Artists:  Emily Barletta, Lauren DiCioccio, Laura Kamian, Aliza Lelah, Ruth Marshall, Lacy Jane Roberts, Lisa Solomon, Esther Traugot, Marina Vendrell

From the Press Release:

Once considered personal hobbies, embroidery, crochet, and knitting techniques have crossed over from craft to contemporary fine art.  This exhibition features highly skilled and thoughtful artists who are pushing these needle crafts to new heights in contemporary art.

The artists featured use a needle with yarn or thread to create fabric, embellish, or stitch together fabric with tedious handwork and obsessive care.  From re-examining the found object, exploring memory and nostalgia, to using abstract design, these artists bring contemporary relevance to the long history of needle craft.

The Mills Building is open Monday - Friday, 8 am - 6 pm and by appointment on weekends.  For more information on the artists in the exhibit, please call Artsource Consulting 415.399.0333.

This exhibit is part of a rotating exhibition program sponsored by the Mills Building for the pleasure of its tenants and visitors.  The rotating exhibition program brings the arts into the Mills Building's business environment and provides a window into the artistic and cultural organizations of the Bay Area.  The intent of these exhibitions is to build bridges of understanding between business and cultural communities.

A few weeks ago I received a call from Armenian filmmaker Vahe Babaian that he is making a documentary film about the Chamlian School, an Armenian school in Glendale, CA.  He was looking for some Armenian Alphabet artwork to make graphics for his film.  He said that he had seen pictures on my blog of my Charcoal Alphabet and that he had not seen any Alphabet art quite like it, that it was very unique artwork. 


We talked for a bit, and I decided to go ahead and have some pro-shots of the work done so it could be in his film.  This was no easy feat, because the work stands at 15.5 feet tall by 12.5 feet wide.  It's why I've never shot the whole thing before- when it was in my old studio in Oakland, you could not have gotten far away enough to fit the whole thing in the frame.  In my new studio, I have a big enough wall, but the pipes from the sprinkler system get in the way of the shot.  I looked around for another solution, say shooting it outside, but wind and uneven light became an issue.  I called my photographer Jeannie O'Connor, and we decided the only thing to do was shoot it in half and photoshop it together.  It turned out good.  Hopefully someday it can be displayed somewhere large enough for it to loom in all its glory.









I found this article that gives more background about Vahe and his film After Freedom about an Armenian family in California, such a familiar story!  I am happy to have connected with him and honored to be a part of his project.  I look forward to seeing his film, well both of them, After Freedom and the Chamlian documentary, and will post a clip of the documentary with my work in it, if I'm able!

Just got my UPS package today with the new book, "Knitting Art:  150 Innovative Works by 18 Contemporary Artists," by Karen Searle.  My work is featured- the Armenian Alphabet, some from my I-Cord Series, and some from my Fine Art/Fiber Art Series.  It is quite a nice book, and I am proud to be featured in such good company!

Svea at Swarm was kind enough to send me the link to this article from Robert Taylor, the art critic at the Contra Costa Times:
http://www.insidebayarea.com/stage/ci_9848257

He says the Alphabet "packs immediate punch."  Oh, yeah.  That is how I do.

It is great to get this kind of validation, having just moved from my Emeryville arts community out here to CoCoCo.  Moving is hard and it messes with my mind.  And it is not like I moved very far, like, say to Rochester NY.  But I'm kind of a wreck nonetheless some days.  And most definitley not one  on others.  This weekend in the studio was good.  Very good.

Great news that the Armenian Alphabet has been accepted to the show "Local Voice" at the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek!  The show is centered on the idea of artists in Contra Costa County getting to see what their neighbors are up to, and creating a sense of community, which works great for me since I just moved here in December!  I am so pleased to be back at the Bedford- it is really a beautiful space, and so nicely run by nice people.  I had work at a show there in 2006 called "Embroidered Stories, Knitted Tales" where I exhibited my Sampler Series:

Here is a pic of me and the late great Mr. Dave Forgie at the Bedford in 2006.  He stayed for the whole time at the opening, and was very, very kind.  It was a good time.  A very special memory for me.

Not Alphabet related, but I do have some work at Sanchez Art Center for their Annual "Arts on Fire Show".  The opening reception is Friday, April 25th from 7-9 pm, and there will be Belly Dancers and Fire Pixies.  You heard me. 

I just installed the pieces today.  I am psyched that the juror (Scott Shields) chose my Well-Balanced Installation (below), because not many people have laid eyes on it and it I want to watch people's reactions.  My other piece is from my Torn Fabric Series.




I hope to be able to make the opening on Friday the 25th, 7-9 pm, and the Juror's Talk on Saturday the 26th at 11:00am, though I will have to leave early that day to go to my cousin Kristin's wedding shower.  I'll be moving my studio from West Oakland (1.00/sq ft) to San Pablo (.60!)  that week so it will be busy busy.  But I am so psyched to have finally found a workspace near my new home.  Time to get back to work! I'm toying with the idea of combining the Alphabet with maps drawn directly on the wall.

Been awhile since my last post- MOVED!  Takes a little bit of energy, that does.

Put together some new words.  Had them accepted to a juried show at Artisans Art Gallery in San Rafael.  The show is called "Word for Word," and involves work that incorporates text.  I showed up at the gallery today to install, and the Director Ashley gave me my pick of wall space.  No limits!  I chose  a section of the wall visible from the street (naturally).  I think it will be a win-win situation.  My work will have that many more viewers, and I suspect people will wander in trying to decipher exactly what this is that they are looking at that is not quite English, but has some similar characters?

Another artist in the show was in the gallery while I was installing.  He asked me how I knew where to put things- how I know what goes where.  I just do.  It's what I do.  BAM!

I have been asked by the Armenian Eyecare Project to donate an artwork for their Gala Fundraiser on November 17th.  I am not normally able to accommodate requests for donations, but it just so happened to work out this time.  Each stencil I make provides me with a positive and a negative of the letter, so I had enough to work with.

I decided to send them the word below, Apricot, pronounced dziran.

An Armenian from SoCal has contacted me to commission a piece for her 5 year old son's bedroom.  I hightailed it on over to the studio to arrange some "age appropriate" words that might befit and encourage a youngster.  Here they be! 

(I stopped to eat lunch while photographing these in the studio on a stormy day, and lo and behold the sun came out for my very last shot!  15 minutes made quite a difference in the light!  What is a girl to do?  Have a professional photographer on call at all times?  I can't ever win.  Although Jeannie O'Conner did just move next door.... Hmmm....Hmmmmm....)

The opening night party was a delight.  People really understood and enjoyed what I was trying to do with this work- Joy!  The interactive elements were utilized (always a concern) - people listened to the language CD to hear Armenian words and phrases, and tried their hand at writing in Armenian in the guestbook.  I asked people to leave me words to translate, and I got some great ones (favorite:  graffiti).  That will be another entry unto itself.

Here I am with Josefa Vaughan, director of ArtSeed, an art mentoring and education nonprofit I helped co-found.  Josefa is telling me about her Armenian student at the Young Artists at Work Program at YBCA.  (Her husband Charles Boone is in the background, reading the Armenian word for "desert.")

Opening reception tonight from 6-9pm at Swarm, 560 2nd St (@ Washington), Oakland, CA!

My Armenian Alphabet Series will be in the Project Space, and Erik Friedman and Ema Harris-Sintamarian will be in the main gallery.  (Ema is Romanian, not Armenian, though her name ends in -ian.  How many times do you think she'll get to answer that question tonight?)

Installation went well last week, despite my bad back!  I just took it real slow and had a great helper who was great support.  And handsome! (see entry below!)

Photos from Installation Day (right to left:  me hanging the Alphabet, the word "desert", the words "orphanage, cousin, brother.")

Since there are 38 characters in the Armenian Alphabet, 76 including lower case, I looked for a method to produce the letters that struck a nice balance between handmade and easily reproducible. 
One of my last major Series, my Sampler Series is made up of over 200 hand-knit and dyed 4-inch squares, each different from the next.  So I felt no remorse whatsoever when deciding to use a knitting machine (super cheapy one from Michael's, bought with 40% off coupon, thank you very much) to make the base of my stencils.  Using the same number of stitches and rows ensured some measure of consistency, but the felting process is so temperamental and not easy to reproduce, that each stencil ends up having some individual character.  A good thing!

My sweet sweet honey took a bunch of pics of me at work (Thanks, Jason!)

The stencils on the knitting machine:                            
Tracing and cutting the letters:

Inspired by the illuminated manuscripts that my sister Jennifer, my friend Sue, and I viewed at the Matenadaran in Yerevan, I set out to make some wall hangings of individual letters.  My buddy Dragon and I had just taken a needle-felting class at the Richmond Art Center so it seemed like the right thing to do to play around with that.  Here's what happened (this was in around March/April 2006):