art journal - new year 2017

May this year be prosperous for you.
May you discover and rightly receive what is beneficial and purposeful in this season.
Happy New Year!
~Steve

traditional new year's day paddle


The northern winter light is low (photo untouched) on my New Year's Day paddle (actually Monday Jan 2). See more paddle photos...

 

work small

Too many years ago to remember when or where, I was discussing the prospect of creating artwork as commission (custom work for others). And I remember a wise woman artist's advise to me. She said to be sure to still create my own work. She said it would help keep my confidence up. I had no idea how doing my own work related to confidence--until now.

So will it be possible to carve out time this year, to create small, quick, intuitive artwork, mostly for my own health? We'll see.

 

mountains in silk

This new artwork in dye-painted silk features Mount Rainier peering through the Tatoosh Range, with Tatoosh Mountain in the right foreground. The imagery was carefully selected by the commissioning family, inspired by memories at their cabin in Packwood, WA. Click to see more photos of the artwork in-progress.

 

 

 

silk-in-glass commission

I'm pleased to announce my first completed installation of silk laminated within glass. The artwork fills the spaces between open trusses of a residential interior. The photo at right two of four panels. Click to see more.

 

 

 

 

 

2017 silk dye-painting workshops

An outing or activity together makes a memorable gift. Consider giving a silk class to a friend (and yourself) in January or February. Click here or on the "classes" tab at top to see schedule...

Click here to see photos from a recent silk workshop.

 

 

 

 

artful living

There is beauty in every season. Click here to see more photos of winter beauty near my studio on Offut Lake in Washington State.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

wellsprings chosen for public art

 

In July, I proposed art imagery to be reproduced on vinyl wraps to cover one of ten East Olympia traffic boxes.

THANK YOU, VOTERS ! I'm grateful for the many facebook "likes" (votes) which placed me officially number eight--within the winning top ten. This art design will be digitally printed to vinyl. The vinyl will wrap a traffic box in East Olympia, at Boulevard Road and 18th Avenue.

There were 99 art entries and nearly 30,000 votes cast.

When the art wraps are installed on traffic boxes, I'll be sure to photograph mine and post images in my journal here.

The original artwork in dye-painted silk was inspired by the McAllister Springs artesian wells which supply water to Olympia. A reproduction of the work (in vinyl) will be adhered to a traffic box in East Olympia. Click here to read more about "Wellsprings."

 

featured links

 

 


Land and Sea Passage

As students, faculty, and visitors enter Gilson Middle School in Valdez, Alaska, they are greeted by a vibrant suspended mural--over 26 feet wide. Read more...

 
 

 

Macroscape Slides

Three new glass artworks resembling over-sized microscope slides measure two feet high by six feet wide. Each artwork is uniquely created in mouth-blown art glass laminated onto dichroic float glass. They are installed in the Margaret Murie Life Sciences Building at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.
 

  

 

Illuminated Passage

This suspended mural of dye-painted silk measures over 300 square feet. For Liberty Middle School in Spanaway, Washington, it depicts junior high years in a metaphor of a river passing through a canyon.
I love it. It turned out to be all I hoped for and more. Read more...

 

 

Experimental Image Glass

I continue to collaborate with Seattle glassblower Jim Flanagan to create gently abstracted imagery within colored glass. Click here or on the photo at right to see our most recent sheets of blown glass (and scroll down, as the newest work is near the bottom). 

 

 


Tree of Life

Commissioned for a thriving church in the town of Dunwoody, near Atlanta, Georgia.

 

 

 

 

Discovery

This mural in dye-painted silk was commissioned for Katchemak Bay Campus of Kenai Peninsula College of the University of Alaska. Discovery was installed in Homer, Alaska, in June of 2012. Read more...

 

 

Generations: Incubation

Kenai Peninsula College etched mouth-blown glass public art installation

Click here to read about Generations.

Here is a link to KPC installation photos

 

 

 

stone impressions - watch the art-making process on video

People often ask me how I create a stone lithograph. It's hard to explain in words so I have a short video that shows the process.

Click here for photos and video on stone impressions.

 

 

 

 

2011 nest images on cotton paper

Click here to see photos of ten new images completed in January 2011

 

 

 

song project - upward call

Read about our spring 2011 kids' pop song project at upward call. Or click on the photo at right to listen to the song or buy it...

 

 

 

silk rivers

Check out my recent river silks inspired by and modeled after the beautiful Fremont antique glass we used for the Kenai Peninsula College installation.

 

 


flowering

My Grandma's name, Florence, means "to flower" as in the sense of a blossom. And 2012's flowers were an explosion of color. See photos in her memory...

 

 

 Be silk scarves


Links...
gallery of Be silk scarves
significance in Be-ing
silk care
displaying silk

 

 

past journals