New Large Scale Charcoal Drawings

'Seedling'

'Sweet Water'

These are two new charcoal drawings on amate, a Mexican handmade paper, that I recently finished. Each 4' x 4'.  I've been working on them since August.  I bought 2 4' x 8' pieces of amate in Patzcuaro this summer and cut them in half. It's a challenge working this large in charcoal - but it pulls you in, its a sensuous medium, fingers, rags, eraser, a push/pull of light and dark. Always moving, always changing. Charcoal is messy, it's difficult to really 'fix' it completely even though I do spray it with a fixative. But I love the rich blacks, the contrast, the cool greys and all in between. I based both pieces on some smaller images I created in Oaxaca.  Interesting how they transformed into this gran scale.

They are showing in Luna Gallery's December Exhibition in Mazatlan, Drawings: Line & Form.

Presence in Nature Exhibition in Adelaide, Australia May 2 - June 8

I'm just back from Australia where I hand-carried the work for the exhibition, Presence in Nature. It was neatly rolled up in a large tube and I had no problem getting it through. Sandra Starkey Simon, one of the artists in the show, picked us up at the airport, (jet-lag and all) and we went straight to the Flinders University Gallery where the staff was waiting to put it into frames. The actual show was a week later, at their City Gallery in the heart of Adelaide.

The night of the opening, May 2, the work looked beautiful in the space and the reception was well-attended. We shared the space with another traveling exhibiton, Pattern Recogntion, which was (also) excellent. Fanny Retsek flew over from California to be there. I was happy to meet 3 of the Australian artists, Dianne Longley, Margaret Ambridge and Christine Mc Cormack. We all participated in an artist talk after which Gail Greenwood, the director gave a short talk followed by another talk by a local artist and historian.

This is the last showing for the exhibition! It showed in Mazatlan at the Angela Peralta Theatre Gallery in May 2006, Galeria de Difocur, Culiacan in January 2007, Museo de Regional del Valle de El Fuerte in Los Mochis in March 2007 and in the Museo de Mazatlan in February 2008.

I have been intricately involved in the organization of this exhibition with all the ups and downs that any project of this magnitude can have. Even with all the problems, I am happy that the show survived and was seen around the world. Many people supported my efforts and helped along the way and I would like to thank them here. But a special thanks goes to Carol Shenda Lewin, Bunny Eyer, Fawn Powers and Roger Poyner, Patricia Sanders for her introduction to the catalogue, Roberto Baltazar, Difocur, for the printing of the catalogue, Lucila Santiago and Elizabeth Gomez for translations, Gail Greenwood, director of the Flinders Univ. Gallery, Dianne Longley and Sandra Starkey Simon for organizing the Australia artists and exhibition. And most of all, all of the artists who participated and had the patience to see it through.

Presence in Nature is a traveling exhibition of works on paper featuring 15 artists, including 5 artists from Mazatlán, California, and Adelaide, Australia. All works on paper and measuring no more than 30" x 22", the works range from prints, drawings, paintings, digital and mixed media.

The idea for the show came when two of the California artists, Sandra Starkey Simon and Fanny Retsek were showing in Mazatlan in a local gallery. There they met some of the Mexican artists, Lucila Santiago and Janeth Berrettini. I was living part of the time in Mazatlan and was at their exhibition and met Sandra and Fanny for the first time.

From the forward to the catalogue by Patrica Sanders, Ph.D.

“An exhibition of artists from three different countries raises expectations of a visual discourse on cultural identity. Yet what we find in “Presence in Nature” are disparate voices responding each in her own way to our common reality: the earth."

Today, as urban populations are about to outnumber rural ones, many of us cannot help but feel separated from “the natural world” at the same time we realize this is, of course, an illusion--for what are we but a part of that world? The 15 featured artists express everything from the anxiety of this alienation to a realized or spiritual connection with nature, each in her own distinctive way.”

Artists:

Mexico Janeth Berrettini
Cecilia Sanchez Duarte
Liliana Bandin
Lucila Santiago Oropeza
Elaine Kemp Zazueta

U.S.A. Elizabeth Gomez Freer
Sandra Starkey Simon
Fanny Retsek Lutz
Glen Rogers
Karen von Felten

Australia Margie Sheppard
Sascha Holyoak
Dianne Longley
Margaret Ambridge
Christine McCormack