Merry Christmas

Greetings one and all.

I am lucky enough to have two art gigs this month.

#1 is the Little Things show at one of Portland Oregon's iconic gallery's. 

Guardino Gallery. http://www.guardinogallery.com

2939 NE Alberta Street Portland, OR 9721. Open Tues 11 to 5 PM, Wed-Sat 11 to 6 PM, Sun 11 to 4 PM. 503.281.9048 Guardino is located in the beautiful Alberta Arts District in Portland OR.

#2 I am featured artist at the Broadway Gallery in Longview Washington.

http://the-broadway-gallery.com

1418 Commerce Ave. Longview, WA. Open Mon - Sat: 10 to 5:30 pm

360.577.0544

First Thursday openings, 5:30 - 7 pm.

Hope you can come to these galleries to enjoy my work and the work of my fellow artists. 

I hope to see you soon, 

Wishing you all the best, Merry Christmas!

 

 

Bragging rights

Bragging rights! 

I have always wanted to get my education. 

As a person who is severely dyslexic, being able to prove your intelligence and ability takes on more importance.

During the years of grade, middle, and high school. I was tested, analyzed, categorized, demoralized, and pushed through the educational system.

I started working legally at age 14. I earned high school credit through my diversified occupations class and the ability to be in school half the day so I could go to work. I believe this was easer and cheaper for the Kelso Washington school system than to put the time and effort into teaching me. In high school I was told the most I could hope for was to get a manual labor job, and if lucky, to work in a local mill. 

I have been working steadily since with only two summers off. Both times I left the country to get those breaks, and I am grateful and enriched for my adventures in foreign lands.

 I did not give  up my dream of getting my education and  kept chipping away credit by credit, and class by class, to earn a college education. I received an Associates of Applied Sciences in photography, from Seattle Central Community College in 1994 and my Bachelors of Fine Arts in Craft, from Oregon College of Art and Craft this May 2013. I have won various awards including the OakKnoll winery wine label competition  and the Brannon-Boekleheide award for the most outstanding graduating thesis student Oregon College of Art and Craft. 

I was told by one of the members in my thesis committee that my thesis paper was the best paper they had read in the last 17 years, touching for me to hear, since I was told I could never write. I plan to get my Masters of Fine Art degree in the very near future and who knows, maybe my Doctorate. And to those who said I couldn't, and wouldn't and didn't believe I was worth it: I could do it, I did do it, I am worth it. And to those that did believe in me, and helped me do it, thank you. And you know what? 

It's nice to have something to brag about.

What is Art?

                                                                            

Art is diverse, and has many different meanings, and is used in numerous different contexts. Art is hard
to pigeon hole. As human beings we like to organize and categorize objects, things, ideas, and events.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes art as the following: skill acquired by experience, study, or
observation and also the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects.
According to the aesthetician George Dickie, “The work of art is an artifact (or event) upon which some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution ( the art-world) has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation”.
The art-world is art historians, teachers, and professors of art, educational institutions of art, art dealers, critics, collectors, gallery owners, museums, and artists.
Terence McKenna an American philosopher, ethno botanist, researcher, psychonaunt, teacher, lecturer, and writer had this to say about art, “Art’s task is to save the soul of mankind”
I believe George Dickie’s definition of art is the most correct at this current time. I also believe McKenna’s quote on art holds true as well. It is for this very reason that art and artist are so very important to society.
Without artists you would have no beauty, political, social or aesthetic background as a scaffolding to build a society on. Artists throughout history have been the shamans, performers, writers, philosophers, inventors and political activists of their time. Artists are the culturalpreneurs of the times they live in and in some cases continue to effect society hundreds of years after their deaths. Pablo Picasso said it best, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.”
It is through the arts that the daily grind if life and its existence is celebrated with all its imperfections, pain, suffering, love joy, beauty and death. With art we celebrate our humanity and touch the celestial.

James Lee Hansen

My friend Larry Cwik, was given the opportunity to meet James Lee Hansen in person. Larry asked if I wanted to tag along. I jumped at the opportunity to meet and visit the home and 13 acre compound of Pacific Northwest sculptor and poet James Lee Hanson and his wife Jane.

Jane gave me a tour of their beautiful home they had just remodeled. James gave Larry and me a private tour of his bronze foundry and studio he built himself, and a tour of his gallery showcasing work he has created. The grounds are wonderfully manicured with regional plants and wide open grassy fields. They showcase Hansen’s sculptures that appear around every bend of the property. At the end of our tour James gave us a signed book of his work and poetry as a parting gift. I was overwhelmed. After a welcoming and inspiring visit at the Hansens I drove home to my humble studio, motivated, and stimulated to do some art work.

Brief information on James lee Hansen.

http://www.jamesleehansen.com/

  

 James Lee Hansen was born in 1925 and served in the Navy during WWII. He graduated from the Portland Art Museum School in 1950. In 1951 James built his first foundry and studio. The following year 1952, receives a purchase prize from the San Francisco Art Association National Exhibition for his sculpture “Huntress” and the Seattle Art Museum Northwest Annual award for his piece “Call”

Hansen has exhibited extensively. The Whitney Museum, The Smithsonian National Gallery of Art, The Portland Art Museum, and Denver Art Museum and many others. Hansen is represented in major art museum collections and in private collections around the globe. Professor Hansen has taught at The University of California Berkeley, Oregon State College, Portland State University, and The University of Oregon.

At the end of May I had the opportunity by being an assistant to take the five day class “Painting from the Intuitive” taught by Pat Wheeler at Oregon College of Art and Craft. In class we created six or more piece of art using limestone clay on handmade wood substrate’s and explore experimental techniques of scraping, where bits and pieces of prior, erased markings and vernacular are exposed. One of the substrates that each student received had a niche they then filled with bundled objects, found items, or something personal. The artis, in the class used everything from stenciling, collage, found objects, Xerox transfers, fabric, photographs, and text. All these elements were combined intuitively and pulled together with a selection of acrylic paints used as stains and finished of with a layer of cold wax that protects the exterior and at the same time brings out nuances in the surface the recall primordial spaces and allegorically reflect ourselves and the connections we all share. Pat’s personality and teaching style make it possible for her students to let go, open up, and experiment in a safe environment. I was impressed how each artist created something unique to themselves and how talented everybody participating in the class was. I have a new respect for the teaching profession and teachers. I am personally still experimenting with the tools I learned from Pat’s class and digesting all the reading and information we received. Here is a quote, and a list from many that I liked from the class material. “The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition”. (Alan Alda) The following list was found among the papers of the painter Richard Diebenkorn after his death in 1993. Spelling and capitalization are as in the original. Notes to myself on beginning a painting 1.attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion. 2. The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to be valued — except as a stimulus for further moves. 3. Do search. But in order to find other than what is searched for. 4. Use and respond to the initial fresh qualities but consider them absolutely expendable. 5. Dont “discover” a subject — of any kind. 6. Somehow don’t be bored — but if you must, use it in action. Use its destructive potential. 7. Mistakes can’t be erased but they move you from your present position. 8. Keep thinking about Polyanna. 9. Tolerate chaos. 10. Be careful only in a perverse way. If you get the opportunity to take one of Pat’s classes. It is pleasure to get the opportunity to open up, explore, create, play, build, be corporeal, and get grubby in a safe environment were creativity and discovery are encouraged. http://www.patriciawheelerart.com/

personal identity

I am very aware of the roles society has mapped out for us, the stereotypes we are encouraged to play. I know that below the surface there is a much richer world happening that is suppressed in a large portion of people due to their environment, experiences, and circumstances of birth. My paintings are inspired by the world I created as a child, as well as parts of myself that I keep concealed. I am using photographs from my past and present, and my family’s past as a reference point. I am using the themes of the mask, personal identity, and human psyche. I want to investigate the joy and mystery that is human life.

La Luz Del Cielo

All architecture is shelter, all great architecture is the design of space that contains, cuddles, exalts, or stimulates the persons in that space.
Philip Johnson 1906 – 2005

La Luz Del Cielo

My project for my final in Beyond Color Theory at OCAC with Michelle Ross, La Luz Del Cielo was activating with color the two triangular window spaces in the hallway by the stairs in the Jean Vollum Drawing, Painting and Photography Building. I used colored acetate normally used for gift packaging and gently tacked it to the metal frame of the window sills using Scotch transparent tape. This project acknowledged the practice of early childhood art projects using colored tissue to create flowers and colored shapes that were placed in windows to be illuminated by the sun. My choice of using primary colors red, blue, yellow, and green refers to the first colors we learn in school as young children.

La Luz Del Cielo also references the gothic cathedral and its obsession with light and Gerhard Richter’s Cologne Cathedral project in Germany, where he used 72 colors and 11,500 squares of glass to replace the south window that has had clear glass since the original colored glass was destroyed during World War II.

My goal was to enliven, add energy, and give the viewer an AH-HA moment.
Mark the groundskeeper thought that students had painted the rocks by the thesis studios and then realized that it was the light shining through my colored windows that made the rocks look red. Brian Shannon’s Drawing Foundations Class was outside collecting natural material to draw and thought that someone had painted the grass red. The class experienced the surprising effect which was created by light shining through my acetate covered windows. A group of first year young women students were walking up the stairs and stopped. “Look at your faces,” one of them said. Their faces were lit up with different colors of light shining through the window. They laughed as they spun each other around in the multicolored light.
These are some of the moments of surprise and joy that I had hoped to create with my colored window installation La Luz Del Cielo.
Jason Berlin