Next on the Worktable

And now showing on the studio worktable is a commission piece, including a couple sketches of dogs that are near and dear to the gentleman who I am creating for.

 

 First, a flat coated retriever...

 

And then a golden retriever.

This particular commission piece is a combination of many things that make the town of San Anselmo special to one of it's residents, including several different landmark buildings that will appear to be in one street scene. This was completely the client's idea, which I loved! I'll be posting updates on that soon...

Where to see that Christmas Art...

I'm in the midst of posting the Christmas themed works that incorporate those sheep - you can go read about them in my Visions blog - Go to Bethlehem and In the City of David. The next two are coming soon...

sheep sketch

Working on some new pieces with a Christmas theme, so some sheep are in order... (you know, shepherds tending their flocks...)

Time marches on

A couple of my friends are doing some serious house cleaning in preparation for moving and found a bunch of old clocks hidden away. A deceased partner had collected them and it was determined that he would approve of them being up-cycled into art, so they have been gifted to me.

Another friend, upon hearing of this, thinks they should be reviewed in case there is something of real value in the lot, as she once collected clocks.

So here I will present them all and put them up for review...

 This one is battery operated, but in a pretty wicker housing.

This has real clockworks but no idea if it works at all.

 This one is pretty nearly falling apart, even if began as something of any value, the condition is so poor I can't imagine it really being something anyone would want (except someone like me.)

This says "Made specially for the Dubros Stores" on the back, real clock works inside.

This has got clockworks and chimes and reads "clock superior diamond" on the inside.

This was "Made in Korea" and says "Formac 31 Days" on the face.

 This one has real clock works and written instructions in the little cupboard. It reads "Made in Germany" on the face. Too sweet, I imagine it would remain whole when integrated into a new artwork...

 This is just a battery operated pretty box.

Finally, this just says "Smiths" on the face.

Nesting Box up for auction soon!

Let me just start this by saying I think artists get asked to donate artworks far too often at too high a cost to the artist and generally offering artworks for prices under the value of artworks, so I do not put my work up for auction lightly or often. But there are organizations and causes that I do like to support, so I will occasionally offer an artwork in a benefit auction.

The Center for Contemporary Art, Sacramento, is one of those organizations that I do feel strongly about supporting and with whom I love to work. So I am contributing to their annual art auction this year, coming November 17th, 2012. Here is my artist's statement and bio that will be accompanying my work.

“’Nesting Box’ is part of my home-themed series of works, exploring the concept of home and all that it encompasses. Home can be a structure, in this case, the house on the top, the nest inside and the box itself can all be homes. Home can be a more general geographic area, or even a kind of landscape. A home is a stage for life, where we retreat to and where we interact with others. Humans have brought dogs into their homes since prehistoric times and the land we share is home to many other animals and wild birds.

A couple notes of interest: The dog depicted here is a Staffordshire bull terrier, the same breed as my own two dogs. Many of my works include sketches of sparrows, to remind me of a Bible verse in Matthew that says God knows when a sparrow falls and how much more he looks after each of us. (It helps me to know I’m being watched over and cared for.) The rocks in this piece were first collected and polished by my great grandfather, who was an avid rock hound, then came to my possession after my grandfather’s death. My great grandfather created many lovely objects from the rocks he collected and I’m sure he’d be happy that they are now finding their way into my works of art.”

(You'll notice those rocks are missing from these photos, so you'll just have to come see them in person at the auction... or trust that they are perfect in the piece and phone your bids in...)

 

“In my work, multiple physical layers also stand in for multiple layers of meaning: black & white photos and sketches stand in for the physical world, colors represent the spiritual world. There is always a spiritual meaning that overlays my work. In this work, Home is also a reference to Heaven…”

Judith is always conscious of the environment and our impact on it, choosing to “up-cycle” found objects into artworks whenever possible. This work was started with a wood cigar box, to which the artist affixed her own original black and white photographs and sketches as well as with found and dried leaves. Color was then applied in multiple layers with colored pencils, acrylic glazes and Caran d’Ache artists’ crayons. The artist finally “feathered” her nest with a small found feather and stones.

Judith Monroe teaches photography at Sierra College and has worked in photography for nearly 30 years. Beginning with hand-coloring, she has continually incorporated additional media into her works until she became known as a mixed media artist about four years ago, using her photographs in her mixed media collage art and now working both two and three dimensionally. She is represented in several galleries across northern California and her work can be found in various collections including the Ontological Museum in Colorado, the Ritz Carlton at North Star, Tahoe, and Kaiser Permanente in Roseville, as well as in private collections from Sacramento to Scotland.

Selected Awards:

Honorable Mention, Juror Scott A. Shields, Chief Curator, Crocker Art Museum, “In Search of Grace,” St. John’s Thirty-Seventh Religious & Spiritual Art Festival, Sacramento, Ca, March 2011

First Place, “St John’s Thirty-Sixth Religious Art Festival” Juror Thomas Morphis, MFA, Sacramento, Ca, March 2009        

(Retail price for Nesting Box is $295 with an opening bid of $150 - but the goal is to raise money for the amazing exhibits, lectures and Studio Tour that the CCAS hosts, so bid high!) More details soon at http://www.ccasac.org/. 

Sweet Home California

 

This Friday, October 5, 2012, 6 to 9 p.m., is my artist's reception for my newest works at the Blue Wing Gallery in Woodland, Ca. The piece above is one of the works on display there now, titled "Only Hearts Can Build It" and features the house that one of my best friends is now living in with her recently reconciled husband. I had thought of titling it "The House That Love Rebuilt," but I decided to go with bits and pieces from quotes on home that I like instead. The quote this one comes from is by an unknown author and says, "It takes hands to build a house but only hearts can build a home." Like many of my works, the quote is also written in the piece itself, providing one of many little things for the viewer to discover.

And here's my artist's statement for this show: 

Born and raised in California, the great valley was always my home. As a young adult, I could hardly wait to get out and see the rest of the world and I happily traveled wherever the Army sent my husband, to other states and countries. But one day I found myself, much like Dorothy, longing to be back. In my mind’s eye, I longingly envisioned open spaces and dry brown hills dotted with giant oaks, the rough coast interrupted by beaches, and the imposing Sierra Nevada. After several years we finally returned home to our native landscape, living in the valley, traveling east and west and then north and south, my cameras ever at the ready. 

I spend my creative energies in recording the landscape I see as my home, the places not only precious to me but truly unique and special in the world. After capturing the images in photographs, I collage them onto a surface with other snippets of home,  a fallen leaf or twig, a sketch of a native creature or pet, a piece of map. Sometimes the collage becomes three dimensional, growing into an assemblage, but the undercurrents of home and landscape always remain. Color is applied with pencils, acrylics  or whatever I find useful, until the depth of my emotion is expressed in the palette of my art. One of my greatest joys is that I live in one of the most beautiful places on earth, and I have the true privilege to be able to share it with others.

Making the grade

I am not only my own worst critic, as many artists are, but my own hardest slave driver, too. I started working on this piece about ten days ago, striving to get it done in about a week... Pretty nearly there, I'll give myself a B for being a little late, though I'll likely get an A for the final grade since I'm liking it so much.

 

Note to my students: you can grade yourself like this when you've been at it for this long, but don't expect me to be quite as lenient with you - I won't be turning this in late to the gallery!

Photographic memory

Sometimes in my creative process, I will lay several elements on a piece in a certain composition that I like but then I will need to take that composition apart to work on intermediate steps. Getting the piece to the stage where I am then ready to affix all the layers can take a significant amount of time and my issue is then how to remember my initial composition.

While I have found that I can often recompose what I have forgotten to my satisfaction, I have also realized that I have a great tool at my fingertips to help me remember my original choices. So sometimes when I can foresee that I might have trouble remembering, I will take a quick photo that I can refer back to later in the process.

I have found myself in that place today, with the brass leaves that will have to be affixed in the very final stages of this piece, so I'm sharing a couple photos of details in the large 2x4' piece I recently started. It's also got five photo transfers of a row of older houses in East Sac that drew my attention. Maybe I'll give you little peeks of other sections as it progresses, too.

From one neighborhood to the next

Within the past couple of days I finished up a set of artworks. I usually fill the worktable and work in batches which helps me keep consistency in a particular body of work and gives me something to do when layers are drying...

I just finished several house shaped shadow boxes that look a lot like a neighborhood when seen together and today I photographed five houses all in a row on a street in east Sacramento. This is one of those relatively rare times when I'm shooting and then pretty rapidly putting the photos into a piece.

Sometimes it's because I'm working on a commission but it will happen even faster if I'm particularly inspired and want to strike while the iron's hot, so to speak. This was a hot iron, spurred by an upcoming exhibit deadline. The plan is to pull this next piece together in a week or so; we'll see if I can live up to my own expectations...

New work

I've been slowly but surely making progress on several pieces on my worktable right now, including a fairly experimental piece incorporating a packing tape photo transfer. It's a technique I picked up in a recent workshop and I like the transparency of it and I wanted to find a way to highlight that transparency in a new work. After a little playing around, I hot an idea for suspending it in a shadow box. The piece I was working with was finally at the stage for adding the transfer today and I'm pretty pleased with the results - it looks just as I envisioned, which isn't always how things work. I've still got some more to do to the whole piece, but here's a shot of it as it sits on the table now.

Today's Table Shot

I've had to concentrate on other aspects of work, like getting a new syllabus together for classes (which start in a scant week and a half!) So I haven't been able to attend to the works in progress or go house hunting... Sometimes the Worktable taunts me.

Likewise, my 'dead stick garden' (so named by my brother Joe) beckons me to play. Soon...

Try Again

Got the new wood doll house yesterday, but it's really too big for the 'Rooted' base... Guess I'll have to do more shopping...

Garden Seeds

Sometimes inspiration comes when I least expect it. Though usually my art starts with photography, sometimes it starts somewhere else, like while I was gardening recently. Ok, so mostly I was cleaning up from my serious lack of gardening, but that's gardening, right?

Anyway, in my cleaning up, I emptied a pot that once had a living plant and uncovered a really interesting rootball. I instantly knew it was destined for something besides the green waste bin, so I put it inside on the kitchen table, to keeps dogs from chewing it up before it could fulfill it's destiny. At some point shortly after that, I realized that it was destined to become the root structure for a house. We often talk about "putting down roots" when we talk about our homes, so this just seemed like a natural illustration fort home series.

Pretty soon I was going through my collection of wood houses that I've been building and found the perfect house, then I envisioned a structure that would simultaneously house the roots and support the house. Not being quite that handy with woodworking, I took the project to someone who is very handy. I'm so grateful to Phil the Wood Guy! (without Phil I would be lost...)

So Phil built a structure for my roots, doing just what I had envisioned but somehow I had envisioned too small and now my house is out of proportion, so I started looking att houses again but nothing was quite right. Wouldn't you know that a quick eBay search produced a little wood house of the perfect proportions? What could I do but put my bid in? As fate would have it, my new little house is now on it's way and I'm one step closer to putting my vision together.

Here' a couple photos of the rootball in it's frame and the too-small house. I'll be sure to post more as this process continues.

Walk of Faith

June 1, 2012

midday
trail along Dry Creek
from Walerga heading east

 walking with the dogs

Right before I started my walk today, I came to the realization that I will be leaving my midtown gallery space in thirty days. The last-ditch effort to make things work differently had failed and while I am sad to end a chapter in my life, it is by no means the end of the story. I know that God is the ultimate author of my story, and I'm trusting that what could seem like a setback is only the start of something new - so I went on a walk of faith.

It's not like I haven't been on this path before, faith is a familiar way for me and I am looking forward to each new step as a chance for adventure and discovery. When I first stepped out of the car I found a butterfly at my feet - a reminder of resurrection and the promise of new life - I was reminded again and again by the many butterflies that flew across my path along the walk and several fuzzy caterpillars heading for their next meal and ultimate metamorphosis.

The path changes a little from season to season but the main forms of it remain, so it keeps a familiarity to it - Today is a warm day, warmer than it's been and we're not quite acclimated yet, but the shade on the dirt path keeps is bearable.

We were offered a very close look at a large alligator lizard - over a foot long overall - staying still for a photo. The tired dogs hardly noticed, so I got them past and gently nudged the lizard off the trail to relative safety.

A stop at the creek side gave the dogs a chance to cool off in the water; Moey unexpectedly laid down in the shallow edge, then was refreshed enough to move on.

Nearly back to the car, I looked up and saw a new addition that I had missed on the way out - a special provision for unknown birds - like Matthew's reference to sparrows, I am reminded there will be provisions made for me, too...

(The day's catch.)

Valley of the Moon

Took a photographic day trip yesterday with one of my shooting buddies, Wendell Minshew, over to the Sonoma Valley. I'd been enticed by the scenery recently when delivering artworks to galleries in Sonoma and Healdsburg and couldn't wait to get back with a couple cameras and some time to just wander around.

I managed to use up some of my waning supply of Polaroid film and I got some nice shots with my Nikon, too, but I am still amazed by what I can get with my iPhone. (Wendell was impressed, too.)

We drove in a few circles, around Glen Ellen, into the Jack London State Park, back around and out to Highway 12, up and over the ridge toward Napa and finally headed home when the light was waning.

While I'm not entirely dis-interested in historical displays in museums, sometimes the view outside is more appealing.

At the Jack London State Park, a mesquite against light grasses caught my eye.

Part of the ruins of Wolf House.

A moss covered old oak.

Grave site of pioneer children

A peek into a neighboring vineyard at the state park.

Old barn near Glen Ellen

Kunde vineyard along Highway 12

Last light falls across Walnut Drive

Down to the wire

So between classes, gallery admin work and getting new galleries, I've been squeezing in the time to work on the shadow box artworks for the upcoming 20/20 Show at the Kennedy, which I need to hang in no less than four days.

Right now I've just finished the painting and the varnish is drying in the boxes - and the twigs I'll be putting inside. Here's a couple boxes with the collection of what will be inside, at least to start with. Usually I add a little more, so that will have to all come together, then the finish work, getting them photographed and finally hung in just a few more days...

Nine in process

I'm working on the last nine shadow box artworks for the 20/20 show coming in May. I've got a little more than a week to get these finished! Here's the basic game plan, ready to start the first layer of collage.

Nine to go

Finished up the batch of ten shadow boxes I had been working on for the 20/20 show, so now I've got nine left. Here's a shot of them on my studio wall, nowhere else really to store them...

Making progress

Almost done with the color on this batch of ten art pieces for the upcoming 20/20 Show...

Next ten

Working on my series for the 20/20 art show coming in May - I've got nineteen days left to create nineteen small artworks! Here's how the next ten are starting on my worktable...