How Goes the Battle? / Tessa Hulls

Tessa Hull's latest show, How Goes the Battle?, is driven by a rough breakup and attempts to, "...lay down arms and make peace with helplessness, and to rebuild a strong foundation from the wreckage of a broken trust." I tend to have a soft spot for art that was created by the processing of pain. Let's face it, personal suffering has created lots of great art for the world to love. And I think the vulnerability in showing our private pain is a beautiful act. 

"As equal parts visual artist and writer, my work draws heavily from text, and each piece in this show is paired with a corresponding poem by Kay Ryan. I will also be debuting a new comic book that I wrote as my artist statement. It includes, but is not limited to: Winston Churchill, graphs of abstract concepts, heartbreak, convergent evolution/homoplasy, paleotology, and The Great Gatsby." - Tessa Hulls

How Goes the Battle? by Tessa Hulls
Opens Thursday, April 11th at Joe Bar (810 E Roy)
Opening reception 6-9pm. 

Sale at Debra Baxter : Crystal Bomb

Are your chakras out of alignment? Don't worry because Deb Baxter is here to help. For the next five days, she's having a sale on many of her gorgeous crystal necklaces over at her wearable sculpture site Debra Baxter : Crystal Bomb.

Amethyst Neckpiece by Debra Baxter

Maybe you're worried about being poisoned? You can rest easy if you're wearing this amethyst neckpiece for protection. Deb says it can also be worn for protection from self-deception.

"Crystalline quartz in shades of purple, lilac or mauve is called amethyst, a stone traditionally worn to guard against drunkeness and to instill a sober mind. The word amethyst comes from the Greek meaning "without drunkenness" and amethyst is believed to protect one from poison." via

Whether you're a practitioner of crystal healing or not, you'll feel--or at least look--better just by putting one on. 

The Beers of Summer / Vermillion

Looking for something to do on Thursday night? Swing by Vermillion from 6-8pm for the release of Paper Object's latest folio project, The Beers of Summer. My beer can (+ Diet Coke, Redbull) drawings are paired with lovely/sweet/sad poems by Sarah Galvin. 

This past September, just as summer was winding down, I began to notice glint-y discarded beer cans throughout the city. The beers of summer: I have no idea who drank them, who discarded them, or what kind of a summer they had but they reminded me of the all the endless hours I spent in the lake, drinking Rainiers with friends, watching cute fellas jump off the dock. 

It's free and open to all ages. Afterward, make it a literary 2fer and head over to Salon with the amazing Rebecca Brown. 

Jenny Heishman / South Lake Union

Woodpile by Jenny Heishman, photo by Spike Mafford

I love Jenny Heishman's latest sculpture, Woodpile. It was another commission by Vulcan Real Estate and you can find it on the southwest corner of Boren & Thomas, down in South Lake Union. It's a nice complement to her previous SLU piece, Cabin Corners (corner of Boren Ave N & Republican). Here's a map of other pieces down in the neighborhood, in case you wanted to make an afternoon of art-viewing. 

Woodpile by Jenny Heishman,
photo by Spike Mafford

"Heishman uses references to the history of Seattle in the three public works (two in South Lake Union and one in Fremont) she has built in her adopted hometown. For this latest piece, in addition to celebrating a colloquial sculptural form, she imagines a pile-up of logs, rolling rather than skidding down Boren on their way to the sawmills along the south end of the lake."

Salon Revisited / Hedreen Gallery

Posters for Salon #3 Ryan Mitchell / Saint Genet by NKO

Amanda Manitach, curator of Hedreen Gallery, invited me to resurrect the Salon Series from when I was artist in residence at SU back in 2009. It's been lots of fun to get groups of folks together. Tonight, we're hosting Ryan Mitchell / Saint Genet. for a salon of ... uh ... well, we're not really sure what. One thing's for certain, it will be an interesting spin on the idea of community that we've been discussing/celebrating. I can't wait! 

Alex Berry documents Greg Lundgren / Salon # 2

Greg Lundgren was our last guest and I'm pretty sure his discussion, "Everything is just fine: a conversation about art and ambition in Seattle.", could have went on for several more hours, if not all night. I walked away feeling optimistic about what's happening now and what's going to  be happening in Seattle's future. 

Salon #1 / Joey + Amanda resurrect Masterpiece
(Jayson, Harold, Rachel, Joey, Margie & Tim in background)

To kick off the series, Amanda and I resurrected Matt Offenbacher's wonderful Salon where we all played the 1970s game about collecting art, Masterpiece. Just like Matt, we created a localized version with Seattle artists. The increased crowd size made for a spirited iteration.

To round out the series, Klara Glosova and her sons Sidney and Blake, will present Play Indoors  Salon on Saturday, March 2nd from noon to 1:30. Thanks to Amanda and Seattle University, Greg L, and everyone who's been coming! They've been lots of fun. 

Holly!!!

Check out the latest issue of City Arts Magazine for a profile on my favorite taste-maker, Holly Hinton! Anything cool in my life probably came from Holly. She's the perfect date, the perfect hostess, and she never stops surprising us with her bag of tricks! If she says something is cool, I'd believe her. (Her response to "Place to party? T-Dock, Lake Washington", naturally.)

Christmas 2012 (of course Holly has a Santa suit)

"My God, it's full of stars"

I love the line, "My God, it's full of stars!", from Arthur C. Clarke's book 2001: A Space Odyssey. It didn't make it into Kubrick's film but was included in the sequel 2010: The Year We Make Contact.

As I was working on the quilt, the round shapes became more and more planetary/star-like and this slowly developed. Instead of machine quilting it like The Great Northwest, I decided that I'd try to tie it together to mimic galaxies of stars so that the quilt would feel like it was full of stars. 

I don't know if I'll be doing that again anytime soon. It's takes about forever to hand-tie nearly 1,000 triple-knots and I'm an old grandpa. But the effect is sure worth it. It adds this weird sense of movement to the quilt. You can neatly arrange them for an ordered feel or even better is when they just lay naturally so it looks like some ancient form of calligraphy. (True story: the first quilt I received was from my aunt; a hand-tied Star Wars quilt which is the oldest possession I have...I'm sure it inspired my love of hand-tied quilts!)

This will be one of 4 quilts that I'll be showing (plus trying to make one or two new ones down in the space in a make-shift residency) for the upcoming The Camp Out series of exhibitions as part of the Storefronts project. I think the only hold-up right now is keys to the space. Hopefully, it will all work out and you can check it out (in the Smith Tower) next First Thursday (Jan 3, 2013). 

I like my quilts to have an A-side and B-side. The A-side is the side that's presented and the B-side is something related (though the Twin Peaks B-side could really be its own A-side). For this quilt, I thought the perfect back would be the monolith. I love how the back of the knots create an ordered field of stars. 

Sleep under this quilt for strange and beautiful dreams! Perfect for a cold & snowy night!