INTO THE STUDIO
Journal of a Mixed Media Photographer
A New Year….A New Exhibit
I am gearing up for my first art show of the new year – wrapping up art today and creating inventory lists to send off a number of pieces from the Sanctuary and Bottle Dreams series for a group photography exhibit at the newly-opened Stinson Beach Gallery. I will be at the reception on Saturday, February 11, and I will even be giving a short presentation about my work at 4pm that same day. It would be wonderful to have you come to see the show if you are in the Bay Area.
Here are the details…
Earth Air Fire Water
A group photography exhibit
February 9 – March 25, 2012
Opening Reception: February 11, 2-5
Artist Talk by Mary Daniel Hobson: February 11, 4pm
Stinson Beach Gallery
3445 Shoreline Hwy, Stinson Beach
www.stinsonbeachgallery.com
Artists: Mary Daniel Hobson, Ron Jones, Virginia Felch,
David D. Livingston, Nick Allen, Andrew George, and Marty Knapp
Benefitting Art
I am pleased that my art can be used to support these two great Bay Area organizations – SF Camerawork and the Bolinas Museum.
I donated Evocation #020 (picured here) to the SF Camerawork Benefit Auction. An exhibit of all donated artwork opens November 3rd – tonight! It will be up until the auction on December 3rd. You need not be present to bid – they have a great online system set up – click here to check it out. This print is one of my favorites from the Evocation series which explores the tension between internal and external space and the distortions that can happen between the two.
Then I am working away in the studio on some new pieces for the Bolinas Museum Miniatures Exhibition – an annual benefit art sale of works that are 6 x 6 x 6 inches or smaller. I love the scale of this show. It’s a wonderful assignment to make something for this exhibit that includes many talented West Marin artists. The show will open with a reception on Saturday afternoon, November 19. If you are in the SF Bay Area, I hope you will get a chance to check out both events.
Springtime Open Studio & Garden Event
I am so excited this spring to be having another Muir Beach Open Studio and Garden event with my neighbors Wendy Johnson & Peter Rudnick over the weekend of April 9 & 10.
I really love opening my studio this way and having a chance to talk with people, sharing my creative space & working process. These events also provide such a wonderful way for me to combine my professional and family life. My studio is just across the yard from my home in Muir Beach. My mother Sandra Hobson will be here signing copies of her book, Rituals for Life’s Milestones. My daughters Anna and Jessica will be here, and we invite other children to come play outside in our large yard under the budding apple trees.
I also love collaborating with Wendy and Peter who are such artists of the garden. Together they used to run the gardens and farm at Green Gulch Zen Center, and now they have a home nursery. They have used Custom Sheds and greenhouses to grow and sell organically grown vegetables, herb, and flower seedlings as well as perennial and native plants. They’ve really made the best use of things like greenhouse heating to help their produce grow, as their nursery is filled with such magnificent plants and it’s well worth checking out. You can find a complete plant list on their web site at www.gardeningatthedragonsgate.com. A portion of all sales will go to benefit public school garden programs in the Bay Area.
If you are in the area, I hope you will celebrate springtime with us and come by for tea and treats, garden inspiration, new plants, fine art, and fun. See details below.
Muir Beach Open Studio & Garden Sale
Saturday and Sunday, April 9-10
Mary Daniel Hobson: Artist Open Studio
open 11am-4pm at 1815 Shoreline Hwy, Muir Beach
Wendy Johnson & Peter Rudnick: Open Garden & Spring Plant Sale
open 10am-4pm at 1795 Shoreline Hwy, Muir Beach
For directions, click here.
Please park along Muir Woods Road.
Questions? Email me or call 415-383-5617.
IMAGE INFO: Above: Evocation #14 ©marydanielhobson.
Below: A photo of Wendy and Peter’s nursery
New Show at Cavallo Point
I am delighted to share that I have new solo show at Cavallo Point in Sausalito, CA – both in their art gallery (pictured here) and in their healing center. This lodge at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge has a unique art program. In addition to the gallery, each guest room features original fine art work on extended loans by wonderful local artists including Linda Connor, Judith & Richard Lang, Candace Gaudiani and many more.
I was thrilled when curator Anne Veh contacted me last fall about showing my work there. I have to say I hesitated though when she told me the dates because the show was to open January 5 – just two days before the due date of my second child. Fortunately Anne was open to creative solutions, so in mid-December when I was very round with pregnancy, we met in my studio and selected all the work, wrapped it up, and she took it with her and stored it at her home until she installed the show a few weeks later. I had to really let go in a way that I don’t usually with an exhibit and let Anne truly “curate” – a word whose etymology means “to take care of.” She has attended to all the myriad details of the show beautifully.
One of my favorite parts of this exhibit is the spirit of generosity that is present. 10% of all sales proceeds go to the non-profit of my choice. I selected Lily Yeh’s outstanding organization Barefoot Artists which “works with poor communities around the globe using art to bring healing, self-empowerment and social change.” And then at Anne’s suggestion, we created a give-away for every visitor. In the center of the gallery is a wooden bowl filled with rolled scrolls tied with ribbon, and inside each is one of my favorite quotes about the creative process. There are 11 different quotes, so each visitor can intuitively pick the best one for him or her. As you can see from the photo above, the bowl was empty the day I visited as these have been so popular that it has been hard to keep up with the demand, but I have been assured that the bowl is replenished often. If you are unable to attend the show, but would still like the creative inspiration, please email me and I will send you a pdf of the quotes.
One of the quotes is George Braque: “Art is a wound turned into light.” Anne as a curator really understood right away the healing inherent in my creative process, and chose to emphasize this aspect in the show. She selected a very nice group of over 40 pieces from 5 different series including Mapping the Body, Milagros, Evocations, and Sanctuary (pictured in the photo above). I do hope if you are in the Bay Area that you will get a chance to see the show and/or hear my artist talk on March 22.
Mary Daniel Hobson, Creativity: A Journey of Transformation
Cavallo Point Art Gallery & Healing Center, Sausalito, CA
January 5-April 3, 2011
Special Program & Artist Talk on Tuesday evening, March 22, 2011
For directions & more information, please see www.cavallopoint.com or call 415-339-4740.
New Year, New Life
We celebrated the arrival of 2011 with the birth of our second daughter – Jessica Ann – born on January 2. Since then we have been living in that tender space of nurturing a newborn – not much sleep, but lots of grace. I love how well Andrea Sher describes this time in this quote from her blog, The Superhero Journal…
“There is a way that birth opens you up, not only physically but in other ways too. This birth cracked me open, not in a traumatic way, but in the sense that I am more open now than I have been in a long time. The feeling that this is a window of opportunity is almost palpable– a crack letting more light in, more love, and more healing than I ever could have imagined. I am treading lightly with it, not wanting this window to close, wanting to be as conscious as I can to take advantage of all this moment has to give. I almost don’t want to say too much about it, just to acknowledge that this time feels sacred and fleeting, and that the possibility of miracles feels unbearably close.”
Art Everyday Month Starts Today
November 1st marks the beginning of Art of Everyday Month! I have never participated before, but was intrigued this year after listening to Leah Piken Kolidas, the founder of Art Everyday Month in an interview with Britt Bravo for the Arts & Healing Podcast. The premise is fairly straightforward – do something creative everyday for the month of November – no matter how small or what the form. It need not be serious Art with a capital A, but rather any creative process you choose. For example, one woman kept it simple and purchased an itty-bitty sketch book and put at least one line on a page per day.
If you like, you can share the resulting art online. Leah offers options to sign up on her web site as a participant, to share your daily art on a Flickr page, or to track your journey on your blog. You can also make it a private commitment and just work away at it knowing that many others out there are engaged in the same practice this month. If you get stuck, Leah has a great advice in the her “Art Everyday Month Survival Kit.”
For me, my life is so full right now that finding the space to be creative has been challenging. I am taking inspiration from Art Everyday Month to add some little doses of creative expression into my life. The first step today was to set up some art supplies (pictured here) in my sun room where my daughter and I could work together, playing with colored paper, scissors, glue, and more. Finding these art supplies can be pretty expensive if you don’t know where to look. Your first step is to see if any of the major stores you shop at have coupons or discount codes for you to use, for example, you may be looking for a walmart promo code and will be able to find one over at raise.com to see if they have any offers on art supplies that you can utilize. Always look around and see what you can use.