Salem Sketchers

10 Saturday Jun 2017

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Artists, City, Drawings, Just visual, Modern Life, Oregon, Salem, Uncategorized

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Art, draw every day, Drawings, Mike Bergen, Salem fun, Salem Sketchers, urban sketchers

For a couple of years an intrepid group of local artists has been participating one Saturday a month in what is an international movement of urban sketchers…very casual, very fun. Each month they draw at a different location…I’ve dropped in and out, but decided to join today, even though the weather was iffy…(58 degrees on June 10th…yikes…thunderstorms predicted for the afternoon and it almost NEVER thunders in Oregon). The group was led up to the terrace over the restaurant Orupa at the Water Place building and at first there was some watery sun…

I chose this view…

and everybody settled down to work…

Katy and I were at a table under an umbrella…

Uh oh…

and then the rain started and this person captured the moment…boing!

Still, in spite of the rain, it was a jolly morning…(Happy Birthday Jessica!)

some people headed inside…

Mike Bergen showed us his new book …

and then “the reveal”…

duly photographed…

Way too much fun…better think of coming along…the second Saturday of every month. In July the sketchers will be in the Gaiety Hollow Garden and in August at the Rogue brewery in Independence. COME! it’s free fun.

The Varied Life

14 Friday Apr 2017

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Art World, Artists, Beach, Cutler City, Drawings, Quilting, Trees, Uncategorized

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Alden Mason, Art, Artists, Cutler City, Drawings, Edgefield, Henk Pander, Jon Bunce, Quilts

I keep waiting for a coherent body of photos, events, thoughts to surface (other than the car wash)…to no avail. I guess the life I’m leading is chaotic these days, so lets go anyway…we left the car wash and headed east …first stop Edgefield, a destination spot in a former poor farm…odd but true, and now very beautiful…

Our room had tons of windows and was lovely day and night…

and then we headed east stopping briefly at Vista House

Hood River, Dufur, Maupin, Madras, Sisters…over the pass

down into Salem in the middle of a spring wind storm…

Studio time…

We’ve spent some time with the laughing boy…

and visited some artists including Henk

and we took Jon Bunce a funny little painting of his boyhood home that Mary Lou Zeek found at a junk sale…

We had a play-date at Sara and Marcus’ house where Sidney fed the fish and made a play-dough birthday cake…

I worked on the cross quilt…

we saw a nice Alden Mason painting at Mark Humpal’s (with a rug made by Amanda Snyder in front…)

and we went to the beach where the view from our living room has looked about like this for the last 25 years…

and virtually every time we have driven up we have expected to see the trees cut and a mobile home on the site…and finally…the day came…

there’s more probably, but not for tonight.

Art Laundry, III

30 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Art World, Artists, Bonnie Hull, Compass Gallery at Willamette Heritage Center, Drawings, Ephemera, Just visual, Modern Life, PNAA, Salem, Uncategorized

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Art, Art Laundry 3, Art work, Bonnie Hull, Carolyn Schneider, Drawings, hand quilting, PNAA, Quilts

Carolyn Schneider and I met in a 7th grade art class. Our first forays into the art world were on the subway into the city to go to the Art Institute of Chicago when we were 13. We’ve been looking at art, thinking about art and making art ever since. For the last decade we’ve had an annual studio event either in her California studio, or in mine…more talking, more looking, more art-making, some writing.

In 2012 we had a gallery show in Fort Bragg, California which we called “Art Laundry” and it looked like this.

Drawings, quilts, mending, sewing, prints…it even included my little “Gallery of Plaid”

and then in 2015 Carolyn and ART LAUNDRY came to Salem…and it looked like this:

It was drawing, it was quilts, it was talking and masks and thinking of that interface between making art and doing routine work and domestic work, it was fun and serious.

This year Art Laundry III comes to the Compass Gallery at the Willamette Heritage Center, 1313 Mill Street SE. August 3 the gallery will be hung with Carolyn Schneider’s drawings, my quilts and monoprints. Beginning Monday August 8 Carolyn and I will be in the gallery for 4 days, 11-3 daily. Carolyn will be performing public ironing and talking about work of all kinds. The “opening” will be Thursday night August 11th at the gallery, from 5-7. We urge you to come see us, bring some ironing, sit and talk about the work you are making, the work we are making, or how you learned to iron a shirt…see you very soon!

Valentines

14 Sunday Feb 2016

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Art World, Artists, Coffee art, Drawings, Ephemera, Just visual, Modern Life, photography, Uncategorized

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Abigail SUsik, Andre Masson, Archive Coffee, Basket Tray Quilt, Cowgirl Quilt, Drawings, Elizabeth Bauman, Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Imogen Cunningham, Jean Dubuffet, Ponderosa and Thyme, Quilts, Rudolf Bauer, tulips, VALENTINES

Happy Valentine’s Day! Here in the Northwest it’s chilly and overcast…just about the perfect day to run around doing a few errands and then COFFEE! Archive Bar and Coffee was hopping today and Bigwig Donuts were down there, as well as Ponderosa and Thyme…

Coffee first and then a bouquet for a loved one to be delivered tomorrow…

and then we headed over to the Hallie Ford Museum of Art. The big show up at the moment is a 20 year retrospective of painter/print-maker James Thompson (on the faculty at Willamette)…which is nice…

but our particular quest on this day was the new Imogen Cunningham show. The opening is this Friday at 6:00 at the museum, with remarks by curator/art historian Abigail Susik and a dance presentation…Cunningham photographed dancer Martha Graham and a body of this work is in the show. Cunningham was born in Portland and her first one person show in the northwest was at the Portland Art Museum in 1914. This show at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art, a little over 100 years later, is the second such show. About time. Susik has gathered photos and artifacts that make for an arresting and interesting exhibit and include one of Cunningham’s cameras…a Korona 4 x 5 view camera…

The photos are gorgeous…the study gallery filled with nudes…other photos including some family photos are in the Print Study room. But for me today, and in this era of “selfies” (which I occasionally indulge in…) her self portraits are particularly wonderful. She stares right at us…we can imagine her concentration and humor…we’d like to know her…they are interestingly composed. Several of the self-portraits were only seen in a video loop playing…I loved them all…

Just outside the Print Study room are a few wonderful loans on view. Collectors nationwide can reduce the taxes they pay on a purchase if the item they have purchased is put on view for 6 months or so in an Oregon public institution…The viewing public at both the Portland Art Museum (they had the Francis Bacon Triptrych) and the Hallie Ford Museum of Art has the chance to see things nobody every will see once they reach the purchaser. Currently on view at the Hallie Ford are this beautiful Rudolf Bauer of 1916 “Sinfonie 23″…

This Jean Dubuffet of 1965….

and this Andre Masson of 1966 called “Les Trueurs des Lapins” (The Murderers of Rabbits)

On the way out I saw this Klamath Modoc “Basket Tray” of 1925 which seemed almost shocking…

after spending the morning working on the next quilt (which I will now call Basket Tray)…reminding me anew of the fun of how everything relates to everything else…even when you don’t know it does…

On the way out we stopped at the shop and I got an additional Valentine present…a tiny Elizabeth Bauman Painting “Bertrice”

and then home again, where pink things are blooming…

the house is full of tulips…

and the “Cowgirl Quilt” is all done…

Dinner with my Valentine ahead…

February at the Compass Gallery

06 Saturday Feb 2016

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Art World, Artists, Bonnie Hull, Compass Gallery at Willamette Heritage Center, Drawings, Just visual, Modern Life, Sculpture, Uncategorized

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"Light as Air", Art After Dark, Bonnie Hull, Compass Gallery at Willamette Heritage Center, Dayna Collins, Drawings, paintings, Tory Brokenshire

Okay, month two. The show “Light as Air” is up and the gallery continues to look fresh and lively.

We have realized that by the time our lease is up in October we probably will have figured everything out, but we’re stepping slowly (but lively) at this point. Once again we each just showed up on the day of the hanging and it all went up smoothly and looked good.

Some kids visiting the Mill complex chatted with Dayna about her birds made from recycled materials, having fun identifying the parts she used…

Tory had the idea of using a one of Dayna’s small paintings as a “backdrop” for her piece…

…and Valentines are in the air…

I decided to show some favorite pieces that usually hang at our house, one or two of which I’ve never shown…

The opening for this show is coming up this Thursday the 11th from 5:00-7:00 p.m. Upstairs the studios will be open at Art After Dark which promises to be fun this month…many of the artists are hanging drawings and we’ll have the table piled with sketchboooks..so better come take a look…it’s sort of like reading somebody’s journal (as Oscar Wilde’s character said in The Importance of being Ernest…”my diary is private and hence meant for publication.”)

See you Thursday!

The Coffee Book

03 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Bonnie Hull, Coffee art, Drawings, Just visual, Modern Life, Uncategorized

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Art, Bonnie Hull, Coffee, coffee drawings, Drawings

Back in 2008 I started a little drawing book in which I would only record my coffees. For a couple of years it got buried in a pile of drawing books, but eventually was rescued…it started like this…

and home again it became a sort of journal of my travels around town…

trips to the beach…

regional travels…art related…

new coffee places opening up…

Only two pages left. On we plunge into 2016…heading out for a coffee…

Julie Green, Dan May and 12×16 Gallery

08 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Art World, Artists, Books, Drawings, Just visual, Modern Life, Uncategorized

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12X16 Gallery, DE May at PDX, Drawings, Eunice Parsons, Jon Colburn, Julie Green, Rex Amos, Upfor Gallery

Friday was a day of looking at other people’s art…at last. It started early with a visit to the studios of the six senior art majors at Willamette University who are midway in the process of preparing their senior show, opening in April 2016. All six seemed motivated, excited about their work and certain about their path forward with this body of work. Encouragement was easy to give, mostly process oriented. I’ll withhold the few photos I took until next spring when I can compare them for you with the realization of the work I saw the beginnings of on Friday.

So we jumped into the car, grabbed Irene and Jon and headed to Portland to look at some art. First and foremost was a visit to PDX to see the work of DE May…long time friend of all of ours…and the show was wonderful in the way only Dan can make it. Spare and intricate, referential, terrific. Go see it.

One of my new favorite galleries the last couple of years is Upfor Gallery, right next door to PDX and often offering shows that knock me out…this one included. A few years ago I was reading the New York Times one morning when I read an art review of a show at the Corvallis Art Center…whaaat? Yep, Julie Green’s Last supper series which was amazing…as I describe here. This new show…”My New Blue Friends” is soo soo wonderful. It starts with the “wall paper”…all around the entire gallery, sumi drawings of shells on rice paper. She does some everyday, and has been doing this meditation since 2011. They begin tight and dark and loosen as they go

and on the “wallpaper” are placed the lovely blue and white paintings which are tempera adjusted to be used with airbrush…

The effect is good, almost like shards of flow-blue on the sand, a sort of beach-combing effect.

But really the treasure here, for those who draw, love to draw, love drawings…are the wonderful ledger books on the table, filled with Green’s notational drawings. There is a stool thankfully, because I had to look and look…

Oh good lord, be still my heart. Only one remedy…

Meanwhile Jon was getting on Instagram…

So off to 12×16 Gallery in Sellwood. It was the 10th anniversary show featuring the work of most of the 126 artists who have showed with members over the last 10 years. Here’s Jon’s…

here’s Rex Amos…

here’s the wall with the group I was part of…

and mine…

My show was in 2010 and I showed with legendary collage artist Eunice Parsons…

and by the way, Eunice Parsons, who turned 99 last summer, just opened a show of new work at collage artist Luke Dolkas’ frame shop at 2707 SE Belmont…our Monday schedule includes Eunice’s show and Michael Boonstra’s show at Duplex Gallery. So much to see…so little time…:-) And guess who we ran in to…

Another Sunday Night

18 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, City, Drawings, Ephemera, Family photos, Modern Life, Quilting, Salem Art Association

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Aislinn Adams, Blair Saxon-Hill, Drawings, family photos, Linda Williams Janke, quilt show, Ruth and Vernoon Douglas

Once again a week has drawn to a close with the next one looming before us. This past week was one of varied activities which included work, friends, art (of course), family, archives, music. It looked like this…

The yard needs some attention as we move into fall, but this was mainly for something pretty in the house…

The proof of the poster for the November quilt show was sent…Kay and I met and made our choices for the show…

Linda Willams Janke brought the first installment of the Douglas family archive to the Pacific Northwest Artists Archive, and it was full of fascinating things. Linda’s grandparents were Vernon and Ruth Douglas who lived in Salem from 1927 to 1943, when they moved to Portland and her grandfather worked in the public heath field for Multnomah Country. The were instrumental in the creation of the Salem Federal Art Center, precursor to the Salem Art Association, and Linda’s aunt Stella was an Oregon Painter.

and just in case I thought I WAS Busy…check Stella’s calender…

We had some lunch…

I visited the home of delicious brownies…

The Hallie Ford Museum’s Member Appreciation evening afforded me a chance to revisit one of Blair Saxon-Hill’s pieces on view in the still life show…

We went to Portland for a family dinner

which brought together two of my three extraordinary brothers (who aren’t going to like being in this blog…but I don’t do it very often and they are SOOO terrific)…

Bruce showed us some of us amazing photographs from his sojourn in Paris this past summer…

and this morning I was drawing at Straub Center with some talented artists, including my neighbor Aislinn Adams who is working on a commission of botanical drawings for Silver Falls Park…

while I continued working on my post cards for the SAA “Art Market” coming November 4th…

played a ukulele (mercifully, no photos) and headed home down the quiet Sunday streets…

for some supper and a little mending…moths and I refuse to give up on this sewater which I love…

Time to turn in and rest up for SIDNEY DAY tomorrow!

Art Laundry, Day 6

29 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Art World, Artists, Bonnie Hull, City, Drawings, Just visual, Modern Life, Quilting

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Art, Art Laundry 2, Drawings, ironing, Project Space 2015, Salem Art Association

We’re still ironing, still drawing, doing a bit of mending…talking a lot about housework, sewing, raising families as artistic expression…a great deal of reexamination of the lives of mothers by almost all our visitors…more about that when we sum up. Sunday will be a day of rest and relaxation…Monday we’ll be back on duty representing Salem Art Association’s Project Space, 2015 at 211 Commercial Street NE and hoping you’ll come down and bring ironing or just join the conversation…in the mean time some images…

Gallery sitter Krista Lauer got into the spirit of things by switching out her table for an ironing board….

we’ve had many many visitors…so many that they all begin to look alike…?

There have been offerings…tonight we sampled Jo’s YUMMY biscotti

Drawing is progressing slowly due to talking, but progressing…

Carolyn’s friend Cec arrived in the middle of her camping trip for a hello dinner…

See you Monday!

Art Laundry 2

12 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by bonniehull in Art work, Artists, City, Drawings, Modern Life, Salem Art Association, Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

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Art, Art Laundry 2, Art work, Bonnie Hull, Carolyn Schneider, Drawings, Project Space, Salem Art Association

In 2012 I went to Fort Bragg, California, to make art with my friend artist Carolyn Schneider, and to put up a show called “Art Laundry” at the Lost Coast Culture Machine Gallery. We had fun, worked hard, and the show was a success and held over for another month. Carolyn discovered her latent desire to iron in public, I had a great time drawing, sewing, etc. I made the “Shrine to Plaid”…

..and put up drawings, quilts, monoprints. This year Carolyn is coming to Salem and together we are going to make an installation called “Art Laundry 2″…as part of SAlem Art Association’s Project Space 2015…

We’ll be setting up shop at 211 NE Commercial Street from August 24-September 4, with the “opening” on Wednesday, September 2nd. We intend to draw, cut, sew, wash, dry, mend, iron, fold and repeat. We hope to consider art work and women’s work, and the space between. Public ironing will occur daily from 1-2…come see us.