SF Art Shows: Anders Zorn, David Hockney, Karen Barbour

I have been trying to get up to San Francisco a bit more to see art shows. Every single one has been totally worth it. I'll run through these not-to-be-missed shows, but I am featuring Karen Barbour's work since I was actually able to get photos of the exhibition. I'll list the shows at the bottom of this post with their closing dates.

One of the things the three artists have in common is being prolific. I think that is a very important quality for artists, since you get less precious about the work and the more you experiment, the more you learn. These three artists reminded me to keep experimenting with materials, especially as I work toward an upcoming installation in April.

Back in November, I saw the Anders Zorn show at the Legion of Honor because that's what my mom wanted to do for her birthday. It can be hard to tear myself away from the studio, so this was the perfect opportunity to get up there. I had never heard of Anders Zorn, Sweden's master painter. His most jaw-dropping works are his watercolors. They are so masterful and really give you a sense of the world he lived in.

David Hockney, Yosemite I, October 16th 2011

In December, I saw one of my favorite artists, David Hockney. His work has always resonated with me with his incredible sense of color and boldness. The show, David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition, has gotten a lot of publicity and rightfully so. He is a very prolific artist, creating everything from work on paper to iPad drawings. I won't say much more about this show, except that you must go. It's a great show for kids too.

On Friday, I headed up to San Francisco to see the California Printed show at Rare Device. It was the perfect excuse to get out of San Jose and get inspired by seeing some new work. I had not been to Rare Device before, but I'd heard about it for years. It's a great little shop with handmade goods and the California-based art prints were fun. Before I left the house, I decided to check and see if there were any other shows worth going to. I stumbled upon a show by Karen Barbour at Fouladi Projects. What a stumble it was!

Karen Barbour

Figures with multiple sets of eyes, eyelashes or blue eyeshadow. Figures on stages or at tables posed. Karen Barbour works in a variety of media from oil to collage, but the work that most attracted me was painted in gouache and ink. There was something equally fresh and laborious in the work, with layers mixed with gutsy lines of paint. Acidic colors and blacks sit side by side and it all evokes a different reality. Her work is playful and I loved that her back wall was an installation of paintings and collage, which reminded me of my drawing wall at my show last month. No material is left untouched, including thread and glitter.

Karen Barbour

Karen Barbour

Karen Barbour

Karen Barbour

Please visit the links below for museum and gallery times., but try not to spend too much time looking at the work online. All of these shows are completely different in person. Please leave a comment below if you know of any shows that I need to see!

The List

Anders Zorn: Sweden's Master Painter closes February 2, 2014

David Hockney: A Bigger Exhibition closes January 20, 2014

Karen Barbour: No Should Be As Friendly As Yes closes March 1, 2014

Karen Barbour

The New Year and the Unknown

I am so excited for a new year. Something about the roller coaster of 2013, climaxing with an insanely busy December and a desert road trip, made me feel the annual transition more than ever before.

I'll start with a quick recap of highlights of 2013. Early in 2013, I quit my day job. It wasn't that I was making a full-time living from my art, but I thought I had a part-time job in tandem with it, so I hastily put my two weeks in. However, I didn't get the part-time job. I sometimes pride myself on risk-taking, but this time, it became stressful after a few months. Still, soon after I quit, I was offered a solo art show at Delta Workshop in Sacramento, CA, decided to write a children's book and things just seemed like they were off to a good start.

My Etsy shop grew this year. I painted portraits of a couple of actors, a musician and his family and other wonderful people. I sold art prints to people prominent in their fields at KQED and HGTV Magazine. I also vended at a few events in great locations including the Bank of the West tennis tournament at Stanford and the Berkeley City Club.

Still, I was floating around in a sea of unknown. With each of the above events, I had periods of floundering between. Should I focus on portraits? Should I focus on handmade bags? Hand painted scarves? Design work? What should I paint? There was so much unknown and uncertainty.

Toward the end of the year, I returned to teaching part-time. The kids teach me so much about risk-taking, intuition and just having fun while making art. I painted many portraits for clients for holiday gifts. I also created a super fun hand illustrated band logo. And the highlight? I ended the year with a solo show at Seeing Things Gallery. It was well-attended and the feedback exceeded my expectations. This show taught me so much. I worked for long periods in isolation. In doing so, I utilized tons of determination, focus and discipline. I made work that was purely me. I dug deep into what bothers me, confuses me, amazes me, pleases me. 

And now I have a better understanding of what is most important to me, what feels best to make and do. I need to return to being outside more for inspiration and I need to use my intuition. When things are unsure, we get scared and make strange decisions. This year, I understood being in touch with my intuition more than ever. This is how we can embrace the unknown, when we let things reveal themselves and listen to our gut.

In this time, I realized I will continue to create textiles, in limited-release, small batches. However, I will be primarily focusing on original artwork and a variety of creative projects. Rather, than New Year's resolutions, I will list out some things I will be doing this year:

• A dual group exhibition at the Citadel and Works Gallery in April entitled Shelter
• Taking sailing lessons in early spring
• Moving my children's book from sketches to completed 
• Opening my own online shop (in addition to Etsy), where I will have original artwork available
• Finishing two new paintings that did not quite get finished for the Seeing Things show and revealing those within the month
• Painting a huge handful of ideas that came to me at the end of 2013
• Continuing hand illustrated design work
• Continue to teach children 10 hours a week
• Sitting and reading in my hammock
• Traveling, hopefully getting to a few more National Parks and possibly an overseas trip

Although I have this list, the direction can change at any time and I don't mind that.

What are you working on? What do you want to start or finish in this new year? Please leave a comment below.

From the peak of Ryan Mountain in Joshua Tree National Park.

Note: I will be writing about my desert trip in a post next week!

Nevada City Craft Fair Weekend

I had been looking forward to spending the weekend in Nevada City, CA for some time now. The Nevada City Craft Fair was my purpose for heading up north, but exploring the area was what I was most excited by. I love Gold Country towns: Jamestown, Columbia, Grass Valley, Shingle Springs and more. I've never been to this area in the winter, with the exception of being on a train a couple years ago, passing by the picturesque, snow-covered towns. This was my first time doing an art or craft fair out of the Bay Area. It was an interesting new experience, but I must say the fair was 8 hours long and took a whole day away from adventure. That being said, I had a great time in this historic area. It looked like a movie set with the elaborate Christmas decorations and remnants of snow still in town.

We arrived at night, which worked out perfectly since it was all lit up with Christmas lights. It was really cold, but definitely invigorating since the air is so much better up here.

One of the many beautiful homes in Nevada City.

We made ourselves at home at the Outside Inn for the weekend. Each room is themed and we were in the River Room.
 

Seriously, it was like the North Pole here. This was the scene behind our hotel. A creek ran behind it and everything was decked out in lights.

Houses along the walk to downtown Nevada City
 

The National Hotel is said to be haunted. Of course we had to stop in.

The Mine Shaft, a very cool looking bar. We didn't stop in, but I'm sure it's great. We ventured around downtown and stopped at Matteo's for a glass of wine.

The morning was totally promising, crystal clear and just perfect out.

I was almost late to the craft fair because I had to have a waffle piled with strawberries, bananas and agave syrup from Cafe Mekka. On the second morning, we went to the South Pine Cafe, which I highly recommend.

Here's my booth setup at the Nevada City Craft Fair.

The day after the fair, we drove out to South Yuba State Park. Near the entrance, is the Bridgeport Bridge, the longest freestanding covered bridge.

Another view of the Bridgeport Bridge

A view of the visitor's center at the South Yuba River State Park. This area reminded me of the East Coast. I can't wait to come back in the summer.

Yelp Elite Holiday Party

Last night, I taught a marbled paper gift tag workshop for the Yelp Elite holiday party at the Zero 1 Garage. I had never lead an activity or workshop for this many people before and luckily I came prepared because it was a huge success! The crowd was really enthusiastic and loved watching the process. To be honest with you, I didn't think so many people dressed so nicely would want to get so messy, but they did. Everyone was so thankful for learning this process and even those that said they weren't creative felt like artists for the night. My table was very crowded so I didn't get all the pictures I wanted, but I'll also post a link from Yelp when their post about it is up. Note that the lighting in these photos is a bit moody since it was a party. Here's a look at the night.

As I worked with the Community Manager from Yelp to prepare, we talked about how maybe 50-75 guests would be interested in the activity, but I believe it was way more than that. I pre-cut round and scalloped gift tags, made the floating carrageenan liquid in advance, watered down the acrylic paint, brought already finished tags for those that didn't want to get messy and provided a variety of sparkly string to attach.

Marbling is a technique that can be applied to paper, fabric or clay. It is the result of paint being suspended on a liquid surface. You can swirl the paint with sticks, combs, or just about anything with a point. The paper was prepared with alum to help the paint stick. When you set the paper on the liquid surface, it picks up the paint exactly as it was. You rinse off the carrageenan, allow the paper to dry and you're done!

The table is all setup for the gift tag workshop.

Another view of my table prior to the guest's arrival.

Some party goers starting to create designs with the paint.

Here, you can see the paint floating on the surface, ready for paper to absorb it.

The tag has been placed facedown to receive the patterned paint.

They are so excited by the results!

The final result! These lovely and unique tags are sure to dress up your holiday packaging.

Although it is much easier to print a whole sheet at once, I cut down the tags ahead of time so it would be easier for guests. I even brought a letter stamp kit so some participants wrote words like "merry" over the marbled paint.  The night went smoothly, thank to a lot of preparation and the surprise appearance of my friend Vickie who helped out. Please be sure to check out her jewelry here.

Lay Low Art Show and Self-Discipline

I've been working very hard for months on a solo show at Seeing Things Gallery. It's been a wild ride of commissions, returning to teaching about 10 hours per week and creating new work for this show these last few months. I spent a lot of quiet time on a chaotic workload. I am happy the flyer is finally finished as the December 6th opening date looms closer. Please come by from 7-11pm!

Lay Low, new work by Frances Marin at Seeing Things Gallery

For me, working on a show means digging into the fragile parts of my brain. It means negative self-talk happens, moments of insight create positive and productive work time and this up and down usually happens up until the night of the show, when I breathe a big sigh of relief. This show, more than any prior, was very intuitive. The paintings evolved and changes were made by gut feeling. I can often over-think my work, and though that still happened, I was more easily than ever able to quiet that side and just get to work. 

A big reason I was able to work on this show, commissions and teach part-time these last few months, is because of a very disciplined schedule. While I wasn't actively working every single second, 24-7, I was working pretty close to that. I missed shows that I wanted to go to (Mazzy Star?!), celebratory events with friends and overall most human interaction that was outside of my teaching job. I exercised almost everyday and only drank water, coffee and green juices. Spending a lot of time alone is great in some ways. I found the past resurfacing and made better sense of that. I thought a lot about changes I want to make for next year and beyond. I realized what was most important to me in all categories of my life. Spending a lot of time working alone can also be rough. There can be too much thinking and too much self. You realize how important it is to get outside and live life. 

While self-discipline has been a recurring thing in my life: it got me through college, put me in a swimming/yoga/running routine years ago, quit smoking, multiple detoxes/cleanses, it was this time that I felt it in a more true sense of the phrase. I'm excited to see where this goes.