PATTERNS AND TONES

Flora as Fashion: Erin Anderson I thought a lot about camouflage while pondered how I would approach this weeks image. Flora has always been a place for birds and animals to hide, as cover and protection from the outside world. Cloths can do the same thing. They can explain our mood, make us feel safe and comfy or help provide a barer. In fashion, we can either blend in or stand out. Applying camouflage into the fashion world has brought this utilitarian design to a new level. The abstract print was designed for military use back in the 30's to allow personnel to blend in to their enviroment, away from enemy detection. But in the fashion world camouflage-inspired prints are a perennial trend and a fashion staple that returns, like leopard print, in various incarnations. Rarely do these interpretations blend in as their military counterpart do. The non-representational pattern is a mass-produced visual language that is immediately recognizable. In development of the print...

It became clear to me once I started constructing this series of pop icons layered with text, that their final output would have to be silkscreened onto paper. They lend themselves to this medium, with their hard edged graphic nature and pop art aesthetics. I haven't silkscreened anything in years, so I decided to take a class at the Armory Center for the Arts in Pasadena. What began as the educational department of the Pasadena Art Museum in 1947, has now grown into a viable source for art education here in Southern California for the past 70 years. I have always been drawn to the the creative energy at the Armory since I move down to LA but was particularly inspired to take a class there by my friend Amanda Quinn Olivar, who recently told me about the very first West Coast pop art exhibition which had taken place at the Pasadena Art Museum back in 1962. The exhibition "New Paintings of Common Objects," featured recent work by Jim Dine, Ed Ruscha, Robert Dowd, ...

"Queen of the Quinns" 2015 I am thrilled to announce my portrait of Joan Agajanian Quinn will be included in a group show  "Who is Joan Quinn? A Life in Portraits"  at the Cornell Art Museum in Delray Beach, Florida September 15, 2016 thru January 15, 2017.  You can explore the creation of this image in my previous blog posts "Constructing the Queen of the Quinns"  and "Capturing the Queen of the Quinns". If you are in Delray Beach, be sure to check it out! Julie Green September 3, 2016 From Old School Square web page: Cornell Art Museum at Old School Square presents an exhibition that brings together world-renowned, contemporary, American artists who, over five decades, have created portraits of art patron and collector, Joan Agajanian Quinn. The exhibition includes over 50 portraits, from a collection of approximately 300, realized in all mediums by artists that Quinn has believed in and supported.  The exhibition exp...

Joan Agajanian Quinn is a power house. The first time I saw Joan, I could feel her energy from across the room. She shines brightly and it is palpable. Her involvement in Southern California contemporary art has had a big impact on the thriving scene here. From her television series "The Joan Quinn Profiles" , which in an interview format has been capturing artists, designers, directors, musicians and actors talking about their craft since 1993, to being the West Coast Correspondent for  Interview Magazine , as well as being the founding West Coast Editor of Art Review Magazine, Joan has always kept a dialogue with artists open. Last summer an exhibition titled " Joan Quin Captured " showcased portraits of Joan by renowned artists such as Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Shepard Fairey, Jean-Michel Basquiat ,   Robert Mapplethorp , George Hurrell, Mathew Rolston and Helmut Newton (among many others) at the newly refurbished Brand Library and Art Center in Glendale...

"From Campfires to Rocket Fuel" 20 x 16" Mixed Media Art is a process and a journey. It leads us to explore and question and probe. The best advice I ever received was from a colleague, Jason Archer, who upon hearing me complain that I didn't have enough money to produce an exhibition, pointed out that it didn't take money to create art but it did require a lot of thought and a fresh perspective. He pointed to paintings created on cardboard, paper collages with string and glue. But his best advice was to take an image I had created (and loved) and reproduce it in many other mediums. This inspired me to render many photographic portraits and still life's in oil, acrylic,  mixed media , ink and pencil. Dabbling in mixed media over the years has provided me with an alternative format in which to explore a different way of conveying an idea or a message. I see these images as illustrations. They would fit nicely in an article on the quality of our fo...