I've been working on this duck magnolia drawing for the past few days. It's slooooow going. I hope I finish it today.
It's based on this duck:
And this yellow magnolia:
I love yellow magnolias! Last year, I made a few watercolors based on them. This cardinal magnolia was shown at the Scope Hamptons art fair last summer.
And ths goldfinch magnolia was in my Anima Mundi show at Jen Bekman last spring.
I'm taking a mini-vacation this weekend; see you next week!
My life is a perpetual mad scramble. Help, anyone? And: the magnolias are blooming like crazy right now, and I have a small window of time to shoot pictures of them to use as source material for my watercolors, so I've been out with the camera most days, stocking up on pictures and striking while the iron is hot. The magnolia buds are so creaturely that I can barely stand it.
They remind me of some old wall drawings of mine:
So I'm sort of going overboard with the gathering of source material, but with the sudden warm and sunny weather still a novelty, I have an easy excuse to be outside.
I am finishing up a watercolor which I hope to post by the end of the week.
And, finally, thank you so much for all the positive feedback about my bird heart print, and my show in Seattle, and so forth. It certainly makes my life as an artist a lot more rewarding.
My Bird Heart print is officially up on the Keep Calm website! You can buy it here. You can also read the short bio I wrote about myself here. (Side note: does any artist actually enjoy writing these things and then having to go read them once they are out there for the public to see??? *gulp!*)
Excitement was high at my house this morning, owing largely to the fact that my daughter got some indirect credit for the very existence of this print (see links above). So the breakfast table quickly morphed into a makeshift art studio, and together we began working on a parrot heart collage.
I don't know if there is a better way to start the day than to find my print online and on sale, collaborate on an art project with my daughter, and read that it is going to be 77 degrees and sunny today in Boston. Sort of softens the blow of the not-so-glowing review of my Punch Gallery show that ran in today's Seattle Times. I should not complain; yesterday, I got another nice mention in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Just a quick post to say that my bird heart prints arrived in the mail today from the printer in Paris!
(That's a shadow on the upper left corner of the paper; the print is pristine white.) Now I need to sign and number all 80 of them and ship them off to London, and then they will be available for purchase at www.keep-calm.com. Can't wait!
I'm hoping these prints will inspire me to get back in gear in the studio. I am definitely wrestling with that dreaded post-show slump. I've been out walking with my dog and my camera quite a bit, hoping that something will click.
Hope to be back soon with some new art!
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a great review of the Animal Spell show at the end of last week. Many thanks to the writer, Nate Lippens, for his thoughtful take on my work; I love how he said that my "trippy visions suggest Alice in Wonderland at a nature conservancy." My show partner Justin Gibbens has another 2-person show up in Seattle right now, this time with the photographer Nealy Blau at G. Gibson Gallery. These two watercolors are my favorite pieces from Justin's show at G. Gibson:
Out in L.A., my friend Ryan McLennan has a new show up at Kinsey/DesForges Gallery. I love these!
It's amazing how my thoughts have already turned to summer, with spring barely here yet. Lisa Congdon and I decided on the date for the opening of my show at Rare Device in San Francisco (Friday, June 6!); my daughter is all signed up for camp; and I have some Red Sox tickets for a hot July night.
In the meantime, the magnolias are blooming!
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.)
