Summer Studio News 2023

Greetings –

I'm excited to announce the opening of Fractures and Interludes this First Friday, July 7, from 3–7 pm at Tumalo Art Co. in the Old Mill District, Bend. There will be light refreshments and wine from our Old Mill wineries. I hope you can join me. Below is a sample of the work in the show and some thoughts about my inspirations. 

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fractures & interludes : RECENT PAINTINGS

Each moment represents an interlude of a sort, that now between the past and the future. Each fracture might reveal a hidden gem. In this body of work, I take a closer look at the spaces in between: the mighty juniper whose roots fracture through basalt to reach the water, the tiny flowers and lichens that cling precariously to a crack in the cliff face, the river suspended between the walls of a deep quiet canyon. Large vertical canvases of these three motifs, each nearly five feet tall, anchor this show and honor the resilience and beauty of the natural world.

Fractures and Interludes, acrylic on canvas, 58x30 inches, $2950

Other pieces reflect interludes that allow personal restoration: floating down a serene creek, hiking a favorite trail, daydreaming before a peaceful view.

In the Flow, acrylic on canvas, 30x20 inches, $1020

As fractures in our world seem to dominate every news cycle, whether they be as tangible as a dam breach or as conceptual as ideological divisions, it feels more and more important to seek and cherish the interludes:

Not a beginning, not an end, this neutral place is rich with stillness, with movement in all directions…. So pass in peace, stranger, though our orbits differ, I too have rested here at these limbo interludes in our shared planet's rotation.            

– Debjani Chatterjee

Symbiosis, acrylic on canvas, 58x15 inches, SOLD

Slow down, look, and experience the interlude you find yourself in today. When I do, I wonder most about our children’s climate future and the lessons we can learn from the resilience of Nature herself.

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Nature's Rock Garden, acrylic on canvas, 18x16 inches, $700

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Uppercase Magazine

Thank you to Uppercase magazine : "for the creative and curious” for featuring my work in their summer issue 58, which looks at creative breakthroughs and whimsy in this lavishly illustrated publication. My experience at Playa last summer, working on canvas stapled directly to the textured studio walls encouraged working larger and freer, allowing the rough backing to inform and enhance the paint application. The large canyon painting shown in the studio shot (above left) sold soon after my October show. Subsequently, we added a similar wall to my home studio, which I used to paint five of the pieces for this upcoming July show.

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Art in the West

Last Light – Crooked River, acrylic on canvas, 20x28 inches

I went way outside my comfort zone this past spring: The High Desert Museum hosts an invitation-only, juried exhibition that is incorporated into its biggest fundraiser of the year. I’d never been invited, but was told I should “ask” to be invited. Gulp. So I did, and was invited unanimously by the jury to submit. They selected Last Light (above) and Nourished by Rocks and Water – Paulina Creek.

The “Art in the West” exhibition and silent auction will be on view July 8 – September 22. The exhibition supports regionally and nationally acclaimed artists and the High Desert Museum. You can view the show and bid  online. Please share this link with friends who like to collect art. Or you can attend the High Desert Rendezvous and bid in style. 

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If you've made it this far, wow, thank you for your interest in my art and work. I hope you have a wonderful summer. Look for me paddling on local lakes and flat-water as soon as I get this show up! Anne

P.S. If, like me, you prefer to visit the gallery and look at the art when it's quiet, we should have everything up and ready by Wednesday afternoon – and I just happen to be working that shift too. See you there.

Happy New Year!

Greetings –

Our Solstice bonfire is built around the upright trunk of the previous year's Christmas tree. On the 21st, we celebrated with friends and family for the first time since 2019, so the teepee of three trunks (!) created a joyous good cheer. However you seek the light in this winter darkness, I hope you also found moments of joy and peace.

I ran my “top nine” (liked posts on Instagram) and was not surprised to see that most of them reference Summer Lake. That place earned a piece of my heart the very first time we visited the wildlife sanctuary in 2021, but especially during a self-directed residency at Playa last summer. I found new ways to see, new techniques to try, new courage to experiment. The work I produced there resonates strongly for me and, apparently, others. My wall at Tumalo Art Co. this month exclusively displays work from my residency, including Where the Trout Rise, acrylic on canvas, 38x24.

I'm looking forward to quiet winter days when I can really focus on studio work. I've never been big on new year's resolutions, but here are some intentions: continue learning and experimenting. Read books. Listen. Take a walk. Look. Daydream. Make lots of art. Look at lots of art. Give back. Get outside my comfort zone. Get outside. Focus. Practice gratitude. Make more art. Repeat. Again.

Work in Progress

Here's a sneak peek of two paintings on the walls of my studio right now. We took a hike at Smith Rock on Thanksgiving day expecting the park to be quiet – amazed by how many people had the same idea. I guess we all have to earn our pie. I'd never been on this bit of trail across the river from Asterisk Pass and I am enjoying tracing the light and shadow across the rock from this vantage point. I pre-stretched the canvas on the left and stapled the other directly to my new soft homasote-like studio wall. For this comparison I cropped to the same detail. The pre-stretched canvas is a vertical, but the one on the right is a large panorama. I'm learning a lot from the textural differences that I can achieve on these two surfaces and the different effects of subtle alterations in the palettes.

That's all for now. Mostly, I just wanted to thank you for your support of and interest in my art practice and wish you a very happy new year. Anne

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“If I could say it in words there would be no reason to paint.”

– Edward Hopper 

Topophilia : Into the Canyons

About the show

On the very first day of my first visit to Central Oregon, a morning hike at Smith Rock and an afternoon ski at the Nordic Center forged the dream to move out West. Over the decades, this place became home through both uplifting and painful life experiences, all sharpened and cushioned by the pinch-me joy of actually living every day in a place most people only vacation in. Then, during the pandemic, life changed dramatically all over the world. Though representational, these canyon paintings are a retrospective of my internal journey these past few challenging years. A time to take stock, to look and feel deeply, and to find ways to love this troubled, exhilarating, maddening, gorgeous world.

“There is a word for love of a place: topophilia, popularized by the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan in 1974 as all of ‘the human being’s affective ties with the material environment.’ In other words, it is the warm feelings you get from a place. It is a vivid, emotional, and personal experience, and it leads to unexplainable affections.”

– Arthur Brooks, “Find the Place You Love. Then Move There.”
The Atlantic, January 14, 2021

Think back to the early days of the pandemic, when our homes became both refuges and prisons. The places where we used to meet friends and family and to feel community were mostly shuttered to us and, here in Central Oregon, trailheads leading to our favorite spots to walk, float, climb, play, and find peace were closed. Initially I was able to find solace in my favorite places by painting them. “Golden Hour – Smith Rock” brought me back to a stunning crystal clear October day. 

Golden Hour – Smith Rock, acrylic on canvas, 24x24 inches

As cabin fever grew, we (the member’s of my pandemic household) cast about for new places to walk and breathe that weren’t gated. Somewhere beyond our neighborhood streets. New-to-us trails up in the BLM became favorites. We returned again and again to the Crooked River, Deschutes River, and Whychus Creek canyons viewing the cliffs and water from the rim at dawn, or the river-level depths when the late afternoon sun cast deep shadows or in the flat light of a cold gray winter day. Each visit inspired new color palettes and compositions that begin to paint a portrait of this place.

The Confluence – Whychus Creek meets the Deschutes, acrylic on canvas, 30x18 inches

When you stand on a canyon rim or scramble down rocky switchbacks, you witness layers of history in the cliff faces formed over millennia. These Central Oregon canyons, some dozens, some hundreds of feet deep, were formed during the Pleistocene, as many as 5 million years ago. Venture far enough and all trace of human intervention fades. It might leave you feeling insignificant or expansively part of a much greater whole. But it definitely gets you feeling something. These canyons open up new worlds. 

Topophilia : Into the Canyon
Paintings by Anne GIbson

First Friday opening from 3–7 pm on October 7 at Tumalo Art Company in the Old Mill District and on view through November 1, 2022.

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Minis (for me)

My painting style lends itself to working large. I use palette knives, spatulas, and even pieces of matte board to apply layers of paint and alternatively scrape marks and lines into the surface. Sometimes I like to challenge the process by working small. Several 8x10s on paper will be available in my bin at the gallery, ready to frame

In the Studio

Meanwhile, I continue to develop new paintings inspired by my self-directed residency at Playa Summer Lake. If you missed my August newsletter and would like to read more about that experience, you can find it on my website here.

The new improvements to my studio walls have allowed me to continue working on canvases stapled directly to a homasote-like soft surface. Wonderful textures come through the fabric and become part of the image as I build on layers. I am enjoying focusing more on color and form and texture and less so on detail – and yet still the sense of place feels strong.

I hope you enjoy hearing about and seeing my work. Be well.

Playa colors no. V

August Musings

Playa Light and Color

My partner and I spent the hottest days of this summer on the western edge of the Great Basin on a self-directed artist/writer residency at PLAYA Summer Lake. After getting settled, I wondered how anyone could get anything done besides staring with jaw-dropped-open awe at the ever-changing enchantment of the light and colors moving across the Playa. The next morning I rolled up my sleeves (figuratively; it was actually too hot for sleeves) and got to work. Having always worked in the corner of a multi-purpose room at home, it was a delight to walk into a 10x20 foot studio and close the door.

My first project was to complete one final canyon painting for an October show as featured artist at Tumalo Art Company. This series of images gives a glimpse into how I select a limited palette, layer to build rich colors and values, and scrape to incorporate line and detail through mark making. You can see that I was able to staple the canvas directly to the soft homasote gallery walls. The soft texture became embedded in the painting’s surface from the very first layer of gesso. I enjoyed using this backing so much, we’ve already hung some in my living room/corner studio back home. The final finished work will be wrapped on 1.5 inch stretcher bars and measure 54x30 inches.

On my third day in the studio, I made five small color studies in response to that first night of dazzling light and color. Since I usually work large, with my biggest palette knives and spatulas to spread pigment across the canvas, I was challenged by the small format, using my smallest knives, working quickly, and resisting adding detail. The results had a spontaneity that I hope to maintain in larger pieces.

Over the next days, I completed three more horizontal studies and decided to begin four large-scale canvases while I still had the time and space to block them out: two vertical, two horizontal. I’ve managed to hold to my goal of working just from the sketches (rather than my source photos) to develop the larger paintings. I’m letting them abstract more than usual and hope they are more about how color evokes light and the beauty of the pigments and how they interact. The shots below show the studio walls on our last day, before I reluctantly rolled all the canvases up. Next week, I’ll be able to start tacking them back up at home to resolve each one. Please watch my IG and FB to see how they are finished.

“Can you paint a Three Sisters/Cascade Mountains panorama for me?”

More than one collector has asked me this over the years. I explain that I work almost exclusively from my own experience, my own photos, and my own feelings. I find it’s extraordinarily difficult to capture a powerful, meaningful view of these iconic peaks that hasn’t already been painted hundreds of times by talented artists. But I have been returning over and over to a series of photos that I took several years ago, from a favorite hike up Bessie Butte. I found myself alone one New Year’s Day and hiked up for the sunset. It was followed by the rising of the full moon in the east, which became my view for the hike down. These paintings, The Passage of Time I and II, were finally completed this summer. And they happen to feature some splendid Cascades.

The Passage of Time II – Bessie Butte, acrylic on canvas, 24x42 inches (available soon)

Looking Forward

As summer wraps up around these parts, I find myself hopefully anticipating my favorite months in Central Oregon. I am so grateful for the hard work that western firefighters have done this summer and am looking forward to savoring the dazzling indigo skies, sunny days, and crisp nights that should fill September and October. And I will have more information about my October show soon. Thanks for visiting.

Topophilia : Canyon Paintings by Anne Gibson
First Friday opening from 3–7 pm on October 7 at Tumalo Art Company and on view through November 1, 2022.