“Carolyn Krieg: Equus ferus caballus”

With each exhibition, we will post interviews with the participating artists along with a photo of said artists in their studios and images of their work. In the future, we will post videos of artist interviews.

Carolyn Krieg & Fred Birchman share the gallery space May 9 – June 20, 2015

Reception for both artists, May 9th, 2 – 4 pm

Artist Interview #7: Carolyn Krieg

1. Are you a full time artist, if not how do you support your art?

I have been a fortunate working artist since 1989 with part-time landlord, wildlife rehabilitation and Soma Neuromuscular Integration work supplementing my studio work at different times.

2. When did you consider yourself an artist?

As a child I took pictures with a Brownie and drew pictures with pencil. I wanted to be an artist beginning in 4th grade. I received a degree in French Language and Linguistics and taught for a short while before taking the leap and returning to school to study art. I had a professor my first year who said we would know we were artists when it was our discipline, our choice of work. That resonated with me- 1983.

Brownie camera

3. What are your influences?

Much inspiration comes from reading– fiction, myth, poetry, history, psychology. Where I live and with whom I live, both people and animals, how I spend time when I’m not “doing” art –all this parallels my work and in some way influences it. My parents’ only extravagance for themselves was to purchase art while raising nine children. In 1973 I moved to Paris to study (also taking mime classes with the Polish ex of Marcel Marceau). I took train and van-camping trips that included museums in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey and Morocco (having to return home only because of amoebic dysentery). What I saw in first person, after seeing the images in books for years, blew me away. An exhibit that deeply influenced me was a floor of Impressionist work at the Hermitage which I saw during the Cold War in 1972, labeled “decadent art” and off limits to the Russian population in that era. One of my favorite museums is the Prado. Goya, Bosch, El Greco, Velasquez. I nearly lived in the Louvre some days when I lived in Paris. Recently, my favorite museum was the Gulbenkian in Lisbon—with its’ varied and beautiful Ottoman/Asian collection. Some live and some dead big name artists whose works have influenced and informed me: Jasper Johns, Chagall, Ryder, Vuillard, Frieda Kahlo, William Blake, Rembrandt, Degas, Da Vinci, Botticelli, Durer. Locally the artists whose work I own: Glenn Rudolph, Fay Jones, Jim Lavadour, Jim Kraft, Michael Spafford, Mark Calderon, Lauren Grossman. On a national level, for their translations of the animal kingdom: Susan Rothenberg, Deborah Butterfield, and William Wegman. Nancy Spero and Imogen Cunningham and O’Keefe, the list could go on.

One of the pieces Carolyn grew up with that is now in her collection: Tom Hardy’s 1951 Lithograph, “Horses and Rider”

4. How big is your studio, what kind of lighting?

My original studio of 1500 sq. feet is now my home as well, for economic reasons. I have an “office” space upstairs with my computer and printers and cameras and some storage (and a bed). I have a 10×20’ room in the barn where I store and show work and frame and paint (if not outside). The lighting is daylight florescent.

5. What is a typical day in the studio like for you? Do you listen to music, radio or TV?

There is no typical day and my art work is interspersed with my animal chores, exercise (swim or jog or horseback ride) and rental/property chores. Some days it is work on the computer, some I photograph, some I paint, some I frame, some I prepare canvases and board, but I do need variety to not get burned out. I need quiet and do not listen to anything when working. My brain is too full already. Working is one kind of meditation and connection to the universal for me where I lose track of time and place and self.

Stella at 5

Ollie at 28

Deva at 7

Boo Radley and Buttercup

6. What is your preferred medium? Do you work on one project at a time or several?

I work with all kinds of things photographic and acrylic. I sometimes use oils and resins, but after having a cancerous kidney removed, I am careful about toxic substances. I spent many years tearing apart Polaroids and altering the transparencies without gloves and printing in the darkroom handling chemicals-the craziness of youth. I work on several pieces at a time, stopping and returning when I’m fresh.

7. Do you have any special or unique tools, devices or process that you use in your art making?

I will use pretty much anything that gets my job done when I am mixing media, from any tool to any kitchen utensil. My combination of steps vary (mixing media, cameras and films), but in general begins with my conventional chemical or digital photograph. Presently, I transfer my images to a computer and use Photoshop for drawing and painting before printing on archival inkjet paper. Then I will sometimes transfer that paper onto board or Plexiglas or canvas to take it further with acrylics and sanding and more painting. With previous work, I generated a Polacolor print from the digital file, and cut/tore off the positive transparency, which I painted with oil and ink and then used in place of a negative in a traditional (analog) color enlarger. I printed on archival chromogenic paper, then sometimes transferred the print and/or transparency onto canvas or board or Plexiglas and worked further with acrylics and resins. I draw, paint, erase, sand, tear, cut and digitally manipulate. This allows for fictional gain and generational loss, similar to what happens when experience moves from perception to memory. It reflects the psychological process of teasing meaning from mystery.

8. What do you do outside the studio, aside from a job?

Currently, I swim and attend a Pilates Reformer class at least once in a week and daily jog with my dogs along a lovely little route that affords me a view of Rainier (I call her Tahoma, her original name) when she is out. I also ride my horse in nature as often as I can squeeze it in. My parents are 89 and 92 and I try to get to Portland to see them as much as possible. I try to travel abroad once a year for new inspiration and source material (and horse riding). I go to ACT theatre as a subscriber and love movies.

“Enceint”, 2015, archival inkjet print, 18.25 x 22.25”

“Paso”, 2015, archival inkjet print, 21.75 x 34”

“Tunnel”, 2015, archival inkjet print, 26 x 19.25”

“Waterfall (bw)”, 2015, archival inkjet print

“Fred Birchman: Reclamation Projects”

With each exhibition, we will post interviews with the participating artists along with a photo of said artists in their studios and images of their work. In the future, we will post videos of artist interviews.

Fred Birchman & Carolyn Krieg share the gallery space May 9 – June 20, 2015

Reception for both artists, May 9th, 2 – 4 pm

Artist Interview #6: Fred Birchman

1. Are you a full time artist, if not how do you support your art?

Until recently I was doing graphic design full-time for msnbc/NBC news. I’d get up at 4:30 a.m. to get in a few hours in the studio each day. Now I forage for nuts and berries and head to the studio at a reasonable time after breakfast.

2. When did you consider yourself an artist?

I think it was about my third year in college that I started to make art seriously. But it wasn’t until a year or so after college that it really sunk in that this was going to be a life long thing. When I had to figure out when and how I was going to make art amongst all the day-to-day stuff and it didn’t discourage me, that’s when I knew. It seemed like that would have been a good time to bail, but I didn’t.

3. What are your influences?

I had a couple of pretty strong college profs that made a big impression. Tom Schlotterback taught me how to draw and R. Allen Jensen taught me that I had to go to the studio everyday. Of course there are all the artists like Rauschenberg, Jim Dine, William Wiley, Ed Keinholz and Llynn Foulkes that I stole from…I really dug the “Cool School” guys from L.A.!

4. How big is your studio, what kind of lighting?

It’s about 290 sq.ft. (damn, that sounds small). It was built over our garage. The ceiling is about 25 ft at the point so it makes it seems a lot bigger. Maybe I should install a trapeze? I have incandescent cans on tracks. AND a big window.

5. What is a typical day in the studio like for you? Do you listen to music, radio or tv in your studio?

I usually take up where I left off the following day. Finish up a drawing and leave it hanging to glance at while I start something else. Sometimes I’ll make adjustments or fuss a bit. After a few days if I haven’t gone back into it, I’ll take it down and consider it done. I listen to NPR mostly, but occasionally I’ll put on some jazz or Neil Young. I drink a lot of coffee while I work.

6. What is your preferred medium? Do you work on one project at a time or several?

Drawing with whatever device strikes me at the time. I usually take up where I left off the following day. Finish up a drawing and leave it hanging to glance at while I start something else. Sometimes I’ll make adjustments or fuss a bit. After a few days if I haven’t gone back into it, I’ll take it down and consider it done.

7. Do you have any special or unique tools, devices or process that you use in your art making?

Nothing special. But I do believe that you have to make yourself available to making art. Go to the studio every day. If my brain is empty, I’ll start sweeping, cleaning up arranging, whatever…and before I reaIise it I’m onto something. There’s something about being in the studio that just gets you going.

8. What do you do outside the studio, aside from a job?

I enjoy cooking and my wife, Robin and I usually have folks over a couple of nights a week for dinner and wine. And we travel when we can. I don’t hang around other visual artists too much, but I have a lot of friends that are other things like builders, architects, writers, mechanics, etc. Mostly they are just great folks who inspire me and keep me curious.

“Reclaimation #3”, 2015, mixed media on paper

“Fact & Fiction”, 2015, mixed media on paper, 50 x 38″

“Line A – ReClaim”, 2014, mixed media on paper, 55 x 45”

“ReClaim: Reclining Astra”, 2014/2006, mixed media on paper, 22 x 30″

“Dale Lindman & Robert Maki” Robert Maki

With each exhibition, we will post interviews with the participating artists along with a photo of said artists in their studios along with  images of their work. In the future, we will post videos of artist interviews.

“Dale Lindman & Robert Maki” opens April 4, 2015 and runs through May 2, 2015.

Artist Interview #5: Robert Maki

1. Are you a full time artist, if not how do you support your art?

I have been a full time artist for 45 years, however I worked at several jobs before receiving my first commission. Following graduate school I taught for two years at the UW; received an NEA fellowship in 1968; worked in a plastics shop; built harpsichords; sold some artwork and exhibited in museum and gallery shows. My first major commission project was 1971-73 at Sea-Tac Airport, followed by a combination of activities such as a Rockefeller Residency in North Carolina; invitations for residencies at universities; site projects; GSA sculpture award; Senior NEA Fellowship for works on paper; gallery sales, grants, public and private commissions. As well my wife has worked throughout the years.

2. When did you consider yourself an artist?

When my gallery put my name in print with established gallery artists in the 60’s shortly after completing undergraduate school at Western Washington University.

3. What are your influences?

The first ten years of my life on the road with my father, hopping freight trains, living in multiple towns up and down the Columbia River between 1938-48 is the strongest influence in my life and work, coupled with five women in my immediate family who are strong, motivated and tireless in their efforts to care for family and the greater whole.  In my youth, mechanical drawing, a 1950’s Life magazine article on Pollack’s dripping paint and Albers’ Homage to a Square, WWII environment and exposure to American and European masters including artist such a Winslow Homer and Casper Friedrich in Jr High Humanities class.  Simultaneously a sculpture of a warped contour made from plastic string by the Constructivist artist Pevsner or Gabo, which lodged in my brain, surfacing years later, to become a critical theme in my wall constructions and drawings in the nature of ambiguous non-coplanar surfaces and voids articulating contour as idea.

4. How big is your studio, what kind of lighting?

My studios have always been large to accommodate sculpture fabrication, equipment storage, exhibition area and drawing space. In my drawing space is a large work table located for direct southern exposure and use of daylight via large rollup doors facing south and west, and large windows. I also use well balanced shop fluorescents and spots. Working outside in natural light and shadow has always been integral to my work so large roll up doors offer access to outdoor work areas.

5. What is a typical day in the studio like for you? Do you listen to music, radio or tv in your studio?

A typical day involves writing, working in the sketchbook, coffee at a small store on the beach and maintaining my three acre sculpture garden. Drawing time is usually combined with staging work and sculpture fabrication. I don’t listen to music, but instead prefer ambient sounds of my surrounding environment, process, equipment, birds, dog barks, neighbor cows mooing, coyotes yipping or howling, eagles calling,  Lake Union Air flying overhead.

In Robert’s sculpture garden: “Etruria Column”, 2005, stainless steel, 144″ x 14″ (a variation of a concept first done in 1967)

6. What is your preferred medium?  Do you work on one project at a time or several?

My works on paper are usually on vellum using graphite, dry pigments and acrylics, freehand fashion. Application techniques and process both messy and/or precise are intuitive, fluid, accidental and unexpected with intention.

7. Do you have any special or unique tools, devices or process that you use in your art making?

I work in a series. Once a piece is complete I don’t make changes or adjustments.  I like an oblique approach, looking to understand something, discover what that something is and allowing for organic evolution. I basically learn later what I have done.  Two pleasures: the process and the residue and a diary that marks time.

8. What do you do outside the studio, aside from a job?

Outside of the studio I head to the beach or wilderness with my dog Jasper. I plant trees and care for my property and outdoor sculpture garden. I’m also VP of nonprofit Wild Love Preserve, who’s mission is protect and preserve our iconic native wild horses in a collaborative and sustainable manner, so I travel regularly to the wilds of Central Idaho with my daughter and our dogs to work on and off the range with Idaho’s majestic wild horses. This work is life fulfilling in so many ways and perfectly compliments my studio activities.

“Triple Pentagon, Six Locations”, 1979, graphite on vellum, 19 x 24″ im.

“#5 Arc (3 sections- 2 white) 5, 5A, 5B”, 1980, graphite & white pigment on vellum, 19 x 24″ im.

“White Timaeus”, 1984, graphite & white pigment on vellum, 19 x 24″ im.

“Afternoon Phase / Pentagon Oval”, 1984, graphite & white pigment on vellum, 19 x 24″ im.