Friday, September 28, 2007

Art Grrll on the Town

Besides watching CSI last night and staying up until 3 am trolling blogs on the web, I also went to Last Thursday on Alberta . . . my first stop was the Guardino Gallery. I've seen a lot of things there in the past that I like - they have a huge variety of work and seem very comfortable bouncing back and forth across the great art/craft divide and ignoring it as is appropriate.

This show blew me away - Diane Archer was one of the featured artists, and she uses topographical maps combined with natural found objects to create what I think of as interior landscapes set in the natural world. And sometimes they have words! What could be better than that? Maps, bones, words . . . I was in heaven. So I bought a piece. After all, if I'm not out there supporting artists in a town where art is really pretty cheap, then who the heck will? I got to talk with her a little bit about her process - she described a level of precision and planning that is utterly alien to me - but looking at her jewelry, it makes total sense. And Oregon Art Beat (I love public television!) is even featuring her this month!

And I got a really cool piece by Julia Gardner - an artist whose work I've had my eye on for a while . . . transparencies and found objects and resin and text . . . Yummy! Though she doesn't seem to have a website anywhere . . . so I took a picture of it sitting on my file cabinet in my office.
Right now, it's sitting there inspiring me - soon it will go up to the living room.

Life is good that there are such beautiful things in it!

5 comments:

kecia deveney said...

hi bridget! thanks for stopping by my blog! the round robin with the dolls is really fun! it is fun to watch them transform. yes, the dolls have 2 more people to go to (or at least one!)
kecia

Bridget said...

Poking around and seeing what other folks are up to is the most fun!

kecia deveney said...

hi again! the piece you bought is really cool. i want to learn how to do it! (but then again, i want to learn how to do everything in the altered art world!) i'm actually coming to Portland tomorrow for artnsoul. my bags are packed and i'm ready!

Bridget said...

As for how she did it . . . I know it's layers of resin built up with found objects and transparencies . . . I've only worked with resin a little bit (Envirotex Lite is supposed to be a good one - I used it in one project). Part of why I was so drawn to the piece is because it's something I want to try!

LINDSAY said...

Hello Bridget! Thanks for stopping by my blog! Your kind words were much appreciated. Keep creating-Lindsay

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