Open Studios 2019 at Eldorado Springs Art Center

If you have time for just one studio visit during Boulder’s Open Studio’s 2019 check out the Eldorado Springs Art Center. ESAC is a studio and gallery compound established by sculptor Giuseppe Palumbo in 2000. Stop by from noon to 5:00 pm on October 12th and 13th to visit resident artists Dona Laurita, Julie Maren, and Palumbo in their studios. Linger to stroll the sculpture garden and soak up the artwork on display in ESAC’s community gallery spaces.

 

ECAS Entrance

ESAC is located at 8 Chesebro Way in Eldorado Springs, Colorado. Look for the stone wall with the turquoise sign on the south side of the unpaved road that leads to Eldorado Canyon State Park.

 

ESAC’s main structure and lower sculpture garden viewed from the Chesebro Way entrance/parking area on the east side of the building

 

The crumbling canyon topography and sandstone walls, pedestals and pebbles that surround and make up ESAC add poignancy to emotionally evocative work.

 

A spiral inclusion by Palumbo embedded in the sandstone wall the border’s the north edge of ESAC’s lower sculpture garden.

 

There’s an awareness of geologic time and a sense that even durable objects constructed of stone, bronze and wood are impermanent.

 

“Sitting Cheetah” by Giuseppe Palumbo has an achingly human face.

 

“Sitting Cheetah,” Giuseppe Palumbo

 

The sculpture garden is loaded with art and cleverly place architectural details and vantage points. I won’t ruin the delight of you discovering these details on your own by showing all my favorites here.

 

Julie Maren’s studio is accessible on ESAC’s lower level. Look for the tasseled doorway that leads to two green paintings under the light of a crystal chandelier.

 

Julie Maren’s paintings offer viewers a chance to contemplate dreamlike symbolic landscapes

 

There is a stairway to the left of Maren’s entrance that leads to the second level of ESAC’s expansive sculpture garden. Check out the stone carvings by Collen Nyanhongo along the way.

 

Stone carving by Collen Nyanhongo

 

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life,

says Prince quoted in purple paint on the south wall of the upper sculpture garden.

 

Bands of afternoon light rake the upper level sculpture garden at ESAC

 

I had a great experience connecting with the ESAC community earlier this summer as part of the Bridges show. While Bridges wrapped in September you can still catch some of that work including five of my photos from Future Perfect. Look for them lining the entry to ESAC’s main event space.

 

Five photographs by Laura Tyler at ESAC

 

Photographer Dona Laurita manages two spaces at ESAC, her own private studio plus a collective gallery space, Dona Laurita Collective.

 

View work by Tracy Barnes, Jody Bill, Dona Laurita, and more at the Dona Laurita Collective

 

See Collective painter Tracey Barnes’ gauzy fields of color in ESAC’s main gallery and event space.

 

“The Realm in Fullness of Grace” by Tracey Barnes, plaster, beeswax, pigment on board

 

Here are a few more snapshots of ESAC’s main gallery and event space. The wonderful, large magical realist paintings above the sofa and hanging on the orange wall are by Frank Sampson. You can see another of Tracey Barnes’ paintings on the back wall bookended by sculpture by Giuseppe Palumbo.

 

Looking toward the west wall in ESAC’s main gallery/event space

 

“Jonah and the Whale” (right) and “Americans in Venice” by Frank Sampson

 

Turn around after taking in Sampson’s paintings on the orange wall to find Giuseppe Palumbo’s sublimely lit studio space.

 

Giuseppe Palumbo’s studio

 

Work in progress by Giuseppe Palumbo

 

Another view of the hallway angling back toward the stairs. The two photos on the right are mine. The painting on the left is by Julie Maren.

 

“Novitiate” and “Patient” (right from top to bottom), photographs by Laura Tyler, the painting on the left is by Julie Maren

 

Drunk on color, texture and feeling? Wait, there is more. Go upstairs to visit Dona Laurita’s studio. Here’s a snapshot that shows a glimpse of a new series in progress, images printed on veil-like pieces of silk. Lift the veils to deepen and reveal.

 

“The Thin Veil Between Lift and Death” by Dona Laurita, images from film circa 1994-1998 on silk, vintage windows, black paint, silver leaf, glass, glitter, mica, wire, charcoal and pencil

 

If weather allows, take a moment to enjoy the balcony on the east end of Laurita’s space. It offers a bird’s eye view of the sculpture gardens below and is also a nice place sit, talk about art and think.

 

 

Also showing at ESAC this weekend (October 12th and 13th): Open Studios painter Antonio Arrieta and ceramicist Joy Alice Eisenhauer whose undulating plates offer a fantastic complement to Maren’s and Barnes’ paintings. (I’m sorry I was unable to include images of their work in this post.) Join us and plan to spend an hour or two at ESAC where there’s an abundance to see, feel and do.

 

Exit the upper level of ESAC’s east-side sculpture garden through the colbalt gate and follow the path down for more sculpture and vantage points to the west.

Boulder/EDGE Gallery Swap

Join me at the Boulder/EDGE Gallery Swap opening this Friday, January 18th. EDGE Gallery, in cooperation with Boulder’s NoBo Art District, has invited ten Boulder artists to show in Lakewood’s 40 West District as part of an inter-district exchange. The image below, “Volunteer,” is one of five photos from Future Perfect in the show. If you can’t make the opening check out the show during EDGE’s regular hours through February 4th, 2019.

Volunteer, photograph

Volunteer, photograph

EDGE Gallery is located at 7001 W. Colfax, Lakewood, Colorado.   Friday’s opening is happening from 6:00 to 10:00 pm.

 

“EDGE is a contemporary, non-profit, co-op art gallery dedicated to artists outside the domain of commercial art venues. Because of our business model, we have the freedom to pursue more experimental and conceptual modes of expression. Our primary objectives are to celebrate individuality and uniqueness, to encourage our shared vision, and to maintain our intensity and integrity in addressing the often contradictory messages occurring in contemporary art.”

 

Part Two of the Boulder/EDGE Gallery Swap, an exhibition of EDGE artists in Boulder, is slated for later this year.

 

 

 

 

New still life photographs: Future Perfect

Imagine you’re a three-year-old lying on the floor of your childhood home. You look up. The walls are raked with light. There’s a hallway made of planes that leads to another room. And the room beyond that has a different tone because of the way the sun is positioned in relationship to the house. You become aware of yourself as a sensing, physical being located in three dimensional space and you feel a sense of wonder.

"Patient," photograph

“Patient,” photograph, Future Perfect

Future Perfect is a new series of still life photographs in which I aim to reconcile physical and digital realities by building imaginary spaces using sculpture and digital photography.

"Novitiate," photograph

“Novitiate,” photograph

Each piece begins as an abstract painting of a botanical subject. Then I make a three-dimensional object based on the painting using wax and wood and photograph the object on seamless white background.

Yellow Chunk

“Yellow Chunk,” photograph

My goal is to make evocative images with a grounded, tactile quality that are also idealized.

“Volunteer,” photograph

Future perfect is also a grammatical tense that suggests an action yet to be completed, as in “I will have done this,” or “You will have done that.” It as an optimistic construction that allows us to communicate thoughts about an anticipated future that has yet to coalesce.

Check out the Future Perfect gallery on my site to see all current images.  This is a new series that I’ll be adding to in the new year.

 

 

 

Boulder Open Studios 2017, October 7-8 and 14-15

You’re invited!  My studio will be open to the public during Boulder Open Studios.  Stop by from noon to 6:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday, October 7-8 and 14-15.  The address is 1650 Yellow Pine Avenue, Boulder, Colorado 80304.

See "Novitiate," photograph during Boulder Open Studios 2017

“Novitiate,” photograph

 

See the first finished images from a new series of photographs titled, “Future Perfect.”  Minimal and bright, I’ll write more about these later, but for now just come and see!  Also on display: encaustic monotype, painting, and sculpture made of wood and wax.

 

The Boulder Open Studios Tour is one of Boulder’s best known and best loved visual arts events.  In an area with few established fine art galleries, it gives local artists an opportunity to show new work and connect.  It gives collectors a chance to meet artists and see new pieces before they go into a gallery.  For young artists coming up, Boulder Open Studios is a chance to meet working artists, see how people set up their studios, make work, and gather ideas.  I’m in it for the feedback.  It’s interesting to watch people interact with your work, see what they linger over and hear questions about it.

 

 

Correction

Alas, there was a mixup in printed guidebook this year and the image associated with my name in the guidebook is not mine.   If you’re looking for Jessica Tyler’s work, check her page out on Boulder’s Open Studios website.  The most reliable guide to Open Studios is the interactive website, not the printed guide nor PDF.

Boulder Arts Week 2017

Join me for some springtime art and cheer!  I’m hosting an open house at my studio in honor of Boulder Arts Week 2017 on Friday, April 7th.  Boulder Arts Week is a once-a-year celebration created to highlight the arts related goings-on that typically happen in Boulder in any given week.  While some artists create special events for Boulder Arts Week, others use it as a chance to let people know, “Hey, we’re here!  Check us out and see what we have on offer all year round.”

 

Boulder Arts Week Open House

Friday, April 7th, 6:00 to 9:00 pm

1650 Yellow Pine Ave. (downstairs)

Boulder, Colorado

encaustic monotype

“Bewitch,” encaustic monotype on rice paper mounted on panel, 8″ x 8″

Palette Contemporary Art and Craft in Albuquerque

A little over a week ago I was in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the opening of When Heaven and Nature Sing at Palette Contemporary Art & Craft.  Albuquerque is a high elevation city set in a geologic bowl. It is bordered by the Sandia Mountains to the east and a row of defunct volcanoes to the west.  The city has an old town, and a downtown populated by mid to tall-rise buildings, but its creative heart feels spread out among its many square miles of low-lying strip malls and residential neighborhoods.

abq

Looking east toward Albuquerque and the Sandias from the Vulcan Volcano Loop Trail, Petroglyph National Monument, New Mexico

 

Palette Contemporary Art & Craft, located at 7400 Montgomery Blvd. NE in Albuquerque, has the hallmarks of a coastal urban gallery – white walls, high ceilings, polished floors – minus the big city attitude.  Gallery directer Kurt Nelson is as personable as they come and his assistant, Ariana, will chat football with you as easily as she’ll chat about the art.

heaven2

“When Heaven and Nature Sing” is a show of thirty-six paintings from my series of One-Hundred Flowers, up at Palette Contemporary Art & Craft in Albuquerque, New Mexico through the end of the year

 

The aesthetic at Palette is modern and bright.

heaven9

“When Heaven and Nature Sing” at Palette with art glass in foreground

 

And the gallery is strong on art glass, a lot of which has a retro-futurist look and feel.

heaven5

Another angle

 

heaven6

Center row from right to left, “Pickle,” “Superkitty,” and “Bean”

 

heaven4

Center right, “Soothsayer”

 

Surprise!  Kurt commissioned a local bakery to make a batch of frosted cookies in the shape of “Sun Pop” for the opening.

cookies

Cookies frosted to match “Sun Pop”

 

Sun Pop

“Sun Pop,” encaustic and ink on panel, 5″ x 4″

 

Call or email Kurt and Ariana to ask about Sun Pop or any other painting in the show.

 

Brushy/grassy

Here are few images from a new series of monotypes.

brushy4b

“Strike,” encaustic on rice paper mounted on panel, 8″ x 8″

 

Monotypes are one-off prints with a painterly quality.  (I think of them as a print/paint hybrids.)  The process for making them is immediate and cathartic.

brushy3b

“Thrust,” encaustic on rice paper mounted on panel, 8″ x 8″

 

My palette for these is minimal, mostly indigo, plus some black, sepia and a few other colors.

brushy9b

“Meander,” encaustic on rice paper mounted on panel, 8″ x 8″

 

See these and more at the Fifth Annual Petite Holiday Fair at my studio this Saturday, December 10th!  Join me from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm, 1650 Yellow Pine Avenue, Boulder, CO.

brushy5b

“Swoop,” encaustic on rice paper mounted on panel, 8″ x 8″

 

 

When Heaven and Nature Sing

Join me!  When Heaven and Nature Sing, a show of thirty-six paintings from One-Hundred Flowers is showing at Palette Contemporary Art and Craft in Albuquerque, New Mexico this December.

palette_postcard

“Sun Pop” is one of thirty-six paintings in “When Heaven and Nature Sing” at Palette in Albuquerque this month.

 

While not much of a churchgoer, I do attend a service at my neighborhood church on Christmas Eve to sing the old songs by candlelight.  Joy to the World, is a regular on the roster.  The refrain, “and heaven and nature sing,” always gets me wondering . . . What is the relationship between heaven and nature in the song?  Can you explain it using color?

100_flowers_wall2

“Saber,” “Rethinking the Fossil Record,” ” Kewpie,” and “Juicy,” each is encaustic and ink on panel, 5″ x 4″

 

One Hundred Flowers is a series of paintings based on botanical subjects where I aim to balance abandon with order by putting loose, gesture drawings of organic, botanical forms through a series of refining steps.

kewpie-maple-shelf_blog

“Kewpie,” encaustic and ink on panel, 5″ x 4″

 

Within each individual piece, I tend to go for analogous or tonal colors.  My goal is to arrive at a finished piece where the original subject is distilled to an essence, clarified, and transformed.

bean-maple-shelf_blog

“Bean,” encaustic, ink and gold leaf on panel, 5″ x 4″

 

But the series as a whole contains a mix of analogous and complementary hues. The thirty-six pieces below are available at Palette starting today through the end of the month.  Call or email gallery director Kurt Nelson for more information.

Superkitty

Barbie

Drink Me

Pickle

Animal

Orbit

Juicy

It's Hard To Say

Sweater

Simple Tree

Sun Pop

Utile

Mentor

Bean

In the Middle of

A Stream of Charged Particles

Mineral

Old Fashioned Rocketry

Saber

The Conformist

Fluffy

Trans

Penny

Droplet

Good Morning

A Good Sign

Lick

Rabbit

Kewpie

The Way We Stand

Grain

Spitting Image

White Flag of Courage

Seaside Alley

Clean Clean

Soothsayer

Shangri-La

The way I feel about my work changes over time.  For example, this piece, Shangri-La, made me uncomfortable when I made it.  But I kept it anyway and today I am into it.

shangri-la

“Shangri-La,” encaustic and ink on panel, 5″ x 4″

Shangri-La is the mythical land depicted by James Hilton in his novel, Lost Horizon.  Here’s a clip from the film adaptation (which I like very much) that gets at the essence of the place:

 

I am on pins and needles with the election happening this week.

 

 I foresaw a time when man exalting in the technique of murder, would rage so hotly over the world, that every book, every treasure would be doomed to destruction. This vision was so vivid and so moving that I determined to gather together all things of beauty and culture that I could and preserve them here against the doom toward which the world is rushing.

― James Hilton, Lost Horizon

Deep Dark Secret

Today:  pulling together images with postcard-potential for my upcoming show, When Heaven and Nature Sing opening on December 2nd at Palette Contemporary in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  This piece is called Deep Dark Secret.

 

deep_dark_secret

Deep Dark Secret, encaustic and ink on panel, 5″ x 4″