Artist Spotlight: Kim Evenson

 A 2D memory palace, underline, highlight, illustrate, alter texts, juxtapose image with text, find a word, a line, a verse to start the mind on an inner journey.  Wonder at something.  Invite others to wonder with you.

 

Kim Evenson creates mixed media art work from inspiration of poetry.

 She is a scientist by day, an artist by moonlight.

 

I remember making my own books when I was a kid.

 

Her first love is nature.  She likes to take walks in nature; one of her first interests—plants, biology.  As a child the nature books were not beautiful and interesting to her.  Poetry connects science and draws together her interests from childhood and her fascination as an adult with science.  With science she enjoys learning the names of fungus or plants; it opens the landscape for Kim to have more meaning.

 

She has an interest in going to explore the Grand Canyon.   Workshops that she has attended through her work at the University, take her to intriguing places.   One bog in particular had her fascinated.  Cedarburg Bog is near Saukville Wisconsin - North of Milwaukee. It was a surreal environment– especially on that rainy day in May when we walked the boardwalks looking at Mosses & Liverworts. It was located in an area not frequented by humans.  As a result, she said that it felt like she was seeing plants from 1,000,000 years ago.  She saw horsetail, sun dews, and pitcher plants.  She expected to see a dinosaur raise its head at any moment.  

She is fascinated by the spontaneity of little children in their artwork.   As children grow up, they seem to lose that spontaneity.  Everyone wants to find the joy of their youth.  How do we guide children to grow up and nurture the deep truths within?

Kim may start with an embroidery piece and then place it in a box to continue with it later.   She may work on 5-6 things at the same time, adding color, words, stitching until it clicks.

Details of Heart Bag

 

When she adds words, she may paint over the words to give a ghost like image to the thoughts on the page.  Sometimes she adds a little door to open or a window to look under.

 

This black watercolor was painted during the time of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

French saying translated to English, “In my reflection of the details, I find myself asking if it was real or in my dreams.” 

Her room has space with a small desk, a weaving loom, some small tables for things that she collects and an enclosed book shelf.

 

The fabric lives in a red box on the floor.  It comes out when Kim wants to begin some stitching.  Files, and pencils and artwork share the space this afternoon.

She really likes her students.  She likes to see how smart they are.  Some are just brilliant.  She is interested in students for who they are and what interests them.  Students show their appreciation for her work with them through sending her articles that they think she may be interested in.  Kim says that her first interest is putting together materials and articles that bring her teaching alive.  When I talked with her, she was in the midst of the beginning of the second semester.  It’s a busy time getting everything set up and going after winter break.  Soon there will be more of an even time and she will take time to work on her art again.  Mornings are her best time.  She gives herself time to work on her art Saturday or Sunday mornings. 

Kim thinks that people need to write or paint to stay fresh in their day to day work.  Her inspiration is poetry.  Poetry fits into a frame of time of a moment of life.

4am to station

Boarding 5:45

Please listen for any changes

And mystical cities I remember

but have lost now to dreams.

When I asked her if she has favorite piece/s, she said that each is a reflection of a moment in time.  Each tells a story about the time that she made them.

 Soon!

Creating a Vision Board

Creating a Vision Board of my hopes and dreams for 2012 with help from my friends


A vision board is a creation of images that express what a person wants in her/his life, or what makes one feel happy, passionate about life. I create mine on a bulletin board so that it can be a growing, shifting, set of images that reflects the changes happening in my life.
 

Last fall, I had taken my Vision Board apart during a massive clearing and reorganization of my studio.  I have wanted to create a new one for many months but it felt like too big a project to take on.  When I got invited to a small gathering of women to create one on New Year’s Day, I was thrilled at the thought.  I spent some time before we gathered locating images that appealed to me—for their meaning?  No, because they were interesting, beautiful, or had some appeal that I could not give meaning to yet. 

In preparation for this Vision Board making, we smudged each other with sage. Dried sage is burned and the smoke created is fanned over and around a person by another. This is a Native American tradition that helps a person focus her intention and it clears away confusion. 

Making a collage is one of my most favorite activities.  It’s an art form that involves images, and words, and colors and design and movement and unity and balance and space.  I like to layer the images to give the artwork depth.  The Vision Board feels successful when I am pleased with how the end result looks.  This often takes moving images or adjusting how they are put together to get the look that works for me.  If I find another image has to become part of the Vision Board, I can add it easily by removing some pins and shifting images around.

Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbook Project 2011

 A collection of more than 20,000 Sketchbooks including mine traveled around the country to museums in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and more throughout 2011.  Now the Sketchbooks live in the Brooklyn Art Library. The  sketchbook text paper is high quality 100% recycled. Each sketchbook has a bar code attached to the outside back cover. Specs 5.25 W x 7.25 H, 32 pages, 70lb text stock, 100% recycled paper.  

The theme that I played with was called Jackets, Blankets, and Sheets.  You can check out my collage sketch book in the digital library: Arthouse Coop 

And if you want to see more, go to Brooklyn Art Library website and look under the tab Digital Library:    
http://www.arthousecoop.com/brooklynartlibrary

Enjoy getting inspired!

Artist Spotlight: Julia Crozier

The Blue Heron Gallery and Studio is home to the artwork of Julia Crozier and a number of artists fine work.  In the front is the gallery showcasing oil paintings, chalk and oil pastels, linoleum prints, ink wash artworks, along with jewelry, cards, silk scarves, and other smaller gift items.  She shared with me some of her thoughts about her art.

Julia likes to paint abstractly because the story of the artwork unfolds as she works.  In viewing the painting some parts may not be as noticeable at first, but as the viewer continues looking more parts of the painting unfold.  She said that is what is so fascinating with abstract art, you see more and more as you look at it.

South Dakota, a primitive part of the Badlands.  As a child, her family traveled to the Western United States.  Those wide open spaces call to Julia.  She has traveled there often with her parents, sister, husband, and daughters.

Julia uses sketching to remember a landscape.  She takes many photographs to remind her of the images of a landscape as well.  Sometimes, Julia does not have art materials with her or the time to devote to a sketch is not available. Instead of relying on sketches or her camera, she is working with her memory to recreate the feeling and the look of a landscape. She takes those essences of the land and paints from her memory.  It is a skill; she practices often.

This painting started as a drawing created on site at Woodlawn Cemetery.  Its tonal quality of black and grey gives it a moonlight feeling.  However, there is no black in the painting.

These two oil paintings were reworked by the artist.  Julia likes the result of these two very much.  "They look like new paintings," she says.

 Two other oil paintings are Tree Roots and the Flicker.  She created drawings of the flicker from a real bird that had been found dead and kept in her freezer until she was ready to create it into a painting.

The painting to the far right on the wall is called Subterranean River.  It is a multi-layered painting using encaustic, oil paints, and fabric to create the look of an underground river.  This painting was the result of reading that she has done on geology, water, and underground rivers.

This pomegranate tree was seen on a trip that they took into the Grand Canyon.  You can learn more about one of her Grand Canyon adventures on Julia’s website, blueheronstudio.net.  Another trip like this is planned for May 2012 with her sister and her parents.  It’ll be a rafting trip that is designed for artists with stops along the way to sketch and photograph the beauty of the canyon.

This is a small ink wash drawing of the Mill Ruins near the Guthrie Theatre and St Anthony Falls in Minneapolis.

  She likes to work large to create what looks like a science chart.

Here’s Julia and Sadie in the gallery.  Sadie is a loving companion and a good gallery dog.

This is an abstract painting on the wall behind Julia and Sadie. The painting gives the viewer a visceral feeling of space and time.

The Blue Heron Gallery and Studio has become Midwest Music Store.  It has wonderful art along with featuring performing artists, 168 E. 3^rd St., Winona, MN 55987. 




 

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The Invention of the Sewing Machine

A short automated film about the inventor of the sewing machine, Elias Howe, by Stephen W. Brandt.  

Keep believing in your dreams.

Library Paradise

Musings on creating a book quilt

I’ve been thinking about how to create a book quilt for awhile.  I’d made some sketches of a soft chair with a cat and a book.  “No,” I decided, “too much emphasis on chairs and cats.”  And one day when I was looking for images of open books, I had the idea to photograph an old dictionary. Open book, to the page of a loon and I took several pictures.  Then I wanted the vantage point of the pages of the book on its side as it lies open.  Oh, nice pictures due to the soft green wall in the background showing.  Oh good, some interesting pictures of the stitching to hold the book together.  Creating books fascinates me almost as much as working with mixed media.

I played with the images and put some fabric and book images together.  I did this playing with the images on my computer.  I cut 5 pieces of fabric into rectangles 8.5” x 11” and then treated the fabric and hung it up on a drying rack to dry.  When the fabric was dry, I ironed it flat and placed freezer paper on the wrong side of the fabric.  And then I taped the edge that would feed into the printer to allow it to flow through and print without jamming.  I printed 3 sheets of lovely book images.

 

I thought I was complete and then I decided to add brads, and a bookmark.  That took a few more tools.

I enjoy adding interesting ephemera to my quilts.  In this quilt there are 3 brads, one braided embroidery floss bookmark, and one saying.

 When I felt complete, I added my signature and date.  I like the sepia color for the signature.

 Library Paradise, 12" x 12".