"Icarus"

I went to the Saranac Art Project Gallery on Saturday November 5^th and walked around the gallery. I thought the work was very interesting and unique. The left side of the gallery had very detailed drawings and paintings. On the right side of the gallery there were little pieces of currency from different countries in small picture frames. These pieces of artwork were collages of currency. I talked to the artist and he explained how he cuts out different parts of currency, lays them out on a table and then starts grouping the pieces together to make something visually pleasing. He said he tries to cover up numbers or dollar amounts. He counted the number of currency pieces and each different artwork had a different amount of pieces but it was between 5-10 different pieces. This artist said that he really likes making collages because it is taking other people’s artwork and creating your own. One piece of artwork that really stood out to me was a composition done by Austin Stiegemeier. Austin Stiegemeier is from Rathdrum, Idaho and is currently a professor at Gonzaga University. Austin’s work is very simple and complex at the same time. It has a simple color range but the detail in the composition is very complex. Austin’s painting “Icarus” which was created with graphite, conté, crayon and encaustic, has a wide value range that includes white, black, grey, and gold colors that produce very light whites and dark blacks. This composition has a lot of motion with the wings and different lines around the composition. There are also very unique shapes in the negative space that make the picture more visually appealing. The women in the composition looks very realistic but she has wings which make the piece more fictional and more like a fantasy or a dream. These wings could also be a metaphor for wanting to “fly” away or leave, or it could be about holiness and a higher power. This artists’ exhibition project made an impact on the community because it was a free artistic event that people of all ages could attend. Some museums cost money to go in but this is a free event which could be beneficial for low income families who still want to look at art. I wonder if having these paintings in a mural format would reach a bigger audience and make even more of an impact?

Truest Stories

Saranac Art Projects

"Truest Stories"Katie Creyts

After attending the opening for Katie's show at the Saranac I had a lot to think about regarding the balance between humans and the natural world around us. Katie directly juxtaposes animals in in their natural habitat alongside man made, nature-altering structures. These themes of an imbalance leading to negative affects in the natural world are contrasted through seemingly whimsical portrayals of fable-like scenes.
This theme of imbalance is especially important to me and evident in my own work. I was inspired by Katie's personal interpretation of the subject which allowed me to delve deeper into my own thoughts on the subject. 
Katie's work of graphite and watercolor works are well balanced with interesting and engaging use of color and space. The graphite works are especially unified through the use of directional line. I found her work interesting and clearly translated to the viewer. Katie's underlying cognitively engaging themes are worth pondering.
Katie Creyts' work is accompanied by artists Dan McCann and Austin Stiegemeier.
The show opened November 4th and will be up for viewing until the 26th.
https://saranacartprojects.wordpress.com/

The Pressing Matters of Printmaking

Last week, the Range Visiting Artist series put on a two talks and a panel featuring visiting artist James Bailey as well as a few others. On November 10th, I got to attend the panel that took place in the Terrain building downtown. The vibe of this event was a lot calmer than Terrain, and was definitely not as overwhelming. Along with beer and wine, the atmosphere served up a very chill scene, and began and ended with the members of the audience free to try their hand at printmaking. There were a total of 5 artists that made up the panel, and were spurred to discuss certain topics by a local museum curator named Karen. 

The event, officially named Pressing Matters: Symposium on Printmaking started at 6:30, but the panel began at 7. The artists began by introducing themselves, telling the crowd where they are from, and how they first got into printmaking. Though all 5 of the artists are printmakers, their styles and pieces were all so very different from each other. The names of all 5 artists are Chris Tyllia, James Bailey, Mary Farrell, Kevin Haas, and Chris Dreyer. Out of all of the printmakers though, my favorite would have to be James Bailey. 


James Bailey, or better known as Jim, is from Missoula, Montana and currently teaches at the University of Montana. Jim started out as a painter, and gradually made the transition over to printmaking and has really developed new and interesting processes. He claims that he has a love-hate relationship with printmaking, but truly creates some interesting pieces. My favorite pieces of Jim's are his Babel Series. These pieces are really visually interesting and contain high contrasts between bright colors and blacks as well as a lot of lines. The piece to the left is titled AZ, and is my favorite because of all of the elements within the piece and the brightness of the blue against the black. 

The panel ended with Karen allowing questions from the audience to be asked. Many asked questions such as how does one continue printmaking once they are out of school and do not have access to printmaking machinery or why is printmaking important? The answers to all of these questions were really informative and well thought out, each artists contributing relevant information. I think the most fascinating part about this panel was viewing the works that the artists had created and just how different each one was. James Bailey even told a story about in one of the classes that he teaches in Montana, they used a steamroller to print onto used (yuck) sheets from the college. The unusual process brought laughs from the crowd as well as spurred my imagination as to how in the world one could actually use a steamroller in making art. 

After the panel session had come to an end, a few of my classmates and I got to watch a photocopy type of printmaking. One could choose objects to photocopy, creating one image, and then with special markers, one could transfer the image to another piece of paper. It did not exactly turn out every time, but it was pretty cool to watch. This was a really interesting panel to attend, and gave me, as well the community of Spokane, a little glimpse into the printmaking world, one that I am not really familiar with. 

Handshake

On the first Friday in October I went to Terrain in Spokane Washington. I had a lot of fun, this was something I had never experienced before. I thought it was really interesting to see different people from all walks of life at this event, there were young people, old people, sophisticated people, hippies, etc. I also liked seeing different types of artwork from different levels of artists. There were very advanced pieces of artwork to school projects and everything in between. The music was really loud so I thought it kind of tampered the experience. I did a social experiment with a random stranger that lasted for about three minutes and it was really exciting to get to know and meet someone you wouldn’t normally ever cross paths with. This social experiment was called Handshake, a Social Experiment and Community Building Exercise and was created by Ryan Oelrich and Robert Thompson. I wouldn’t have thought of this as art but in a way it can be the art of making new relationships with people. The set up had two tents and people would go into a little dark room, shake hands with a random stranger and then talk for three minutes about whatever you wanted. While talking you would try to draw a picture of what you thought the other person looked like and at the end of the three minutes you would meet the stranger and exchange the pictures you drew. The ages of the participants varied from young kids to older adults. The creators wanted people to be more unified together and on their paper it said “#spokanebettertogether” which was a part of their mission to bring people together and create a better and more involved community. This experiment did not have a lot of materials or hours of tedious painting or drawing but it involved a lot of people and these people had to be willing to do the experiment. It was really crowded at Terrain and I noticed that most people would just walk past the booth or ignore the employee that was asking people if they wanted to be a part of the experiment. I participated in this experiment and was paired up with a mom who probably in her early 40’s and it was really interesting to hear her talk about all the colleges she went to and then for me to explain that I am still in college. I felt a connection with this experiment and event because I participated in it and explained it to people who weren’t at the event, but I think the creators could have done more to really involve the whole community or something to display this experiment to the community. Maybe they could have traced every participant’s hands because it was called handshake and then use all those hands to create a bigger piece of work to promote bringing the community together. I wonder does this booth only get set up at art events? Can it be done on a bigger scale with even more people to make an even greater impact on the community?

Lost in Lilacs

Lost in Lilacs

On October 7^th I got the opportunity to go around to see different artist’s pieces at the Saranac, the Richmond Art Collective and at Terrain. These places were all fairly different just the layout and atmosphere of the art. I had never been to many art shows before but with my Community Arts in Practice class at Whitworth University, I finally got to go with other people.

Richmond Art Collective is one of those “hole in the wall” kinds of places. You walk through the coffee shop to the back and there are pieces of art all around the room. This was a very different feel from Saranac where it there was food and the artists were walking around. Which was all very different from Terrain where there was loud music, hundreds of people, and art everywhere, both on the walls and interactive.

Lost in Lilacs

My favorite piece was at Richmond Art Collective. Lost in Lilacs is the name of the photograph. It is a 20”x30” digital photograph done by Julia Derosier. It is of an astronaut walking through a field of lilacs in his suit. This stood out to me for a couple reasons, I have always loved the idea of space and being in space. Also because lilacs are so beautiful and in my hometown we have a lilac festival, so it related to my childhood too.

Julia and Don Derosier are photographers here in Spokane Washington. They always want to tell stories through their photos. Space Hero mission is the name of the project they are using this photo for. Julia said, “The Space Hero mission was born out of the idea of wanderlust and trying to find oneself in a vast world.” This is an abstract way to show someone trying to find him or herself within the entire universe because they are in the space suit, and wandering.