Thanks to Kylie Pine at the Marion County Historic Society, I was able to photograph a map from the late 1800s showing the Bush Family property, which Edith and Elizabeth helped to protect as a municipal park for future generations. I had the map printed on canvas and stretched on 1-1/2-inch deep stretcher bars. Over this, I’ll collage a photocopy of a letter written by them to a client, sheet music of the sort that their friend, Winifred Byrd, might have played for appreciative audiences in the early 1930s and decorative papers with antique illustrations of cultivated flowers, just like the ones they were fond of incorporating into their garden designs.

Over the collage, I plan to paint Edith and Elizabeth’s portraits as they’re pictured in the photo above, taken on their trip to Europe. My colleague and partner in crime, Ross Sutherland, is creating a companion piece of the same size (16 x 20 inches) and featuring the same photo, but in an entirely different way. Our goal is to exhibit them side-by-side. Wish us luck!

For more information about Lord & Schryver, visit: http://www.lord-schryverconservancy.org/.

Not only was I inspired by the lush flora and colorful fauna, I also saw an amazing exhibition of bird illustrations by Marion Berger at the Volcano Art Center: http://www.volcanoartcenter.org/. The Art Center is located inside the National Park, in a historic building adjacent to the Visitor’s Center. To view Marion’s illustrations, visit http://www.bigislandbest.com/MarianBerger/the-marian-berger-collectio/. The little red apanane honey creeper is one of my favorites. I heard and saw lots of these birds in the Bird Park at the foot of Mauna Loa. Not only do they have about six different calls, their wings make the sweetest whirring sound when they fly.

During my explorations, I stayed at the Artist Cottage next to the Volcano Garden Arts Gallery and Ono Cafe. All three are owned and operated by Ira Ono, a local artist and very Zen guy. For reservation information, visit http://volcanogardenarts.com/. In addition to the fresh, vegetarian fare at Cafe One, I also enjoyed tasty thin crust gourmet pizza at the Kiawe Kitchen: http://www.yelp.com/biz/kiawe-kitchen-volcano. Service seems to have sped up since a lot of the online reviews were written, but, hey, it is Hawaii, so my advice is: slow down, relax and have a drink while you wait for your yummy food.

Next stop: Hilo and Pahoa, where the lava flows into the sea!

The experience occurred when Creative Capital, a New York-based nonprofit, financed his new film project. Green has since participated in the Sundance Film Festival, as well as exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Hammer Museum. He is now represented by the Andrew Edlin Gallery. No longer poised on the brink, Green now has the career he always dreamed about.

Creative Capital is a unique professional development organization that provides financing for artists’ projects (in parcels, as needed) according to terms that resemble both an investment and a grant. If the artist makes a profit, he or she pays back the grant “in an amount proportional to the original investment.”

But wait, you say, the artists pay the money back proportionally if they turn a profit? Given the nature of the art market at any given time, that sounds pretty risky for the funder.

Yes, it is, but made much less so by the professional development support also offered by Creative Capital. This support includes retreats, workshops (online and in person)  and one-on-one advisory services. Funded artists are not only given financial support, they’re given the knowledge and tools to use that support wisely and profitably.

And the proof is in the pudding. Seven Creative Capital artists participated in this year’s Sundance Film Festival and many, like Green, have been invited to showcase their projects at an exhibition this spring at the Museum of Modern Art (New York).

Creative Capital is, in turn, funded by numerous big-name donors like the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, but one of the biggest remains the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, which has pledged $15 million dollars over the next ten years.

Here is an excerpt from a November 2009 ARTNews article about Warhol’s legacy:

The Warhol foundation’s outreach . . . includes a grant-making program that provides funding for museum exhibitions, artist residencies, and arts writing, and also aims to help provide affordable health care and insurance for artists. One of the foundation’s most high-profile entities is Creative Capital, an independent nonprofit housed in the foundation’s downtown office, which makes grants directly to individual artists on a project basis. At the beginning of this year, it announced grants totaling $2.5 million for 41 projects, including innovative literary ventures, emerging arts, and performing arts.

This year to date, the foundation’s general grants have gone to institutions all over the country. In New York, $80,000 went to the CUE Art Foundation and $100,000 (spread over two years) to the Drawing Center. In Los Angeles, $100,000 went to the Museum of Contemporary Art’s “Latin American Light & Space” show and $75,000 to the Hammer Museum for a Rachel Whiteread show. The Oklahoma-based contemporary-arts center, Living Arts of Tulsa, received $100,000 (spread over three years) in program support.

To learn more about the Warhol Foundation, visit http://www.warholfoundation.org/. To learn more about Creative Capital, visit http://creative-capital.org/home.

Dialogical, a new exhibit at the Salem Art Association’s A.N. Bush Gallery (Salem, Oregon), brings this relationship to the forefront by pairing visual artists with writers who responded to the artists’ works with thoughtful and creative literary offerings. The show gleans its title from ‘dialogic,’ a term coined by Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin to refer to writing that does not simply answer, correct or validate an extant work, but informs and is informed by the work through successive incarnations.

This cumulative approach has taken many forms over the years and the current exhibit illustrates the range of experiences and outcomes that can result, serving as an apt microcosm for the state of contemporary art and arts writing at large.

In 1939, Clement Greenberg penned his first essay “Avant Garde and Kitsch” promoting Modernism as the antidote to the mediocrity of consumerism. In eloquently championing ideas such as these—and artists such as Jackson Pollock, whose work embodied them—Greenberg literally helped write the book on an art movement and, in doing so, helped change the way artists and society viewed the objectification and commodification of visual art. He, in turn, was deeply influenced by other writers and by the artists about whom he wrote.

With Dialogical, curator Pat Boas consciously evoked this dynamic by selecting three artists, an artist team and four writers who met several months ago to introduce themselves and begin a partnership in which each artist created one or more works of art that they shared with their designated writer. According to Kathleen Dinges, Director of Salem Art Association’s Community Arts Education Program, the goal was to “illuminate the dialogue in which the artwork engages in while further extending the conversation.”

In other words, the art would ideally serve as a springboard for the writing in such a way that the artist’s intention, the writer’s response, and the viewers’ subsequent reactions and appreciation would radiate outward like ripples on the surface of a pond, returning to the source as the artist—and other arts writers—are invigorated and inspired by the chain of direct or indirect interactions.

In an essay about his recent book on the writings of mid-20^th century artist Jack Tworkov, author Richard Kalina notes that Tworkov and “the [other] Abstract Expressionists were so passionately engaged in talking about art, so caught up in the joys of philosophizing . . . that it is not surprising many of them also wrote [about art].” Dialoging, whether in print or over coffee, was every bit as important to the AbEx painters as it was to critics such as Greenberg. For many contemporary artists, it remains so.

In this show, Anna Gray and Ryan Wilson Paulsen took the concept of dialogue literally with a co-created work, titled Standing Chalkbox. The work comprises a large cube measuring 47 inches square suspended in mid-air on a rolling stand resembling those that supported old-fashioned chalkboards. In fact, the cube has been coated to function as just that, with each facet a blank slate upon which visitors can write their thoughts and responses to the artwork.

“Thus, in addition to partnering with writer Ellen Santasiero, who penned a postmodern essay about one of the team’s other exhibited works, Gray and Wilson Paulsen took the conversation directly to the viewing public with an approachable sense of levity.

Santasiero, like several of the other writers, reported a deeper appreciation of a particular work of art after writing about it. Mack McFarland noted this in the context of his ad hoc partnership with Michael Reinsch, a performance artist who utilizes balloons, brightly-colored crepe streamers and other trappings of childhood celebrations as an environment for decidedly grown-up musings, thus creating a juxtaposition that is at once disarming and alarming. “To write about Michael’s performance art over a period of time is different than just seeing it once. There is so much art in the world today, so much to take in and digest, that I don’t always have the opportunity to really delve into one person’s work.”

Santasiero agrees: “I’ve gone a lot deeper with . . . [Anna and Ryan’s] works than I would have if I hadn’t been part of this project. I do appreciate their work more now that I’ve engaged with it, and I have a lot more questions for them.”

In addition to the initial meeting, during which each artist shared slides as well as biographical information and process statements, most of the artist-writer pairs subsequently met again to share and glean further insights about each other and about their work. Michelle Ross and Ann Staley are a case in point. Ross, an instructor at the Oregon College of Arts and Crafts, created a series of geometrically informed oil paintings over magazine pages and inkjet prints, resulting in geometric abstractions that are tempered with a composed lyricism.

Writer Ann Staley responded to Ross’ work with poems and prose and she visited one of Ross’ painting classes at OCAC in the process. “I [wanted] to better understand her. I made a recording of Michelle instructing her students and distilled her words into poetry.” The poem is aptly titled “In the Painting Studio: final exam.”

A work of art by Helen Reed similarly inspired writer Kristi Negri to choose a format that would engage viewers in the experience of art making. Reed’s artwork comprises documentary artifacts from Portrait of Erskine Wood, a performance piece originally designed for the Portland Art Museum’s recent “Shine a Light” event. During the performance, Reed, who was taken by an oil portrait of PAM founder C.E.S. Wood’s son Erskine, offered face painting and costume dress-up for visiting children with the caveat that they all had to be made up to resemble the painting’s subject (complete with ashen complexion, middle hair part and black dickie). The kids were then led by a museum docent on an “Erskine Only” tour that highlighted the portrait as well as several works by C.E.S. Wood and a number of pieces in the Native American collection associated with Chief Joseph, with whom Erskine spent several months learning about Nez Perce culture.

Negri responded by writing a script from the perspective of a fly on the wall during the performance. “The really cool part about working with Helen is that I got excited about what had excited her. I’ve always been a bit of an Oregon history buff, but I hadn’t delved into the C.E.S. Wood family. The reading I did to prepare for this [project] rewrote a lot of my preconceptions about early Portland . . . [Reed’s] inspiration really touched me.”

As with much of cutting-edge contemporary artwork, the pieces on display in Dialogical are not merely aesthetically driven, though each is visually compelling in its own way. As Giorgio Vasari, the 16^th-century author (and arguably the Clement Greenberg of the Renaissance) once stated: “Form in art is generally the outward expression of an idea. By looking at the outward expressions of things, in light of the ideas they contain, we may come to our own opinion.” While registering an intuitive reaction to a work of art may be satisfying, it is by understanding the ideas a work of art conveys—through engaging in actual or figurative dialogues with the artist or arts writers—that one’s capacity for appreciation skyrockets, sparking new ideas in the process.

Dinges sums up how Dialogical dovetails with the goals of SAA’s Artist Services Program, an initiative developed under the auspices of Community Arts Education, in saying that “our aim is to incorporate writers into our arts programming, foster writing about the arts in Salem, support a sense of community among artists [and] facilitate collaboration.”

When visiting this show, an open mind, a sense of wonder and an interest in joining the “conversation” will stand you in good stead.

Even if your watercolor or other art paper is not handmade, it’s easy to hand deckle the edges to replicate this rough-hewn look.  

I often like to deckle the edges of my paper before beginning a nature illustration to add a textural element to the artwork. Deckling  also allows me to “float mount” my artwork with the edges showing, rather than covered by a mat. Here’s one way to deckle the edges of 300-lb watercolor paper or 4-ply Bristol paper (in other words, thick paper):

1. Using a ruler, score the backside lightly with an Exacto knife.

2. Fold the paper back and forth long the score.

3. With the paper folded toward the side on which your artwork will be, wet the fold on the backside of the paper with a brush dipped in water.

4. Flatten the paper and gently pull each side apart along the crease.

5. To eliminate wrinkles caused by folding, lay the paper flat and sand the edges lightly with a sanding block (away from the center, as if you were wiping dust off of the paper).

To deckle thinner papers, visit http://www.utrechtart.com/community/index.cfm?commentID=197.
Although there are many types of “deckle rulers” on the market, I’ve found a plain old metal ruler and a little patience works just as well with 90-lb or 140-lb watercolor paper or 2-ply Bristol.

If you’re really adventurous, you can try making your own art paper. Here’s a webpage with very detailed instructions: http://www.daniellesplace.com/html/papermakingdir.html. It’s best to start with inexpensive materials until you get the hang of it. Happy papermaking!

Our state parks accept camping reservations up to nine months in advance and many fill up quickly. Additionally, the number of national forest day-use permits are finite. As an artist, whether you enjoy photography, plein air painting, creating nature journals, or simply soaking up the beauty of the great outdoors, planning early is the name of the game! With this in mind, here is a short list of favorite parks and wilderness areas in Western Oregon:

Opal Creek
Opal Creek is a protected old-growth wilderness area located in Oregon’s Willamette National Forest. It is one of the largest uncut watersheds in the country. Jawbone Flats, a former mining community within the wilderness area, is now home to the Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center. With cabins for rent and workshops on everything from plant identification to art, it’s the perfect place to escape, relax and nourish your creativity. Note: access to the Forest Center is via a three-mile trail with a moderate elevation drop into Jawbone Flats. To register for 2010 workshops and make cabin reservations, visit http://www.opalcreek.org/.

Breitenbush Hot Springs
Like Opal Creek, Breitenbush is a protected area within the Willamette National Forest. An historic lodge, rustic cabins, geothermal pools, hiking trails, and lots of workshop offerings throughout the year make this a desirable destination for those seeking a quiet, healing space for creativity or contemplation. Non-peak rates for cabins run through May 27, making this a perfect early spring get-away. For more information, visit http://www.breitenbush.com/index.html.

Silver Falls State Park
One of the largest state parks in Oregon, Silver Falls is nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. It offers miles of hiking trails, including the beautiful Trail of Ten Falls, a range of affordable accommodation options from tent sites to RV hook-ups to cabins, plus day-use facilities. This is a great option for artists on a budget who want to get away for a day or two. For camping reservations, visit http://www.oregonstateparks.org/park_211.php. For overnight group lodging, visit http://www.silverfallsconference.com/.

Sitka Center for Art and Ecology
Located on the Central Oregon Coast, the Sitka Center is a nexus for artists and writers seeking soulful connections with other creative individuals and with nature. Sign up for one of approximately 80 workshops offered throughout the year, apply for a residency, or get involved in a special project to restore the Salmon River watershed. For more information, visit http://www.sitkacenter.org/index.html.

If you have a special place that has served as a nature retreat, feel free to share! To watch Oregon Field Guide episodes about Opal Creek and other natural areas, visit http://www.opb.org/programs/ofg.

Though no artist wakes up expecting to receive this “20-10 assignment,” these questions bring up a challenge that recurs often in our lives: how can we better prioritize our creative pursuits?

In addressing this, I periodically give myself a ”10-10 assignment.” If I were told I had ten months to live, what top 10 things would I absolutely want to do or experience? Here are my ten (in no particular order):

1. Create a florilegium (flower illustration folio) depicting the native wildflowers that grow on FenMeadow Farm, the Western Oregon homestead where I was raised.

2. Create a companion folio depicting the animals, insects, ampibians and birds at FenMeadow.

3. Take a jewelry-making class, a macro photography class, and a Qigong class.

4. Travel to see the great museums and historic sites of Europe.

5. Go on an eco trek to see the frogs and hummingbirds of South and Central America.

6. Get massages more frequently.

7. Go to yoga class regularly.

8. Spend more quality time with my family.

9. Develop a consistent meditation practice.

10. Read all my favorite books again.

In drafting this list, I immediately noticed that most of the items involved quantifiable creative goals, wellness, loving relationships (with others and myself), and cultural inspiration–all of which support the production of meangful art. Now, the trick, of course, is to do these things anyway, regardless of the fact that my life may be very long. But to do this, I first have to pare down other things which detract, distract or stand in the way. This is one of the ultimate challenges for us as artists: putting on the blinders when the world is telling us that our clothes have to be brand-new, the car has to be spotless, the kids need an endless array of entertaining diversions, our day job needs constant above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty efforts, and the TV is the best avenue for relaxing.

For successful artists, the fact is, the world may look very different. The laundry doesn’t always get done regularly, the car has “wash me” written in dirt on the back windshield, the kids learn to fix their own dinner, and the TV is off or non-existent. Although this may be difficult to envision (or practice), another assignment may be of help:

For everything you plan to do today that diverts you from creating art, ask yourself five questions:

1. How much of my sense of self worth is tied up in doing this task? (Will you feel like a bad parent for not doing the kids’ laundry, for instance?)

2. Will anyone suffer if I don’t do this today? (If everyone in your household has another day’s worth of clean underwear, then postponing the laundry probably won’t leave any lasting emotional or physical scars.)

3. Can I delegate this task to someone else without significantly inconveniencing them? (It’s probably high time the kids learned to do their own laundry anyway.)

4. Will I remember this in 20 years? (No one, including yourself, will care whether the laundry was done today as opposed to tomorrow. But you will remember that you finished a work of art for a juried show you’ve wanted to participate in for several years.)

5. Do I feel comfortable doing art first, then getting around to the other stuff? And can I share my plans with those around me so they can support my priorities?

To read Jim Collins’ article, visit http://www.jimcollins.com/article_topics/articles/best-new-years.html. If you’ve developed other effective strategies for tuning out the background noise in your life so you can better focus on being creative, I’d love to hear about them!

In her article How to Create an Artist’s Brand (http://EzineArticles.com/?How-To-Create-An-Artists-Brand&id=1174170), author Kelly Stevens lists several important reasons why artists should consciously cultivate their artistic and promotional “thumbprint.” Most of these reasons involve helping collectors and other people (reps, licensing agents, curators, etc.) easily recognize a particular artist and fully appreciate his or her work.

A large part of branding has to do with the artwork itself. At the beginning of your art career, it’s natural and healthy to try different genres, subjects, palettes and mediums. But mid-career artists know that finding an artistic niche and creating cohesive bodies of work that build upon one another is critical for success in the marketplace. I’ll touch upon how to do this in a future post, but for now, suffice to say that thinking about what you want to express as an artist over the course of your career is key.

Another huge component of branding has to do with how you package yourself and your art. Fortune 500 companies spend big bucks to have logos and “corporate identity packages” developed for them. Angular Momentum Graphics (http://www.angular.com/cip-guide.html) has done a nice job of summarizing exactly what an identity package is and how companies (and you) can maintain its consistency. Luckily, you’re an artist and, aside from some technological  and/or graphic design assistance, you’re perfectly capable of developing your own logo and style guidelines. In fact, your best logo could be a thumbnail of one of your strongest and most representative works of art.

Since I’ve named my art enterprise “Sorrel Studio,” I chose to utilize one of my photographs of red sorrel (see header image, above) as my “logo.” This plant has special meaning for me because it grows on the homestead where I grew up (and from which I still draw much artistic inspiration). As an illustrator, I intend to replace this photo with a mixed-media rendering of sorrel at some point to even better represent who I am as an artist. Once I’ve done this, I’ll order business cards, rack cards, letterhead and envelopes to increase the sense of legitimacy I want to associate with my art.

Artist Wendy Gonick offers some valuable tips on creating your own business cards (http://www.ebsqart.com/artMagazine/Live-Studio–Artist-Business-Cards/za_562.htm) as well as excellent samples, but there are also many websites that will design and print them for you at a reasonable cost. You’ll find one such site at http://www.printbusinesscards.com/ordering/Artist-Business-Cards.php. I’ve not yet used this particular company’s services, so if you do, let me know what you think!

If you’ve ever spotted a Costa’s Hummingbird in the Sonoran or Mojave Deserts of the American Southwest, you may have seen the brilliant violet gorget (throat patch) and crown; this is the male’s coloration. My illustration depicts a female with her white throat and underside. She looks very similar to the female Anna’s Hummingbird, which is native to the Pacific Northwest.

Although I’m a big fan of isolating a natural science subject on a white background (thank you, Albrecht Durer), in this work, I’ve chosen to represent an abstracted and mottled color field behind the dried branch upon which the bird is perched. I like the ”cotton ball” look of these little guys (and gals) when the weather turns chilly; they fluff up their feathers to stay warm. Using fluid acrylics, pastel pencils, artist crayon and colored pencil in successive layers allowed me to render this fluffy look nicely.

To view my illustration, visit my website: http://sorrelstudio.weebly.com. Purchasing this original is easy and fun. Visit www.salemart.org, click on “Clay Ball” in the left-hand menu and purchase your ticket(s) for this wonderful event. Enjoy food, wine, entertainment and the knowledge that your attendance and art purchase will help the Salem Art Association continue providing arts education, exhibits and cultural events for the community for years to come!