Another Chance

The second of the two exhibits curated by Hanna Regev on the theme of Chance, in honor of the centennial of the birth of John Cage took place Friday evening at the San Francisco Center for the Book, and by the announced time of the reception the space was packed with lovers of book arts who had arrived early in the hope of avoiding the crowd. The exhibit expands the definition of what constitutes a book, with exciting and ambitous interactive works, including a number involving video screens. It will take several visits to do justice to each piece. I feel very honored indeed to be represented with two works in such distinguished company. You can find a complete list of exhibitors at www.sfcb.org/. My little "Nest for John Cage" is in the photo above.

A beautiful, touching exhibit

Here's my rather poor photo of friend Joe Ramos with one of his subjects at the opening of his exhibit of extraordinary photos at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library. The show, titled "Acknowledged", is the culmination of six years' work photographing homeless individuals and families (at his own expense) for Project Homeless Connect. A more loving and compassionate collection of portraits would be hard to imagine. The exhibit will run through March 25. The San Francisco Bay Guardian says, "[Joe Ramos shows] the true face of homelessness - in all its complexity, dignity and humanity." I urge you to read the complete review at www.sfbg.com/pixel_vision/2012/01/27/headshots-homeless-photographer-joe-ramos-connects-art-and-social-work.

Great review, great photos

Here's a link to some wonderful photos of the opening reception of the current exhibit at SOMArts Gallery, "Get Lucky: The Culture of Chance". It was a truly exciting evening and the gallery was packed. I feel privileged to be in such distinguished company. There's a nice photo of my work, with friends Robert Kato and Larry Steuck in the foreground at http://dewittcheng.com/get-lucky-the-culture-of-chance-somarts-janua

And there's another event planned, the closing reception, including a curator's walkthrough, January 26 from 6-9 pm. You'll find details at www.somarts.org/getlucky

I took the photo below before the crowds arrived. My grid of nine pieces is on the wall at the left, and in the foreground is David Middlebrook's amazing piece,"Bamboozled". Below that is a closeup of one of my nine pieces, collectively titled "Against All Odds".

An inspiring weekend

Here's book artist and teacher Howard Munson showing his elegant accordian book, "Stravinsky" to a small gathering of book artists in his home studio. Looking on is the poet and artist Paul Kwan. I think this photo nicely catches Howard's infectious enthusiasm. A diverse group shared their work in a great variety of styles. Among them was the calligrapher Thomas Ingmire, whose elegant work I had seen at last year's Codex International Exposition in Berkeley. At Sunday's gathering he showed a series of works in progress, in collaboration with poets - a dialogue in which each reacts to the other's work. Thomas takes calligraphy to a whole different dimension, and you'll learn more about it at http://www.scriptsf.com/. For a look at some of Howard's editioned books, visit www.vampandtramp.com/finepress/m/howard-munson.html.

The evening before, I attended the opening at Jack Fischer Gallery of the collage show, in which two favorite artist friends, Ward Schumaker and Dennis Parlante, have work. You can see a preview at www.jackfischergallery.com/artists/collage/index.htm. It's an exciting and varied show, and will run through December 24.

Update on Open Studio

Here's one of the pieces I sold last weekend at Open Studio. It's from a series called "Epilogues", and they're made entirely of things found either on the street or in wastepaper baskets. And here's my question: Where do all the rusty paperclips on the street come from? For instance, why on earth would someone lose a paperclip in the supermarket parking lot?

Fifty works in fifty days

I'm excited to be taking part this year in the third annual 50/50 exhibit at Sanchez Art Center. This is a terrific juried fund-raising event in which 70 artists each create 50 six-inch works in 50 days. I already knew some of the other artists and met several others at a preliminary gathering, and I'm delighted to be in such good company!
I call this series "Notations", and you can see all 50 on my website at www.janetjonesfineart.com/notations/notationspage.html.

Meeting an old friend, at last

After many years of email correspondence, I finally met German collagist and teacher Cordula Kagemann, who was briefly in San Francisco with her husband, Michael. They visited my studio and had dinner with my husband and me, and then the next day I took them to meet Joan Schulze, another cyber-friend of Cordi's. Here they are with Joan in her beautiful studio. You can see Joan's elegant quilts and collages at http://www.joan-of-arts.com/, and learn more about Cordi at http://www.cordulakagemann.com/.

Altered Book Show

Kudos to Eleanor Murray, who conceived and produced the Altered Book exhibit and auction currently showing at Marin MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art). I'm one of 150+ artists who contributed works for this fund-raiser to benefit MOCA, and I have to say I'm in terrific company. I visited today, and was immensely pleased to find that my donation is in a three-way tie for the highest bid as of today in the silent auction. It's the little piece titled "Reliquary" shown in the right-hand column of this page.

The art of the book

I'm delighted once again to be included in Donna Seager's annual Art of the Book exhibit at her San Rafael gallery. I had a preview of the show when I delivered some of my Ex Libris pieces, made from old book covers and sealed in encaustic, with hand lettering. The show was still being installed, and it looks even more exciting than last year's. Howard Munson's books are always terrific, and this year he has two huge books that can fold up or hang on the wall. The show runs from March 18-April 30, with an artists' reception Saturday, March 26, 6-8.

www.donnaseagergallery.com

Tribal and Textile Arts Fair

Still a bit dazed by all the visual stimulation of the Codex Book Fair, I went to the Tribal and Textile Arts Fair, another blockbuster international exhibit. I bought some nice old Moroccan coins to convert into earrings - all I could afford - and viewed the rest of the exhibit as if it were a museum. I was particularly struck, as I've been before, by the beauty of the Japanese folk tradition of pieced cotton textiles, and the very strong similarity to some of the Gee's Bend quilts. Both use white thread in a running stitch, often with the knots at the ends of the thread providing a sort of punctuation mark, and both stem from the strong necessity of making use of every valuable scrap of available material. I found an excellent article on Japanese patchwork online at www.kimonoboy.com/short_history.html.

Codex III Book Fair Highlights

The Codex III book fair, which took place in Berkeley for four days, ending February 9, was all I hoped for and more. There were 138 exhibitors from around the world presenting world class work, and I'm still a bit dazzled by the experience. In particular I loved the elegant simplicity of the letterpress books of Leonard Seastone, of The Tideline Press in New York State. In the top photo he holds an example of a clever book structure that lies flat when opened, and a spread of this book is shown in the middle photo. He prints large sheets of paper with wood type characters, and then cuts the papers up and reassembles them into book pages, with an eye to the abstract relationships of the characters and the space around them. The bottom photo shows two pages of a delightful book in which he's created formal compositions by typing (remember the typewriter?) directly onto thin papers, which he then mounts on the heavier paper of the book pages. If you look closely you can identify the characters and see the edges of the typed papers.

Holly Roberts at Modern Book

I love it when an artist whose work I've
long admired turns out to be every bit as great
in person as I'd hoped. I've been following the
work of New Mexico artist Holly Roberts for
several years now, so when she was at Modern
Book Gallery for a book signing last week I went
to meet her and buy the handsome book of her
work from 2000-2009 that the gallery has
published. We talked a bit about not being
afraid to go to the "dark side" and the saving
grace of humor, and I wished she lived nearer
and that I could know her better. Her work
will be on view through August 28 at
Modern Book, 49 Geary, San Francisco.

modernbook.com
hollyrobertsstudio.com

Book arts

Here's a photo of Howard Munson, book artist
and teacher, taken at last year's Printers' Faire
in San Francisco. He's holding a damaged
antique Japanese screen, showing the trove
of wonderful old papers packed into the back.
He told me that antique dealers are often able
to date old screens by opening the back and
reading the dates of the newspapers that were
used as filling. Two of his books are in Donna
Seager's Art of the Book exhibit.

And now for something completely different...

Here's a hilarious bit on youtube for art lovers:
www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=erbd9cZpxps.
An article in the May Art News told how it was created,
and named the works. When you've given up on
identifying the hard ones, you can find the list at
www.janetjonesfineart.com/artnewstitles.html.

New Lark Publication

I'm one of 40 artists from 7 countries represented
in this new book, and frankly, I'm thrilled! It's
beautifully printed, and available in bookstores
and on Amazon. It's been great to learn more
about artists whose work I've been following for
some time, and to meet new ones. A plus is that
I've had some lovely email exhanges with others
in the book and found some strong affinities with
people I'm looking forward to knowing better.