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You are here: Home / Archives for SAM Gallery

Northwest Mystic Summer

July 21, 2019 by Iskra Leave a Comment

Lummi Blues, archival pigment print by Iskra
Lummi Blues, archival pigment print by Iskra

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste.

It’s what everything else isn’t.

–Theodore  Roethke

Greetings from the Pacific Northwest summer, which arrived a few hours ago, sneaking in with a sun hat and a good book while the rest of the country fries in humid torment. A bit late, but divine. It’s hard to stay in the studio when the garden calls, begging me to count the lily pads and swoon in the golden light of the locust tree.

Yet, here I am, indoors, attempting to translate the outdoors after recent travels in landscape. The new work for SAM Gallery’s November show “Artists Influenced by Asia,” is directly influenced by the immediacy of nature here along the Salish Sea. A few weeks ago I went up to Samish Island with two dear friends, painters Chris Gedye and Patty Haller to see Patty’s new studio. It was complete bliss. We woke up in the morning to low tide’s iridescence, herons perched sentinel along the sand and wind stirring the branches of trees along the bluff. Off to the west was an island I’ve never seen from this perspective: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Digital Collage, Greenlake, Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Watercolors Tagged With: Fishtown, Iskra Work in Progress, Lummi Island art, Northwest Mystic School, Roethke quote slowness, SAM Gallery, Samish island art, Skagit Valley art

Terrain and Digital Maneuvers: Two Shows Opening in October

September 29, 2018 by Iskra Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past Tagged With: Digital Maneuvers, Iskra shows, museo gallery, Port of Seattle, SAM Gallery, Terrain Exploring a Common Ground, Whidbey Island Art

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

September 18, 2018 by Iskra Leave a Comment

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…]

Filed Under: Digital Collage, Prints Tagged With: Digital Maneuvers, fire hydrant art, heavy metal hydrant suite, hydrant museum, industrial prints, SAM Gallery

ColorBath Opening Reception at Taste August 9th

August 6, 2018 by Iskra Leave a Comment

El Lobo Grande tugboat print by Iskra
El Lobo Grande, limited edition archival pigment print, 48 x 24 inches © Iskra Johnson

Iskra Johnson in ColorBath

Reception Thursday August 9th, 6-7:30

at Taste Restaurant at Seattle Art Museum

1300 First Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101

This solo show is an immersion into color and light and the alchemy of reflection and refraction in the Pacific Northwest harbor. Preview the work at SAM Gallery.

Show continues through November 5th. Open Weds-Sun 11-5, Thurs 11-9.

Filed Under: Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Recent Posts Tagged With: August art events Seattle, Colorbath, el lobo grande, Iskra shows, SAM Gallery, Taste Restaurant

Industrial Strength Update: Show Hours and More

September 17, 2017 by Iskra 1 Comment

Iskra Industrial art at SAM Gallery
“Blanchard Street” and “Salmon Bay,” limited edition mixed media prints on canvas, 40×40″ (electrical outlet shown for scale.)

Hi Friends,

Thank you to everyone who came out to the opening at SAM Gallery last Thursday! It was a great time, and I so appreciate the support from the community, patrons and friends. It was really wonderful to meet some of my collectors and to hear the stories behind their connection to my work. (And some of the conversations may have inspired a Social Practice project: stay tuned for #engineerslookingatart. . . . who knew it would be the biologic engineer who found brassieres in my abstraction of scaffolds?)

Many people have asked me how long the show will be up, and since SAM Gallery has a different model than most galleries I thought I should send out a quick note to let you know the best window for seeing the work in its original installation. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Iskra Shows, Upcoming and Past, Recent Posts Tagged With: art openings, Industrial Strength, Kate Protage, Kellie Talbot, SAM Gallery, Seattle art exhibits

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