A couple of days ago I was contacted by the lovely Charlotte from Barnstorm Journal with a question if I’d be willing to be a part of an online article.

 I’m writing as the Arts Co-Editor of Barnstorm, the University of New Hampshire’s online literary journal published by the MFA program. My co-editor and I saw your work at the Salmon Falls Open Studios back in the fall, and just loved the energy and the absolutely beautiful way you let watercolor do what it does best. We’ve been wanting to get in touch and ask if you’d be willing to submit any of your paintings!

They loved both the watercolors on paper and the Bloomlands, which made me extremely happy. I wish I had a chance to talk during the open studios but there was a lot of people and I wasn’t able.

Nonetheless, here we are — the article is published!

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GRAY has been my guiding force for over 2 years ⠀

Without being obvious, it adds vibrancy to my work. The skies and rocky shores of NE are absolutely silver with slivers of pink. I adore it. ⠀

But this winter has been brutal Wet, long, freezing, stubborn. The only way to get it out of my system is to find where the orange, red, pink and coral is. Within me.⠀

BLUE is constant. If one has a heart of Cobalt, there is no leaving the blue.

But I have bottles of reds, orange paint around my studio, untouched since 2017, and I think it’s time to explore.

COLOR me softly, dear color. Don’t make me regret you ⠀

It’s a NEW start. I’m bowing to the COLOR

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Wiosna! /ˈvʲɔs.na/

Gosh, it’s here 
Wiosna → Spring, if you wonder what-the-font?  But I’m sure you already know I like to sneak in a Polish word here and there. You’re welcome, oh Poliglot!

Which brings me to the absolute surprise — the red and COLOR is back in my world.
Curtesy of Spring 2019.

It has been a long, dreadful, slushy, wet, snowy, sad, gray over the top, winter. 
BEAUTIFUL. But grim and unwelcomed especially in my 10 foot ceiling art studio which, for the love of God, would not heat up fast enough.
It was cute. In October. 
Now I call it an abuse.

Sometime in January all this overdressing and glove-painting   made me to re-feel my connection to New England. Because, and I’m saying it because this question is asked so many times, Poland’ winter is like, 2 weeks of snow. 

And then in 2018 they had summer for, like, 7 months. Yeah, really — my father sends me pictures of crocuses since February  And then he follows it up with:

“Come back” / sniff sniff

You remember my obnoxious gashing over the New England, don’t you? I loved EVERYTHING. Seasons, grays, and most importantly, the Ocean.

Ocean is a constant — a constant love, emotional supporter, cleansing agent, Sister, Mother, migraine doctor. That’s my food. It’s my breakfast, launch, dinner, and snacks. Water is my air and when I read some philosophies stating that we, humans, started in ocean, I gasp. I KNOW I have some gills somewhere.

So where can I get ocean diving for more than 2.5 months? It’s a rhetorical question, but if you live somewhere in a paradise, do let me know

But — ART.

GRAY has been my guiding force. Without being obvious, it adds vibrancy to my work and life. The skies and rocky shores of NE are absolutely silver with slivers of pink. I adore it.

But on March 20, on a Full Moon  (which is not my favorite time of the month, to tell you the truth: MOODY  crazy lady is who I become around that time) I looked at the stack of my orphan red paints and, like an addict, for a non-stop 7 hours, painted in reds, maroons, oranges, corals and pinks.
And then, at 8 pm that evening, after two pots of hibiscus tea (obvious connection to ‘red’), I stood in front of all the art in progress and I knew I birthed a healthy new WIOSNA ME.

 “Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”…
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…” 

― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Living with seasons is fascinating. You get astonished by your own life. Moon changes and you end up sleepless, typing up blog posts ideas until 3am. The birds come back by the window and serenade the Spring, and you paint in red for the first time since 2017.
Who knew.

I declare it often: art is in my blood in a color of cobalt. That won’t change. Praise Blue! 
BLUE is my parent color. When I look at my blue/green/purple paintings in Bloomlands, Newlands, and Wetlands (especially the green/blue in the latest collection with gold shining like an afternoon sun), I feel they’ve been whispered to my fingers by voices of elemental magick.

“Here, / swoosh – whiff – whoosh /, take this soft dim, minty air and channel ultramarine lands, maybe even write a tiny blue poem.”

ADORE. 

But expect my joy from working with COLOR (especially coral-pinky type of an innocent red) to re-surface from its own Sleepy Hollow.

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My love for sad, melancholic music comes with being Polish.

The nation of Polish people is like a moist stone thrown to the river for hope to come back one day. 

Always nostalgic and soft around the edges. 

ENJOY.

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“When the flower blossoms, the bee will come.” ~ Srikumar Rao.⠀

Loving my moves lately. Painting petals, choosing beauty

Casting spells of water & flower ≈⚘ in watercolor
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀
NEW ART : @Nahcotta : 3/1-3/31
NEXT SHOW : @SorelleGallery : 5/16
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

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A couple of months ago the owner of Nahcottat Gallery in Portsmouth NH emailed me the happy email which invited me to join for the 25th #ETA25 group show.

As of today 12 new watercolor paintings are in the gallery and I’m patiently (NOT) awaiting the opening.

It’s been a dream. I visited Nahcotta in my first month of living in NE (while living on the coast of York, ME) and really hoped that one day I can hang my artwork in there.

It’s a very contemporary thoughtful place full of extraordinary artists like Emma Ashby, Jeremy Miranda, Allie May Kiphuth, Michelle Morin (whom I’ve been following since my early Etsy days!), Laura Berger and more.

All my watercolors are on fina art watercolor paper, mounted to panel and framed in white-washed fir, ready to hang. And they are absolutely affordable.

 Join us for the Opening Reception at Nahcotta Gallery, March 1st at 6pm.

110 Congress Street
Portsmouth, NH 03801

SEE ALL NEW PAINTINGS HERE >>

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JOIN US ＴＯＭＯＲＲＯＷ for an Art Opening 5-8pm over at FOUNDATION Art Space and meet us all : @shainagates @cheshirescott @catherinescala @andyheckboyd7854 @martaspendowska @mike_howat @anniezverina @krislanzerartfile @juliekphotography *Shift;Register SHOW.

Hope to see you!

Press Release : Seacostonline.com

Shift Register is a group exhibition that will be on view from March 2 to 24 at FOUNDATION Art Space, located at 111R Water St., Exeter. The show is guest curated by Shaina Gates, and features the work of artists Andy Heck Boyd, Julie K Gray, Mike Howat, Scott Kuckler, Kris Lanzer, Catherine Scala, Marta Spendowska and Annie Zverina.

There’ll be an opening reception from 5 to 8 p.m., Friday, March 2. The reception is free and open to the public.

The title of the show refers to an electronic system for processing information quickly, and works as an analogy for the kind of intuitive processing that forms the logic of the exhibition. A shift register is an electronic component that receives a binary number and sifts to the right or left. A shift to the right divides the binary number, and a shift to the left multiplies the number. The exiting information is dependent on the entering information. The more complex the shift register’s pattern, the more random the generated output may appear.

The artworks included in the show run the gamut of media, processes, and subjects. From sound and video installations all the way to representational drawings, the work is notably varied. The organizing concepts for such a wide-ranging exhibition come together around ideas of layers, shifts, and changing positions. Inherent in the production of the work itself are various feedback loops, and perceptive switches that keep the viewer’s experience in a state of searching.

Mike Howat’s quiet, velvety drawing surfaces present carefully positioned architectural forms. His imagery calls the attention outward with its technical perspective, then drifts back to the plane of the paper with the irresistible materiality of the graphite. mikehowat.com

Scott Kuckler’s silver gelatin photographs are pushed beyond traditional chemical processing, producing accretions and erosions in concert with the gauzy ambiguity of the images themselves. scottkuckler.com

Kris Lanzer’s large ink drawings on tracking paper rolls record the original presence of fallen tree logs as shadows. The ink silhouettes, as material stand-ins for the immaterial shadow, slip into position as the trees themselves when hung vertically on the wall. krislanzer.com

Catherine Scala’s paintings reference mapping using geometric abstraction, building up strata of transparent layers, revealing the history of their making. catherinescalastudio.com

Marta Spendowska’s painting showcases flows of saturated pigment that expand and stain the surface, ultimately coming to rest in a frozen image of fluidity. verymarta.com

Mike Howat’s quiet, velvety drawing surfaces present carefully positioned architectural forms. His imagery calls the attention outward with its technical perspective, then drifts back to the plane of the paper with the irresistible materiality of the graphite. mikehowat.com

Scott Kuckler’s silver gelatin photographs are pushed beyond traditional chemical processing, producing accretions and erosions in concert with the gauzy ambiguity of the images themselves. scottkuckler.com

Kris Lanzer’s large ink drawings on tracking paper rolls record the original presence of fallen tree logs as shadows. The ink silhouettes, as material stand-ins for the immaterial shadow, slip into position as the trees themselves when hung vertically on the wall. krislanzer.com

Catherine Scala’s paintings reference mapping using geometric abstraction, building up strata of transparent layers, revealing the history of their making. catherinescalastudio.com

Marta Spendowska’s painting showcases flows of saturated pigment that expand and stain the surface, ultimately coming to rest in a frozen image of fluidity. verymarta.com

Julie K Gray’s needlepoints of mugshots use digital processing and anonymous portraits in a way that both distances the viewer and draws them in with her intense craftsmanship and subtlety. juliekgray.com

Annie Zverina’s projected installation takes an offhand historic anecdote, and multiplies its importance through research and invention presented with an impassive voice, spinning out a compellingly enigmatic reading for the audience. anniezverina.com

Uncanniness, distancing and intimacy, de-located perspective, obscuration, approximation, obtuseness; a necessarily baroque list of themes, but ones that tangle together into a general sense of mutability. Mutability of the audience’s position, the artists’ positions, and the location of the subject in the work.

FOUNDATION Art Space is run by the non-profit TEAMExeter and Arts Industry Alliance. Gates can be reached through ShainaGates.com.

Gallery hours for “Shift Register” are Thursdays, noon to 5 p.m.; Fridays, 5 to 7 p.m., and Saturdays, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The gallery will be closed March 15-17.

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As I’m preparing to move my website to a different system and redesigning it a bit, I’m also choosing new prints.

Watercolor is my first forever love and I’m seeing it through this New England sense differently. Winter reveals not only people’s house (who doesn’t like to peek inside oh homes?! ) but also tree trunks and the white.

THE WHITE, the most important part of watercolor. White is the blood of watercolor.
Like this one? Should it be in my store? ‍

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