Iskra Fine Art

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Taking Refuge: An Evening at the Seattle Asian Art Museum

March 25, 2015 by Iskra Leave a Comment

“Thus we live in a world that first existed inside the heads of others, a world built up through innumerable sustained acts of intentionality, a world where everything speaks not of nature and her processes but of its makers in their resistance to those processes. In a very real sense we can be described as living inside the heads of others, in an excess of interiority that obliterates our own relation to material origins, to biologies, to our bodies. In some way, making was intended to override the givens of nature, to create a world; that world has itself become a given whose terms are more limited in their scope for imagination and act. The world is so thoroughly made it calls for no more making, but for breaching its walls and tracing its processes to their origins. “Taking apart” has become the primary metaphor and “backward” the most significant direction: the creative act becomes an unraveling, recouping the old rather than augmenting the new. ” –Rebecca Solnit

https://stg.iskrafineart.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Porecelain-Pillow1.jpg

Seattle’s Asian Art Museum sits in a stately Art Deco building nestled among trees in Volunteer Park. Known for its extensive collection of [Read more…]

Filed Under: Meditation & Buddhism, Recent Posts Tagged With: art as refuge, Asian Art, being in culture, contemplative art, museum, REbecca Solnit, seattle art museum, Seattle Asian Art Museum, volunteer park

“The Shipping Lanes,” or, The Longshoreman Strike Illustrated

February 24, 2015 by Iskra 1 Comment

The-Shipping-Lanes-Print-Iskra
“The Shipping Lanes” limited edition archival pigment print, 25″ x 25″ © Iskra Johnson

Last weekend I took a sun-blown walk along the waterfront, down to the Chittenden Locks and back up along Golden Gardens. I returned with over a hundred new photographs of the northern bay and renewed excitement about seascapes as a subject. Along the way I passed through the living rooms of those who sleep without doors. There is no bookcase, no lamp, but sometimes a bright red sleeping bag, some boots and a pillow. Perhaps the painted walls are [Read more…]

Filed Under: Digital Collage, Photocollage, Photography, Prints, Recent Posts Tagged With: artist union, chittenden locks, dockstrike, industrial art, limited edition print, maritime art, pigment print, seattle waterfront, shipping strike illustrated, view from golden gardens

The Patra Passage Opens to the Public, Museum of Glass February 15

February 6, 2015 by Iskra Leave a Comment

It’s hard for me to believe, but it has been a full year since I attended the launching of the Patra Project and received the gift of the patra, the exquisite bowl gifted to me and 108 other people on condition that within three months we pass it along to someone else. The past year been a time of big changes for me, and the energy of this extraordinary project by artist Lynda Lowe has permeated my life in many ways. (You can read about my experience of the patra here.) I passed my patra on to photographer Rosanne Olson, and this is what she did with it:

Photograph copyrighted by Rosanne Olson.

She also took it down the Grand Canyon on a raft: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Living With Art, Meditation & Buddhism, Recent Posts Tagged With: Lynda Lowe, Michael Meade, museum of glass, Patra Passage, phil cousineau, rosanne olson

Facebook for Artists: Community and Currency

February 1, 2015 by Iskra 1 Comment

Devotional_Archival_Pigment_Print
“Devotional,” archival pigment print, 1/3, © Iskra Johnson

This week I have been participating in the “art challenge” thrown down on Facebook. I don’t know where these things come from, (likewise memes, where are they born? who runs the meme factory?) but this one seems to have started in the illustrator community and crossed over into the artist world that is my social media life. Unlike the chain letter of old in which a tattered mimeograph threatened karmic harm and financial ruin if you didn’t pass it along with five dollars to the next person, this benign version simply asks that you post three images for five days in a row, each time tagging a new artist. In the currency of the chain letter, five dollars is worth approximately one ‘like’, as one ‘like’ can, if you are fortunate  accrue interest and become forty, and perhaps even lead to a comment. Which of course will not buy you a cup of coffee. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Collage, Digital Collage, Prints, Recent Posts, Uncategorized

Two New Haiku Without Words

January 14, 2015 by Iskra Leave a Comment

I’m working on a new series of collages about industrial waterways. The muse is the Duwamish, but the real subject is perhaps the print itself, the paper-space of real and unreal. I’ve been immersing myself in study of the masters. from Nick Bantock and Man Ray, to Yoshitoshi and Max Ernst. Is there anything so divine as rising at five in the dark and drinking tea surrounded by books, then watching the sun rise? Happiness reigns in this little corner of universe.

 

Postcard_From_The_Straits_Digital_Etching

 

Duwamish Water Tower Digital Etching

 

(1) “Postcard from The Straights” (2) “Duwamish Water Tower 2: From the Municipal Manual for Water Management”

Limited edition archival pigment prints, size variable  © Iskra Johnson

Filed Under: Collage, Digital Collage, Photocollage, Recent Posts Tagged With: art about industry, collage art, digital etching, languages of collage, maps in art, pigment prints, the duwamish, the Straights, water tower art, waterways

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