Suze’s Art News January 2022: a new year begins

Last month our holiday cards read “Merry Chaos and Happy Uncertainty.” Superficially we all knew Life Was Uncertain, but many more of us have come to a deeper personal realization of it, if not yet acceptance!

In this moment …
I am so proud of the Below the Bark exhibit at the Missoula Art Museum running through-Feb 26. Together with printmaker Tim Musso and painter/photographer/book artist Jim Frazer, MAM did a fabulous job displaying our widely varied works in complementary ways. We gave an online panel, together with scientist Dr. Diana Six, for the opening: Below the Bark – Panel Discussion – YouTube.

On the left below is one of Jim Frazer’s large wall-mounted “glyphs,” at the rear, one of Tim Musso’s large woodcuts, and in the foreground, 5 of my small bark beetle books in one room of the exhibit.

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CoCA’s membership exhibit, Art in Pandemia, has been extended to mid-February.  It includes my 2020 burned tree portrait Seamed. Artists in the show have been giving short talks about their work. (Seattle WA)

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

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Patterson Cellars tasting room in Leavenworth has a selection of small Northwest landscapes until the end of April.

Below: Pahto (Mt Adams) from Loowit (Mt St Helens) from a ski descent in May 2021

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The Louisiana Art & Science Museum’s show, “Iridescence,” runs until Jul 31, 2022, and includes my painting De-Limbed shown sideways below. (Baton Rouge LA)

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As an extension of the 2019-2023 touring exhibit ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT II, a solo installation of State of the Forest will be on display at the Art Museum of East Idaho in Idaho Falls February 1 – April 1 before heading to the Detroit Zoo in June to be re-united with the rest of the exhibit.

A portion of State of the Forest at the Bateman Centre, Victoria, B.C. (Raymond Ng photo)

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Lucia Harrison’s Science Stories closes soon at the Collins Library at University of Puget Sound but will travel to Port Angeles Fine Arts Center March1-June 1, Whitman College August 1-December 31 (Walla Walla, WA) and Evergreen State College Library January 1-to March 1, 2023 (Olympia WA).

Left: Resource Competition (Vol. XXXIV). Right: Obligate Mutualism (Vol. XXXII)

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Next moments:
A majority of my burned tree work will be in a solo private exhibit, The Magnitude of the Problem, at Aljoya Thornton Place January 31-May 15.  COVID restrictions mean no in-person reception or talk, but there may be some online activity, TBD (Seattle WA). Let me know if you want to be notified.

The Magnitude of the Problem (title work), 21.5-feet long in 7 panels.

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I’m just thrilled that the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art will feature both some of my bark beetle books and burned tree work in their exhibit beginning in March, Boundless (Bainbridge Island WA).

Left: The Sky Cracks Open (Vol. XXXVI) Right: Scolytid Lifecycle (Vol. XXII)

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The fabric version of The Magnitude of the Problem will be part of Fire and Ice at the Wildling Museum from April to September (Solvang CA)

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Burned tree pieces will be featured at Plasteel Frames & Gallery in the Design Center in June, exact dates still being finalized. Likewise, the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture has bark beetle books on their calendar for June (both Seattle WA).

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And even as I try to accept that it may all change, those exhibits are what is planned…
Hope to see you in-person or online in happy uncertainty!

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Suze’s Art News September 2021

Our pandemic days call for superpowers of persistence, patience
and kindness. Pass those gifts on!

In the Rear-View Mirror:
I’m once again happy to be part of Mighty Tieton’s 10x10x10 competition; it’s up until 10/10/21 (do you suppose that date was on purpose?!) (Tieton WA)

I’m pleased to have received an Honorable Mention in Lynn Hanson Gallery’s annual ICON show, the show remains up until 9/25 (Seattle WA)

In August, I taught a second weekend workshop for Gage Academy at the Bloedel Reserve with a great group of people. I’m planning on teaching an in-person indoor class in the second half of October, exact date still TBD—as is the in-person part…

Bloedel Woods, watercolor on paper, 11″x15″

Right in front of us:
As part of David Wagner’s Environmental Impact II exhibit, my installation “State of the Forest” has been touring locations around the US. It is currently at The Bateman Centre in Victoria, BC. I will be there to talk to gallery visitors and give a talk on 9/25, its last day. (Victoria BC)

https://batemanfoundation.org/exhibits/state-of-the-forest/

One of my favorite burned trees not only received the Festival Award at the Anacortes Arts Festival but sold. One of the several prizes it garnered was an exhibit at the Kirkland Public Library through a cooperative program with the Kirkland Arts Center. Last year I used lockdown time to paint a 21.5-foot burned tree, and I’m thrilled to finally have it in public view. The library has a reading list and a virtual panel with me and some of my collaborators planned for 7 pm October 19. (Kirkland WA)

The Magnitude of the Problem, varnished watercolor on torn paper, 50″H x 21.5′ W in 7 panels.

Coincidentally, the City of Auburn’s Art on Main program is showing a digitally-printed fabric version of the same tree, in a different orientation, in a downtown storefront. (Auburn WA)

The Art Gallery of SnoValley still has some landscapes of mine now through September. (Snoqualmie, WA) ART GALLERY OF SNOVALLEY – HOME. (Snohomish WA)

Gage Academy where I teach a weekend workshop once a quarter or so has an online exhibit by students and faculty called Portraits of the Pacific Northwest Exhibition & Art Sale now through 10/18 (online and Seattle WA)

On the book arts front, I have work in several exhibits: Puget Sound Book Arts membership exhibit at the University of Puget Sound Collins Library (Tacoma WA) and Movable Medley at the Art Students League until November 7 (Denver CO). After the PSBA membership exhibit, which ends Oct 1, Lucia Harrison’s Science Stories will occupy the Collins Library. All the pieces are part of my lengthy obsession with bark beetles—if their chewed trails look like an unknown script, what better form than a book?

The Louisiana Art & Science Museum’s show, “Iridescence,” runs until Jul 31, 2022, and includes my painting De-Limbed. (Baton Rouge LA)

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Looking Ahead

I remain incredibly excited about Below the Bark at the Missoula Art Museum opening Oct 1-Feb 26, 2022. Together with printmaker Tim Musso and painter/photographer/book artist Jim Frazer, our exhibit will open on art walk night and we will also deliver a public lecture Oct 4. I’m excited that, among other things, it will be part of a statewide STEM/STEAM program for fifth graders. I will also be a Visiting Artist at the University of Montana Missoula, where I will offer a workshop for art and forestry students and faculty. Entirely coincidentally, State of the Forest will be opening as part of “Environmental Impact II” Oct 8 at the Museum of the Rockies (Bozeman, MT).

Bark Beetle Book Vol. XXVII: Survivorship. 
Log with mountain pine beetle galleries; letterpress-printed text with inked-in galleries, handmade and commercial Japanese paper; brass binding post. 6″H x 9.5″ diamBased on a paper by Six et al.: ~7% of whitebark pines in a research tract survived mass attack by mountain pine beetles. DNA analyses of the survivors showed they produced fewer defensive chemicals (which the beetles perceive). The proportion of dark, low-contrast (“quiet”) to light, high-contrast (“noisy”) pages in the book is 7/100.

The Confluence Gallery has an upcoming show, “Something in the Wind”  Oct 2 – Nov 13. It will include two of my burned tree paintings. (Twisp WA)

Stehekin Sentinel (rotated), varnished watercolor on torn paper, 52″H x 20″W

Also ahead, CoCA’s membership exhibit will include my 2020 burned tree Seamed Nov 4 – Jan 15, 2022. (Seattle WA)

Seamed (rotated), varnished watercolor on torn paper, 52″H x 9.5″W

And finally I am supposed to be an artist in residence at Centrum in November. (Port Townsend WA) 

And then again, who knows in what form  these events will take place?
Whatever form they take – as-planned, virtual or postponed – I wish you all good health!

Suze’s Art News June 2021

I feel so profoundly grateful to be reporting on some in-person experiences after 15 months of virtual ones.
I hope you are finding reasons for optimism, too!

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In the Rear View Mirror:
In May I had the honor of teaching a workshop on a river trip for Great Old Broads for Wilderness, with a terrific group of guests and guides. What an experience! (San Juan River, UT)

Starting a demo (Susan Kearns photo)

In June I taught a weekend workshop for Gage Academy at the Bloedel Reserve. It’s a beautiful destination, and I am going to be repeating it August 14-15. (Bainbridge Island, WA)

Bloedel Woods, watercolor on paper, 11″H x 15″W

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Right in front of us:
My most recent burned tree painting—and arguably the most complex one yet—is currently part of The Schack Center’s 22nd biennial juried exhibit, June 17-July 24. There will be an in-person closing awards ceremony 7/15 5-8 pm PDT. Judging by what I saw at drop off, I am in excellent company! (Everett, WA).  

Deep Creek Triplet, varnished watercolor on laser-cut paper and polycarbonate, 52″H x 31″W

From May-July, Space at Magnuson Gallery has a plein air exhibit with two pieces of mine in it. (Seattle WA)

The Wilcox Bridge (Washington Park Arboretum), watercolor on paper, 11″H x 15″W

The Art Gallery of SnoValley has some landscapes of mine, now through the end of September. (Snoqualmie, WA)

Mt. Rainier from Mailbox Peak, watercolor on paper, 11″H x 15″W

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Looking Ahead:

I was pleased to be accepted in Manifest Gallery’s “Pattern” competition, especially once I heard the acceptance rate was less than 3%! There will be a limited in-person opening July 8 and a virtual artist talk August 5, 6-8pm EDT (Cincinnati, OH)

Winter Rim (rotated), varnished watercolor on torn paper, 52″H x 16″W

In August my 30-set fabric-tree grove installation, “State of the Forest,” will be on exhibit at the Bateman Centre. My fingers are crossed that our countries’ pandemic situations improve enough that I can cross the Canadian border to see it! (August-September, then as part of Environmental Impact Sequel in Victoria, B.C. Canada)

From October 1, 2021 to February 26, 2022, together with printmaker Tim Musso and painter/photographer/book artist Jim Frazer, our exhibit “Below the Bark: Artworks of Disturbance Ecology” will open at the Missoula Art Museum. I’m excited that, among other things, it will be part of a statewide STEM/STEAM program for fifth graders.

Bark Beetle Book Volume XXXIV: Resource Competition. One-of-a-kind Artist Book: Branch, dimensional lumber with blue stain, laser-cut wood with laser print transfers. 5″H x 12.75″W x 4″D Both bark beetles and humans like to make their homes out of trees, so in some sense we are competing for the same resource. This book interpolates the gallery-covered branch into a piece of 1×4 dimensional lumber. You can see a video animation of the pages here: https://vimeo.com/468773992

I will also be a Visiting Artist at the University of Montana Missoula; entirely coincidentally, “State of the Forest” will be opening the second week of October as part of “Environmental Impact Sequel” at the Museum of the Rockies. (Bozeman, MT).

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I hope I will get to see you at an in-person event in the future!

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 December 2020

Since September…

In the past several months, I’ve given several virtual talks, one for Puget Sound Book Artists which covered my bark beetle books in last summer’s long empty and silent exhibit, “Gathered from the Field,” at Kittredge Gallery  ·  University of Puget Sound. Another was for Seattle Co-Arts which covered a range of my art projects and what motivates me.  I was deeply gratified by compliments such as “…[your work] would expand [students’] ideas of what a book is,” “Your exposition of the effect of eco-disruption is so creative and compelling,” and “[you are] a link for both scientists and artists to collaborate.”

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(Above) West Point Lighthouse at Low Tide,
watercolor on paper, 11”x15”

(Below) Suze painting masked in Kubota Garden
(James McFarlane photo) 

A June-October activity that was surprisingly meaningful was coordinating plein air outings for our local Northwest Watercolor Society NWWS, together with Stephanie Twigg’s longtime group of summer painters. We visited 21 different locations; in such stressful times, the chance to paint together outside, even masked and socially distanced, was revitalizing. We had participants tell us it was the highlight of their weeks and downright life-saving.

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The Magnitude of the Problem, panel 2. Varnished watercolor on torn paper, 39” x 47”

There are some advantages to this pandemic for exhibiting artists — NWWS’s International Open was virtual this year, which meant no packing, shipping, or delivery as well as no size limits. I was happy to have one panel of my huge, burned tree painting, The Magnitude of the Problem, in it. The total piece is 21.5 feet long or high, a format which doesn’t translate well to a small horizontal screen. Part of reacting to a work of art is a visceral response, feeling its scale in relation to your own body in space. (See Art in the Time of Coronavirus, or, “The Big Tree” ) for a longer essay about it.)

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(Top) 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.

(Bottom) Beetle Graph (Volume XXXI). Douglas fir branches, laser-cut wood, laserprint transfers, bronze rings. 86″H x 18″W x 3″D The top three species contributing totree mortality in Washington State from 2009-2018:  Dendroctonus ponderosae (~69%); Scolytus ventralis (~20%); Dendroctonus pseudotsugae (11%). Data from Aerial Detection Surveys summarized in WA DNR annual Forest Health reports

I was honored to receive the “Strongest Voice in Art” award from Lynn Hanson Gallery’s annual ICON Show. Juror Stephanie Hargrave gave the award for my bark beetle books shown above.

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Goodell Creek Cedar, varnished watercolor on torn paper, 52”H x 16”W and 52”H x 44”W

I thank June Sekiguchi, multi-talented artist and curator for featuring 6 of my burned tree portraits in her recent Earth, Wind and Fire exhibit at Ida Culver House Broadview. It is closed to the public but there is a video here:Earth Wind and Fire at Ida Culver House Broadview.

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Party Platforms. Mixed media, ~15”W x 18”H x 10”D.

Somewhat frivolously, my longtime friend Cath Carine and I created a mixed media piece called Party Platforms – when will they learn to dance? As the election got closer it was harder to find any aspect as amusing as it seemed last February, when the original task was to develop shoe-based artwork for the Anacortes Art Festival’s fundraiser gallery. That event was postponed and then cancelled, but it was shown in Las Lagunas Gallery’s “Political Discord” virtual exhibit. Watch an animation here: Party Platforms animation 2 on Vimeo

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What’s Yet to Come
(or, as this past year has taught us, at least what I have planned that might change…)

At the invitation of the Woodinville Arts Alliance, in October I installed 17 burned tree paintings and 4 burned-over landscape paintings at Patterson Cellars‘ tasting room at their Seattle location. They look great in this big space, but of course with our current pandemic closures, they’re again all by themselves. They are supposed to be up until sometime in March – I hope they can be seen before then!

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Tentatively titled Zion Branches, varnished watercolor on torn paper, 52”H x 22”

In March-May I will be part of an environmentally-themed exhibit at Columbia City Art Gallery in Seattle. I will have some new material there, such as this just-finished Zion National Park tree. I am experimenting with new ways to mount separate additional branches alongside the trunk of the tree. I found the branches so visually exciting it’s tempting to start a new series of just branches!

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(Left) 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

(Center and Right) Outbreak (Volume XXV) Log with beetle galleries, handmade Japanese paper, iron-oxide-dyed non-woven viscose 12″H x 6″ diam. Some of the sheets are chiri (“leftover”) kozo fiber which has many small bits of bark embedded in them. The frontispiece has leaf skeletons embedded in it. The increasing circular areas covered by rubbings taken from the same represent the proportion of tree mortality in the Quesnel Timber Supply Area of central British Columbia 1999 – 2016.

North American Handmade Papermakers’ “Materiality” exhibit will be online this year. It goes live on December 21 at https://www.northamericanhandpapermakers.org. I’m honored to have two of the bark beetle books that include handmade papers in the exhibit, where they are surrounded by amazing pieces. I owe a debt of gratitude to Mary Ashton, who taught me about making Japanese papermaking as well as Western, and to Bonnie Thompson Norman who helped offset-print some of those papers.

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Just over Knapsack Pass, watercolor on paper, 11” x 15” From January 6 to February 20 I will have small Northwest landscapes at Shore-Lake Art Gallery in Lake Forest Park, mostly from the many hikes I took this summer.

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I’m happy to have a 2021 Shunpike Storefront exhibit exact date and location TBD, during which I will finally have a space large enough to be able to show “The Magnitude of the Problem” (see above). Likewise I will have an October storefront for the City of Auburn’s Art on Main program.

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Bark Beetle Book Vol. 34: Resource Competition. Branch with beetle galleries; blue-stained dimensional lumber, laser-cut Baltic birch plywood, with laser-print transfers, Kevlar thread. 5″H x 12.75″W x 4″D. I interpolated a branch to dimensional lumber in both form and graphics, because both beetles and humans like to make their homes from trees; hence we are competing for the same resource.

I have been continuing to work on bark beetle books with my chief scientific mentor, Dr. Diana Six of the University of Montana. While we were already in this collaboration, together we will be part of an exhibit entitled “Science Stories” which matched book artists and scientists at the University of Puget Sound. It will be virtual from March – September 2021, with the hope that it will be installed and viewable in person in September.

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

Larches at Lake Ann, watercolor on paper, 11” x 15”

And last but not least, I will once again be teaching a 2-day online winter landscape painting class (is that an oxymoron!?) through Seattle’s Gage Academy. There’s still room.

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Stay safe and keep those around you safe!

Plein air peut-être?

Notes from an article originally written for the Northwest Watercolor Society’s June 2020 newsletter with tips that may be useful to others

Most likely you know that plein air means outdoors in French (literally “full air”). It refers to the tradition begun by the Impressionists of going outside to paint from life. It was the invention of small, ready-made, soft-metal, portable paint tubes that made it possible. Peut-être is French for “might be,” or “maybe.”

Little will bring more freshness – and challenge! – to your work quite as much as painting outdoors from life. From Thomas Moran to David Hockney, whenever I see an exhibit that pairs artists’ large studio paintings with their preparatory studies, I always love the studies. They may be smaller, less grandiose and less accurate—but they are so much more direct, personal and free.

I also find that it’s something I have to practice regularly; it’s more like a sport: you can’t expect to score a win if you don’t practice. For many years I have participated in an annual plein air competition in late fall, so I am highly motivated to “train” all summer.

And since this kind of painting is honestly one of the harder things to do, you have to be easy on yourself.

Just as last summer, a group of us are still planning to go outside to paint once a week.   Depending on the state and local orders in force at the time, it might have to be 6-feet-apart, masked and gloved. Or separate in our home gardens with a video meeting afterwards.

Suze at Gasworks Park in 2019 (James McFarlane photo)

 

This year there is so much we can’t assume: the parking lots of some city parks are still off limits to parking. Restrooms may not be open. Restaurants, if open, may be only open for take-out. Besides the painting gear outlined below, add masks, gloves and hand-sanitizer to your kit.  We are planning to maintain a sign-in sheet should there be any need for future contact tracing (and will not be used for any other purpose).

Here are some of the tips and practices I have found helpful:

Painting gear:

• Lightweight folding easel and several sheets of paper that fit on it. Some people bring lightweight folding chairs and paint on a board in their laps, but I like standing because my arm is freer. Some people work in small sketchbook; my preference is separate quarter-sheets.
• Small closing palette that fits on my easel shelf, with my go-to landscape colors in it (always in the same order so I don’t have to hunt for a pigment)
• Several favorite brushes – I can get away with only a 1-inch flat, two sizes of rounds and a rigger
• A camera – I always take a photo between the end of my pencil sketch and starting to paint. Rarely do I ever refer back to it, but just taking the photo allows me to paint more freely knowing I have a backup if something unforeseen occurs. (Yes, there was that time they turned the sprinklers on me at Gasworks when I was only half-finished : – )
• Water cups that fit on my easel
• A filled water bottle with a carabiner on its handle; I can clip it and/or my backpack the easel for extra stability if it’s breezy.
• A pencil case with pencil, pencil sharpener, white vinyl and kneaded erasers, clips to hold my paper to my easel’s board, a Swiss Army knife, pen, and a few business cards
• A quick snack like some almonds, a piece of fruit or a granola bar. We may go for lunch afterwards if there’s a quorum and a convenient spot, but sometimes I need a boost before well before then.
• Travel mug – that way you can’t stick your brush in your beverage.
• Sun screen

And now:

• Hand sanitizer, mask, gloves

Clothing:

• Cathy Gill so rightly says, “First the artist must be comfortable.” Dress in layers you can put on or take off, depending on the weather. I always have a spare lightweight jacket and warm hat with me, as I get cold easily standing still whatever the temperature. Sometimes I’ll wear long underwear if it’s less than 60 degrees and breezy, as well as fingerless wool gloves.
• Sun hat with a big brim that shades your eyes and covers the back of your neck. I don’t like to wear sunglasses because they distort my color perception, so that hat is really important. Picking a location where your board and paper are in the shade and not reflecting glare into your eyes helps too.
• As it gets warmer, one of my layers is a big white long sleeved shirt, so I only have to put the sun-goo on my hands and face.

Useful practices:

• I like to walk around a little and review possible subjects before I settle on a particular one. This is one reason it’s nice to have an easy way to carry your stuff: I use a backpack; some folks have rolling carriers.
• If possible, orient your paper and board 90 degrees to the scene you’re painting. That way you’ll be reacting to your painting at least as much as to reality.
• Especially early and late in the shoulder seasons, reverse the usual light-to-dark watercolor practice and paint the shadows first because they’ll be changing the fastest. You can also do a quick value sketch to fix the darks before they’re changed positions.
• I always ask myself, “why is this going to be a painting and not a photograph,” another reminder that I need not be a slave to the reality in front of me. Or, as my colleague Spike Ress once said to me, “you can lie…”

I can’t tell you how much I hope to see you out there, because it means I’ll be able to get out there too!

Suze Woolf

Art in the Time of Coronavirus, or, “The Big Tree”

It will not surprise you to hear I made myself a massive, hunker-down, shelter-in-place project, now nearly three-quarters completed.

In January I received the people’s choice award at a local juried show. One option for the award is an exhibit on a large wall above the checkout counter at a nearby public library. Before the lockdown went into effect, I made it over there to check out the space. One side of the wall is 24 feet wide, with about 6 feet of vertical space. There is also a smaller wall on the other side of a central doorway.

I’ve always meant to try one of my burned tree paintings on the lengthwise axis of a roll of watercolor paper — but been intimidated by the time commitment required. With my beloved wilderness off-limits, I knew I needed something demanding to do.

When completed it will be 22 feet long (not quite an entire roll  of 30 feet : -) Since I don’t have room to work on something that big in my studio, I’m doing it in sections that will hang abutted. I figure if John Grade’s immense Middle Fork sculpture was created in sections, I can do it, too.

I’ll mount them so they can be hung either vertically or horizontally, though I expect most venues will need it to be horizontal.

Panels 1-6: I don’t have enough floor space in the largest room I have to lay them out!

Two friends independently dubbed it “Water Lilies of the Anthropocene.” While it’s nowhere near the size of Monet’s largest water lily paintings, it’s the largest of my 12-year preoccupation with wildland fires, as their remains increase in frequency and severity in our warming climate. The library is excited about it and plans to do some programming around it. I’m excited because lots of people will see it — whenever we can visit libraries once again.

I’ve just starting panel 7 of 7, at ~18.5 feet now. Between that and varnishing and mounting, I think it will take another 3-4 weeks. The animation at the top of this post represents 28 painting days, with 7 panel prep days as well.

We have all had plans and dreams interrupted by the virus. I wish us all good health, an easing of the stresses and strictures, and a chance to show what we’ve been working on during this pandemic siege.

UPDATE May 1, 2020:

The painting portion is finally finished (there’s still varnishing, creating shaped boards to mount them on and mounting them to do).

My photos don’t quite do it justice — it is too large to lay out in any contiguous space in my studio, so each panel has been photographed separately and digitally composited. The color-matching across panels is more accurate in the painting than in these photos.

“The Big Tree,” Watercolor on torn paper, 49″ x 262″ (21’10”)

It’s fun to see it in its possible vertical orientation, too. One thing that surprised me: the panels also look surprisingly meaningful as separate side-by-side pieces.

Proposed window display of 5 of 7 panels, side-by-side orientation

Any suggestion for a title welcome!

UPDATE October 1, 2020:

Panel 2 of what I finally decided to call The Magnitude of the Problem has been accepted into the Northwest Watercolor Society’s 80th Annual International Exhibit (online this pandemic year).  It will be viewable beginning the evening of October 27.

UPDATE July 2022

The painting was on display in the Kirkland Public Library October of 2021 to January of 2022. I was thrilled by how much the library was involved – we created an all-ages reading list and together author Lorenda Williams and forestry professor David L. Peterson and I gave a virtual talk.

The Magnitude of the Problem at the Kirkland Public Library

Then a fabric version of the painting was created with Arisa Brown‘s help and a new story by Lorena, featuring the threat to the Mariposa Grove. It has been on display at the Wildling Museum in Solvang, California, and we’ll be giving a virtual talk for it on September 15.

The fabric version at The Wildling Museum

With stories by Lorena Williams; Phos-Chek artwork by Amiko Matsui in background

Currently the original painting is in a solo show at Plasteel Frames and Gallery in Seattle. I am equally thrilled by how it looks wrapped around an inside corner.

Next up will be a large window display through Shunpike’s Storefront program October 2022-January 2023.

Suze’s Art Doings, March 2020

I am truly excited about Gathered from the field: Art provoked by climate research opening March 9 at the University of Puget Sound’s Kittredge Art Gallery. Together with Anna McKee’s WAIS reliquary installation and other works, 30 of my bark beetle books will be on display there until April 18. There is a reception and “Art + Sci” salon March 26 at 4:30 pm, including my collaborators Dr. Diana Six of the University of Montana and poet Melinda Mueller. Afterwards, join us at one of the “Night Out” tours of UPS’ Slater Museum of Natural History.

Bark Beetle Book Volume XXX: Species Distribution.

Artist Book 3.5 in. diameter x 32.5 in. long closed, 3.5″ diameter x 19 feet open. Douglas fir branch, laser-cut wood, laser-print transfers, viscose and silk, Kevlar thread, wood beads. [The almost-tree-long book features galleries of the beetle species that chew on Douglas firs.]

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It’s my pleasure to report that Goodell Creek Cedar, the 41st of my portraits of individual burned trees, won the People’s Choice award at Kirkland Art Center’s recent Threshold exhibit. The award is in the form of a future exhibit; and I am plotting something humongous!

Goodell Creek Cedar
Varnished watercolor on torn paper, 52 in. high x 44 in. wide.
[The Goodell Creek fire shut down transmission from Ross Dam in 2015. I am fascinated by how cedars seem to both rot and burn from the inside out.]

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CoCA’s annual juried members’ exhibit, 20/20 Visions, opens March 5, during the Pioneer Square Art Walk. As in other years, I’m honored to be selected for the smaller gallery show. Come vote for your favorite!

Dendritic Rhyolite
Artist Book and Case, 4.5 in. x 7.25 in. x 2.875 in. Stone, laser-cut and laser-etched mat board, modified Coptic-binding with linen thread. [The shapes of the rock covers, as well as the iron stains on them, are interpolated from front to back through the book.]

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I’m also pleased to report I will be teaching a watercolor landscape workshop, not only at Gage Academy June 13-14 in Seattle as is typical for me, but on a 5-day 4-night May river trip on the San Juan for Great Old Broads for Wilderness. The trip is full; I’m looking forward to spring time on the water in canyon country.

Deep Time (sold)
Watercolor on paper 30 in. x 22 in.
[The Great Unconformity, 1.2-1.6 million missing years, is at the lower left of the painting.]

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That’s all for now. I hope we can stay calm and productive in times of such tremendous stress and upheaval. I know that art can be both a goad and a balm.

 

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.

 

 

Eating my Vegetables

It began in one of the workshops I’ve been teaching at Gage Academy in Seattle. It’s a big jump to go from learning about the paints to doing a landscape, even from a photo, so I’m always looking for ways to bridge that gap. One day I brought in a few items out of my fridge. I asked each person to pick one, place it on a white sheet of paper and point a small desk lamp at it. Then I gave a demo:

Class kale, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 7.5″

There’s something humble and unassuming about some leaves of kale.

I’m fond of saying that often people draw the Platonic “class” of an object instead of the “instance” that is there in front of them.

Or, as fellow vegetable-loving painter/instructor Lisa Goren says, “I always use chard for my teaching. I use it because, unlike flowers, [students] don’t have as fixed an idea of what it looks like in their heads. So I think they look more carefully and are more focused on the task rather than the outcome.”

Swiss chard, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″

Our correspondence about this shared pedagogy made me think hard about why I am finding painting vegetables so liberating.

There are relatively few examples of “Great Vegetable Works from Art History”—whereas try to paint sunflowers and a whole famous field’s worth is glaring at you!

Red leaf lettuce, watercolor on paper, 15″ x 11

It’s hard to get to over-invested in painting a vegetable—compared to, say, a beautiful landscape you’re sentimental about. Since you don’t have so many hopes and expectations attached to it, you paint more freely and the results are fresh. (Mind you, they still require careful observation!)

Long radishes, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″

Or maybe it’s a jolie laide or underdog thing? Even in the foodie world they’re usually not the star of the meal…

Artichokes, watercolor on paper, 11″ x 15″

Perhaps it’s also my own semi-conscious interest in getting people to look at what isn’t conventionally considered “art worthy.”

Plus I get to eat them afterwards… Or at least most of them:

Pulmonaria lobarium, watercolor on paper, 11″ x15″. Lungwort lichen is a vegetable to the deer and moose that browse on it!

Update: this page on my website has more of the series.

[Note: a number of these small paintings were in a solo exhibit at the Food Art Collection opening July 14, 2019. Rather than traditional framing and glazing–which just didn’t feel right when I hope they end up in people’s kitchens–they are mounted on panels and coated with epoxy–so the spatters from frying up those potatoes can be wiped off!]