More wonderful San Fran artists...Part II

This summer my husband and I had the opportunity to travel through San Francisco and Marin County. I came across an open studio brochure at a local art store in Mill Valley and cut out the art work images and names of these artists into my journal. Here we are just back from a hike at Muir Beach near Muir Woods....beautiful area.




Check them out , more great SF artists and be inspired!

Francis Snyder - In the summer brochure I was really drawn to her acrylic painting 'Secret life of plants' .

Suzie Buchholz - Great website homepage, love how one painting becomes another... Her work is a feast of colour. Take a look at the gallery.

Jeanne Scholz - Love her piece entiteld 'the road note taken' in watercolor, acrylic and mixed media.

Joan Hauck - Joan works in encaustic, mixed media, and fiber -- I hope to see her work in person one day. Love her piece called 'The Reds'.

Isabel Wyatt - Especially like her 'silk road' series, they look like they were very liberating to paint.

Georgette L Osserman - Especially love her section called 'oils' which has some wonderful abstract pieces.

Some wonderful San Francisco Arists

This summer my husband and I had the opportunity to travel through San Francisco and Marin County. I came across an open studio brochure at a local art store in Mill Valley and cut out the art work images and names of these artists into my journal. What can I say, it's just so fun to collage in little painting images. In doing so I pretty much converted our hotel rooms into art studios!

Check them out , these great SF artists and be inspired!

Louise Forbush - Uses mixed media, collage on wood and gold leaf. Absolutely LOVE the paper collage piece on the front of her website

Elaine Gentile- On her website I really enjoyed the abstracts, My favourite was the
Movement in Green 30x30" oil. Elaine also has a video on utube.

Monika Steiner - Love her 'Blue Shadows' piece!

Jeff Dodson - no website was listed by his collage works, especially "I still just want to be a millionare" are fun to see and reminicent of Sabrina's journal art.

Sandra Schoenberg - Her piece entitled ' Quiet integrity' captured my eye.

Helen Steele - I am really drawn to her work in wax, especially the blue pieces which seem almost electric blue.

Letters to....

Many years ago my friend Matthew Martenyi gifted me a copy of the book Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Let me go back a moment here to tell you that Matthew is a great friend and about 10 years ago we sailed togher on his boat, Pooh Bear, from San Francisco to La Paz, Baja California Sur, Mexico. I was crew and he was the captain. This trip was precursed by a trip of which I sailed from Vancovuer to San Francisco with captain Bob and the story of this was published in Traveler's Tales Books Sand in my Bra, Funny Women Write for the Road. Anyways, Matthew and I have stayed great friends since and he was here a few weeks ago reading my daughter Ruthie (5) book after book and took her out for pancakes to Sambo's...It was very sweet.

So, back to the Letters to a young Poet book. If you follow my blog or know me personally you will know that I am not a great reader. I like pictures! The bar has been set high in my family on thsi arena as my Dad will never be found without a book or a magazine nearby and my husband reads at least a book a day. Hence, if I read a novel every few months, well that be my quota. So, I had not cracked this lovely book Matthew had gifted me until now.

Until i was reading through one of Sabrina Ward Harrison book/journals - now that's my idea of book! It's an utter visual feast of mixed media art, collage, banana peel stickers and whatever else is lying around, wrapped into wonderful thoughtful prose and questions. Something that caught my eye in one of her books was ripped out and collaged in pages - slightly obscured by paint and collage items, making it all the more fun to try and read - the wonderful Letters to a young poet. My intest was re-kindled and I have the book here by my side and thought I would share a piece with you if you'd made it this long through my babbling!

On re-discovering ones own old art works, writings, school projects...

" I know that it is important and full of new experience to come upon a work of one's own again written in a strange hand. Read the lines as though they were someone else's, and you will feel deep wtihin you how much they are your own."



PS Letters to a Young ARtist by Julia Cameron is divine! ( I actually did read this one!!!)

Expanding our beliefs about what's possible

A while back, OK, I admit it's been well over a year, Rick Stitch fellow artist, teacher, & mentor of mine here in Santa Barbara, loaned me the book Portraits - Talking with Artist at the MET, The modern, The louvre and elsewhere by Michael Kimmelman. It's been on my shelf for a while and then it moved to my folder entitled " Blogs" so I finally cracked it open and while perusing the book I came to the understanding of why reading about other artists can be so beneficial:

Reading -or talking to, or watching movies -about others can expand our beliefs about what is possible for our own life.

I remember visiting another art mentor and teacher Adolfo Girala several years back when he was still living in west LA. ( Adolfo has since moved to London, England to further persue is art career). and I recall him casually mentioning he had made $250K the last year. That comment alone expanded my concept of what is possible financially for working artist. My beliefs expanded. I just received a group/touch base letter he sent out before leaving for London and he said he was doing even better. Congrats Adolfo! I hope to see you in London.

After Rimi Yang exhibited her large and captivating oil and wax work at Artamo gallery (as I write this, pls note - sadly- she is no longer represented there) I had a conversation with her via email to discover taht she was asked to be an artist in Residence in NewFoundLand Canada. Again, another possibility I'd never thought of - you can actually go to a nice place with artist studios where they will feed and fund you and you get to share and teach your passion with others. How cool is that? You can bet I've found a few residency positions in which I intend to apply to.

YOu may not be an artist in the tradional sense, but truly I belive we are all artists - creating our lives in our way. Therefore my question to you is, how has talking to others in your field, reading books, or seeing movies expanded your horizon of beliefs and possibilies?

Please do let me know here in comments....

New work - Emerging or Pure Abstraction

This is a newer painting, with no name as of yet, that I finished and had photographed recently and quite honestly I can't decide if it belongs with the Emerging Series or the newer Pure Abstraction series...

Untitled

Emerging Series?
30 x 40"Mixed Media, Acrylics, Sand, on canvas
1 1/2 " painted edges, ready to hang
(C) Deb Chaney 2008 $3500 USD

This painting was created to enhance Career and Lifepath.
Using Feng Shui priciples this piece would further enhance your career and life path by placing it near the entrace of your home or office space.