playing cards and pleasures

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For my evening-just-before-bed holiday reading I’m re-reading “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen. Last night I read this:

“Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment. “Do you prefer reading to cards?” said he; “that is rather singular.”  “Miss Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, “despises cards. She is a great reader and has no pleasure in anything else.” “I deserve neither such praise nor such censure,” cried Elizabeth; “I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things.”

I enjoy reading books and I, too, have pleasure in many things. Sitting and playing a card game with my spouse is one of them. Playing cards with friends and family… so many good memories stem from times around the table, after a meal, with decks of cards, drinks and conversation!

So even though my main theme for my Dec. 7th pop-up event at Vintage Books is readers – stocking stuffer gift items on which I’ve put images from my current Readers fine art series – I had to create some playing cards!  Besides a deck of cards will fit into a holiday stocking nicely.

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playing cards with artwork by Clancy

If you’re not able to make it to my pop-up event at Vintage Books you can get some of my playing cards and other items here: https://www.zazzle.com/store/sueclancy

playful and practical

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One of the purposes of the Arts is to help us live well and, paraphrasing Kurt Vonnegut, to grow our souls.  I’ve had this in mind as I’ve created my holiday stocking-stuffer stuff for my upcoming pop-up shop at Vintage Books Dec 7th from noon to 4 pm. https://www.vintage-books.net/

Making a whimsical, playful, calendar with artwork from my current Readers series was loads of fun – and I hope it will help people remember to live well and grow their souls all year long!  I’ve titled my calendar “Reading All Year”. It is 5 x 7 inches when closed and 10 x 7 inches when open. It’ll fit into a holiday stocking. I’ve checked.

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“Reading All Year” – a 2020 calendar by Clancy

If you can’t visit me at Vintage Books here’s a link where you can get your own calendar shipped directly to you.  Hopefully my calendar will be a fun stocking-stuffer gift the other readers in your life will enjoy too!

I wish you the best during the holiday season and in the coming new year!

A Readers World

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For your amusement here is a collection of a few artworks in “A Readers World”, my one-person fine art exhibit opening Thursday, Sept 5 at Caplan Art Designs. http://www.caplanartdesigns.com/

I’m playing with the interconnectedness of life; the ways imaginative stories flow out into the readers world. And vice versa of course. Art can stir life. And life can stir art.

As I created these artworks, I thought of how a story is actions mixer. For example, each of these pieces contain ingredients from my experiences, the “actions” I’ve seen as I’ve lived my life, put into the cocktail shaker of my imagination.

Enjoy!

And yes, if you recognize aspects of a person, a pet, a place or a thing and wonder if…. the answer is probably “yes”! (It’s sort of like the “Easter Eggs” that can be found in some films.)

Anyway, if you look at some of my recent blog posts you can see more details of the ingredients of life that I mixed together to make each particular visual story.

Thanks for reading and (ahem) “reading”!

immortal good fortune

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I’ve been busy getting ready for an exhibit at Caplan Art Designs (www.caplanartdesigns.com) that opens Sept 5th in Portland Or. This is one of the new art pieces that’ll go to the exhibit. Just put it in a new frame today.  It’s titled “Immortal Good Fortune” (details below)

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“Immortal Good Fortune” by Clancy – 8 x 10 inches – gouache and ink on board

Here’s the series of random thoughts I was thinking about as I created it:

We make our own luck. When life hands you dragons – cook sausages to share with others. Dragons are often a symbol for self-confidence, good luck, happiness and power. Happiness is not about luck or getting what you want – it’s the state of mind when life gives us what we’re willing to accept.

And of course I was thinking about reading books, art collections and Schnauzer and Havanese dogs…

yarns heard around the world

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I realized recently that the “bedtime story” ritual, for both children and adults, is nearly universal across cultures. While there is scientific evidence (see links here and here) that reading printed books before bed can help you sleep and provide other benefits – for me it’s plain indulgence.  Naturally bedtime-reading is subject matter for one of my artworks that will be included in an upcoming exhibit in September at Caplan Art Designs:

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Yarns Heard Around The World – by Clancy – 8 x 10 inches – ink, gouache on board

For fun as I created this piece I combined my thoughts about bedtime reading with the concepts of teams and coaches…. counting sheep is a world-wide sport. Right? Lol!

sea stories

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I live now within a 2 hour drive from the Pacific Ocean. I also live near a river that feeds directly into the sea. So it’s been fun to read and think about stories, both fiction and non-fiction, that have to do with water.  Books like: “The Old Man and the Sea” by Ernest Hemingway, “2000 Leagues Under The Sea” by Jules Verne, “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville, tales about pirates, books about the Lewis And Clark expedition and of course the writings of Mark Twain.

And I often see people reading printed books in town and on beaches along the coast. Their facial expressions make me wish I could see what story they were reading. What if a book being read leaked out from the readers mind and into the world beside them?

These musings led to my gouache painting titled “Sea Stories”:

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“Sea Stories” by Clancy – 8 x 10 inches – ink and gouache on board

feature article in The Columbian about my art

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Here’s a link to an article written by Scott Hewitt for The Columbian about my art exhibit “Dear Readers” that is currently at Burnt Bridge Cellars! And a picture of the front page of the newspaper with a bit of my artwork on it and pictures of the other 2 pages.  I was relieved to see that my artwork reproduced so well in print. Even though by now I know very well how to create images for reproduction I still breathe a sigh of relief when I see them looking good in glorious color print. Anyway, here’s the newspaper link all spelled out: https://www.columbian.com/news/2019/jul/18/vancouver-artists-ties-together-dogs-books-in-whimsical-ways/

DearReadersColumbianArticleP1A

Both gouache paints and acrylic paints reproduce well (even in newsprint!) but to my eye the gouache reproduces best of all. But then gouache was originally created for use in illuminating manuscripts back in the days, around the 16th century, when all “books” were hand written, hand illustrated and hand bound – one at a time.

Acrylic, a medium that originated in the late 1940’s, tends to be shinier and more difficult to photograph and thus get a good reproduction quality image.

Have I mentioned lately that I really like gouache??

absurd things on rainy days

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For this new painting I’ve combined several thoughts together: rainy day activities, the contrast between rainy Pacific Northwest and the Southwestern (USA) desert region (Arizona), and the Bonneville Dam’s fish ladder. I’ve found the fish ladder fascinating – here’s a video of it – and have done some fun sketching at the Bonneville Dam  trying to capture the patterns I see.

I enjoy the patterns the fish form as they flow by.  I also enjoy the patterns of the needles/leaves on cactus and succulents which seem visually similar, in my eyes, to the “flow” of the fish as seen from various angles.

Yes, I spend a lot of time thinking about visual fractals in general and specifically fractals in nature

Plus the absurdity of comparing fish with cactus tickled my funny bone. At any rate those were some of my thoughts as I created this gouache painting I’ve titled “100 Things To Do On A Rainy Day”.

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“100 Things To Do On A Rainy Day” by Clancy – 11 x 14 inches – ink and gouache on board

Dear Readers on view and my art opening jitters remedy

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All of the 28 artworks for my Dear Readers exhibit have been delivered to Burnt Bridge Cellars now – and hung. Over on my Instagram page you can see a fun pic of the curator looking at a table full of my artwork deciding what art goes where.  Here, just above the wine taps the winery uses to fill wine growlers, is the perfect place where the curator chose to hang my painting “Party Pointers”:

PartyPointersOverTapsI’ll try to post other views of the exhibit – most likely on Instagram – but don’t hold your breath for many more posts from me about Dear Readers – because I’ll be getting started on my tried and true opening party jitters remedy: getting on with other art projects.

Too often, early on in my art career, I had the “what if I throw a party and nobody comes” jitters during the week between art delivery and the opening party. That wasn’t helpful. Quickly I learned that starting on new artwork well before the official opening  for an exhibition is the best exhibit-opening-jitters and general exhibit-up-and-running-I-feel-naked-now remedy. My blog posts, from here on, are likely to reflect new projects I’m working on.  For additional views and information about my Dear Readers exhibit – which will run from June through the end of July – please watch the various Burnt Bridge Cellars social media pages.

Now that the Dear Readers exhibit is hung all that needs to be done, from my point of view, is to do laundry, dress reasonably and show up at the opening party June 7th. More details about the opening party, including the chef’s menu here.  So I’m focusing now on sharpening pencils, taking inventory of the art supplies, looking at my sketchbooks and starting new things.

Thank you again for all of your support and encouragement as I have worked on my Dear Readers exhibit!

 

Dear Readers exhibit pun

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Since my upcoming fine art exhibit, opening June 7, at Burnt Bridge Cellars is titled “Dear Readers” and contains nested ideas – for the additional pun of it I’ll have some artist books available. So here’s a pic of a few of the books I’ll have at the exhibit.

BooksBySC

There’s my Dogs and Cats and a Cookbook I illustrated (with Chef Kim Mahan’s recipes). And yes – there’s a little tiny mini-guide to drawing dogs! How’s that for a visual pun in an art exhibit full of paintings of dogs reading?

There are also cats and food depicted in my artwork… and of course books! So my books relate to my artwork which relates to my books…

Basically I’ve had a lot of fun playing with nested ideas!

BTW the “How to Draw Dogs” mini-guide is only available via the Brooklyn Art Library in New York …. except for the few I’ll have in my exhibit in Vancouver WA. 

A link to my Dear Readers exhibit statement that explains my thinking behind this exhibit is here.

More generally about my artist books here.

And now to get back to work framing and labeling everything…