Working on an image for the "Bulletin Board", part of Lori Lipsman's installation: Canyon Shadow Play @ Art Produce (end of July)

Silk screening my image

"As part of the installation Canyon Shadow Play at Art Produce Gallery July 25 – Aug 30, 2010 there will be a bulletin board, like bulletin boards at trail heads, and coffee shops, where people want and need to communicate with others. I am inviting artists to display work on this bulletin board which is inspired, an interpretation and/or representation of canyons.



...
The pieces on the bulletin board will be for sale as a donation to Art Produce Gallery. There will be a box installed, much like the permit boxes for hiking permits. Viewers interested in a piece will be on the honor system, donating what they can to programming at Art Produce."
Lori Lipsman

Today I worked with my friend Claudia Hill on the printing of the 10x10" image I've made for the "Bulletin Board", part of the installation "Canyon Shadow Play" by Lori Lipsman which opens at the end of July at Art Produce.

I took a lot of photos in the different canyons me and my family visited. Because it is the last we went to, I decided to use a photo from Canyonlands for this piece.

Silk screening is a great process, and Claudia knows what she is doing. I helped her as much as I could and I love the result with two colors. It is a short series (15 or 20). I will give some prints for the fundraiser for Art Produce, give one to my mom who saw the one I brought back home tonight and loved it (of course!), and keep a few for me.

[Tomorrow with Claudia, we are printing the series I've prepared for the San Diego Museum of Art, on the occasion of the Summer Salon Series which will take place next Thursday - its' coming fast! More on that later!]

Lori Lipsman: Canyon Shadow Play
Art Produce Gallery
July 25 – Aug 30, 2010

Coffee and Donuts @ the Bakery

It was a one night show, Saturday, June 26, at the Bakery in Barrio Logan. Always impressive to see so much work shown for one night only!





From the invitation
GALLERY SHOW AT THE BAKERY

As a sequel to the ‘Shaken, not Stirred’ show in June 2009, a group of local San Diego designers, architects, artists and educators are getting together once again to showcase recent individual projects and ideas that they have been working on. The exhibition will include a variety of media including, sculptures, drawings, digital fabrications and models.

Artists whose work is included in this show are Ted Smith & Kathleen McCormick; Rinehart/Herbst; Hector & Adrian Perez; Miki Iwasaki; Rene Peralta; Megan Willis; David White; Jim Darroch; Christopher Puzio; Jose Parral & Tasi Paulson; Philipp Bosshart; Andy Ralph; Brian Dick; Jon Linton; Michael Hoffman; Daniela Deutsch; Cameron Crockett; Adriana Cuellar& Marcel Sanchez-Prieto; and Nathan Colkitt.















Lots of things going on that same night in San Diego. After that visit, I was off to Space for Art opening night.


The Bakery
1701 National Avenue
San Diego, CA

Art Auction for the Museum School at jett Gallery - photos of the event

Last Saturday night started with a visit to the Art Auction for the Museum School at Jett Gallery. Nice pieces for a good cause. I hope everything was sold. I do not know because I was gone before the end of the event: I went to Coffee and Donuts at the Bakery in Barrio Logan.



40+ artists and student work.
Participating artists:
Branan Freeman, Joshua Krause, Paul Frank, Josh Higgins, Perry Vasquez, Joseph Bennett, Lindy Ivey, James Ivey, Kristi Cherundolo, Ingram Ober, Michele Guieu, John Lewis, Jessica MCCambly, David White, Nancy Creech, Acamonchi, David Russell Talbott, Doris Boris Berman, Kathi McCord, Lori Lipsman, Daniel Martinez, Aram Jibilian, Valo Riberto, Jim Yuran, Bret Barret, Kelly Hutchinson, Anna O'Cain, Gustav Rooth, Matt Devine, Joey Vaiasuso, Josue Castro, Cynthia Colis, Dan Allen, Wendell Kling, James Watts, Otis Bee, Gilbert Neri, Siobhan Arnold, Julie Jeanseau, Amy Paul, Michael Maas.
.











Art Auction for the Museum School
Jett Gallery
989 West Kalmia
San Diego

Correspondences and Elevation - until July 18

An installation of 22 paintings,
acrylic on canvas, total size: 12x40'

The exhibition opened last Friday at the SDAI and will be on until July 18, 2010.
I am very happy to see the installation there. I could only work the arrangement of the 22 paintings on my computer. So the final installation was in fact the first real one at that scale. It was interesting to make many tries on Photoshop with the photos of the paintings I was working on and to change their position as if they were pieces of a puzzle.

The configuration changed a lot during the last 6 months, when I was working on it. I started mostly with paintings I've had already done. An then, as I was working on the ensemble, I added new paintings and removed other ones.

The thing which did not change were the three parallel rows and the black background. It was an interesting search to try different configurations to get the most interesting passages between colors and between the different scales I was using for the landscapes and the people.

Some of the paintings being part of the installation:


Correspondences and Elevation #13, 2010, 36x36"


Correspondences and Elevation #12, 2010, 36x60"


Correspondences and Elevation #10, 2010, 36x48"


Correspondences and Elevation #06, 2010, 36x36"


Correspondences and Elevation #05, 2010, 36x48"


Correspondences and Elevation #20, 2010, 36x48"


Correspondences and Elevation #19, 2010, 36x36"


Correspondences and Elevation #17, 2010, 36x60"


Correspondences and Elevation #15, 2010, 36x48"


Correspondences and Elevation #14, 2010, 36x60"

Correspondences and Elevation
San Diego Art Institute
Opening Reception Friday, June 25, from 6 to 8pm.
1439 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 236-0011

Summer Salon Series at the San Diego Museum of Art - Judith Pedroza - some photos of the event

Last Thursday, June 24, Judith Pedroza, Michael Trigilio, Lorraine Graham and Mark Wallace were invited to the SDMA for a special night. Music, readings, installation, workshop: another creative/energetic/ surprising session on the occasion of the "Summer Salon Series", every Thursday at the museum during the summer 2010. Thanks to the creators of this cool concept, Alexander Jarman (manager of public programs at SDMA) and David White (Agitprop).


Installation on the second floor

This Thursday, do not miss Richard Gleaves' Dark Room and Artist Confessional with Chris Warr.






Justin Morrison


Michael Trigilio


Michael Trigilio and Justin Morrison






workshop









The San Diego Museum of Art / Summer Salon Series
1450 El Prado, Balboa Park
San Diego, CA
(619) 232-7931

Free with Museum Admission

Art Auction For the Museum School - This Saturday, June 26, from 5 to 9pm

From the press release

6th annual Art Auction for the Museum School.
Once again, we have over 30 recognized artists from around San Diego and the nation. A handful of our artists are currently showing their work at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego in La Jolla. Of course, we will also have some wonderful work produced by our very own young artists of the Museum School!

Where: JETT GALLERY
989 West Kalmia (Just a few blocks away in North Little Italy, on the corner of Kettner) San Diego, CA 92101-1837
(619) 231-2466

Silent Auction and Reception: Saturday, June 26th from 5pm until 9pm

This is the main event and will be catered with sweets from Influx Cafe, and beer and wine courtesy of Blind Lady Alehouse. Join us and many of the artists and members of the community in celebrating and supporting the Museum School's art programming. Invite as many people as you can to come! There is no charge to get in, and it has built a reputation over the years as fun and well respected event to attend. There will be an Opportunity Draw on Saturday night, so even if none of the art suits your fancy you can still support the school and have a great time.
Some of the prizes include:
- 2 Guest List Spots + a CD at the Record Release show of Little White Teeth with Mr. Tube and the Flying Objects + Black Hondo at the Casbah - just one block away, the same night, beginning at 9:30.
- Gift Certificate to Riviera Steakhouse
- Museum Passes
- Museum School Apparel - and many more

Join us for a wonderful and fun night in support of our kids!

The piece I've made especially for the Art Auction for the Museum School - reception this Saturday

Territories Series / Connections #20
2010, 12x12", acrylic on wood panel.

JETT GALLERY
989 West Kalmia (Just a few blocks away in North Little Italy, on the corner of Kettner)
San Diego, CA 92101-1837
(619) 231-2466

Silent Auction and Reception: Saturday, June 26th, from 5pm until 9pm

An essay by Jane La Motte about "Correspondences and Elevation"

Detail of the installation

“It’s really a group,” says Michele, “and the group could evolve…it’s possible to make this piece live.” Michele has just guided me into the space that now, for the third time, hosts a solo exhibition of her work at SDAI. Seeing the installation “Correspondences and Elevation” for the first time reminds me of what it’s like being introduced to a tall, well-built man—not overwhelming, but it holds an aura of authority, and at the same time it is a joy to visually behold, to flirt with.

In “Here It’s Peace,” Michele’s 2008 solo installation at SDAI, each piece was individually titled and owned its own space even though the whole of the show was much greater than the sum of its parts. This new show is simply one piece, one title. In 2009, in her show “C’est La Vie,” the separate canvases had a very organic relationship to one another, displayed on a mural-sized silhouette of human figures on the beach. Now in 2010, the canvases are like frames from a roll of 35mm still photo film, the images brought into soft focus by knowing that the installation’s title derives from two beloved poems by Charles Baudelaire.

Other than as a Photoshop mock-up on her computer, Michele could not see this piece in its entirety before installing it here. “There was not even enough room on the floor to do this at home.” The canvases are uniform in height and vary with widths of 36”, 48” and 60”. Their size contributes to the drama of the work—drama that is developed without being political. The emotions evoked by “Correspondences and Elevation” defy expectations of what a piece about family, home, and place should be. “I feel like I’m going forward,” Michele says. Her growth as an artist here is an expansion of the direction we saw her work take at Art Produce. The installation she did at the North Park gallery earlier this year, “Lucy, Darwin, and Me,” was a tribute to Charles Darwin, nature, science, and family.

In “Correspondences and Elevation” newer works are not seamlessly camouflaged among the older pieces. They are, instead, allowed to be bold in a way that shows a new generation has come of age in a family. Some of these canvases predate my own acquaintance with Michele and therefore predate her first solo show here two years ago. On the other hand, some of these are so new that, as I stand here a day before the opening, they are practically still wet.

For Michele, that which is personal extends to her family and the ocean and beach that she loves. Each of these frames is imbued with the sense that it is a personal favorite, each in its own flavor. The work as a whole, then, feels like a big box of See’s Candy, personally selected to include as many favorites as possible, while each individual piece is a work of art.

Michele is definitely moving forward. The newer pieces have achieved a manipulation of color and texture that I’ve never seen in her work before. “Nothing is fake,” she says. “I connect to the place I live; I’m super-connected to my family.” Interaction with nature is an inescapable theme and fact of her life. “I was choking in Paris. I need those [natural] places.”

These images come at a time when remembering natural spaces could make us profoundly sad. While “Correspondences and Elevation” doesn’t specifically address the present catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, it certainly addresses what we have to lose. Eighty percent of the world’s population is now urban, Michele tells me, so people on the whole are completely disconnected from nature.

Images here that are just plays on the light contrasting the dark can seem like odes to things coming apart, like sides being drawn in a battle, and can be as disturbing as deep shadowy places often are. But the political fallout of our failure to protect nature does not underlie this show; it is simply Michele’s appreciation of natural beauty.

Jane La Motte
set designer
San Diego, California
June 2010

Jane La Motte's essays about my previous exhibitions
"Lucy, Darwin and Michele", Art Produce 2009-2010
"C'est la Vie", SDAI 2009
"Here it's Peace", SDAI 2008

Correspondences and Elevation
San Diego Art Institute
Opening Reception Friday, June 25, from 6 to 8pm.
1439 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 236-0011

Correspondences and Elevation

Last week I installed my show at the San Diego Art Institute. It was also the last week of school for the kids and my mom arrived from France just before that and was pretty jet-lagged.
Lot of things to do at the same time - they get done in the end. Parties and dances at school - I went with my stained clothes, between two sessions at the SDAI.

I have to say I am happy with the installation! I was looking for something different, another way to use that big wall and I found something that interests me a lot.

I did not post a lot lately in my blog, partly because of all the work I've done for the installation of paintings at the SDAI, partly because there is something I have a hard time to talk about and that is the fact that we are moving.
It's very new.

I was ready to stay here longer.
I know I will love the bay area, although I've never been there yet.
So goes life.

It's been six amazing years, thanks to all the inspiring people I've met here!

Correspondences and Elevation
San Diego Art Institute
Opening Reception Friday, June 25, from 6 to 8pm.
1439 El Prado, San Diego, CA 92101
(619) 236-0011

Here Not There: Performance Evening

This energizing and intriguing event took place Saturday, June 19 at MCASD La Jolla.



First time I've heard Tristan Shone. I was hypnotized. I missed some performances in the museum that night because I forgot about the time, listening to his massive and haunting music, disturbing at times. Fabulous setting on the patio overlooking the metallic ocean at dusk.







Brian Black and Ryan Bulis played ping pong in this long plastic bubble for more than four hours
in a row.



Agitprop (David White) interviewed some Agitprop's neighbors (North Park) next to some of the pieces in the show "Here not There". The interviews will be available for the public to listen to when they look at the pieces.





The Border Corps told us a tale of death and spirits about the U.S-Mexican border. Starting inside the museum and continuing outside in the dark, with projections and guitar live played by Anthony Vasquez. With the sound of the ocean in the background.




Perry Vasquez, Shondra Dawson, Endy





Performances by: Agitprop, The Border Corps, Brian Black and Ryan Bulis, Micha Cárdenas and Elle Mehrmand, Electronic Disturbance Theatre/b.a.n.g. lab, Brian Goeltzenleuchter, Wendell Kling, Ingram Ober, and Tristan Shone.

Here Not There: San Diego Art Now
MCASD La Jolla
Jun 06, 2010 through Sep 19, 2010