I was at the farm this weekend with my daughter. We went in search of baby animals, and we were rewarded with lambs, kids, and calves. Look at this mommy goat guarding her kids in their crib; there is something sort of heartbreaking about her:
And this is one of my collages from yesterday. Plovers!
I went with shore birds because I am thinking about summer. Spring is a big tease thus far. The bulbs are coming out, but it has been cold, cold, cold.
I'm back from Seattle, though I'm still recovering from the red eye flight back to Boston that I caught right after my opening at Punch. My trip was great! The weather was gorgeous, I had a fun time with friends, and I'm really happy with the show. And it was so fun to meet people who "know" me through this blog! Thanks to all of you who came out for the opening and introduced yourself, and also to those who have been blogging about the show and my work. I am hugely appreciative and humbled and just plain happy about it.
So here is my trip in pictures:
Spectacular view from the plane.
My framed collages.
My watercolors. I've never hung them unframed, with clips, before. Not great, but I think it's OK. Plus, what's done is done!
The magnolias were blooming in Seattle!
Pike Place Market.
I'm easing back into the studio now. I have some new collages that I'll post tomorrow, and hopefully the problematic she-wolf piece will come together soon...
A final round-up of my work in the PUNCH Gallery show:
Quail Magnolia, watercolor on paper, 30x22 inches
Goose Magnolia, watercolor on paper, 22x14 inches
Rabbit Magnolia, watercolor on paper, 22x14 inches
Birch with Birdshrooms, watercolor on paper, 30x22 inches
Birch with Woodpeckershroom, watercolor on paper, 30x22 inches
Antlershrooms, collaged paper, 10x8 inches
Cowshrooms, collaged paper, 10x8 inches
Giraffeshroom, collaged paper, 10x8 inches
Gullshroom, collaged paper, 10x8 inches
Handshrooms with Bird of Prey, collaged paper, 10x8 inches
Handshrooms with Snake, collaged paper, 10x8 inches
Ladyshroom with Birds, collaged paper, 10x8 inches
Snakeshroom, collaged paper, 10x8 inches
Wallaby Morel, collaged paper, 10x8 inches
So I finished my paintings 14 hours before my flight leaves. Could be worse, right? The problem was that the she-wolf painting I've been working on for weeks bit the dust. Or rather, I just couldn't get it right. So I made this instead:
A woodpeckershroom. Why not?
Here's the Punch Gallery press release:
Animal Spell
Justin Gibbens + Amy Ross
April 3 – 27, 2008
Opening Reception: 5-8pm
First Thursday, April 3, 2008
PUNCH presents the work of Justin Gibbens and Amy Ross. Referencing early wildlife and botanical illustration, both artists demonstrate their own distinctive versions of a subversive natural history.
As a contemporary (wildlife) artist, Gibbens draws upon his obsessive, perhaps unhealthy interest in all things that scamper and poke about in the thickets and undergrowth. Influenced by a recent trip to Bavaria and chance encounters with vintage taxidermy while there, Gibbens sheds light on jackalopes, wolpertingers and other legendary beasts.
Amy Ross is interested in the idea of artist as mad scientist. Her drawings and collages offer visual hypotheses to the question: what would happen if the DNA sequences of humans, animals, plants, and mushrooms were spliced with each other? These hybrids become her interpretation of a perverse natural world wrought by genetic engineering and mutation gone awry.
Boston-based artist Amy Ross attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and also holds degrees in religious studies from Connecticut College and Harvard Divinity School. She has had solo exhibitions at Jen Bekman Gallery in NYC, Allston Skirt Gallery in Boston, Overtones in Los Angeles, Romo Gallery in Atlanta, and Motel in Portland. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Justin Gibbens lives in Thorp, Washington. He is a founding member of PUNCH gallery. He has shown nationally and internationally, and concurrently is showing at G.Gibson Gallery in Seattle with artist Nealy Blau. Gibbens was the recipient of an Artist Trust GAP Award in 2007 and a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award in 2006.
www.justingibbens.com
www.amyross.com
April Hours: Noon-5pm Thursday-Sunday,
or by appointment.
Finished (for the most part):
Quail Magnolia
Birch with Birdshrooms
Unfinished (and racing against the clock to be completed):
Goose and Rabbit Magnolia (diptych)
She-Wolf with Birch
Framed and wrapped and ready to go:
In 48 hours, I will be in a plane on my way to Seattle, and it stands to reason that my work will be done by then. Yikes! I don't know why this particular round of show prep has been so tortured. But I am so looking forward to visiting Seattle for the first time, meeting my co-exhibitor Justin Gibbens, seeing a dear old high school friend, meeting fellow blogger Christopher Reiger (who happens to be out there at the same time as I am), going gallery hopping, etc., etc. Maybe the rain will even hold off!
Once I'm back, it's time to start tackling my paper quilt project in earnest, and also to start prepping for my show at Rare Device in San Francisco that opens in early June. (And, might I add, the Red Sox season gets underway, but I digress.)
My work for Seattle is just about finished (thank god, since the show opens a week from tonight), and I will post all the pieces hopefully by tomorrow night. In the meantime, I'm happy to announce that my Bird Heart print with Keep Calm is finally in the tail end of production and should be available on their site in a few weeks. I've been emailing jpegs back and forth to London, and the printer is in Paris, so it is an international affair! Here's a sneak peek:
And, as a reminder, there are still a few medium and large size prints of my Manshroom collage available through Jen Bekman's 20x200, at this link right here.
Almost done with this here goose magnolia:
Made from these two things, each magnificent in its own right:
I had been painting bare birch trees, and they were killing me, and I realized that I have been so desperate for Spring that I had to go back to my magnolia pictures from last year, and paint them. Now I feel better, and the painting was easy, and the goose adds some levity to the fact that I've got my back to the wall with the deadline for the Seattle show. Something tells me I'm not going to make it down to NYC this weekend for the art fairs, which I'm really upset about. Why can't I be more disciplined about getting my work done on time? (And, the flu is not all gone yet, boo hoo!)
And, if we're going to be bemoaning things here, if you are one of my art dealers, and you are reading this, I cannot handle another one of you deciding to close your doors. I know it's a sign of the times, but I am starting to think that it's really ME, that you all are closing shop because I am the common variable! No, seriously, I know "it's the economy, stupid," but it suffices to say that I won't be having a repeat of the banner year I had in 2007. And on that uplifting note (ha!), I will be back tomorrow with the finished goose product.
Happy Easter to those who celebrate it!
These are each 10x8 inches, and they will hang in a grid like this mock-up I did on Photoshop. I'm really happy with them, and I'm even happier that they are done and on their way to the framer's. Some close-ups:
I swear, once I have kicked the flu and fully tackled my Seattle show, I will return to the world of regular blogging.
So this is my new book:
My daughter was flipping through it and found this owl drawing by Brendan Donnelly.
And so we made some owl drawings together.
What can I say? How much happier could I be to do a project like this??
And: the Tokion book is amazing. It has so many of my favorite artists in it, including Clare Rojas and Simone Shubuck.
I'm finishing up a bunch of animal-themed collages for my Seattle show. Hopefully I'll have some pictures tomorrow...
