“Observing Observing (a white cup): Kenny Harris”

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.

“Observing Observing (a white cup)” opens September 12th and continues through October 31, 2015

Curated by Eric Elliott, Michael Howard & Norman Lundin. More than twenty artists (both gallery artists and not) accepted the invitation to submit work.

Reception for the artists, Sept. 12, 2 – 4 pm

Artist Interview #19: Kenny Harris

1. How did you respond to the idea of the white cup?

For me the conditions are very important- so I waited till the right conditions were present and I found a cup and painted it in a sitting.

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

Yes, full time. I teach art as well at Laguna College of Art + Design

3. When did you consider yourself an artist?

I think when I moved to LA from New York with the intent of being an artist- Leaving behind a graphics career.

4. What are your influences?

Old European painting and certain modernist movements- Vermeer + Diebenkorn. Velazquez + Morandi.

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

My current studio is a bedroom in my house—2 north facing windows plus a large fluorescent fixture to augment the natural light. It works well for studio work, but I like painting from life else where: “in the field”, ie on location wherever!

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

I listen to music and radio a lot. Day usually starts with NPR, then some mid tempo music, then I like a certain type of high energy bass music to keep my brain agile and moving.

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

Oil on panel, or oil primed canvas/linen. I work on lots at a time. Many small studies, a few larger works in progress.

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

Nothing too special—I use a lot of palette knife. I’ll use long handled brushes sometimes. Recently I started doing some portraits on plexiglass.. not sure where that’s going but we’ll see!

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

Well, travel is very important, so my wife Judy and I do that a lot—gathering inspiration. I like to play beach volleyball in Venice and Santa Monica, and jump in the ocean when I can!

“White Cup on Green Wall”, 2015, oil on panel, 8 x 6″

“Dale Lindman & Robert Maki” Dale Lindman

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 #4: Dale Lindman

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

It’s been my good fortune to be able to do my art and teach painting, drawing and design at Bellevue College for the past twenty years.

2. When did you consider yourself an artist?

Probably in my mid to late thirties. Before that, I just tried to consider myself an “art maker”, trying to avoid any baggage that came from being called an artist. It finally came to me that was pretty pretentious, and I was just an artist.

3. What are your influences?

Like everyone else, my influences are too innumerable to go through. Art wise, early on I was influenced by the physicality of early Robert Rauschenberg. Interestingly, my next big art influence was the polar opposite, when I was blown away by a black painting by Ad Reinhardt. This opened the door to all the Abstract Expressionists; Rothko, Still, Newman, DeKooning, Pollock and Kline to name a few. At the time I was in school, minimalism was big, but I really wasn’t drawn to it. I did though respond to people who were dealing with perception like Robert Irwin. Currently, I love a lot of older Asian art and being in nature.

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

After twenty years in Pioneer Square, I moved my studio to a new house that had a garage with eleven feet ceilings. It’s about 650 square feet of working area. It fits my needs nicely and I don’t have to find parking! The lighting is a mixture of full spectrum fluorescents and incandescents.

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 in the studio includes a range of activity; making panels, painting, arranging and rearranging existing panels, and lots of looking. I started listening to the blues in my Pioneer Square studio to drown out the noise of the viaduct, now it’s become a habit.

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

I started out as an oil painter and then moved to encaustic for about fifteen years. In the early nineties I shared a studio with the late Drake Deknatel, who was like a wizard chemist with acrylic mediums. Since that time I have worked with polymer based mediums, but I don’t use them like most people, out of a tube. I make my own paint with dry and dispersed pigments with a lot of additives. Acrylic is really good glue! The latest smaller works in this show are traditional oil paint (some I grind myself) and wax on Yupo* paper. Because of the limitation of physicality in size and texture, it has pushed me more to color. I work on several things at a time. I find they feed off each other and it makes me make stronger work.

* Yupo is a synthetic paper, machine-made in the USA of 100% polypropylene. It is waterproof, stain-resistant, and extremely strong and durable.

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

I pour, scrape, grind, drip and sprinkle, using tools like; my hand, brush, knives, bottoms of paint buckets, egg cartons, and paint roller cages with no paint roller on it. I use whatever I have around and it usually just comes to me like, “I wonder what marks this will make?”

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

What I do for fun is to spend as much time with my wife of thirty-five years as I can. Also being with my two kids, that and walking my two dogs, Willow and Gus.

“Shadow’s Gate”, 2014, oil & wax on Yupo paper, 8 x 7″ im., 11 x 17″ fr.

“Untitled (Brown Cross)”, 2015, oil on Yupo paper, 20.25 x 6.75″

“Untitled (Purple Top)”, 2014, oil on Yupo paper, 15.5 x 4.5″

Untitled, 2014, oil on Yupo paper, 20 ⅝ x 6 ⅞”, photo: Margaret Zydek

“Untitled (White Square)”, 2014, oil on Yupo, 8 x 7″