Suze’s Art News March 2021

Coming Up in the Next Quarter…

Climacteric Confluence, at Columbia City Gallery, Seattle March 26-May 9. Together with Melissa Koch, Anna McKee and Juliette Ripley-Dunkelberger, this exhibit addresses aspects of our climate crisis. The first word means, “a critical period or event” or “having extreme and far-reaching implications or results; critical.” It will include five of my burned tree paintings and six artist books from the bark beetle series.

Seamed, varnished watercolor on torn paper, 51.5” H x 9.5” W (shown rotated)

Bark Beetle Book Volume 33: Hyphae, 14”H x 6”W x 8”D, Half-round log, handmade and commercial papers, abaca fiber. Based on the idea that fungi mycelium provide access to nutrients from otherwise indigestible wood. Because they leave a bluish stain on the sapwood, the endpapers are blue.

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Bugs Aplenty, at The Elisabeth Jones Art Center, Portland OR April 1 – May 23. They had so great a response to their call for insect-related art that they divided the show into two sections. Two of my bark beetle books will be in the second; the first is here.

Forest Decomposition (Volume XIII) Beetle-inscribed bark embedded in epoxy resin covers; laser-cut mat board pages with tea-dyed rice paper and pyrography; viscose endpapers, linen thread 9″H x 8″W x 4″D closed

Bark Beetle Book Vol. XIV Ars datum est (Volume XIV). Fir-engraver-inscribed log; laser-cut mat board; paint; linen thread. 16.5″H x 5″ diameter, closed. Each page is essentially a bar from a bar chart representing the areas affected in British Columbia and Alberta from 1999-2007.

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I’m honored to be included in the National Watercolor Society’s annual members’ exhibit, which will be virtual May 1 – June 27. They chose Goodell Creek Cedar, which is proving to be one of my most popular burned tree portraits ever. This same painting received a first-place award at Ida Culver Broadview’s Earth, Wind and Fire exhibit last quarter.

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I’ll also be in the Northwest Watercolor Society’s membership exhibit with the burned tree portrait below; it will be online at www.nwws.org, beginning with a virtual opening at 7 pm on April 22, and up through June 30.

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  Fingered, varnished watercolor on torn paper, 52″H x 22″W (shown rotated)

This is the first painting in this long series that involved substantial mechanical engineering for its physical display: I had to figure out a way to include the free-standing fragile branches. A matching stiff backing for each bundle of branches was laser-cut from acrylic and attached to a backing plate that rests above the hanging cradle on back of the trunk’s mounting board.

I’m so pleased with how the branches look that my next tree painting, still in progress, will have hundreds of them!

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  Deep Creek Triplet, 52″H x 31″W
  The vector drawing for laser-cutting both watercolor paper and backing

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Science Stories: A Collaboration of Book Artists and Scientists, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma WA, will be virtual until September 1, then physical in the Collins Memorial Library October 1, 2021 – January 15, 2022. My pieces, Obligate Mutualism and Resource Competition, have short videos about them linked from the site.

For the same effort I have also been acting as designer/book artist to a collaboration between Professor Daniel Burgard, a chemist working on environmental monitoring through wastewater sampling, and photographer James Oker, on Working Up Stream.

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For June through early September, the San Francisco Center for the Book and the San Francisco Public Library are hosting an exhibit called “Reclamation.” Two of my beetle books, Survivorship and Beetle Graph, will be in it.

Bark Beetle Book Vol. XXVII: Survivorship. Log (likely white bark pine) with mountain pine beetle galleries, laser-cut bamboo, offset-printed text with inked-in mountain pine beetle galleries, brass binding post. 9.5″ diameter, 6″ H. Based on a paper by Six et al.: ~7% of white bark pines in a research tract survived mass attack by mountain pine beetles. DNA analyses of the survivors showed they made fewer of certain volatile organic compounds that the beetles perceive. The interior pages of the book have been printed with “ASCII art” of the mRNA encoding for monoterpene synthase, one of those compounds. Like the trees that survived, the proportion of dark, low-contrast (“quiet”) to light, high-contrast (“noisy”) pages in the book is 7/100.

Bark Beetle Book Volume XXXI: Beetle Graph. Douglas fir branches, laser-cut wood, laser-print transfers, bronze rings. 86″H x 18″W x 3″D. Each branch is a bar from a bar graph of the most destructive bark beetles in Washington State from 2008-2018.

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In October 2021 through January 2022, Tim Musso’s giant woodcuts about bark beetles and forests, Jim Frazier’s bas-relief glyphs based on their galleries, and my bark beetle books will be shown together in “Below the Bark,” at the Missoula Art Museum in Missoula, MT.  Artist talks and student STEAM activities are being planned around the exhibit. I’ll have more to report more in my next mailing.

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If the creek and the COVID don’t rise, I’m excited to be teaching a floating workshop to benefit Great Old Broads for Wilderness on a San Juan River rafting trip May 15-19. If you are interested there might be one or two spots left.

Cedar Mesa from Goosenecks State Park. Watercolor on paper, 15″ x 11″ (sold)
If you turned around and looked down from here, you’d be looking down on the the San Juan River, and a canonical example of goose necks shown in many geology textbooks. This where the river trip and workshop will be.

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And last but not least, I will once again be teaching a 2-day watercolor landscape class through Seattle’s Gage Academy June 12-13. It will likely be a few weeks before it is posted on their workshop calendar.

Norse Peak Burn from the Deep Creek Trail, watercolor on paper, 15″ x 11″

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I’ve had some inspiring conversations with people who have reached out to me about the bark beetle books—artist and entomology professor Barrett Klein at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, poet and novelist-to-be Sean Petrie, and I’ve been reading Jody Gladding’s poetry in Translations from Bark Beetle. You never know where your artwork will take you!

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Keep your chin up and stay safe!

Suze’s Art News September 2020

It’s still pretty strange times.

We are all adapting as best we can. Artwork and time in wilderness give me inner sanity; helping others, whether individuals or institutions, is another strategem.

In roughly chronological order:

Where we watched the eclipse, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″

Bend, Oregon’s High Desert Museum’s annual fundraising competition, Art in the West, includes this landscape. The virtual auction is live 8/1 – 10/3/2020.

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Bathtub Lakes, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″

I’ll be teaching an in-person, outdoor class, “Practical Plein Air,” for Gage Academy of Art 9/12-13 — masked and distanced of course. There’s still room! Here is the registration page.

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Artichokes, watercolor on paper on cradled panel, coated in epoxy, 11″ x 15″

Item # 228, Silent Auction 2: in The Museum of Northwest Art’s annual fundraiser. Bidding opens on 9/11 and closes 9/13.

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Bark Beetle Book, Volume XXX: Species Distribution. Douglas fir branch, laser-cut wood, laser-print transfers, viscose and silk, Kevlar thread, wood beads. 3.5″ x 32.5″ closed, 3.5″ x 19 *feet* open — the longest book I’ve ever made!

I’ll be giving a virtual talk for Puget Sound Book Artists 9/10 from 4 -5:30 pm. Anyone is welcome to register for it on their site. I’ll be discussing the inspiration and processes of many of the 30 books that sat in the silent and empty exhibit “Gathered from the field: art provoked by the climate research” from early March to mid August this year.

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State of the Forest installation (fabric prints of my burned tree portraits). Image courtesy The James Museum, St Petersburg FL and David J. Wagner, curator.

Environmental Impact II, which includes State of the Forest, has moved to Fort Hays State University in Kansas, where it will be on display for the academic year 9/18/20 – 5/15/21. See also my home page and individual artwork page.

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Enlichenment watercolor on paper on panel, 8″x8″  SOLD

I was one of 50 contributors to a clever fundraiser called Square Deal–50 Artists for a Fair Vote. While mine is gone, there are still 12 left here.

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Bark Beetle Book Volume XXXI: Beetle Graph. Douglas fir branches, laser-cut wood, laser-print transfers, bronze rings. 86″H x 18″W x 3″D. Each branch is a bar from a bar graph of the most destructive bark beetles in Washington State from 2008-2018. 

I’m pleased to be part of the annual ICON competition at Lynn Hanson Gallery. There is a virtual First Thursday artwork on her site 9/3 at 5:30 and a virtual artist reception 9/12 at 2pm. 

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Bark Beetle Book Volume XXXII: Obligate Mutualism. Branch, laser-cut wood panels, iron-oxide-dyed and industrial wool felt, linen threat, embroidery floss 8.75″ x 6.75″ x 3″. Certain bark beetles that kill trees carry with them a staining fungus which helps them digest wood. Their characteristic patterns are shown on the covers. The fungi reach into wood with microfilaments, evoked by the lines of embroidery. 

I am once again part of Mighty Tieton’s 10x10x10 competition, on display 8/8 – 10/11. The virtual exhibit is here.

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In Headlight Basin, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″

This painting will be part of Schack-toberfest, the Everett museum’s fundraiser 9/17 – 11/7.

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Lastly, I’ll be giving a talk for Seattle Co-Arts at noon on October 27.

It has been a surprisingly rewarding summer despite everything there is to worry about. Painting outdoors on the Northwest Watercolor Society’s plein air days (which I help organize) has been a real treat. Small alpine landscapes remind me of the most joyous times of my life. This missive is already too over-long to show them here–but if you want to see some of this year’s small pleasures, let me know and I’ll send you a selection. 

Thanks for your attention to all my efforts to support our local art institutions!

Suze’s Art News June 2020

Oh my, how the world has changed! I want to acknowledge that we all are experiencing dislocation and distress – some much, much more than others – as a lame introduction to reporting my art endeavors.

I’m reminded of the scene at the end of Casablanca where Bogart says to Bacall, “I’m no good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three [one] little people [person, i.e., me] don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world….”

My bean count: residencies cancelled or postponed — three; individual pieces of artwork sitting in shuttered exhibit spaces out there in the world — 72; upcoming exhibits cancelled — two; and one cancelled watercolor workshop on a San Juan river trip for Great Old Broads for Wilderness. And no doubt more to come….

….but at least I can’t take it personally!

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My pandemic project gave me deep focus for the first 41 days. This blog post gives greater detail.

As yet untitled, 6 of 7 panels of varnished watercolor on torn paper, 22 feet by widths from 42” – 49”. I have no place large enough to photograph it all together!

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I’m deeply honored to receive a MadArt Artist Relief grant. I plan to use it to extend opportunities for artists less fortunate than me. While not up there yet, the 3-minute application video I created should be viewable on their vimeo page soon.

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Besides the Kirkland Arts Center People’s Choice Award that prompted the big tree pandemic project in the first place, one of my artist books received an award at Northern Arizona University’s “May You Live in Interesting Times” book arts exhibit. (Little did they know how soon their title’s wish would be granted!)

The Narrows, watercolor on paper, 32” x 14”

I also received a small award in the Northwest Watercolor Society’s recent virtual membership exhibit. I was supposed to be the speaker for March, but the meeting was cancelled. Instead I created a short online talk, still viewable here.

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Urban Moonset, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″, begun as a demo for my last Gage workshop

I am still planning to teach a landscape workshop for Gage Academy June 13 and 20. (Sign up soon!) Portions are almost certain to be online, but I am hoping our city and county guidelines will permit small outdoor groups to paint in parks if masked and distanced. The irony of trying to paint plein air landscapes indoors online has not escaped me!

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In my neighborhood a Seattle Opera tenor has been giving small street concerts for the duration. When I listen, I can feel a collective human spirit expressed through art. I’m reminded that while occasions can be upended, indeed vita brevis, ars longa….

 

 

 

 

Winter News 2020

Happy New Year!

First up, Threshold at Kirkland Arts Center. This juried exhibit will include the largest burned tree painting I’ve done yet — a cedar tree from the starting point of the North Cascades’ 2015 Goodell Creek Fire. I’m always struck by how cedars seem to rot or burn from the inside out. Many times the center is completely gone yet the tree still lives.

The exhibit is on display January 7 – February 15. The opening reception is January 10 from 6 – 8 pm and I will be there.

Goodell Creek Cedar, Varnished watercolor on torn paper, 52″ high by 44″ wide (2019)

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Next, Gage Academy in Seattle is having its 30th anniversary exhibit at the Washington State Convention Center Phyllis Lamphere Gallery. I teach the occasional weekend workshop at Gage, so I’m happy to have three of my burned tree paintings up from January 9 – April 13, 2020. Update: The reception date has been changed from the evening of January 31st to February 9, 11-1pm; I still plan to be there.

Stehekin Sentinel, Jolie laide and De-Limbed; Varnished watercolor on torn paper,
all 52″ high by various widths, (2014, 2017 and 2014)

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Several of my large landscapes are hanging at the Lynnwood Convention Center’s Northwest Landscapes exhibit, now through June 30. There will be a reception February 19, 6-8 pm, but I will be away and unable to attend.

Young and Old Alike, Watercolor on paper, 22″H x 30″W (2008)

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Three of my artist books will be at Northern Arizona University’s Art Museum for a book arts exhibit, “May You Live in Interesting Times” February 4 – April 18, 2020.

 
Top: The Last Iceberg, laser cut mat board, rub-on type, acrylic paint, varnish, linen thread; acrylic mount. 17”H x 10”W x 2.5”D (2016). [Rotated]
Above left: Rockbound Book: Elephant Canyon Volume.
Book: Sandstone, laser-cut mat board, elastic thread binding;
Case: wood, laser-cut mat board, paint, polish. Case: 7″L x 6″W x 3.5″H (2015).
Above right: Rockbound Book: Snowline.
Book: sliced snowflake obsidian, mat board, non-woven viscose;
Case: wood, paper, cord, casein paint, shoe polish, hardware. Case  8″ x 5″ x 4″ (2015).

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In March-April, Anna McKee and I will be showing our work in an Art+Sci exhibit entitled Gathered from the Field; art provoked by climate research at the University of Puget Sound’s Kittredge Art Gallery in Tacoma, WA. It will include her installation, WAIS Reliquary: 68,000 Years and I will have ~30 of my bark beetle books. There will be a reception March 26 6-8 pm. Not only will Anna and I attend, but our various scientific, literary, audio and other collaborators will be there as well. Update: The reception time has been changed to 4:30pm-6pm at the Kittredge Gallery.

Bark Beetle Book Vol. XXVII: Survivorship. Log (likely white bark pine) with mountain pine beetle galleries, laser-cut bamboo, offset-printed text with inked-in mountain pine beetle galleries, brass binding post. 9.5″ diameter, 6″ H.

Based on a paper by Six et al.: ~7% of white bark pines in a research tract survived mass attack by mountain pine beetles. DNA analyses of the survivors showed “quieter” encoding for certain VOCs that the beetles perceive. The interior pages of the book have been printed with “ASCII art” of the mRNA encoding for monoterpene synthase. The proportion of dark, low-contrast (“quiet”) to light, high-contrast (“noisy”) pages in the book is 7/100.*

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On March 24 I’ll be the speaker/demonstrator at the Northwest Watercolor Society’s March meeting at Daniel Smith Art Materials, 4150 1st Ave S., Seattle, beginning at 6:45 pm. Here’s what I said I would talk about (from page two of their newsletter):

“Painting landscapes in watercolor, both in the studio and from life, has led her in many directions Some are fairly predictable, like artist residencies in national parks and coordinating last summer’s NWWS plein air outings.

Other impacts have been more unexpected – learning to use tools such as pyrography (drawing by burning), paper making and casting (sculptural paper pulp), technology (software interpolation, laser cutting, digital printing on fabric), bookbinding and woodworking.

Another surprise has been deep creative collaborations with scientists, writers and poets. By spending time outdoors painting and living in remote parks and art colonies, she becomes aware of the issues affecting the landscapes she finds so inspiring.”

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In other news, my State of the Forest installation continues to travel with Environmental Impact Sequel, opening in Asheville, North Carolina’s Arboretum in February-April. Update: owing to an unforeseen conflict on their part, I will NOT be visiting to give a short talk in late April.

I hope that the commencing decade is productive and joyful to all of us — I hope to catch up during one or more of these events!

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*My colleague Iskra Johnson informs me this brief description is difficult to understand. Here is a more expansive attempt:

The beetles sense and take advantage of some of the tree’s own defenses. Some of those defenses are the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that it makes – semi-toxic gases, really – that the beetles re-synthesize as aggregating pheromones to call all their friends. Remember turpentine comes from tree resin. So the messenger RNA for the gene for monoterpene synthase, one of those VOCs, turns on its manufacture by the tree, but ironically, strong monoterpene synthase is something the beetles sense and use. 93% of the white bark pines made enough of it that they got attacked. 7% didn’t, they were less “visible” to the beetles.

C-A-T-G (cytosine, adenine, thymine and guanine) are literally the base pair components of DNA and RNA. I made the “ASCII” art from the c-a-t-g sequence for monoterpene synthase. You might remember in the early days of computer graphics people made illustrations out of text fields:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASCII_art

I used an “ASCII art converter” to make the base pair text field have beetle trails running through it. I printed the pages in both positive contrast-y, color-on-white, “noisy” versions in the same proportions (the 93%)   as the trees that were killed, and negative/low contrast, white-on-black “quiet” pages —  the 7% that survived.

 

 

Suze’s Art News June 2019

(This is the most recent newsletter update I sent to my mailing list. Sign up if you’d like to receive it in your inbox!) Hello, it’s been a while. This is an overdue update of everything happening now and a look back at events past. 2018-2019 has been a whirlwind and I am excited to share that with all of you. Thanks for your interest! Workshops “Watercolor on the Move: Practical Plein Air” Gage Academy Workshops July 20-21 Saturday-Sunday 9:30 A.M. – 4:30 P.M. For those in the Seattle area, I will be teaching watercolor once again at Gage Academy. Sign up for the workshop if you’d like to learn more about how I go about doing plein air — painting outdoors from life. Top: Zion Light, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″ (sold); Bottom: The Three Little Pigs (Gasworks) watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″

Upcoming Shows Davenport Cellars, Woodinville WA June 5 – early September 2019 The theme is “beautiful and disturbing landscapes,” scenic views of the public lands contrasted with burned-over landscapes. Top: Frisco Again, watercolor on paper 11″ x 15″ Bottom: The Landscape of Fire (rotated) 52″ x 15″ Puget Sound Book Arts (PSBA) Annual Member Exhibit  June 6- July 31, 2019 University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA Collins Library Two of my bark beetle books are on display. Top, Volume XXIV: What the Beetles Wrote Bottom: Volume XXI: The Curve of Loss Food Art Collection, Seattle The quiet existentialism of discrete fruits and vegetables July 14th, 2019 Opening 1-3 P.M. In July I will be showcasing something new, a series of vegetable paintings. I began them as class demonstrations and soon realized that the process of trying to free up my students’ work was freeing up mine. Apropos to none of my other work, but enjoyable and satisfying. Come see what we serve up at the opening! (See this meditation on why here.) Top: Swiss Chard, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″ Bottom: Long radishes, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″ (sold) Anacortes Arts Festival  July 27 – August 4th, 2019 Opening July 27 The annual juried exhibit; this year Joanna Sykes is the juror. Three of my bark beetle books will be on display. (Recipient of the T Bailey Corporate Award) Top: Bark Beetle Book Volume XXV: Outbreak Bottom: Bark Beetle Book Volume X: Encyclopedia Beetletainia State of the Forest Installation in Environmental Impact Sequel James Museum, St Petersburg, FL August – November 2019 This is the first stop on a touring exhibit that focuses on the environmental impact of climate change. Thirty of my burned tree portraits will be suspended, in floating fabric media to evoke the fragility of forests. Fourteen of them have Lorena Williams‘ fire stories printed on the back layer of the set. I look forward to presenting my work in this way. Top: State of the Forest, 10 of a 30 tree installation. Bottom: Detail of the three layers for each tree, black, solid print and transparent print (Jonathan T. Bishop photos) Slash & Burn Seattle City Hall September 5 – November 5, 2019 If you missed this repeat exhibit at Green River College earlier in the year, “Slash & Burn” will be presented again at Seattle City Hall. I’ve contributed several burned tree portraits and bark beetle books. Top: Okanagan Iridescence, varnished watercolor on torn paper, 52″H x 20″ (rotated) Bottom: Bark beetle book Volume XII: Buprestid Katakana Columbia City Gallery 20th Anniversary Book Arts Exhibit: The Book as Art: The Page and Beyond Seattle, WA September – November, 2019 This show will focus on finely crafted books that explore a variety of structures and books that can challenge traditional notions of a book and page. All Stitched Up University of Puget Sound Collins Library Tacoma, WA September 3 – December 11, 2019 A recent bark beetle book will be exhibited. Volume XXII, Scolytid Lifecycle   Willowtail Residency Willowtail Springs Nature Preserve Mancos, Colorado In late October I make my way back to Mancos, Colorado, for my fourth return to Willowtail Springs Nature Preserve. I’ll have an opportunity to work with author Lorena Williams on the stories that accompany the State of the Forest installation above.Zion Centennial “100 Objects – 100 Images” Zion Plein Air Invitational Zion National Park, Utah November 6-10, 2019 I am honored to be invited out for my 8th season during the Centennial of Zion National Park and Zion Plein Air Invitational. The Centennial will be celebrated through the art and history of this magical place via the exhibition “100 Objects – 100 Images”, beginning September 15th, continuing through and during the traditional plein air week. I look forward to sharing more as the year goes by so stay tuned for more details.“Word | Image | Object” July 2019 – January 2020 An artist book exhibit organized by Abcedarian Gallery in the main Denver Public Library. My small beetle-chewed branch books contain Melinda Mueller poetry about bark beetles. Bark beetle book Volume XIX: Poetry Sticks A Long Overdue Recap of 2018 and Previous Events Bellevue Art Museum “Making our Mark” (Pratt instructors’ exhibit) “Re: Acclimating” Kirkland Arts Center “So Sew“ The Vestibule group show “Unrestricted: An exploration of artist books” Port Angeles Fine Arts Center “The Intersection of Art & Math” Schack Art Center, Everett Playa Summer Lake Art/Science Integration residency Anacortes Arts Festival juried show Shunpike Storefronts “State of the Forest” “Like Mother, Like Daughter” Aljoya Thornton Place Purchase Award, City of Seattle Mighty Tieton’s annual “10x10x10” “Conversations through the Smoke” in rural Idaho Capitol Reef National Park residency 3- weekend workshops at Gage Academy Zion Plein Air Invitational “Pacific Northwest Fine Arts Competition“ at Phinney Neighborhood Association, 2019 “Slash and Burn” Green River College, Auburn WA, 2019 “Like Mother Like Daughter” North Seattle College, 2019 I am honored to have been chosen as one of three finalists by the Oregon Arts Commission for an installation at Oregon State University, 2019. Museum of Northwest Art’s climate exhibit “Surge” As part of my display I created this video: Thank you, friends and followers, for seeing me through another year, and I hope to catch you at home and out in my travels.