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In Retreat: Off to the Edge

August 25, 2011 by Iskra

I’ve been mostly absent from the blog this summer, focused on making new experimental work. This weekend I am going to Port Townsend for the Artist Trust Edge Program. (Thank you Artist Trust!)  It is galvanizing to know that I will be spending a full week with other artists in various disciplines, with one focus, absent from my inbox, outbox and the nonstop noise of the news cycle that sits at my fingertips everytime I sit at the computer. The news DOES fuel my work in many ways, but how many disasters can a person absorb? How many quakes, hurricanes, droughts, civil wars, and general geopolitical tragedy???

It will be good be out of the city and nearer the mountains, and to sense Canada near by. This week I saw Herzog’s movie  Cave of Forgotten Dreams and I have been dreaming every night since in charcoal and firelight. This year I have been absorbed in technology and photography, and it creates a huge pause to see that movie. I have memorized the horses’ faces, and the overlapping profiles of the cave lions. France seems very old, and Canada and the North seems somehow connected to an older time.

I am working on a series of images using abraded surfaces and found textures that show time’s passage. This one features the much beloved traffic cone, beseiged.

TrafficConePrint
© Iskra Johnson "Geopolitical"

 

Filed Under: The Street, Transfer Prints Tagged With: art about maps, art with traffic cone, geopolitical art

Earthquake Preparedness

August 25, 2011 by Iskra Leave a Comment

In the wake of all the little quakes and big ones to come, here is an offering.

Conserve-LaCalma
© Iskra Johnson, Transfer print on Arches 88, 21" by 13"

 

Filed Under: Transfer Prints Tagged With: earthquake poster, iconic art, transferprint collage

Summerlight

July 17, 2011 by Iskra Leave a Comment

This is the summer of endless elegy. The forms and colors of winter persist even as the sun comes out for a day or two and temperatures climb above 70. The newly planted vine maple is already turning red and I have not yet gone swimming. Only the foxgloves have been jubilant; this is the year I realized they aren’t weeds and let them go wild, a pearl and purple trumpet section playing throughout the garden.

SummerlightTransferPrint
Summerlight, transfer print, © Iskra Johnson

This transfer print blends the layers of sunlight past with autumn’s melancholies. The echinacea laid its stems at my feet last October. The sunlight came from my favorite yellow wall at 85th and Greenwood, photographed in 2009, recently graffitied with a luscious red heart and then abruptly painted beige. I am glad I captured its past life in my archives.

I am focusing on transfer prints exclusively right now, enraptured with the tools of the camera and the newest version of Photoshop. I am in that place where you try absolutely everything and sit back dazzled, and then subtract ninety percent of the possible, in search of the necessary. I’ll be moving back and forth all summer between two very different themes: the garden, and the street. The hard urban surfaces seem to need the antidote of what grows from the watering can and dirt. See more of these images in the gallery The Natural World

 

Filed Under: Photocollage, Photography, The Garden, Transfer Prints Tagged With: art as elegy, Iskra transfer prints

Blue Sky in Seattle,Listening to Charles Lloyd on KBCS Caravan

May 17, 2011 by Iskra

This morning, with blue sky coming up through the mists outside the studio window, I am listening to Charles Lloyd on KBCS. Thank you John Gilbreath for the Caravan. Every morning from nine to noon I am in a groove sublime. This piece by Lloyd takes me to a time when the world seemed bright, and everything possible:

Baroque_Morning_Charles_Lloyd

 
 Baroque Morning, printing ink on paper, from Sleep Studies

Filed Under: Music, Painting Tagged With: art inspired by music, blue sky in Seattle, KBCS the Caravan with John Gilbreath, Listening to Charles Lloyd

Pratt Fine Art Auction 2011: Bootlegger’s Ball

May 10, 2011 by Iskra Leave a Comment

This weekend Pratt Fine Art Center holds its annual gala fund raiser at Bell Harbor Conference Center. If you would like to preview the art and find out who won the awards come to the (free)  opening at Pratt Exposed this Friday from 6-9 PM at Bell Harbor. And if you plan to come to the auction but haven’t gotten a ticket it’s not too late! You will get to see art and artists all dressed up and biting their nails (the artists, that is.) I have contributed a print from a series called Werkspace, inspired by the printmaking studio at Pratt.

Templates
Templates, transfer print on Arches 88

Filed Under: Transfer Prints Tagged With: Iskra at Pratt auction, Pratt art auction, Pratt Bootlegger's Ball, Werkspace prints

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