Walking

Last year, I attended a nature journaling workshop at the Albuquerque Petroglyphs with my 10 year old. It was one of the most amazing days.  The instructor walked us through various exercises. One of them was to sit in front of a plant for 15 minutes and just look.  And sketch what we saw. On my walk this day, I was feeling stressed and my footsteps remembered this teacher.   I stopped, and began looking. Not for 15 minutes, but just 5.  After about 60 seconds of adjusting my vision, I began to see a whole universe unfold before me.  A world of flowers, plants, ants, bees, and insects just barely visible.  And certainly invisible before to me,  a quick walker intent on covering my distance.  Watching this slow, swooping, intense activity gave me hope for my day. There was an entire universe of activity supporting this amazing ecosystem I live in and breath in.  It reminds me to be thankful for all the things I cannot see.

sources

sketches

Momentary: Paintings by Jill Christian and Ana Medina Opens October 4th, 2013

Please join us for the opening of Momentary at The William Platz Gallery at Southwest University of Visual Arts.

Ana Medina: http://www.anamedina.net
Jill Christian: http://www.jillchristian.com

Momentary: Jill Christian and Ana Medina
The William Platz Gallery at
Southwest University of Visual Arts
5000 Marble NE
Albuquerque, NM
www.suva.edu

Opening reception:
Friday, October 4, 2013
6:00-8:00 pm

Gallery Hours: Mon. - Fri. 8:00 am-5:00 pm, Sat. 9:00 am-1:00 pm

Studio update - September 2013

There's a lot of activity this month - in the studio and out.  I've been in the studio finishing the painting,  Dark Blue Sea, and starting a new group of paintings for a solo exhibition coming up in September 2014.


I also have a  number of events coming up this fall:

ArtGraze Salon Show

This weekend (Sept. 13-14) ArtGraze will be hosting a weekend exhibition and speaking event in Santa Fe. The exhibition includes works by 29 artists who are members of ArtGraze's art and design community.  I will have three paintings in the exhibition.

ArtGraze Salon Show
Pippin Contemporary
200 Canyon Rd.
Santa Fe, NM
http://pippincontemporary.com

Friday, September 13, 2013
5:30-7:30 pm

ArtGraze Speakers' Event:

The following day there will be a Speakers' Event at Zane Bennett Contemporary Art in Santa Fe's historic Railyard District. This event is open to the public. There will be a $20 charge at the door for non members. Space is limited, so please arrive by 1:00 pm to get a seat. There will be light refreshments, giveaways, and a drawing held with some exciting door prizes for those present at the end of the event.

Zane Bennett Gallery

435 S Guadalupe, Santa Fe, NM

http://www.zanebennettgallery.com/

Saturday, September 14, 2013

1:30 pm - 4:45 pm

Scheduled speakers:

• Sandy Zane, owner of Zane Bennett Gallery, will be speaking on her experience with the design process, working in collaboration with John Padilla AIA on the creation of her gallery.
• Robert Gamblin, artist, advisor to the Smithsonian Institute, and creator of Gamblin Art Materials will speak on his relationship with color.
• Bernadette Vadurro, CSP “Three Top Tips for Presenting, How to Sell Your Presentation” Bernadette is a Certified Speaking Professional, and the President of Speakers Live, Inc. She has presented to the AIA locally and regionally.
• Suzanna Gratz, Director of ArtMuse.tv will demonstrate her high digital system that serves the fine art, real estate, and design industries.
• Jennifer Ashton, Designer, will speak about the upcoming Fashion and Design Showhouse Santa Fe 2013.
• Jacqueline Butler, ASID, will begin the program with an introduction to ArtGraze and the artists, galleries, and designers featured on ArtGraze.com and social media sites.

Opening of "Momentary"- Paintings by Jill Christian and Ana Medina

Friday, October 4, please join us for the opening of our two-person exhibition at the William Platz Gallery at Southwest University of Visual Arts.  Ana is an amazing figurative painter. Here's a link to Ana's website: http://www.anamedina.net.

William Platz Gallery
Southwest University of Visual Arts
5000 Marble NE
Albuquerque, NM

Opening reception:
Friday, October 4, 2013
6:00-8:00 pm

Miniatures and More at the Albuquerque Museum

I will have three paintings in this year's Miniatures and More exhibition at the Albuquerque Museum.  The opening reception is October 26, and work will be on display through December 8th.

The Albuquerque Museum of Art & History
Albuquerque, NM
October 27-December 8, 2013

Gala Event (Tickets are $75.00): Saturday, October 26
Public opening: Sunday, October 27
http://albuquerquemuseum.org/support/miniatures-more

Amethyst Arsenic

My paintings will be featured in the Winter issue of Amethyst Arsenic, an online journal of poetry, art, and music published by Samantha Milowsky. The journal was mentioned as "One of five awesome new literary magazines" in 2011 by Yahoo Voices.  In addition to editing, Samantha is a poet, singer-songwriter, and works as a technology consultant.
http://www.amethystarsenic.com/index.php

Harwood Art Center's 12x12 Fundraiser Event

Don't miss the 2013 annual 12x12 event at Albuquerque's Harwood Art Center. Saturday, December 7, 6:00-8:00 pm.

New work

Apple, 8"x8", oil on panel

New work: Dark Blue Sea

I just finished this painting, which I was previously calling "Wave Form".  It's titled, "Dark Blue Sea", after a poem by Byron.

"Dark Blue Sea", 36"x36", oil on panel, 2013

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The Dark, Blue Sea

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.-

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters washed them power while they were free,
And many a tyrant since: their shores obey
The stranger, slave or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou,
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play-
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow-
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless and sublime-
The image of eternity-the throne
Of the invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
 
And I have loved thee, ocean! And my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane - as I do here.

George Gordon Byron

From “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”

The Sketchbook - Summer Drawings

I'm an abstract painter. But I relish sketching in my black 5x8 sketchbook. This summer I visited my hometown, taking visual notes of time with my family.

Work in Progress - Wave Form

Work in Progress (May 2013), oil on panel, 36"x36"

I have been working on this painting for months now.  I *almost* wish I'd kept track of the hours I've put into this painting. But then, I don't think I really want to know. Not keeping track helps me to work, I measure success by working on it every time I go to the studio, for as long as I can.

It's starting to take a final shape in my mind, which is exciting.

"Black & White" at Woodstock School of Art (May 18-July 6, 2013)

This Saturday,  May 18, is the opening reception for Black & White, a group exhibition juried by Peik Larsen, at the Woodstock School of Art in Woodstock, NY.

46 works will be featured that honor "the absence of color". But you'll find these pieces to be anything but colorless.

I'm honored to have one of my paintings included in this exhibition.



Exhibition Dates: May 18 - July 6, 2013
Reception: Saturday, May 18, 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday 9:00 - 3:00; After June 1, Monday-Saturday, 9:00 - 3:00

The Woodstock School of Art
2470 Route 212
Woodstock, NY 12498
www.woodstockschoolofart.org

March 9 Film Screening of Who Does She Think She Is? at Harwood Art Center

On March 9th, 2013, as part of Women & Creativity, I am sponsoring a screening of the documentary film, Who Does She Think She Is? by the Academy-Award-winning filmmaker Pamela Tanner Boll.

"In a half-changed world, women often feel they need to choose: mothering or working? Your children's well-being or your own? Responsibility or self-expression? Who Does She Think She Is?, features five fierce women who refuse to choose. Through their lives, we explore some of the most problematic intersections of our time: mothering and creativity, partnering and independence, economics and art. Along the way, the film invites  us to consider both ancient legacies of women worshiped as cultural muses and more modern time where most people can't even name a handful of female artists. in the end, the diverse women in the film demonstrate that our creativity and our care giving are not mutually exclusive, but deeply connection. In fact, their co-existence might just be the key to finishing the job."

Saturday, March 9th, 2013
Harwood Art Center
5:00 pm
$2.00 at the door

1114 7th Street NW
Albuquerque, NM  87102
(505) 242-6367

Women and Creativity is an annual, month-long event in March sponsored by the Hispanic Cultural Center and Harwood Art Center.  For more events, workshops, and programming, visit the Women and Creativity website.