Flourish

Art n Gardens

I'm still out and about absorbing art in all its configurations. Besides being arty in the Napa Valley, I hit up galleries and museums all over the place. Last weekend I went down to L.A. to see my awesome brother receive two graduate degrees and to meet my fiance's brother Paul.

First stop, the Downtown Fullerton Art Walk where Paul (Bongo) and Chandra showed us around their cool neighborhood. We found a lot of inspiration at PAS Gallery/Magoski Arts Colony which is a hybrid gallery/artist collective that changes out shows monthly. They had a two-person sculpture show called Artifacts and Rituals featuring the work of Jon St. Amant and Evan Everest, plus several other mini shows in adjoining spaces. This was the heart of the art walk. Their mission, as stated on their website is, "To love people. All people." How cool is that?

The next day we were in Pasadena at The Huntington (Library, Art Collection, and Boatnical Gardens). There was no place more perfect for two art addicts in love. We checked out the Scott Galleries that held Mary Cassat's tender Breakfast in Bed, as well as work by Edward Hopper, and a dining set by Frank Lloyd Wright. The Library Exhibition Hall was heaven for bibliophiles and the Japanese gardens were my favorite placeto people watch. The herb gardens, roses, and tropical plants were just as impressive as the collection. I'm so happy I finally made it to The Hungtington. Next trip...the Getty Villa and maybe some more Culver City galleries.

More photos in the "Walking in L.A." album at the right (scroll down).

Next week its the San Francisco artMRKT and SF Fine Art Fair. Look for me if you're going.

 

Napa Nest North

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

from
Ann Trinca
Norma Quintana
Nina Zaslove

Thank you all for supporting Napa Nest this year at the Pop-Up shops and our personal projects. We hope you have a joyous year full of art and creativity! 

We are thrilled to announce that the Nest has found a little corner of the valley where we can sell vintage items. Please come visit us at ELLA BLU a gorgeous new consignment store at 1125 Lincoln Ave, Calistoga. Owner Kate Buck has a wonderful eye and fills her shop with little black dresses to die for. Napa Nest has handmade pillows, cute baskets, and miscellaneous coolness stocked up in the "home" section. Stop by and check it out, and please tell Kate we sent you. See you in 2012!

Handmade Heartfelt

Last weekend I got an early dose of holiday spirit at our Napa Nest Pop-Up shop. Tons of feathered friends showed up to support our local artisans and Marie Ferrini offered her space to host a reunion of Nest artists. Thank you all for your support! If you missed the merriment, you can still purchase handmade goods online at the following links:

Thief of Hearts

Napa Farmhouse 1885

Athena Studio

Valerie Raven

And COMING BACK SOON: Napa Nest on Etsy

See you online!

 

 

Time for a farm flash back

Remember my friends Clare Carver & Brian Marcy at Big Table Farm? About 6 years ago they escaped the hoighty-toighty wine industry in Napa and leapt into full-on farming and wine making in the Willamette Valley near Portland, Oregon. Clare is a talented painter who I met through the Arts Council Napa Valley and she is always the epitome of confidence and adventure. But when they moved to Oregon I was still slightly skeptical that this outgoing creature could live on an isolated farm and haul 50 lb feed bags at sunrise. I should have known better...

Clare and Brian are thriving, even if they have to do most of the work by themselves. The response to their Big Table wines has been explosive, they are raising cows and pigs and chickens for extra income. Clare is still painting every week with a plein air group. And they are still smiling.

Here is a video shot during the Outstanding in the Field event they hosted in July. Followed by some photos I took on my last visit. If this couple doesn't inspire you, you must be daft.

 

Big Table Farm, Oregon from Outstanding in the Field on Vimeo.

From my visit last April:

Beauty in Buenos Aires

Back from Buenos Aires with a collection of great photographs! I’ve just returned from a two-week sojourn with a class of photographers led by the fearless Ron Zak. Zak is the Photography Department Chair at Solano College and he has been leading these excursions around the world for over twenty years.

On Dec 29 we arrived and settled into our home base in the San Telmo district. Having been away from city life for so long, it took me a while to work up my urban mojo. Buenos Aires is a vibrant, grungy, cosmopolitan, complex city with a mix of cultures and a passion for art, architecture, dance, and beef.

Our group of 23 photographers (all ages and experience) tried to capture this chaotic beauty in our photos—each of us with a different tilt. Part of the fun was sharing our work at the end of day and telling stories of “the great capture” or the one that got away.

 
Highlights for me were the immense walls of graffiti, our excursion to a local dance hall, the Recoleta cemetery, the MALBA museum, Palermo Thai food, ambitious dog walkers, Museo Evita, looking for the disappeared, Spanglish lessons, and the flea market on Avenida Defensa.

Zak told us to look for themes in our work, assuring us one would emerge. After a while I determined that my photos were “Indirect Portraits” i.e. photos of human evidence but not typical portraits. I definitely learned a lot during the trip and got to know a place I had never imagined I would visit. Coming back is like returning from another lifetime—one filled with noise, color, drama in the land of Tango.

(see more photos in Tangoland album)

Gettin Crafty Up in the Valley

If you have your ear to the ground (metaphorically of course) you've heard the rumble of the Bay Area urban craft movement coming our way. As one who religiously frequents Maker Faire, Bazaar Bizarre, and Renegade Craft Fair, I am loving the fact that the Napa Valley has had nonstop craft events all month. 

It started off with the White Barn Winter Fair on November 19th to benefit the Arts Council of Napa Valley. Nimbus Arts followed with their "Hands on Fire" ceramic show and sale. Last weekend I stopped at the "Holiday Shopping Extravaganza" and saw good friends Valerie Raven, Nina Zaslove, and Nancy Shapiro. Napa Valley College has a Pottery Sale and Open Studio Thursday from 11:00am-8:00pm and "Santa's Helpers" returns to the Napa Expo the 11th & 12th.

So I couldn't help throwing my hat in the ring when potter Nikki Ballere invited us to be at the Artisan Trunk Show in St. Helena on Dec 17 & 18. I'll be showing off my latest sewn creations at a booth with my boyfriend Robb McDonough who owns Barn Simple Press. Other fantastically creative artists in the show include: Christopher Jones-Marino, William Callnan III, Mercedes Baker, Daithi, Melissa Garden Streblow, Melissa Baker, Slader Brown, Nikki Ballere, Sonia Lub, Layla Musselwhite, Jenna Wells, Lynae Marie Skookumchuck and Thief of Hearts.

We kick it off Friday with a fun party from 6:00-9:00pm and continue Saturday from 10:00-5:00. Come check out the beautiful space upstairs at the Odd Fellows Building in St. Helena at 1352 Main Street. I guarantee you will find a wonderful work of art or jewelry or letterpress or pottery that you cannot live without.

Viva la Craft!

 

Makers Mark

This is an incredible time for artists and art lovers in the Napa Valley. As part of the Napa Valley Arts 2010, local painters, photographers, musician, actors, poets, singers, sculptors, and makers of all sorts are showing off and looking great. (all photos by Robb McDonough)

Organized by the Arts Council of Napa Valley, the celebration is chock full of over 100 cultural events at arts organizations, venues, galleries, wineries and schools up and down the valley. If you have ever bemoaned the fact that there isn’t enough to do in Napa, I invite you to pick up a NV Arts catalog or visit their website NVarts.org to check out the smorgasbord now through November 14.

The partying started off with a huge feel-good event at Mumm Napa. The Arts Council lined up photographers Suzanne Becker Bronk, Dona Kopol Bonick, Kristine Cummins, and Chick Harrity to take portraits of over 60 inspirational "makers". The photos captured everyone from Eleanor Coppola to Jakey Lee, showing just how diverse and brilliant our artist population is.

The great thing about the event was the overwhelming feeling of camaraderie and support. Sometimes as an artist, it feels like you are working in a void. But that night, you felt a powerful sense of togetherness. Many of the people who have been active in the arts scene for years, got to meet the up and coming generation of makers. I was absolutely honored to be recognized in the company of all these talented, dedicated, luminaries.

Special thanks to the staff at the ACNV for organizing this massive “wedding” of artists. Now that we are on our honeymoon, I hope everyone can look around proudly at what you have helped us achieve. Hurray!

Check out these Makers blog posts too:

Inspire Your Life-Style

Napavore

Media-ANT

Needle in a Hay Barn

Finding cool contemporary art exhibitions in Napa used to be like looking for a needle in a haystack. But a few recent events have opened up new venues in the local scene. Artist Gordon Huether has moved his exhibition space to downtown Napa, freeing up his Hay Barn studio gallery on Monticello Road to rotating show by guests curators.

The expert vision of Chandra Cerrito (owner of Chandra Cerrito Contemporary in Oakland) has transformed the Hay Barn into a super hip space for new art. The five artists in her show Stratigraphic play with elements of pop, op, and abstract art, to create work that not only catches your eye, it traps it.

The vibrant paintings of Omar Chacón, who was born in Bogotá, refer to the rich colors and patterns of Latin American textiles. Brian Caraway (photo) pairs his rhythmic canvases with titles that throw you off balance i.e. "take my advice don't come any closer". And David Allan Peters, carves into layers and layers of acrylic paint, taking the painting in reverse, flipping your sense of 2D and 3D.

An added bonus was the sighting of the "Imperial America" a work in progress by artist Lewis deSoto that was recently written about in the NY Times.  His customized 1956 Chrysler Imperial was parked out front sans the pending roof rack for a 10.5-foot scale model of a CC-56 Redstone ballistic missile.

Thanks to Gordon and Chandra and all the artists in Stratigraphic for an incredible discovery. The exhibition is up through September 24 and the Hay Barn is open to needle hunters Monday-Friday 9am to 4pm. More photos in the Hay Barn album.

A tilt on tomatoes

Last night I was joined by a cadre of bloggers at Gott's Roadside for a twilight tour of their self-sustaining garden in St. Helena. We were celebrating "Tomato Week" as part of SummerFest 2010 at AWaytoGarden.com. Being an aspiring lenshound, I jumped at the chance to take some artsy photos of Executive Chef, Rick Robinson's abundant crop of corn, tomatoes, peppers, melons, and herbs. Garden Manager, Christopher Landercasper proudly toured us through the rows of green before we sat down to a feast of tomato dishes including classic Gazpacho, Panzanella, Southern Scalloped Tomatoes, and my favorite...Tomato and Mayo Sandwiches (on Wonder Bread)--thus proving myself once again the least gourmet of the group.

But I was there for the pics not the recipes. So I decided to try something new with my digital shots. I took them to tiltshiftmaker.com and automatically, the spot focus changed and the perspective softened. Suddenly the photos looked magical and reflected the equally enchanted warm night we were having (for a change in the Napa Valley). So if you are looking for a fun way to alter your photos, or offer a slightly warped version of your experience out in a tomato field, try "tilt shift". And remember, "The man that cannot visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot”--Andre Breton

 

Craft Nation Comin at Ya!

Howlin' DJ Wolfman Jack said, "I started out as an opportunistic renegade. By now, I've lasted long enough to become sort of an Original Respectable Renegade."

I found this quote relevant to the speedy rate that new "underground" ideas become accepted into culture these days. Last Sunday, I went to the Renegade Craft Fair at Fort Mason, SF with Robb of Barn Simple Press to check out the scene, especially the letterpress scene. Last year when I told people I would be attending, the looked at me with a crinkled nose and asked "what are renegade crafts?". This year when I mentioned it, people replied "Oh yeah, I wanted to go to that!"

Maybe its just good marketing or word of mouth, but it seems like the indie craft world is becoming a major player in the art world and contemporary culture in general. This of course makes me happy (flashing back to my childhood days of making lint dolls and sewing buttons on my Keds). I am not a professional crafter, but I eagerly consume all of the clever inventions of my fellow quirky artists.

I especially appreciated some of the punny cards and tees at the fair this year. Like the recycled library cards that said "I've been checking you out all day." by the folks at Power & Light Press. Or the blunt but optimistic "I'm Fat, Let's Party"

There is reason for optimism. The crowd at the craft fair was huge and enthusiastic. People were buying as well as networking (using cool new apps as well as old fashioned business cards). So rest easy Wolfman...your fellow renegades are quickly becoming respected entrepreneurs while remaining part of the avant-garde.

(see Renegade photo album on the right)