I like it…looking at disparate stuff. In random order. The best. Elizabeth and I raced through the pouring rain to Portland yesterday for “research”…a fiber-oriented show at the Helzer Gallery at PCC Rock Creek Campus. Though the gallery was small…only enough room for one or two pieces from each artist, each piece had something to say, to us anyway….
Clay Lohmann started as a printmaker, but since 2008 has been making “quilts” which, like this one, include rubber stamped designs, found pieces, paint…
Diane Jacobs saves her own hair and makes meticulous compositions…sort of a cross between Victorian ladies and Agnes Martin…
Rock Hushka (previously known to me as a curator) makes embroideries of almost unimaginable density…(check the “bullion” stitch here…all the red…)
Jiseon Lee Isbara’s elegant hanging mixed media piece spoke to us both about motherhood, multi-tasking…(the need to make art out of anything/everything)…
Elizabeth Knight’s modern samplers…
and Rachel Moreau’s combinations of collage and embroidery, “fragments of narrative”…
one last look…and then back out to the “commons”…past the Manuel Izquierdo Sculpture R told me to look for…
and some work by a student who’d been shadowing Giotto and the Arena Chapel fresco cycle…
and off downtown…for the favorite tuna sandwich and…of course…
We went over to the Froelick Gallery where they were just getting up the Rick Bartow show which opens Thursday. I always like his work, but especially liked these small, energetic, meticulous, crazy little pieces…most of which had pre-sold-post-its taped to the wall…
and this big piece on paper…also sold…
Today, closer to home, we headed out to the Gretchen Schuette Art Gallery at CCC to see Dave (Nic) Nichols compress his working life into 10 pieces. His part of the four person Alumni show currently on view (including Eric Wuest, Barbara Hunter). I really liked seeing his work which included his first painting…(brave guy/though his first painting was nice) and then on through a few decades. I like his work, his cardboard laminates, his insistence on pattern…
the artist himself and Sloy with painter Carol Hausser…
it was kind of a local gala today…a good and interested crowd…here’s R with Sloy and R with Nancy Lindburg…painters Eric Wuest and Rob Bibler…
OH…and today was ukulele “graduation”. Here are our teachers Ron Relaford and Janet Romine who have not only taught us to play the ukulele (against all odds for some of us…) but who have taught us to have fun everyday and care for each other.
On The Way 
What a lovely surprise to see my dear friend, Clay, and his work on your blog! I haven’t been able to see him, or his wife (artist also), Julie Green, lately, though they live close. I liked the work with the artist’s hair as well. I’ve worked with my own hair before, finding the process intimate in strange ways. —And I especially like what’s going on in your own work (?) in the hoop frame, final/last image. Thank you. ❤
It was a wonderful day. I’m so glad we went! Still loving that “M”…
I’m pretty sure they meant us to color in the lines…oh well. VERY fun day indeed. xxoo
thanks bonnie! i’m happy to make it into your blog, & also pleased that you included us your very busy day. dave