Pink House 5th Anniversary Celebration

Here is my invitation to each wonderful person who has been a part of the success of my business during the past 5 years. Thank you!!!

If you have:

• taken a Pink House class or workshop and have a piece you made here or made later from the techniques you learned, please submit it!
• shown your work at the Pink House in one of my early exhibits, please submit a piece you showed or something similar!
• bought art at the Pink House made by me or another artist, please submit it for temporary display!

This exhibit will not be juried and there are no fees - all submissions will be accepted. For that reason, please submit one piece only. I would like to have an image of the piece you plan to submit, so I can start planning the space. And also let me know if you want to try selling your piece or if it will not be for sale. I'm requesting a 15% commission on work that is sold. Plan on bringing or shipping your piece to me between August 24 and 28.

I plan to have this exhibit up for the month of September, with appropriate social distancing and face masks for visitors. There will not be a formal opening but I will choose a date on which I will open an online view of the exhibit and will post the hours when my gallery will be open.

If you can participate, please call (518-524-0533) or send an email (PinkHouseGallery@gmail.com)

A Deeper Sense - Doing the Work

For a few weeks, I've been getting the parts of my mixed media interpretation of the Smitty Creek watershed project together. The botanical contact printed silk panels have been hanging on my design wall, as I added bits of blue fabric to signify the important of the water component in this ecosystem.

The next component was the textured background on which I wanted to print my photographs and other images. I used a non-woven synthetic fabric stabilizer (also know as interfacing), on which I spread fiber paste, an acrylic product that contains small fibers that create a stable texture when dry. I have to be careful to lay on a thin layer so the resulting material will be accepted by my inkjet printer. (Sometimes I use molding paste instead of fiber paste.) When the paste was completely dry, I sanded it thoroughly to remove any small peaks and extra rough areas.

The next step was the application of thin washes of acrylic paint to the stabilizer. For this piece, I used both medium brown and blue-grey paints. I accidentally applied more paint than was compatible with my need to have my photos show up fairly well, so I rinsed parts of it under running water in my big studio sink before the paint dried.

More to come - LOTS more!

Colorful Threads

"Spinning Sun" by Madeleine Appell

 The Pink House Gallery is currently showing "Colorful Threads." It's all fiber art and includes the art quilting of Madeleine Appell, the silk paintings of Lynne Taylor, and the embellished screen prints and eco (or botanical contact) prints of Cris Winters. Lots of fun smaller art and objects for sale as well.

"A New Day Dawning" by Madeleine Appell

"Seascape" by Madeleine Appell

"Up Spear Hill" by Lynne Taylor

"Sunset on the Lake" by Lynne Taylor

"Uplake Twilight" by Lynne Taylor

"Spring Enhanced" by Cris Winters

Detail from "Peony Leaf Fantasy" by Cris Winters

While this exhibit is in place, I'm preparing for a Fiber and Mixed Media Art Juried Show that opens at the Pink House Gallery on August 5th. More information and an application on my Juried Show 2016 page.

Gallery at the Pink House

Mixed media by Susan Andrews

More by Susan Andrews

I'm having so much fun showing the work of my artist friends at my gallery. The exhibit "Arrivals & Departures opened on Friday, featuring the work of Susan Andrews. Here are some highlights:

Art by Lynne Taylor, Deborah McDonald, and Carol Boyer (r to l)

Art by Pat Pauly, Cris Winters. Carol Boyer, and Lynne Taylor. (r to l)

Art by Pat Pauly and Cris Winters (r to l)

Zen rocks by Chad Pattison

The Best Kind of Limitation

Often I talk with my students about how limitations and constraints can be good for an artist. They can increase creativity by reducing the sometimes mind-numbing thousands of directions and options. At least, that's what they often do for me.

This science-and-art project that focuses on the processes of management, regrowth, and ecology in the Long Term Ecology Research sites at the Paul Smith's College VIC is a challenge. There are so many organisms, microhabitats, seasonal changes, and management types that making art to interpret any of this can feel too big and too complex.

I worked through various styles and formats for making artwork of my own for our exhibition, and I could not settle on what I wanted until a perfect collaboration occurred to me. The professor teaching the class that is organizing this project is also a poet - my friend Craig Milewski. When I realized I wanted words to combine with my images, the poem Craig is writing about this place and its ecological processes seemed like the right fit. And Craig agreed.

What you see above is a try-out of several pieces that will be layered to make one of five for the show opening on April 24th at the VIC, one for each of the parts of Craig's poem. The perfect and best kind of limitation - and collaboration.

Spring Projects

THREADS & LETTERS

The Fringe Gallery in Saranac Lake is currently exhibiting its 8" by 10" People's Choice Show. They are celebrating their first anniversary - a welcome addition to the burgeoning gallery scene in the village. This is the little piece I entered - fabric paper with machine stitching over collaged papers and threads and mounted on a painted prepared canvas. Lots of fun small pieces in this show - very affordable.

Now I am watching the birds return and the plants emerge.

CHRISTMAS FERN FIDDLEHEADS

   The silvery scales and beautiful spirals of these new ferns fronds are exquisite.