Featured Artist

Sabina Nieto
In the second installment of the featured artist series, I would like to introduce Sabina Nieto. Sabina is a California native, trained as an architect-builder and is infinitely amazed by the hand-made, regardless of scale. Pulling the strings of technical presentation by day, in her off hours she co-curates a modest gallery in Berkeley, and is a freelance designer in range of media. You can find her building at the dinner table, most any day. 

Please feel free to get in touch with Ms. Nieto. 

“Baptistry,” collage, 8” x 11”, Sabina Nieto, 2010

What inspires you about collage as a medium?  Where do you search for and typically find the images used in your collages?      Collage-making and image juxtaposition has long been one of my immediate ways of visualizing an idea, if not a fluid medium of playing with place-making.  I borrow images from what are mostly found and second-hand books and posters.  I’m drawn to quickly-aged source materials (bearing the marks of weather when found curbside, or belonging to a particular time when featuring culture)—revealing their age through tell-tale costumes, antiquated equipment, or the yellowing of paper. 
     I’ve always loved collage as well as assemblage, collections, altars, quilts—a bit of visual potluck.  From many moments of refuse, a whole personal map can be divined.   I never doubt the place from which these kinds of things are made.

“Observatory,” collage, 11” x 11.5”, Sabina Nieto, 2010

You seem to create spaces in many of your collages, what interests you about compiling an occupiable environment through found images?

    I often drop representations of people into my collages, creating “occupiable environments”, perhaps part of a residual architectural convention insisting people be considered when designing as well as, very functionally, providing scale.  These places become personal.   Otherwise ambiguous destinations for the wandering eye are provided windows, walls, vanishing points, or horizons to register where you are.  If we’re lucky these spaces become richer by becoming more specific—equipped with hiding places, beach blankets, a make-shift armchair . . . one could ask, “May I make myself at home?”

“Sub-rosa Correspondency,” collage, 5.5” x 7”, Sabina Nieto, 2010

Who are some artists of inspiration, in the realm of collage?

. . . or from drawings that feel like collage?
Dada posters
Aldo Rossi
Eduardo Chillida
Joseph Cornell
Daniel Spoerri
Cristiana Couceiro

“Night Depository,” collage, 7.75” x 11”, Sabina Nieto, 2010

Thank you so very much for sharing your work Sabina!  I will be eagerly following the ongoing "visual potluck" available at How to Dig a Hole!

What do you think of Sabina's work?  Who are some of your favorite collage artists?

Wedding Invitation

Mount Vernon, Baltimore

This is the second wedding invitation, in my new Wednesday series.  Each week I will feature a new invitation in my expanding collection, which can be viewed at my Etsy shop.   

Today I am featuring two versions of an invitation, which is in the design process for a dear friend who will wed this spring.  Her fiance proposed to her at the Washington Monument in Baltimore's Mount Vernon neighborhood.  They wanted an invitation, which would reflect that part of their story.  After developing a few initial concepts they liked this design, which features the Washington Monument, Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, and the Lafayette Monument.   

 

After executing the initial watercolor painting without sky, I realized that one could achieve very different results with the addition of washes for the sky.  The warm evening sky adding to the whimsy of the design,  the version without sky more minimal and modern.  

It was a delight to design and execute this invitation as I lived in Mount Vernon during my two years in Baltimore and I'm very fond of the neighborhood.  These images hold a certain nostalgia for me and I'm sure for me and I'm sure for many residents of Charm City.


Have you visited Mount Vernon?  Which invitation do you prefer?

Rossaveal, Ireland

"Rossaveal, Ireland," watercolor and pen on paper, Jane Sloss, 2010

On my recent trip to Ireland, I returned from the Aran Islands on a ferry to Rossaveal.  I stayed a bed and breakfast on the road to Galway.  As I parked my bike on the side of the B & B, I was completely mystified by the scene which lay behind the home.  The sunset was brilliant over the bay.  After settling into my room, I went outside and tried to capture the scene.  Painting a sunset is an interesting undertaking as the image is changing dramatically with each minute.  It was marvelous!  I'll be posting photos from Rossaveal on my public facebook page tomorrow--stop by!


What are some of your favorite places to catch a sunset?  What do you think of this sketch from Rossaveal?  

Other Projects

Halloween Costume
Last Saturday morning, with attendance of a Halloween party looming, I fabricated a costume with two qualifying factors in mind: 1.  Costume fabrication must take approximately one hour.  2.  Costume must be assembled without the purchase of any materials.  With those constraints at hand, I went about cutting fabric from my stash into circles of various sizes.

These circles of fabric in shades of blues and green, were assembled concentrically and ready to be incorporated into the costume.  Construction paper was cut into similar concentric circles, and attached with framing wire to a barrette.

And voila, I'm a peacock, albeit a bit of a stylized one.   

After dissembling the costume, I glued the stylized "feathers" to illustration board to make unique notecards. 

If you would like to receive one of these notecards, just leave a comment on this post and I'll send you one of these cards (six notecards available).

Featured Artist

Erin Buckley
Welcome to Erin the first artist featured in my new Friday series.  Each Friday, I will be sharing the work of another artist.  Erin Buckley is a Richmond, Virginia based artist.  She works with acrylic, oil, and watercolor.  Erin is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame, where she studied Philosophy and English.  She completed two years of post-graduate service working with young adults with developmental disabilities in Portland, Maine, and with the elderly in Chicago.  To see more of Erin's wonderful work, visit her blog Thin Places. 

"First Stanza of T.S. Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,'" acrylic on canvas, 16"x20", Erin Buckley, 2010

A number of your paintings feature quotations and poems.  In the process of composing paintings, are you often inspired by literature?

I think it's a way I indulge myself since I've been out of school, by looking back through some old books!  It allows me to delve back into the text.  I got a positive response to the T.S. Eliot piece from a man at a Farmer's market, who commented, "you don't often see Prufrock like that, do you?"  It pleased me to think that he would stop, read, and think about the poem.  I think it would also be fun to illustrate poems without the words to see if the scene looks vaguely familiar to anyone, if he or she had formed a similar mental image.

"Chi-town Skyline," acrylic on canvas, 8"x10", Erin Buckley, 2010

Who are some artists that inspire you?

Norman Rockwell, for one.  Realistic art always mesmerizes me, and he has a way of capturing such tangible scenes, along with the particular emotion of a moment--fear of a schoolboy, comfort of a homecoming, nervousness, energy at a boxing ring.  I also love the old still lifes of Dutch realists', seeing those wet oysters, and that knife resting on the edge of the table beckoning you to pick it up and finish cutting that cheese block.

"Mother Teresa's 5-finger Prayer, 'As often as you did it to one of the least of my brothers and sisters...'" acrylic on canvas, 8"x10", Erin Buckley, 2010

What is the most interesting object you've used as a canvas?

Vinyl suitcases from my grandparents' attic.  I've transformed one into a cheeseburger, and one into a watermelon.  When I've put them out at shows, the most common response is some variation of, "you wouldn't lose that one at the airport, would you?"

"Bandstands and Sailboats," acrylic on canvas, 11"x14," Erin Buckley, 2010

Thanks so much Erin.  I look forward to continuing to follow your work!

What do you think of Erin's work?

Wedding Invitation

Cherry Blossoms

This is the second wedding invitation, to be shared in my new Wednesday series.  Each week I will feature a new invitation in my expanding collection, which can be viewed at my Etsy shop. 

I took this photograph of a cherry tree blossoming along Washington Place, in Baltimore, as I walked to work on a spring day in 2006.  There is always something magical about the budding and blossoming of spring trees, but I always found cherry blossoms to have a certain charm that makes than more special than the average tree specimen.  It was that enchantment that inspired me to design this wedding invitation featuring Cherry Blossoms. 

The delicate nature of the cherry blossom echoes the delicate fabrics of wedding garments, table linens, tiered cakes.  The hopefulness of new blossoms in spring seems poetically aligned with the celebration of a new union.     

Have you seen the cherry blossoms blooming in Washington D.C. or Japan? 

Aran Islands, Ireland

During a recent trip to Ireland, I spent two days on Inishmore, the largest of the three Aran Islands.   The islands are located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland.  The islands have a history of attracting and inspiring writers and artists.  I can see why.  I found the sparsely inhabited island ideal for meandering about on a bike, for marveling at the natural surroundings, and for inspiring painted work.  I made this quick sketch painting while sitting on a beach in the sun.  It was interesting to experiment with pen and watercolor painting, though this non-permanent pen was not the ideal implement (it was, however, the only one I was able to find for purchase on the island).


I'll be posting photos from the Aran Islands on my public facebook page tomorrow!


Have you visited the Aran Islands?  What did you think of them or of this painting?