Barbara Craver Art

July 2010 Plein Rein Group Show at the Canvas in Juneau

The Plein Rein Painters of Juneau have hung a new group show at the Canvas Art Gallery in Juneau!  This is a very nice, accessible space on Seward Street in downtown Juneau, Alaska.  We will have a reception on this Friday, July 9th from 4:30 to 7:30.  Please come by to visit and see what we've been up to in the past several months.

Organizing and hanging a show requires a lot of work!  Thanks to our group, and the wonderful support of MK and Donna at the Canvas we have a very nice show to share.  We have publicity distributed, food organized, labels and prices collected and mounted, and a bright, airy and welcoming gallery to show our work.

We have found, over time that the essentials for hanging a show (other than nails, hammers, pencils, tacky stick-um stuff for labels on walls, and tape measures) is:

1. Not too many helpers - 2 is OK, 4 is good - more than that is not better. Involve someone who has hung a few shows, or an artist not involved in the show to offer objective feedback.
2. Consider the overall design and viewpoint from the gallery entrance and windows (if any!), but do not spend too much time on the plan, hanging takes a lot of time, and you need to get started!
3. Line up work on the floor to get spacing and flow down.
4. Open the wine AFTER you get about half done, but don't fail to lubricate the workers, as this does not have to be punishment!
5. Don't be afraid to just put a nail in and get started!  Measuring is advisable, but the mathphobia and fractions involved can daunt many an artist - so don't get too "hung up"  (sorry) on measuring.
6. Lighting is very important, work with your gallery to eliminate dark areas, and replace missing bulbs.
7. Get your show hung, at latest, the night before the opening, an extra day is really nice, to handle missing labels, bad hanging hardware . . . 

The Phantom Waterfall

Constance, Jane and I were at Cope Park on Friday morning and discovered a new waterfall. We were excited (and a bit puzzled, but noticed a culvert that was not new - so the Flume had not sprug a leak), and started painting and sketching.

  

Within 30 minutes the frothy waterfall had quite markedly diminished! After we had started our pictures based on the nice movement down the hill. 


This is a new plein aire phenomenon. We are used to changing weather, tides, and shadows - but to have a waterfall stop within half an hour????

Oh well.

Friends and Neighbors - First Friday, April 3, 2009 at The Canvas

Constance Baltuck Hartle and I will have a new show at The Canvas Gallery, 223 Seward St. Juneau, AK 99801 (907) 586-1750.  Our opening reception will be on the First Friday of April, April 3, 2009 from 4:30 - 7:30.  We will have music, refreshments and would love to see all our friends there. 

The theme of this show is figures.  Constance and I practice life drawing to work on our skills drawing the human figure.  While life drawing traditionally involves nude models, we also wanted to give ourselves permission to really focus on the figure in general.  These paintings are based on friends, family members, and neighbors in various settings.

See the Friends and Neighbors photo gallery for a preview of my paintings.

Go to Constance's website for a preview of her work:  www.constancebhartle.typepad.com

Getting abstracted

In the process of working on figure themed paintings I opened myself to some new approaches.  One of the most recent and exciting approach was to take  figure paintings I was less than satisfied with and simplify the strongest design elements such as the figures, and then work on playing with the negative space around the figures.  I was able to get much more free with the line, color and sense of space once I freed myself from the need place figures in a realistic background.

My first try was the simple figure taken from a sketch done at life drawing.  I did love the initial pose and shape but let myself play with the internal shapes, without regard to overall figure.  After much play I then had to work on pulling the elements back together, adding emphasis and taking away contrast.  The thrill and sense of experimentation tells me that I need to continue to explore this new path!

Take a little tour of TMHS - the yellow wing!

This is a short video of the interior of the new school from the the second floor, and going into the yellow classroom wing.

Insert Embed Code

High School Art going up!!!

I think this may happen fast, now that we have a system worked out.  Thank you Jeff Goodell of Carver Construction!  We are actually getting the figures up with the help of Gorilla Glue and power tools!

See the gallery for a few pictures of the first figures going up.  I have to say that it looks even better than I could have hoped.  The lighting is good, the rough concrete behind the figure shapes is a great contrast and the two different distances from the way and the overlap is working.

Wow.

Plus just walking around the brand spanking new school is a lift.  The open spaces, beautiful surfaces, great classrooms, swirling patterns in the floor, and the wonderful boulders and approach to the school entrance.

First Friday at Annie Kaill's - September 5, 2008

Annie Kaill's, a wonderful arts, crafts, jewelry, everything store in Juneau, is hosting a show for my paintings on Friday, September 5, 2008.  I have concentrated on pastel landscapes for this show.  I have several smaller pieces produced out in the field, in plein air.  The large pieces are from places that I took photos and sketches and worked on in the studio.

After working on my large murals for Thunder Mountain High School, it is lots of fun to go back to pastels and landscapes.  Smaller means faster, usually!

My family and I took at trip up to Whitehourse, Yukon in July.  On the trip back we drove to Haines.  I was completely blown away by the vistas along the Haines Highway.  There was lots of snow still, and the clear skies and sun were a pleasant contrast to the cold and cloudy summer we had been enduring in Juneau.  Several of my pieces at Kaills resulted from that trip: "Rainy Pass, Haines Highway," "Snag at Klukwan", and "Haines River Mountains".

In late March, the Plein Rein Painters rented the Jubilee Cabin at the Shrine of St. Therese for a couple of days.  We were blessed with a spectacular weekend!  The view from the cabin resulted in "Chilkat Blues", and morning drive out to Eagle Beach got me started on "Eagle Beach Chilkats".  That afternoon, we shed our fleece and set up at Amalga, and I got another opportunity to work on those beautiful mountains accross Lynn Canal in "Amalga Afternoon".

Crows and ravens are a continuing interest and I have a couple of pieces inspired by some of the shapes of these clever birds:  "Corvid Conversation", and "Wings."  In these pieces I have concentrated on the shapes of the birds and allowed the backgrounds to become abstract counterpoints.  I will undoubtedly be returning to these ideas.

I live just down from the AEL&P Powerhouse on Pipeline Alley in downtown Juneau.  This large tin building houses a hydroelectric generator that occaisionally supplies electricity.  It runs on water diverted from Gold Creek.  The structure itself fascinates me, it has structural forms that create blocks of color that change with the angle of the sun.  I have long wanted to do a series on this building, and have a small beginning in the pieces "Powerhouse I" and "Powerhouse II."

I have the Kaill's paintings in a new gallery on this site, take a look!

TMHS Wall designs

I have taken some pictures of the actual walls that the murals will be mounted on, and have made some scale models of the placement of the figures on the walls!  Installation will be happening in the next few weeks.  Just so you can have a better idea of what this will all look like here is an image of one of the walls:
Here is a wall plan: 

For more and better quality pictures, go to the gallery for the high school on this page!!! (or double click on these images, which are thumbnails and a bigger image will pop up in a separate window)

Here is a photo of Catherine Wilkins, the CBJ project manager and me, standing in front of one of the art walls where a mural will go.

Painting done!!!

I am done with all my panels!  Now I have some trimming to do and then final varnishing.  I've added photos of each panel, same scale to the gallery.  Take a look!

AND THEN, . . . installation!!!

I could not have done this without the help of my feline assistant:  Sheldon.

Site Vist at Thunder Mountain High School

I went out to Thunder Mountain High School (TMHS) and went inside the huge building accompanied by Sherri Brown and Travis Miller of MRV Architects, and the CBJ Project Manager, Catherine Wilkins.  I sure needed help navigating since there are no ceilings but lots of plastic screened areas with large plastic screened doors between work areas.  The spaces are incredibly large, complex and filled with very busy workers.  I got (was required) to wear a hardhat, and was glad that I had my art (i.e. dirty) clothes on because it was very dusty inside with lots of things to get dirty on.  But it is CREATIVE, EXCITING DIRT!!!  All the workers are artisans and are doing amazing things in there!

I got to see my art walls (2 out of 4) and get a feel for the space where my artwork will be displayed.  It felt REALLY GOOD!!!  Not too big and echoey, but not too small either.  I think the areas will be a nice casual gathering area for kids.

I brought some information on the mounting system I am considering, Panelclips from Brooklyn Hardware, a manufacturer in Portland Oregon.  I was able to discuss the best way to attach the artwork to the split concrete blocks that will be in the wall behind the artwork.  Rick Boyl had some ideas about drilling holes into the wall and epoxying bolts into the holes.  The panelclips would/could be welded onto the bolts.

It will take a lot of planning to position the figures and then to plan the attachment system, but I am hoping to use the computer to create grids of the walls and plan areas for the clip system.

I also got some good input from Sherri, an artist in her own right, about the white spaces around the figures and the clean lines as well as the "matting" function the white space serves to set off the body of the figure from the darker wall behind.  Also the straight bottom edges serving to weight the figures, rather than feeling them float.

See some pictures from the inside of the school in the High School Murals Album!