the opposite direction of the previous painting (Laundromat Night Hawks). 

Instead of diving head first into a large canvas, I decided to work on a preliminary painting to get the feel of the composition and color.  This painting is small, probably around 12 x 18 and done in about two hours.  I plan to work just a bit more into it and then will consider making a go of it on a bigger canvas.

What I am pleased about is how when I work quickly on a small format my paintings have a softer, dream-like quality.  There is also an energy there that too often I lose when working on my larger paintings. 

Lara Hoke, Oakland Corner at Night, Oil on Board

Laundry Night Hawks: A Work in Progress

To the left is the original photograph that I took of our laundromat and cornerstore.  To the right are overlays of my first efforts at the painting overlayed with at different opacities on the original photo.

Original Photograph

Laundry Night Hawks Overlay 1

Laundry Night Hawks Overlay 2Below are images of my second efforts at the painting.  I moved and minimized the corner shop and adjusted the size of the laundromat.

Laundry Night Hawks Effort 2 No Overlay

Laundry Night Hawks Overlay 6

Laundry Night Hawks Overlay 7 (reduced opacity)

One man's trash....

The first round of coasters are complete - they have been sanded, stamped, stained, and varnished.  There are ~35 of them.   I also carved two more stamps, a hawk and a tulle elk.  I had some trouble with the elk, one of his front legs looks a bit peg-like.  I'm considering cutting him down to just a bust.

While on a run I discovered a beautiful branch in someone's trash.  I believe it is Japanese cherry.  It's significantly heavier than the pine I've been using.  I'm looking forward to seeing how different it is to work with hardwood.  I think the cuts will be more difficult but cleaner which means a lot less sanding and a lot less clean-up.

Tulle Elk

(roller)Coaster

Animal coasters in progresThis whole coaster project is finally coming to fruition.  I began stamping the wood slices en masse today and am pretty pleased with the results.  The next step will be applying thin layers of polyurethane, and sanding with a fine grain paper in between coats.

In other news, I'm looking forward to receiving my copy of The Handmade Marketplace: How to Sell Your Crafts Locally, Globally, and On-Line.  Working on my coasters and researching vendors and artists for our wedding has given me a newfound appreciation of Etsy, blogs, and craft.  How great would it be to actually make some kind of income doing something I not only love but do anyway.  Today coasters...tomorrow the world!

The flock is growing...

The love of carving continues.  I've added an owl, quail, and squirrel to my team of woodland creatures and Ben got in on the action and carved a trout.  I ran into some problems with the squirrel - too many tiny details.  I made several mistakes and he just kept getting smaller and smaller.

Hand-carved woodland creature rubber stamps

Stamp Carving and More Coasters

Last night I carved a second stamp for my silhouette coaster project.  It's a simple bust of a buck but I'm pleased with how it turned out.  I'm still getting the hang of the carving tools which are not as forgiving as I would like.  Below is a photo of the new stamp, the impression it makes, the back of my bear stamp, and the tools I used.

Stamp making tools

As a side note, the coaster in this picture is unfinished, please forgive the inconsistent application of stain...

Update from the Studio, February 2010 Edition

Coasters in Various States of ProgressA few weeks ago I was trolling Design Sponge and came across this DIY project that used cedar slices to create customized silhouettes, and I thought hey, those would make great coasters.... but where do I get the wood? Meanwhile, my month-old Christmas tree sat sagging in the corner and voila! - a project was born!

Using slices of the pine tree, a stamp carving kit, and various types of stain and polyurethane, I'm working on creating an army of coasters.

Army of CoastersThe first image to the left is a close up of one coaster pretty far along in the process.  The second photo is of the gathering army.

Ben

The next three images are paintings in progress.  The first two paintings were begun months ago but never taken much further than the inititial color blocking, so I'm re-working them, trying to bringing in more colors and depth. 

The last image is Kim.  I've addd a few more transparent layers of color but what it really needs is a few days of serious work because all of the transparent layers have caused it to lose some of it's structural believability.

Looking at these paintings makes me realize two things - 1. I need to work on a big painting in which the subject is not front row and center and 2. My next portrait cannot be of a person looking to their right.

Ariyele

Kim

Laundromat Nighthawks

Some reference photos I took tonight of the intersection near our apartment.  I'm preparing to begin a painting of the laundromat.  I really like the juxtaposition of the darkness, the traffic lights, and the interior flourescents.  These images remind me of Hopper's Nighthawks.

Euan Uglow

I painted for the first time in 1997. I was sixteen years old, and incredibly lucky to have Rick Weaver (whom I will touch on in a future post) as my teacher.  He is an excellent educator and an incredibly talented artist. Rick taught me about color and form and light and shadow. He also introduced me to the work of Euan Uglow, an artist who's strong, elegant, and clean work reminds me daily of why I paint.

Uglow was born in the early 1930s and was a part of the  20th Century British Realist Painters school who's members include such extraordinary names as Lucian Freud, William Coldstream, David Hockney, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Peter Blake, R.B. Kitaj, and Leon Kossoff. 

He taught at Slade School of Art until his death in 2000 and is best known for his work in the figure. His compositions are ostensibly simple, but belie a complex geometry. Planes are articulated precisely, edges are sharply defined, and colors are differentiated with great subtlety.

His method of painting was meticulous and his paintings took months and often years to complete. The surfaces of his paintings are checkered with many small horizontal and vertical markings. These are the remnants of plum lines, the coordinates he used to verify two dimensional relationships against against three dimensional reality.

Among the artists most influential to Uglow are Matisse, the Venetians, Cezanne, Poussin, and Ingres.
All images copyright Euan Uglow.

Work in Progress: Kim

I cleaned up the studio yesterday and spent most of the afternoon and evening painting.  The images below are of Kim.  The left-most image is the painting as I left it in June.  The middle image is a photo of my studio today and a portion of the painting.  The right-most image is the painting as I left it tonight.  It may not seem like that much progress has been made, but I've shifted and repainted two of the planters, begun to paint the plants, and started to think about her hands...

Work in Progress: Living Room Christmas Tree (Update 1)

It was another cold night in the Hoke/Kimberley household, but I still managed to get some work done.  Using a soft brush I laid out areas of light and dark (something I probably should have done right at the beginning.)  Objects are beginning to feel more solid and space more understandable. I've lost quite a bit of detail in the tree,  but that will come back in a later stage.

Work in Progress: Livingroom Christmas Tree

I began a new drawing last night of our livingroom at Christmas time. I was huddled on the floor in a blanket and several layers of clothes (our house was not built for these temperatures!) in front of the warm glow of the television. It's my first stab at a holiday-inspired image, but these materials may not be the best for interpreting the warmth of the season...

The Paintings of Mary Beth McKenzie

A few years ago someone remarked that my style of painting reminded them of the paintings of Mary Beth McKenzie and I very much appreciated the compliment!  Mary Beth McKenzie is an accomplished oil painter who's work is owned by many public institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian Institute, the Brooklyn Museum, the New Britain Museum of American Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Butler Museum of American Art, the Museum of the City of New York, the National Academy of Design and the New-York Historical Society.

She also teaches at the Art Students League of New York and the National Academy of Design, what I wouldn't give to take a class from her and pick her brain!

Her application of paint and the use of color to build form reminds me of the landscapes of Cezanne. Contributing to the quality and solidity of her shapes is incredibly careful measuring. I love how she leaves the traces of plum lines. They serves as a window into her painting process and constant reminders of her hand.

All images copyright Mary Beth McKenzie.

  

The Paintings of Keinyo White

I'm excited to share with you the beautiful paintings of Keinyo White. I am particularly drawn to his work in watercolor, a medium not often associated with the figure, let alone contemporary gallery quality art.

White's paintings give just enough information and are never over-worked. His seamless combination of line and form is especially impressive.

And his portraits walk that impossibly fine line - they capture  the personality and qualities of the sitter while not compromising the intention and hand of the artist.

http://www.keinyowhite.com
http://www.keinyowhite.com/blog

All images copyright Keinyo White.

Documenting the East Bay Regional Parks

While working at the Oakland Museum of California I encountered the work of Bob Walker,  an environmentalist who's work in preserving the natural beauty of California eventually lead him to become the offical photographer of the East Bay Regional Park District.  He passed away in 1992, but the size and scope of the EBRPD is a testament to his photography and activism. 

Ben and I are trying to visit a regional (or state) park each weekend. I'm documenting our hikes through photography and will be uploading new photographs on a weekly basis.

Bob Walker called the afternoon hour at which he took some of his best photos the Magic Hour.  This particular time of day allowed Walker to take advantage of the shadows and contrasting light created by the sunset.  Below is a set of my photographs taken at the Magic Hour.

          

Work in Progress Update

Here is the first follow-up to my post from September 10. 

I tried to do a sepia wash, but the ink I used turned out more pink than I desired.  I used pieces of sand paper to remove the stain, scratching deepest into the areas intended to be the ligthest..  I then experimented with thin washes of white acrylic pant to emphasize the highlights.  I then went back in with pen and ink to bring back some of the line detail.

And for reference, here is what it looked like a few weeks ago.  Should I have stopped when I was ahead (a head?)? I'd love to hear your thoughts.