THAT Was Amazing!

Actually ~ It. Was. Epic.

And all the emotions and excitement that fueled me throughout the weekend are still coursing through my veins ~ making it so hard to concentrate on anything else right now (like cleaning up the studio!). Triptych Fusion far exceeded my expectations...and I had some pretty high expectations! The studio looked amazing, people filled the space inside and out, artwork sold, the energy was high, and it all went off without a hitch.

Oh, and I can't forget to mention how well received the pieces were! In fact, as Rebecca, Brooke, and I talked about things afterwards, we realized that at some point in the show, each piece was talked about by someone. Every piece generated some sort of buzz! And that was what this whole thing was about. The theme of the show was collaboration and to have people come out and engage with the artwork was as much a part of the collaborative process as the creation of the artwork itself was.

So a HUGE thank you goes out to everyone who came to, and then stayed and enjoyed, the show. Rebecca, Brooke, and I will carry your encouragement, enthusiasm, and genuine appreciation of the exhibition into our studios with us for our next round of creative adventures.

And I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge a few special souls for their extraordinary help:

• Josh and David (especially for the sangria)
• Ruby and Lilly (who were there not only on game day but for the weeks of prep beforehand)
• Westsiders (who made the trek across town and through LA traffic on a summer weekend...no small feat!)
• Those who made purchases, big and small (thank you for your support)
• My students (who continue to give back to me in ways they don't realize)
• Emmett (as always, he just knows what to do and does it ~ even when we don't realize it)

And especially to my cohorts, Rebecca and Brooke ~ brave women who took the journey with me, taught me so much about the power of collaboration, and whose laughter and spirit are permanently embedded in my heart. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

~ Click on image below to start slideshow. ~

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This is not a Hall of Rubens

We're tweaking, finalizing, assessing, suggesting, and all around in the final homestretch. I am so excited. So, so excited.

You know how sometimes you go to an art show and it feels like you're seeing the same thing over and over again ~ just different riffs on the same thing. Sometimes that's cool. And sometimes it gets old real quick. Like the time I was at the Louvre and ended up in a long hall of 20-foot Ruben after 20-foot Ruben and thought I was in one of those nightmares where you're running and running and running but never get to the end of the hallway. To this day I can't stand to look at a Ruben. Even a small one.

But this show, I promise you, you will not get bored and you will not feel like you're in a never-ending hallway. The diversity of the pieces has even astounded me...and I've been working on the show for months now. You'd think it wouldn't come as a surprise. But last night as we laid out ALL our pieces for the first time in the same room, there was a collective gasp as a sense of awe washed over us all.

This is going to be fun, People.  Hope you get a chance to experience it.

www.TriptychFusion.com

Triptych Fusion: When Works Collide A story of collaboration, innovation, and breaking the rules

Saturday, August 17 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday, August 18 from noon to 4 p.m.

Tager Studio ~ 1134 Oxley Street, South Pasadena

Snippets

www.TriptychFusion.com

Triptych Fusion: When Works Collide A story of collaboration, innovation, and breaking the rules

Saturday, August 17 from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday, August 18 from noon to 4 p.m.

Tager Studio ~ 1134 Oxley Street, South Pasadena

Around the Corner...

My cohorts and I have been putting finishing touches on pieces for our show next weekend (August 17 and 18...more info here: www.TriptychFusion.com). I AM SO EXCITED!!! I absolutely love our creations and there are two I'm not sure I can part with. Emmett asked me what I planned on pricing these two at and without hesitating I said, "Eight thousand dollars."

Because seriously, that's what it would take for me to let them go. I am that enamored by them and I am not embarrassed to admit it.

I'm kidding about the price, of course, but not the sentiment behind it. I've made significant emotional and creative investments in this show and the result has been a delightful range of feelings from confusion and surrender to surprise, wonder, and pride. It has not been without its challenges, but overall, it has been rewarding to be pushed in directions I never would have thought to go. And that was the whole point.

I really hope you are able to come see the results of our efforts. I think it will be as rewarding an experience for you as it has been for me. Besides, I'd love to know what YOUR favorite pieces are and talk about why with you!

Honoring Creativity

Stop or Continue?

"How do you know when a piece is done?" is a common question artists or writers or anyone who creates something is asked. Some people say they just intuitively know. Others say they feel like their work is never "finished" but at some point they have to let it go. I tend to fall into the former category when it comes to my writing but straddle both when it comes to my visual art. And that's just the dance I'm doing right now with a particular piece for the Triptych Fusion show.

Head on over to show's blog to see what's making me shimmy and shake these days.

So Excited About This...

Since working on pieces for Triptych Fusion, I've been experimenting on a ton of different materials ~ ones I normally would not have thought of marbling on had it not been for the show. One of these "new" materials is transparencies. Turns out, marbling on transparencies is not the easiest thing in the world to do ~ but it is a lot of fun once you get past the frustrations (or once you just let go of the frustrations). I have a couple of pieces that I really, really like but knew a traditional frame wouldn't do the marbled transparencies justice...I mean, they are transparencies after all and the light should shine through them for the full effect, right? After searching for what seemed like forever and a day for the perfect frame and not finding what I wanted, I decided to make my own ~ floating frames a la contemporary style. And am I in love!

This first one is two transparencies on top of one another (frame size = 11x14).

As you can see in the photo below, all four sides of the frame are open, allowing light to shine through front and back:

This one is a transparency on top of a photo I shot (of a cardinal in a tree at my parent's house) a couple of winters ago when in Minnesota (frame size = 8x10).

A better look at the construction of the floating frame:

I love the look ~ and functionality ~ of these frames. Not only can they be hung on a wall, they also are able to stand upright on a flat surface like a shelf, table, or mantle. And I am very, very happy with the way the light is free to move all around the artwork ~ front, back, left, right, top, bottom. Even in the most dimly lit room, you can tell this open frame best maximizes the beauty of working with transparencies and adds depth (and an almost 3-D quality) to the piece.

These two "experiments" have inspired me to work on a series of marbled transparencies. We'll see what happens...

Milk Bottle Marbling!

Hey, wanna see what I did with this milk bottle? Head on over to the Triptych Fusion blog and check it out!

Triptych Fusion: Conceptual Materials

Head on over to the Triptych Fusion blog to see what I've been up to this past week. We're playing with "conceptual materials" and boy-oh-boy, has it been an interesting ride!

Triptych Fusion: When Works Collide

I am very excited to announce that I am participating in a group show in August with two spectacular, superstar artists ~ Rebecca Tager and Brooke Anderson. The three of us have been working collaboratively and in pairs to integrate our three mediums ~ marbling, ceramic, and fiber arts ~ into amazing pieces of artwork. I hope you'll join us on this journey of discovery, creativity, and breaking all the rules!

Learn more by visiting www.TriptychFusion.com.

What:     Triptych Fusion: When Works Collide A Group Exhibition featuring collaborative and individual artwork

When:    Saturday, August 17 from 4 pm to 8 pm Sunday, August 18 from noon to 4 pm

Where:  Rebecca Tager Studio 1134 Oxley Street, South Pasadena

~ See works in progress on our blog at www.TriptychFusion.com/blog ~

Marbled papers + Calligraphy and Script = Gorgeous!!

Just a really quick post (with down and dirty photos!) about a project I'm working on with the talented artist, Amy Siu. She and I are coming together to bring words of inspiration, hope, passion, and joy as well as thought-provoking quotes on cards and matted art.

As you can see, her script is STUNNING! I can barely take my eyes off these papers. And I love how in many pieces she wrote with the "flow" of the marbled energy on the paper.

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This is just our first round of goodness and now that I have in my hands our collaboration efforts and see how she works on my paper, I am so inspired to hit the studio and make some pieces just for her.

Better photos and more info on this beautiful collaboration coming soon!!

July Header

Ha! Hello, July! Where did you come from?! I'm excited about this month's header. It comes from one of the fabric pieces I marbled a few months ago for my "clutch collaboration" with fashion accessory designer, Jeanie Joe. Here is the full image:

And here is another shot of a different part of the same fabric piece:

I have to admit I really loved marbling on black fabric ~ but it comes with a downside: not all colors show up. It was a true act of exploration and discovery trying to figure out what would work and what wouldn't. In the pieces above, believe it or not, I used Golden's Yellow Oxide.

I'm also giddy about the font my name is in. I've wanted to use this font for ages ~ but never found the right background until now.

Jeanie Joe has been very busy these past few weeks stitching and tucking and clutching preparing for the South Pasadena Arts Crawl where she'll have some of our clutches for sale at Lilly. Stop by and see what other wonderful creations she'll have on hand ~ you won't be disappointed by her style, quality, and creative expression. I'm certainly not!

Jeanie Joe at the South Pasadena Arts Crawl Saturday, July 13 5 p.m. ~ 9 p.m.

Lilly ~ 1504 Mission Street, South Pasadena

UPDATE: Jeanie Joe will be at my old stomping grounds for the Arts Crawl: Book'em Mysteries!!!!

Jeanie Joe at the South Pasadena Arts Crawl

Saturday, July 13

5 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Book'em Mystery ~ 1118 Mission Street (next to Mission Wines)

Diversity

One of the things I was most thrilled about with the Taproot editors was that they selected a wide variety of styles of my work to publish ~ and the above piece is a perfect example of that.

This is definitely not your traditional pattern. It is solely my personal spin on the art form. Actually, I really can't take credit for COMING UP with the idea for this image. I was simply reacting to what the bath was (or, more appropriately, wasn't) allowing me to do.

It was a hot, hot day. My bath was old. The wind was picking up. Humidity was nonexistent. Wildfires filled the air with ash. The conditions could not have been worse for marbling. But I just had to get into the studio despite the fact that Mother Nature was not on my side.

With nothing at all but the desire to create something ~ anything ~ I stepped up to the tank, tossed all expectations and ideas aside, and just did what the bath allowed me to do that day. It turned out to be one of my favorite moments in the studio.

Up close, this piece feels like a relief map of a secret world ~ I see rivers and valleys and mountains and roads and islands and lakes and forests. Step back and the there are suggestions (hints? clues?) of....something. I see a shape ~ but I'm not gonna share. I don't want to taint your perspective. You'll have to discover your own "something."

"Dry" is featured in the Summer 2013 issue of Taproot magazine (Issue 6: Water). The piece measures 10"x13" and is created on my favorite paper, Arches Text Wove from France. Brilliant Purple, Cad Red, Payne's gray, Indian Yellow Hue, and Light Blue make up the show. You can purchase "Dry" here.

It is also part of my Favorites postcard set:

Yellow + Red = a Giveaway!

I love the colors red and yellow together. As a kid, I used to pull out the yellow and red M&Ms and make a little pile of them off to the side. I'd then greedily eat all the other colors while saving the yellow-red pile for as long as I could.

I have always wanted my bedroom walls to be painted in bright yellow and the door a bright red. (And I will someday. I just haven't found the right house to do it in yet.)

Back in Minnesota, every year I grew a wildflower bed that included yellow and red Japanese poppies.

Red and yellow beet ravioli? Yes, please.

Sadly one of the hardest colors to achieve in marbling is a pure, robust red. It has to do with the pigments that make up the color, which do not do well when diluted nor when spread across the top of the bath. However, there are two ways to work around this. The first is to marble on red paper. While this is an effective technique, it 1) sort of feels like cheating, and 2) makes it very difficult to spot color ~ that is, place your color exactly where you want it to be and no where else.

The second way around the red challenge is to compress the paint in the bath so much, it has no choice to be red. And that's what I did with this piece.

Untitled 383 is one of several pieces in my "Miniature 24" series. As I mentioned in my previous post, and as the series name implies, all were created in my "mini tank" which measures 5" x 7" (I normally marble in a 20" x 25" tank). One of the advantages with the mini tank is that is allows you to fill your tank with paint quickly (sometimes too quickly, which is the disadvantage), giving you those bright, bold vibrant colors without your design starting to degrade. You see, as soon as the paint hits your bath, it starts to disintegrate. So the longer you work on a piece, the more the paints break up and do funky things (an effect one can use to one's advantage, of course...but only if the intention is to do so. Otherwise, it's just frustrating!). It can take less than a minute to fill a mini-tank where as it takes three to four minutes to fill the big tank to create the same vibrancy.

Those precious few minutes make a huge difference.

Untitled 383 is one of my favorites ~ not just in the "Miniature 24" series, but of all the pieces I've created. When I found out Taproot magazine was using it as their opening page, I couldn't have been happier.

This image is available in the Miniature 24 postcard set:

GIVEAWAY!! Tell me what you see or like in the images above and you'll be entered into a drawing to receive your own Miniature 24 postcard set! Leave your thoughts in the comments by midnight on Friday, June 7.

~ Comments now closed...and the winner is Annika! ~

New June Header

I figured it was only appropriate that the header for this month comes from one of my images that appeared in the recent issue of Taproot magazine.

Untitled 371 is one of several pieces in my "Miniature 24" series. Just as the series name implies, all were created in my "mini tank" which measures 5" x 7" (final piece sizes are 4" x 6"). Since I normally marble in a 20" x 25" tank, there was a lot of adjusting going on, to say the least. It was an adventure in patience, discovery, steady hands, and determination. I was truly surprised at how much you can do in a small tank that you can't do in a large tank. And I was just as surprised that I couldn't do things in the small tank that I could do in the big tank. It took my marbling to a whole new level.

The piece above was such fun to create. I've played around with concentric circles in my larger tank in the past but in the mini one, you not only get many more circles in, you have greater ability to control how tight (or not tight) they are. As a result, I think you can create a more dramatic sense of movement ~ which I find totally exhilarating.

I have to admit, when I first saw this piece blown up to fill an 8.5"x11" page, I was a little astounded. It seemed so, well, LARGE. But it also allowed me to see new images in the piece ~ new ways to interpret the pattern and patterns. I've always been a big fan of using scale as a tool during the creative process ~ but it never occurred to me to use it AFTER the process as well.

What a game changer. My mind is already racing with new ideas.