Next meeting: Saturday, December 4, 2010

Craig Stanman
Full circle here!
Craig will be the final person to present his work in this round of Salon visits.
Next, we will begin to create the next level of discourse for our group.

Please join us at:
18125 Coastline Drive, #E
Malibu 90265
310-454-1880
2:00 PM
Please note: We are meeting on a Saturday.
His work is beautiful! I can't wait. But I'm a little biased.

Cherie's Studio Visit

Thank you so much, Cherie for letting us in on your beautiful world of insects, birds, fruits, candies and ideas. We are sorry to have missed a few of you (Zelda, Tom and Kate, I believe were the only ones absent).
Cherie walked us through her vision of her project that resides in her mind and will hopefully be ignited to bust out into the real world very soon. I love your idea of using the insect display case, but on a larger scale. Part natural History Museum, part Joseph Cornell and very dream-like.
Cherie displayed her illustration work through the course of her career, showing finished product as well as originals. Such beautiful craftsmanship. Incredible precision and eye for detail.
It was lovely for us to be together. John, you were a charming and restrained host, truly allowing Cherie to have the spotlight.
We were all excited with your proposal. I hope that the Salon helped you with direction and motivation!

Kickstarter

I just read an article in the LA Times that mentioned Kickstarter, a creative way to get creative funding. It seems like an interesting way to seek and contribute funding for creative projects.
Another possibility!
Here's a link to the article: "Kickstarter's growing grass roots food scene"

We are heading into our third year together!

Or I could say, we have just completed our second year together.
But, I am looking forward.
It was wonderful and soul-nourishing to be together on Sunday at Zelda's. Thank you for always saying Yes to us, Zelda. John and Cherie are on the mend and have used up their allotment of sick days for the Salon. The rest of you folks were missed. Truly.
We used the time to reconnect after being apart for the whole summer. We spent the first hour and a half catching up, each person getting a turn to share with the group.

The second "half" was devoted to envisioning our future. Now that almost everyone has had a chance to be visited, viewed and worshipped, we're ready for a deeper dig. The universal consensus was that we'd like to take our studio visits to another level. We seem to have established a level of trust and respect with each other. We had our retrospectives. Now, we can use these visits for more focused conversation. We can designate the direction of the visits and seek whatever we feel we need in our respective journeys.
Some people wanted to steer away from technique, unless it was pertinent. Others are looking for thematic connections. This will continue to evolve. Sandy says enough already with the painters! Someone suggested we get another man in the group.

And yes, we want to set a tangible goal of showing together. Here's what we discussed:

• Group show, including all of us
• Idea of creating a piece specifically for this show
• We will have a meeting that will address the show goals
• In the near future, I will send out an "assignment" to come up with three possible show themes, or words. Then we'll chat.
• We'll create a realistic deadline for the creation of the piece.
• It has been established that we will have no problem finding a venue for the show (I declared it, so it will be).

Our next studio visit: Sunday, October 17, 2:00 at Cherie's Studio. No, really, at Cherie's!

Salon member's upcoming and ongoing shows:

Sandy Abrams "Eire: Romancing the Soul"
September 28 - November 28, 2010
Reception: Saturday October 2
4:00 - 6:0 PM
Utopia Restaurant
445 E. First Street
Long beach, CA 90802
562-432-6888
P.S. Here is the website that Sandy mentioned: Joe Hogan Basketmaker

Kate Savage
TarFest Art Exhibition
Friday, September 24 - October 8, 2010
Reception: Friday, September 24, 6-9 PM
Please see website for details
www.launchla.org

Zelda Zinn
Crossroads Faculty Show
Sam Francis Gallery
Santa Monica
Details on website

Please let me know if I have missed anything important.
I look forward to an another year of connection, conversation and calories.
Abrazos y besos,
Phoebe

Call for Artists GATE

Glendale Area Temporary Exhibitions 2010-2011
Please check out this site for info on submissions.
Thanks Zelda for the heads up!

Looking forward to the new season

It seems like an eternity since we've all been together. I am so looking forward to seeing everyone this Sunday, September 19, at Cherie's studio visit.
Forever connected the the school calendar (despite no longer being connected to a school), this always feel the like the beginning of a new year. I hope we will continue our momentum and see what we can bring to the Salon and what the Salon can create for us.

Here's an interesting article from the LA Times last week:
LA Art Biennial on tap for 2012
It's about time. Let's be in it.

Craig and I saw some great exhibits yesterday and I thought I'd share them:

Larry Pittman at Regen Projects
He just takes my breath away. Check out both Regen Projects galleries. His new paintings are at the new space and a survey of works on paper (presented in a very trippy way) are at the older space.
Alberto Burri at the Santa Monica Museum of Art
Amazing Italian artist who spent some time in Los Angeles. Under the radar and ahead of his time. Some of the uses of his materials reminded me a little of the way Lee Bontecou used burlap and charred-looking materials. As Shelley Duvall said in Annie Hall, it was "Trans-splendid".
Nancy Jackson at Rosamund Felson
We are both such big fans of Nancy Jackson. We own one her pieces from her debut show at Rosamund Felson. Her work is honest, beautiful, idiosyncratic and let's you in on her unique sense of journey. This work is both very dark (nightmarish, detailed, cross-hatched drawings and paintings) and literally very light (spiraling mobiles cut from delicate sheets of paper). And at times humorous.
She moved to the east coast last year. That'll mess with your head...

So, sorry I've been out of touch. Our dog is recovering from knee surgery. We've been home with him for weeks and I've generally had my head in the foggy regions of the never ending quest for trans-splended-ness.
Love to you all...

Saturday, April 24, 2010: Carolyn Vosburgh

Carolyn, what a spectacular and outstanding presentation of your work! It was so exciting after all this time (over a year and a half of meeting) to finally get to see what you create. As you can tell from all of the swooning, it was clear that your work was well-received by all.
Congratulations on a full, rich body of work. You are prolific.
All you need is a large space to display and you'll be ready for a mid-career survey.
Thank you for all who attended and sending out love to those who didn't. You missed a good one.
Other notes:

Look for Beth's contribution to the web performance on:
"Low Lives 2" on Friday, April 30 at 5:00pm.
Event: Low Lives 2
What: Performance
Start Time: Friday, April 30 at 5:00pm
End Time: Friday, April 30 at 8:00pm
Where: http://www.facebook.com/l/8485c;www.ustream.tv/channel/low-lives-2#more

Check out Judith's piece in the exhibit at the Orange County Museum of Contemporary Art

I've added "Persist", the book that Carolyn mentioned to the reading list, to the right. You can click on it and go directly to Amazon.com

Our next meeting: Sunday, May 23 at Phoebe and Craig's house. Discussion only. We will be talking about "How to keep on keepin' on". Or something like that.

Thank you everyone for showing up and being honest and respectful.

Seven Arrows Masquerade Festival

Here is a link to see some photos of our (Phoebe and Clinton) school's 2010 Masquerade Festival performed at the Broad Theater in Santa Monica. Those giant costumes are hanging on either side of the stage. Clinton and I are at the end of the photos.
It was wonderful and exhausting! The kids were fantastic.

La Casa del Tunel

Here are some photos that Peggy wanted share. She will be participating in a show in Tijuana in April at La Casa del Tunel. Her friend Clark Fox (we met him at Sandy's) will also be in the show.
Road trip.

Crit Clusters

Side Street Projects is offering something called Crit Clusters. It's a similar idea to what we do, except that is has distinct parameters. Beth passed this info on to me and I found the short video description to be quite interesting. You may want to do it, or just check the link to see what kind of guidelines they provide for their crits. It is an 8 week course and each person also receives feedback on working as artists the in the "real" world.
They work from a book called "Artist's Guide: How to make a living doing what you love" by Jackie Battenfield. The title alone sounds like a must-read. It might be a good idea for all of us to get this book and have ourselves a big chat.
Thank you Beth!

Nick Cave at the Fowler

Go see this wonderful, wild exhibit at the Fowler Museum in Westwood!

Next meeting: Sunday, February 21, 2:00

No studio visit next time, but a chance to converse. We discussed meeting at the M Cafe in Culver City. The tables should be large enough to accommodate us all. If the weather is too funky, we can do it at my house, or at Kate & Tom's place.

If you have specific topics that you'd like to address, send us out an e-mail with your thoughts.
I am interested in: What are the reoccuring themes, the continual question, your life's work, what do you find yourself coming back to over and over?

See you next month!

Carolyn is up next!

Plucked: Curated by Zelda Zinn

Please check out Zelda's show at:
The Sam Francis Gallery
Crossroads School
1714 Twenty-First Street
Santa Monica 90404
1/14/10 - 2/19/10
Gallery Hours: Monday - Friday 10:00 - 3:00 P.M.

Here's a link to Aline Smithson's Blog Lenscratch discussing the exhibit. It also includes some wonderful images.

Congrautlations Zelda!

Back from the winter hiatus: Kate's Studio visit

What a lovely return from what seemed like a very long break.
Thank you so much to Kate and Tom for feeding us your cheesey delicacies. Mazeltov on the new cohabitation, space expansion and exciting changes in all phases of your collective moons, planets, and stars. We are so happy for you both.
It was so nice to go around the circle and catch up with everyone present.
We missed you Clinton and Peggy!

First let me apologize for waiting so long to get this down in writing. I've had my head in a cloud of art making and have been living on the vapors of my own thoughts. Plus we have a new, big TV and it's been rainy and cozy.

It was so nice to finally be able to see Kate's work together in her studio and her low-tech old-school slide show. The presentation was lovely, cohesive and thoughtful. I know that I enjoyed seeing the scope of your work, including the multi-media pieces, drawing and paintings. I have such a kinship for people working with narrative. Your latest pieces really stayed with me. I was particularly drawn to the freedom that was coming out of the doll pieces (sorry, I forgot her name, Flora?) I liked going in and out of focus with her. I also enjoyed the loving way that your animals were rendered. There was something very strong and free in the way that you brought them to life.
I hope you got what you needed and that the winds were blown into your proverbial sails! So looking forward to seeing what comes next!