an imageteller captures image celebrations.
sharing image tales broadens an artistic expression.
doing so, brings this particular creative indescribable joy.
what is your image story? perhaps I can help you tell it!
A Letter To Artist Sanaz Haghini
Woman Made Gallery hosted an exhibit titled "Reciprocity". The theme was about artists pairing their work. What struck me most about the exhibit was how many of the artists knew each other for such a long while.
The gallery put out an additional art call for letters to the participating artists, a project of sorts, offering thanks to an assigned work of art and the artist. I signed on. I heard the response to participate was overwhelming.
How wonderful is that!
The artist that I was assigned to was Sanaz Haghini. She submitted this distinctive red and black screen print titled "Struggle".
You can see the work of the artist she paired with here, along with the entire exhibit here.
In her artist statement she writes:
"My work examines how culture and its identity can be understood from its women’s status and circumstances, such as the roles they play in society, the rights they enjoy (or not), and most pointedly, the dress codes to which they must adhere. For this collaboration, I wanted to depict a woman with a chador, a black veil that swallows the woman in its form. I wanted to envision a woman who struggles with her thoughts, a woman who attempts to hold or release something. I try to visualize an impression of being safe or being insecure. My work depicts the hiddenness, which is in contrast with Lara’s work. Mine is a silence, and hers is a scream. Mine is a secret, and hers is a manifest. From my view, this familiar contrast identifies the same situation. Even though we are from different lands, we face similarities because of our sex. This collaboration helped me to understand the meaning of being a woman in another culture. These similarities make us as a woman to be closer together and have respect for our struggles."
Part of my letter to her said:
"Thank you for your work “Struggle” Sanaz! Several things spoke to me about your screen print. My most immediate response was from your use of red and black. Both haunting and striking. One could not mistake the struggle of the figure. You said it was a swallowing of form. I thought invisibility. I thought ordinary. I thought of how in day to day life one can be lost. That even hidden one can still visibly bleed. Powerful. I was also struck by the reflection in the red. I felt it portrayed how we never really get away from what we hide from or what haunts us. I loved what you wrote about the contrasts between your work and Lara’s. “Yours is silence, hers is a scream.” I felt both! Thank you for your ability to provoke. I spent quite a bit of time with this exhibit. What touched me the most was the many long term relationships between paired artists. Many offered mutual admiration and contrasting art styles. The gathering as a whole was an experience. Even if I only viewed it online. I love that about art!"
Screen print by Sanaz Haghini - Title: Struggle
Connections At Roaring Artist Gallery
22 Artists, along with the galleries represented artists have been juried into a virtual group exhibition titled "CONNECTIONS" at Roaring Artist Gallery. I was one of those artists!
Juror Adrienne Brown-David selected this collage:
I am honored and delighted.
Roaring Artist Gallery was founded by Katie Bradford Osborne
The Call For Art: Connections. As people, there were new connections with family as we found ourselves stuck together, day in and day out. There were connections that we scrambled to hold onto with friends we couldn’t touch. There were also connections we let go of, as we saw sides of others we simply could not live with and as we grieved our vast and devastating losses. As artists, there was the connection with our art, as we tried to figure out what it meant to us during a pandemic that had shut down our exhibitions and driven us inside of our houses- and inside of ourselves, as well. And here, going into 2021, with a vaccine on the horizon and time continuing to tumble forward in a way we still don't quite recognize or understand, we’re all realizing that the meaning of “Connections” has changed irrevocably.This show is here to allow women-identifying artists a space to share their own confusion, sorrow, joy, and hope with what “Connections” has meant to them and will mean to them moving into 2021. This theme can be interpreted as widely or as specifically as each artist imagines it. We want YOUR stories and voices. We know you have something to ROAR!
This is a juried exhibition with guest juror, Adrienne Brown-David an award-winning artist whose work has been exhibited and collected across the continental US and the US Virgin Islands.
The Connections exhibition will debut online on April 1, 2021 in our Interactive 3-D Gallery Space as well as our online Show Catalog.
The exhibition will run from April 1- May 31.
Artist Statement: I love when connections circle back. In 2020 a fellow artist sent me an envelope full of items to collage with. “Could you use these?” she wrote. One such item was a bird book made in 1935 by the father of a very dear and mutual friend. The friend’s father, Bobby Zimmerman was 9 when he made the book. His youthful making reminded me of books I made as a little girl. Full circle. It seemed criminal at first to tear the vintage bird book apart, but the collages became something new and uniquely mine using parts of the blue book cover and bird imagery. It was as if the old illustrations hatched new lives. New beginnings. Full circle. This friend connection prompted a flurry of bird themed work. My focus took me deep into about 6 weeks of making. I felt giddy, I had clarity that what I was making was wonderful. These collages would have little to no meaning if the bird illustrations were simply found. They meant more as a gift. Full circle.
It took me over a year to perfect this particular collage technique. At first I was exploring how to complete an existing piece and avoid the cost and weight of framing. Binding with a backing much like they do in quilting became a solution. Along the way I stumbled into videos that taught crazy quilting techniques. I thought, how could I do that with paper? My collages began to feel like puzzles. Further along I cut magazines pages into one inch strips. I saw them as dashes of color, texture and design. Since, I find myself hooked on this method. I feel a sense of order as I make. The visual is sustainable and reliable, yet over and over the vibrant patterns surprise me. Plus making strips is a remarkable way to use up an entire magazine. When I first began to machine stitch my life was broken. The stitching had me feel like I was piecing myself together. The stitches weren’t perfect. But they would have to do. I have a long meaningful history with collage. I don’t think any year has needed to collage as much as 2020 has.
Artist note: the collage above was made from the bird book mentioned above.
Updated Framed Work At Brazen
It is time to switch out my collage art graciously hosted by BRAZEN.
Brazen just celebrated their 3rd year in business. This last year challenged them immensely. I admire their tenacity and determination. I love being part of their eclectic collection of art and items for sale. I love that they love what they do.
These are the two new original pieces, they are framed - ready to hang:
these two are now available unframed through me.
Other finds at BRAZEN include these stitched cards + prints ( prints pricing is discounted! )
PRINTS
Birdland 2021
BIRDLAND
February 5-28, 2021
SOLD - crow
"Flock through Skagit Valley and visit Smith and Vallee Gallery for our Annual Bird Invitational. This exhibit features over 100 artists with works of our feathered friends."
My grouping of 20 stitched BIRD collages was selected to be a part of this annual and beloved exhibit!!
I asked for assistance from the gallery as far as how to hang all of these. Ummmmmm, NOT my area of expertise. Camille just sent these images over and said it was the first thing she hung this morning. Seeing them all together so perfectly made me cry.
Photography = a never ending opportunity to capture visual celebrations.
