Digital Maneuvers — Iskra Fine Art

My work will be in two new group shows opening this week. I am very curious to see how my fellow artists interpret Terrain: Exploring a Common Ground, at Museo Gallery on Whidbey Island. “Terrain” is one of those lovely words you just want to savor with a good beaujolais and fresh bread ripped, not sliced. Clay, dirt, wind, grass, and everything that lies above and below. My pieces in this show explore two different landscapes, the canyon light of city streets and the messy edge where city and country collide. Museo Gallery is in Langley, Whidbey Island, 215 First Street, 98260. The opening is Saturday October 6th from 5-7 and the show continues through October 28th. Hours: 11-5 Wednesday – Monday, Sunday 12-5.

Relic Iskra Print — “Relic,” archival pigment print, 15 x 15 inches

Digital Maneuvers at SAM Gallery presents Kate Sweeney, Troy Gua, Stephen Rock and me, in a show exploring the paths from analog to digital and back again, each of us testing the boundaries of media in different ways. This is the first time I have shown Flatbed, inspired by one of my helpless crushes on a large Industrial Object.

Flatbed print by Iskra — “Flatbed,” archival pigment print, 22×30 inches

I hope to see you at the opening this First Thursday, October 4, 6-7:30 SAM Gallery, 1300 1st Ave, 98101.

Upcoming, some surprises. I hosted the Port of Seattle for a video interview in my studio this week – Yikes! It’s a long trail from the inner space of making art to talking to the public in front of a camera. (Note to self: Writing is not the same as talking. Maybe I should get out more and practice?) Speaking of which, if you have not yet made it to Taste Restaurant to see ColorBath, give me a shout, and I will be happy to meet you there and explain it all over a glass of wine.

My hydrant iskra collection — Meet Iowa No.4, My personal Fire hydrant

It is time to come clean about fire hydrants: I love them. In a world teetering between fire and flood, with catastrophe pending on every front, I do love a piece of heavy metal I cannot lift. I have my own brilliant yellow hydrant in front of my house, and it makes me happy every time I come home and see it there, surrounded by equally yellow dandelions. I feel safe. Put together with flawless arrangements of bolts and screwplates and circles and cones and handed down through hundreds of years from men with rough hands and wrenches, the hydrant is unarguably TRUE. Hydrants are valiant, like German Shepherds, and they have no existential doubts, although I do think they are vain. It’s a quiet form of dandyism, but think they enjoy the ornaments essential to their functioning – the lovely multicolored chains and hats and bits of metal that festoon from arm to arm.

Now, ulp, I have one inside my house. How do you say no in the middle of a birthday party when someone says We Have A Present for You, it’s on a truck, how about this corner? Well, you say yes! It’s the Autumnal blazing happiness yellow of sunflowers and pear apples and drowsy honeybees. It’s pettable, and clean, and it comes with its own little tag indicating that it is #4. Its presence in my house makes me realize the Heavy Metal Hydrant Suite can’t wait any longer to meet the world. [Read more…]

Terrain and Digital Maneuvers: Two Shows Opening in October

Introducing the Heavy Metal Hydrant Suite: Limited Edition Industrial Prints from Iskra

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