Bumping Galaxies

I had a bone to pick with you, but I ate it

2010-11-24T20:24:00.000-08:00

What does to Pick a Bone mean? Answers.com says: Bone to pick," dates back to the 16th century, simply refers to a dog chewing endlessly on, and "picking clean," a large bone. A "bone to pick" is thus a subject or issue that is expected to require considerable discussion or argument.

What if the argument exists between you and the world? Or to be more direct, between you and YOUR world?

When I painted this piece it was a way of saying...I'll just ingest that. I'll eat it and deal with it another day. It's just too big to chew.

Maybe if I chew JUST ENOUGH the bones will pass through and won't hurt so much. Not digested, exactly, but smaller at least.

No go.

All the bones I have to pick with myself are still there, like undigested soul food. The soul needs us to be thorough. It needs us to have teeth. To break things down.

Some folks break down all at once. Too many undigested bones, and the body just can't take it. Collapse. I can chew on some things til there aren't nutrients any more. Like a soul starvation.

I suppose the next logical question is, why am I eating things with bones? Simple enough, and true. So I'm back in the studio working on what makes me feel closer to my soul. I'm painting what's in my guts. This is rare for me. To be able to start a canvas with nothing mapped out. I'm allowing myself to be free of what I should paint, and letting myself just paint.

What's coming out of it? Chess pieces. Somber, outrageous, hilarious chess pieces. I don't know why. It's MY move, I guess.

On the road to Utah

2010-06-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Me n' Molly are headed to Utah. This is the first show I've done without Todd with me. I think it's important to prove to myself that I can do it. I mean, what if he broke his leg? Had amnesia? Lost his sense of direction? I'd have to take over. I AM taking over.

A short blog, I know.

Hope Vs. the Dollar

2010-05-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

There are two mighty considerations to being an artist. Creating innovative work, and making money. It seems unromantic, but rent has to be paid. How can I separate my work from my everyday reality so that the fear and stress won't effect my connection to my art?

There are ways. Because I believe my internal world is not separated from my work world, I aim to consciously create an environment that is open, clean, and fluid. I keep my house clean. When the temperature reaches 60 degrees, I open windows. I buy fresh, clean food. I make my bed. I feed the hummingbirds, sing to the cats, wash dishes, clean brushes. Every morning is a place where I have provided for myself what I call 'Future Self'. I think about what I will need the next day to feel welcomed and loved. So I do the dishes, clean the litter box, brush my teeth. All for who I will be when I wake up tomorrow. When I do wake up I have happy cats, a fresh bed, and a clean kitchen to make coffee to start my day.

I take care of who I am now in service of who I need to be tomorrow. I know that I will need my rocking chair, coffee, and cats to start my day. If I have that, nothing else matters. My paintings are all that I think about. All that I need to think about. And no matter how harsh the new day's news may be, I'm ready. My world is primed. Waiting for me to work.

My world has come down to what I can give to myself. When I find a toothpick in my purse, knowing that I put it there thinking of myself in the future, I feel loved. I suppose this is a sort of multidimensional love. Me now, me later, me as the ultimate source of self love.

Getting Ready for Fair Season...oh, and my Fair Schedule!

2010-04-26T17:36:00.000-07:00

I have twenty two days to finish 24 works of art. I've been working on them all winter but I hit the road on May 31st. By then everything has to be finished, scanned or photographed, titled and framed.

I'm trying to stay calm. The paintings are looking good. Really good, and I don't want to rush them. Some will come together without a fight and others will stymie me, but they WILL get done.

My favorite moment is when every piece is done and dry and I can frame. It's like trying on clothes. I have a collection of custom Roma frames and every piece fits perfectly in a particular frame, but I don't always know which frame that will be until the end. I sit on the floor surrounded by frames and new work and meticulously try each frame on each piece until I get that unmistakable feeling. The one that sweeps all the gray cloud from my mind and the sun blasts through and the obvious is revealed. With frames the paintings take on a kind of sculptural feel. The body of work together looks like tiny doorways into other worlds. No one else has seen it yet. It's mine, for just a little while.

I'm going to open up my studio so that people can come in and look at new work before I take it on the road. Normally I do a spring show, but...times is tough. I like the idea of simplicity right now. No wine and music and postcards. It costs me $1500 to pull off a show! Worth it in 2006, but for now my studio door is open, and you (yes YOU) can come in and check it out. Then maybe my fans can see my paintings like I do. Here, temporarily together, before being taken out to see the world and live lives of their own.

....oh, and my fair schedule!

June:

Prairie Village Art Show (Kansas City, MO) June 4,5,6 (prairievillageshops.com)
Old Town Art Fair (Chicago, Ill) June 12,13 (OldTownArtFair.org.)(not Wells Street Fair!!!)
Utah Arts Festival (Salt Lake City, UT) June 24 through 27th (uaf.org)

July

Art Fair on the Square (Madison, WI) July 10,11 (mmoca.org)
Bellevue Festival the Arts (Bellevue, WA) July 23,24,25 (bellevuefest.org)

September

Sausalito Art Fair (Sausalito, CA) Sept. 3, through 6th (waitlisted but will probably be there)
Saint Louis Art Fair (Saint Louis, MO) Sept. 10,11, 12 (bigread.net)

Gold in the Garage

2010-02-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

There comes a time when the garage needs to be dealt with. That time came for me last week when I could no longer see the floor, and my frayed nerves turned to slight depression every time I adventured into it.

As Western Washingtonians well know, the sun does something magical to us after a trying winter. We get giddy. Kind of stupid and squinty-eyed. The sun filled me with the urge to clean the garage.

Way back in 2006 when the economy was shiny and business was growing, I bought a ton of new shop tools. Mat cutters, sanders, saws, and a new booth. The shop was humming with activity. However, a massive shift in my career was about to take place...a switch to oil painting. In learning how to use oils the watercolor supplies were no longer necessary. My shop began to pile up with an inventory of things that I no longer needed.

Cut to 2010. A messy shop full of stuff I no longer need. A refrigerator that is usually empty. Dreading bills that I was proud to be able to pay before the Great Repression. And then, Tah Dah! A thought. Why not sell off your old stuff, and buy some food? Yeah, times are rough. Sell stuff to buy FOOD? Yes. Because there is someone out there who needs great tools at a great price, and I want more than anything to fill my fridge.

I think that's a good thing, any way you look at it.

Aqua Art Miami, Spies, and Cream Puffs

2010-01-10T16:57:00.000-08:00

December 2009 was a year of spies, intrigue, over sized cream puffs, and Aqua Art Miami, the most important venue my work has been in yet.

The art business has been dismal all over the planet. I will draw a parallel between that, and floating about in a troublesome sea in a huge striped inner tube. I am wondering if sharks might eat me, and then remember that I have Oreos in a lunch baggy in my shirt pocket. I kept them for emergencies. I'm smart like that. It may not be a luxury liner. It may not even be a dingy. But let's look at the positive. It's chocolaty goodness with frosting in the middle. That's better than being eaten by sharks, or worse, thrown out into the street with paintbrush in hand. I have survived another year as a working artist.

I'll bet your wondering about the spies and intrigue part? Picture Milwaukee. (If you've not been there imagine a muscular city with lots of churches and no one in the street because it's 2 degrees outside) Imagine a super secret doorway in an alley that opens up into a small room that leads nowhere. Push a button and a woman asks you for a password. Since I didn't know the password I was forced to hold hands with my friends and sing Ring around the Rosie before we were let in via a secret door. On the way back to Madison from Milwaukee we stopped at a gas station that featured cream puffs as big as my head. I bought one, a two pound sweet death by cream puff.

And of course, Aqua Art Miami. Emanuel Volakis Gallery represented my work at this show. This article explains what Aqua is better than I possibly could:

http://www.seattlemag.com/pages/index.cfm?PAGE_ID=120&ARTICLE_ID=1103

2010? That started out with an embarrassment of riches. My best friend loves Joseph Campbell. I do too. Formula: watch hours of his seminars with best friend and light a match to the fire.

December 5th Solo Renegade Art Exhibition

2009-11-30T11:46:00.000-08:00

What the Children Know

Art exhibition December 5th

1-7pm
1605 Boylston Ave

Top Floor

Located on Capitol hill
between Boylston and Pine

Please join me for a walk in the
gardens of childhood and view my newest
work inspired by this years experiences at
Burning Man.

Problems finding parking on Capitol Hill?
No problem!
A public pay parking lot is across the street.

Best Trip Ever

2009-07-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

I showed at very few fairs this year but one stood out....Madison Wisconsin's Art Fair on the Square. We don't have much time to investigate the amazing cities that we travel to, but it finally happened this year in Madison.

A few years ago we met a couple (Paul and Tim) in our booth who bought an original painting, but our relationship didn't stop there. I got a call from Paul last fall inviting us to stay at the hotel where he runs the bar, the Radisson. This wasn't our usual stay because these are really nice rooms with Sleep By Number beds and that was really all we needed to be happy....but Paul had more in store. He had the inspiration to have a little show at the hotel, and made it happen. Everything went of swimmingly. He and Tim showed us all around Madison. For lunch we went to Ella's Deli. What can I say about this place but Whoa! Robots and snow machines and characters of all kinds flying around. It was crazy, and the food rocked.

We then visited the Olbrich Botanical Gardens featuring (among a million other things) a lazy river that runs through the gardens and an authentic Thai Temple.

The last stop was the state capitol building....the second largest in the US. The inside was breathtaking.

I was excited to go on this trip for months before we went. It was the first time that anyone has hosted us and treated like rock stars. Oh, and the fair was pretty damn good too.

So if you ever find yourself at the Radisson in Madison have a cocktail in the bar and strike up a conversation with Paul Walker. The staff is like a family, and it shows. They'll take great care of you!

We love you Paul and Tim!

When cats smell like windows

2009-06-23T18:13:00.000-07:00

It's the small things in life that, woven together, create a tangible and real experience. Our brains must filter out much of what life has to offer. There are bills to pay, plans to be made and re-made, and an endless quest to better ourselves. Sometimes it seems like the quest to become overwhelmes our ability to sit in the spaces of being.

To be an artist means that those spaces must be dealt with. They are the sirens that call an artist to sit on the edge of the experience of being human amongst the noise and madness. To recognize the urge to create, to know ourselves, to experiment and find that self no matter how much it hurts and how little glory the adventure may bring. But the glory is there. In the small things. There are millions. Billions. A river of glorious moments.

When I was growing up I had a room of my own. It had two windows. Those windows were a thin wall between life inside a house, and the world outside. I used to open my windows when it rained so I could hear rain on the roof. Rain on the street. Wind in the trees. On still, cold nights the windows would be closed. It was foggy outside, and quiet. I would light a candle and write at my little desk. The important thing was knowing the fog was thick outside. It was winter. When I blew out the candle the smell of the extinguished candle filled the room, and I'd crawl into bed.

Now I'm an adult and I've built a life around being an artist. Being authentic. Reproducing on canvas what it feels like to be me. That means that I have to be me when I'm not painting. My job is a part of every aspect of my days, because that is where I draw my inspiration from. From the small things. Two of my favorite small things are my cats. They sit by the open window in my studio. I pick one up and smell it's fur. It smells like a window cat. Like sweet morning air. I sit in my big blue chair and watch crows balance on the very tippy tops of trees in the distance like they own the world. The smell of coffee fills the house. Bird song comes in through the window. Morning is like a gift unwrapped. It's the promise of time, a whole day. A gift. That is the beginning of unwrapping what a day has to offer. Sometimes it's a gift I never wanted. Sometimes the gift is so great and well timed all I can think about is how lucky I am. How blessed.

These moments make up for the long driving hours, the uncertainty, the anguish that comes with being a working artist. But the very best reward is being present for every moment in a single day. Every day is mine. It is a heavy responsibility to know about the microscopic red spider that crawled on my canvas, the knowledge that I could simply rest my finger upon it and crush away it's tiny life. But I wait for it to creep to the edge of my canvas, pick it up with the end of my brush and set it down on a flower by the side of the house. My business is not to take life away. It's to encourage life. To open the path.

Third Renegade Art Show

2009-05-08T12:20:00.000-07:00

The Third Renegade Art Show is almost upon us! May 16th 1-9pm at the Tukwila Community Center Social Hall. (Directions are at the bottom of this post)

Paintings are getting framed, musicians are getting booked, and my excitement level is getting higher every day.

A portion of my new collection includes a number of works created after studio time at the Gage Academy this fall and winter with contemporary realist master Geoffrey Laurence . And the amazing young master Rita Natarova

These works are inspired by obscure Edwardian photographs who's heads I have replaced with doe-eyed dolls. They are a subtle interpretation of my internal state. The rest of the collection is filled out with my normal crazed state of working in the moment and having fun with my humorous side.

This time instead of having just my art I've included Anthony Angel, an inspired jeweler: Anthony Angel

And the perfected tees and sweatshirt line of Slate Clothing

Please join us for this rockin' event!

Tukwila Community Center Directions

The Countdown

2009-04-11T22:04:00.000-07:00

The countdown to my next Renegade Art Show (Saturday, May 16th) is on. The postcard image has been chosen and sent to the printers. The space for the show is secured. Application for local business license applied for....I just need a banquet license and I'm almost there.

I love having shows. That's how I started off selling art...make postcards, buy booze and food and hang the art. This time I'm going to have the show in the Tukwila Community Center. It's a gorgeous space and it was obnoxiously expensive but I didn't want to risk rain if I did another outdoor show.

I've decided to try out a sweet and simple and more affordable line of work as well as the new, higher end works that will be at the show. I had six months to paint for the season and the new work is taking a long time to create and so there isn't as much of it. But I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and there will be time to create some fun affordable works to add into the mix.

Dear Blog

2009-04-02T20:37:00.000-07:00

Dear Blog,

I have been remiss. I have neglected you. I want to share everything with you because you are my portal, and you let me say anything I want. What a good friend you have been.

During our separation I have been painting. That won't come as a surprise. But times have been hard. I'm not living in a tent, or wanting for food or love. But I may as well have been, because I have become a victim of the national news which tells me that the world is possibly coming to and end. Or is ending. I can't tell which. I have taken this turn of events personally. I've recently decided that I don't like the Universe because it gave me exactly what I asked for. Or rather, took it away.

Let me explain myself.

I may have mentioned off-handedly (to the Universe) that I don't like selling art at art fairs. That they are expensive and exhausting to an extreme. They take away my vital energy and replace it with caffeine and hard hotel beds where there are no cats. This is tragic, and unnecessary. I MAY have said some hard things about jurors who refuse to choose my art. Perhaps violent things. All this happened. And then I went to school to get better at what I do. So the jurors would love me again. I did get better, and said jurors loved my work even less.

That was when I shook my fist at the sky and screamed...'WHY ME?' They don't like me, they really, really don't like me! How will I ever survive? I might die.

But then I went to see my therapist. (If one thinks one might die, a therapist is just the thing) I found myself telling her that no, I don't REALLY think I will die. Or fail. That in fact I DID tell the Universe that I would much rather not sell art at art fairs but instead stay home and paint and learn and grow and sell my work at galleries who understand and love me.

So dear Blog, I've been going through this THING. This existential meltdown that ultimately reminded me that the Universe loves me. That art fairs are not the real judge and jury of my paintings, but that every person who has bought and or admired my work IS.

I promise to write again soon.

Juli

A New DIrection

2009-02-27T09:09:00.000-08:00

I was back in the studio and ready to try out my new knowledge. I was full of fearlessness and new ideas and ready to tackle the unthinkable....a new direction. A few still lifes and and a morning coffee inspiration....dolls in the setting of Edwardian children's photo portraits.

Once I got started I realized that what was in my head was a perfect intellectual understanding of what I had learned in class, but in the doing I created as many problems as I thought I had solved.

I was told that Flake White (Lead White) is the best to use in underpainting because of it's reflectivity. I was told to make the under layers nice and thick. The Flake White took FOREVER to dry. That was a problem because I needed to use my new creations for jury, and the deadlines were looming too close.

Once the initial layers were dry enough to continue painting I realized that the under layers were so thick that my tiny figures were looking cakey and strange. So lesson one...paint thin on miniatures! Finally I was ready to begin my first adventure into glazing and scumble. This are the final layers that are mostly medium (numerous terpentines, oil, and cobalt dryer...smelly!!). If there is white paint mixed with any color in these layers it's called a scumble. If there is only let's say, blue, then the layer is a transparent blue and it's called a glaze. Both are used to enhance the layers beneath.

At this point I began to sweat because the cakey under layers fought with the smooth faces I had envisioned. I saw that I was basically repainting the layers and worried that I would lose the detail of previous layers. But I kept at it.

Ten to fifteen layers later things had begun to take shape. Although I can't say my new paintings are perfect I learned a lot about what to do with the next set of miniatures. I am reasonably happy with them and I'm ready to start the next set.

Getting Schooled

2009-01-29T15:58:00.000-08:00

Some call it artist's block, I called it hitting a wall. It's like opening your mouth to say something profound (because it's in you, you can feel it in your guts) but all that comes out is....'blurk!'

Over and over. It's the only word you can say.

I know very well why this is. There is a time when I had to face the reality that my technical skills did not measure up to where I want to go with my painting. There is a great way to deal with that problem.

Go back to school.

The school of my choice is the Gage Academy here in Seattle. I was looking for advanced classes taught by masters in an old school type of environment. I wanted to be hit hard with information. Submerged, challenged, overwhelmed.

And that's what I got. Two all day week long painting intensives taught by masters who's process is diametrically opposite of each other. The first class was taught by Rita Natarova who teaches from a very feminine, gut level place. We were given no formulas. We painted strictly by natural light, with a model. The light here is poor in winter, and it felt like the second part of the day was in near darkness. Artificial light changes the colors of paint dramatically. It was amazing how close I could get on my canvas to what I was actually seeing. That class was a gift. I knew that the next one would be totally different.

Geoffrey Laurence's class had formulas. Fifteen pages of notes. Introducing: Indirect Painting. The way the old masters used to do it. Layer upon layer upon layer each layer a different reason, consistency and focus. Every hour was scripted, and used to the fullest. It was exhausting. But now I know what all those chemicals are for.

Geoffrey Laurence is a wonderful teacher. He's brisk, opinionated, passionate....a master. He painted alongside me in class and my painting looked stupid next to his. (You'll be able to tell his painting from mine in the photos) I already had quite a lot of humility. But I don't mind being beaten to a pulp in a serious class. My mind is clay in there. Everything that he or Rita said to me made perfect sense. In other scenario's I might get annoyed being told...'your drawing has failed you'. But...he was right.

Now I'm back in the studio and everything has changed. I don't know where this is going, but I'm not at that stupid wall anymore. I'm in mid-air, and the land is beautiful from here.

Giant Spiders and Other Curios in Washington DC

2009-01-29T15:20:00.000-08:00

During the holidays I took myself to Washington DC for a museum tour...starting with the Hirshorn Sculpture Garden. The sculptures took my breath away. I wanted to climb onto the reclining woman and sit in her lap. I wanted to put my arms around her. The seated girl is poised, angular, her limbs and the chair she sits on occupying their own perfect space.

Then I ran into a giant spider. I don't like spiders. I hate spiders. I used to dream of giant spiders in my dad's workshop downstairs. They spun their webs until the room was full of them. It was the scariest thing I've ever seen. So when I found that spider in Washington DC, I figured that the best thing to do....was bite it. On the leg. As a warning, you understand.

Invisible

2008-12-11T23:00:00.001-08:00

Is there competition between artists who have never met or seen each others' work in person? Are we trying to outdo each other by virtue of what is published in magazines and nothing else?

These are questions I am asking myself these days because I spend more time in the studio than in galleries and social events. My only contact with artists at large lately have been in print. I wonder how to view this work. Is it published because these artists were at the right place at the right time, or because they are the cream of the crop?

In some cases I think some artists simply stand out. They have connected with the unknown and given it a name. In other cases...right place right time.

You can be a great artist who's afraid of leaving your house, or a not so accomplished artist who attends every event, business card in hand in hopes of meeting the 'who's who' to get your name out there. The answer may be somewhere between drive and self fulfillment. Either way if there is any hope of making money as an artist, someone has to see your work, like it, and buy it. There are numerous ways of doing that and it's hard to know where to start.

We live in a cyber world where access to information is endless. Established publications with regular viewers are the obvious place to turn to for viewing upcoming and established art. But where do they get inspiration to focus on an individual artist? Submissions? Maybe. But I have a feeling that somewhere along the line artists must make connections. They don't have to be shmoozy surface connections. They can be real. Getting out into the real world beyond the magazines is the only way to materialize that kind of connection.

So yes, there is competition. Great work inspires great work. Mediocre work levels the playing field. There is no point in staying invisible unless you prefer that no one sees your work. If you want your work to have a presence in the world YOU must have a presence in the world. That, in itself, draws attention. The rest is following through.

Where's Your Head At?

2008-11-30T17:14:00.000-08:00

I don't know. I never have known exactly. But I can say that wherever it is that my head goes I may as well capitalize on it because it's going to go there anyway. That was my thinking at my last job, sitting in front of the computer listening to the buzz of fluorescent lights and wondering if there was anything worth living for.

They called us Generation X. The lazy good for nothing generation. But for this Gen X'er, it was not laziness. It was the fact that I could not earn more than 8 bucks an hour even though I had an education. It was the fact that my education was basically worthless from grade school onwards. So it wasn't laziness in the end. It was frustration and a sense of hopelessness that I had no place in the world.

So instead of looking outward for clues to lead me to who I was and where I belonged, I looked inwards. I knew myself to be a passionate, intelligent person. My musings had to be worth something...so I followed my thoughts and that led me not only out of the box but out of normal reality altogether.

After making the announcement that I would be taking 'the Plunge' I began to work my ass off. Life formed itself around the process of creating, framing and showing art. I had 50 shows in cafes, clubs, and restaurants in the Seattle area before I hit the art fair scene.

The art fair scene has given a lot to my career, but my dream is to study art for a while, work with galleries, and have private shows and studio visits. Then my time can be spent painting and not flying or driving.

So that, for now, is where my head is at.

Renegade Art Show in Seattle Nov.22nd

2008-11-11T20:49:00.001-08:00

Interchangeable Universe: How the Human experience becomes a Universal experience.

November 22nd 1-9pm. 76 S. Washington Street M106 Second Floor, Seattle. (between the Viaduct and 1st Avenue...look for signage, you'll see it)

All new works in oil from miniatures to really, really big. If you have big huge square stockings for Christmas then small prints are a great stocking stuffer, or a Limited Edition print for the collector (larger socks required).

Exhibition at RiverSea Gallery/ Press Release

2008-11-01T11:30:00.000-07:00

Juli Adams has aptly titled her newest show of paintings and drawings, Night in the Cobweb Day: Tales of the Spaces in Between.

The exhibit will be on display at Astoria’s RiverSea Gallery on November 9, and the artist reception will be held during Arts Night Out on Saturday, November 15, from 5 to 9 p.m.
The public is invited to meet the artist, and indulge in art, music and refreshments during this event. The artwork will remain on view through December 2.

As the title of the show suggests, much of the work by this Seattle area artist belies the predicted spaces of our more common expectations, where a mysterious visage is neither portraiture nor caricature, where exaggerated, pouting eyes suggest an interior world, but one cloaked in the beauty of characters the artist clearly has compassion for.

"I don't believe in artist's block. Working, for me, is a process. It is a relationship with myself. It is always growing, giving, and taking. It demands that I pay attention to myself and the world," says Adams.

Adams' style contrasts flat, architectural draftsmanship with life-like sculpted forms that tempt with juicy bites of sunny summers, lost thoughts, and head-in-the-clouds dreaminess.

The people and creatures that inhabit Adams' world are soft and time-worn, something to cherish, and hold tight; characters so affectionately rendered, they beckon like a long-lost teddy bear or a favorite rocking chair.

If there is an apex to Adams' surrealism, it is in the eyes, where much of the detail and focus of these works takes shape, a point of fixed precision, amid an emotional sea of strange forces and inner complexities.

"The face and the eyes are the mask that exists between the outer reality and the inner reality," says Adams.

If one hopes to explore this avenue between the internal and external, these inscrutable, bewitching portals are so clearly the place to start.

And if Adams' realer than real approach didn't already grab you, she has recently begun working mostly in oils in order to push the illusions of volume even further.

Adams is clearly inspired by the architecture of the human body, the mysteries of the human drama and the unbound flight of the imagination, but if any personality serves as her primary muse, it is likely her own.

"When I paint, each painting is individually of that moment," says Adams. "It comes from these indefinable places that happen in the imagination."

Adams takes the reality we know, and tweaks it. The sleek features of a dark-haired nymph become even sharper. The gangly limbs of a lithe figure are stretched to express what is integral to our ideas of beauty and balance.

But Adams has not only created a successful amalgamation of abstraction, realism, and figure study, she has thrown in a unique sort of storytelling.

Deliberately, Adams' work forces us to question our own sense of what is real and what is false. What is the subject's vulnerability, and what is our own? Adams’ work lures with hints and mysteries without ever painting into a corner the plights and outcomes of these varied scenarios.

In many ways, Adams extends an invitation. The finished piece is the beginning. The real adventure emerges within the expectations and imagination of the viewer, when personal experience coalesces with the tale on the canvas.

"It's not a story, so much as a moment in time," explains Adams, "something connected to the moment before, and the moment after."

As long as these paintings continue to emerge, Adams will continue to illuminate these often ineffable spaces in between.

"My paintings are a response to understanding those dimmer areas. That's what the title of the show means," says Adams, "the place where you see everything that's connected."

RiverSea Gallery is open daily at 1160 Commercial Street in the heart of downtown Astoria’s historic Liberty Theater District, and represents established and emerging artists from the Northwest and beyond. For more information about this show and upcoming events, call gallery staff at 503-325-1270 or go to www.riverseagallery.com.

Not Erasing, Taking Away

2008-10-10T10:07:00.000-07:00

There is a difference between good advice and bad advice. A few years ago there was a lull at the show I was at and I was doing what I usually do, draw. My neighbor, a friend and fellow artist looked over at what I was doing and pronounced: 'You should NEVER ERASE!! All the best work comes from spontaneity!'

I considered shoving my pencil in his eye, but rolled my eyes instead. Obviously that comment is still on my mind. The reason is because he had no idea what my process is. He decided that I was doing it wrong and that I needed a lesson from the old veteran.

While he was right that spontaneous drawing without erasing is a good practice (I do that too, it's fun) he didn't take into consideration that I might have known what I was doing. I also hate to waste paper, especially quality paper. That, and I have a reason for creating the way that I do.

My process goes like this. Stare at blank sheet of paper. Scribble on blank sheet of paper with eyes closed. Open eyes. Look for life. Once life is detected, mess with it. Add lines, take lines away until it begins to live on it's own. I love working this way, and have been consciously doing it for years. But he couldn't know that, because he didn't ask.

So in essence, I'm not erasing parts of my drawing. I'm taking them away. Discarding them in favor of other, better parts because I know the difference between something that doesn't need to be there, and something that does. That's what makes my art what it is.

Images from the other side of the door

2008-10-03T21:14:00.000-07:00

I've been asked dozens of times if I use my dreams for reference to paint. The answer has always been no. Except once.

My dreams are vasty and varied. They are too slippery to capture and hold onto. It would be like watching a movie and trying to remembering one single frame. I do dream in pictures. Full color moving breathing scenery.

Then one day I painted a strange head balloon in a sunset cloud sky. It brought back a strong memory of my dreams when I was little. In waking hours I would swing on the swing set in the backyard for hours. That was my thinking place. At night I would dream of being in that backyard but the sky came alive with creatures, characters of enormous size. There was no noise. Total silence. I remember staring in wonder at sky...it was no different than being awake except that I was seeing things no one else could.

I looked at my painting and realized that I had touched a little of that magic in this one piece. So I named it 'You Asked Me What I Dream About' to answer the question so many people have asked me.

What Does Bumping Galaxies MEAN Anyway?!

2008-10-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

Bumping Galaxies popped into my head when thinking of a blog title. I asked myself what reminded me of....me. What words to describe my work. Not just my work, my life, my thoughts, what it is to be an artist. I cannot separate what I do from who I am. They are one thing. I do not leave my work at work.

So anyway about the Bumping Galaxy thing...I was thinking about microcosms and galaxies as though they were my own brain cells bumping around in my head. I thought about how everything there is, is bumping around one galaxy or another, colliding or wafting past each other like shadows. My brain is, in essence, a galaxy.

There is an endless nature to thoughts and what happens when one single thought turns itself into a spinning, radiating pattern of a life. It connects to everything it touches. That is what my brain is like. A thought machine finely tuned to turn abstract thoughts into something more...