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? But now you know who picks them up...

Fifty works in fifty days

I'll 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 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. My little piece titled "Reliquary" is 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. 

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 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 the book pages. If you look closely you can identify the characters.