New SebArts Virtual Open Studios, SAVOS

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artists, California, community, Environment, flowers, gallery, garden, home, inspiration, journeys, joy, meditation, nature, originals, spirit, weekends

Aztec Dahlia Gardens, 36 x 36″, oil on canvas, SOLD, giclées available 

Art Collectors: you can now visit artists and buy art from the safety of your favorite armchair or get your mask and hand sanitizer to visit in person.

Please help test this virtual project by going to my online gallery https://sebartsvirtual.org/artists/connell/. 6 paintings at a time will be available directly from the SAVOS shop during September. Kindly share this news with friends who might enjoy the healing comfort of art, to visit online or to own, or who are simply curious. Let me know how this new site works for you.

My physical studio will not be open, but more images including oils, pastels, watercolors, drawings and giclée prints will be accessible via my website, Facebook, text, emails, phone, and Zoom. Please contact me any day this month (10 am – 5 pm) and I can help you navigate this virtual landscape. Links are at the bottom of the email.

Also my art is on the walls at Upstairs Art Gallery, Center Street next to Healdsburg Plaza, and Gallery at Corricks, 637 4th Street, Santa Rosa.

Limited outdoor appointments may be available to pick up art from my studio or to see a piece that calls to you in person. We will observe current Covid safety regulations as listed on the SAVOS website. Looking forward to in-person hugs in 2021!!

Each SAVOS artist’s page will show if their studio is open virtually or physically. There are about 137 of us! https://sebartsvirtual.org/

Check in on the website for virtual events, panel conversations, demos, videos. On Tuesday, Sept 15, at 1:00 pm, I  will be on a virtual panel with other SAVOS painters to talk about our artistic processes, motivations etc.  Please join us! You will need a zoom account. Join live

Wildflower Heaven, 2, oil on canvas, 30 x 30″, available on SAVOS website

Dream Vessels and A Murder of Crows

Tags

assembling, Authentic Movement, birds, broken, California, crows, dance, darkness, gallery, hope, inspiration, Murder of Crows, nature, peace, spirit, studio, Vanitas, voice, wings, witness

Dream Vessels #125: Metronome

Gathering paintings and collages and poems for an exhibit at Upstairs Art Gallery Feb. 24-Mar. 24.

Discovering connections and stories in my own artwork, how collage making laid ground for constructing Murder of Crows paintings. What Vanitas symbols can you find?

Artist reception and short poetry reading with my daughter Reba on Sunday afternoon March 10, 2-5 pm. You’re invited!

Upstairs Art Gallery, 306 Center Street, Healdsburg, CA 95448

(707) 431-4214  Open daily 11-6

www.upstairsartgallery.net  

March Featured Artist, Marsha Connell

Dream Vessels and A Murder of Crows

EXHIBIT DATES: February 25 – March 24, 2019

Artist Reception:  Sunday, March 10, 2019: 2 -5 pm  

Poetry reading with Marsha Connell and Reba Connell, 2:30-3 pm.

Thinking About Bonnard, Murder of Crows oil painting series

Press release:

The March Featured Artist, Marsha Connell,  presents works that articulate an artistic evolution initiated in collage and leading to the “Murder of Crows” still-life oil paintings.

Connell had long been a painter and sculptor when her daughter, Reba, invited her to make a collage for shared communication while she was having her junior year abroad in Israel, a year that coincided with the first Gulf War.

The collages became an unexpected healing process, fueled deeper by a dream of war preparations that suggested she bear witness.  The collage “letters without words” to her daughter grew into a series of 150 “Dream Vessels” that speak with a visual vocabulary, like Vanitas paintings, symbolically merging awareness of death and the passage of time with the beauty of life.

When words finally came, they emerged from the “dreaming in the day” dance practice of Authentic Movement.  The resulting poems were often written in the presence of the collages and arose from a similar place of finding connections among discovered fragments.  They accompany the Dream Vessels, but do not describe or explain them.

The arranging and rearranging of found images in collage-making, laid the groundwork for assembling and staging objects in the “Crow” series.  “Spirit birds” and wings play a supporting role in the collages; birds star in the still-life series.

Thinking about Hokusai, Murder of Crows oil painting series

 

“Through this work, I found a way to bring hope together with darkness.  Assembling these found images was like taking the broken pieces of the world and putting them back together.”

Both the collages and the crow paintings entice the viewer to look closer and follow a path of discovery.  The paintings are also homages to other painters, such as Thinking of Bonnard and Thinking of Emily Carr. And there is humor, Connell confided,  “The longer these crows were in my studio, the more trouble they got into!” evidenced by their activities and positions in the paintings.

Dual Businesses: Upstairs Art Gallery and Levin and Company Bookstore

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/8654233-181/dual-businesses-healdsburg-bookstore-serves?sba=AAS

Dual businesses: Healdsburg bookstore serves as grand entrance to art gallery

Levin and Company bookstore has been in business for 27 years and Upstairs Art Gallery opened six years later. While the original store was also on Center street, the move to the center of the block on the Healdsburg Plaza quadrupled their business.

The bookstore, which started selling used books, developed a committed following of loyal customers who asked it to order new books. Now, only the sidewalk cart holds used books and the store is filled with new publications.

Owner Aaron Rosewater has hung out in bookstores since he was an 11-year-old, first in the long-gone Toyon Books, where his mother Adele Levin worked, then in the store his mother started with business partner Jacquie Robb. He bought out Robb in 2001.

Adding an art gallery has complemented the bookstore. Walk through Levin and Company, head up the stairs and the conversion to art gallery begins on the walls and shelves of the stairwell carry some art objects and visual art.

The gallery began with artists from the Santa Rosa Art Guild who wanted to show their work. They saw the available space and created an artist-owned gallery.

Only 16 artists belong to the gallery at a time because of the available wall space. Each artist-owner pays monthly rent and a 20 percent commission to the gallery.

Current manager Carolyn Wilson has been in the position for seven years. The first manager was Phyllis Rapp, who just returned as a gallery artist. Over the years about 60 artists have been part of the gallery.

“It’s a perfect match — the gallery and books,” said Wilson.

Levin and Company and Upstairs Art Gallery are located at 306 Center St.

For more information visit upstairsartgallery.net or levinbooks.com.

 

 

 

 

Where you can find Marsha Connell’s paintings in Sonoma County Fall 2018

Tags

artists, California, community, gallery, garden, home, nature, originals, peace, spirit

My Studio 2180 Beverly Way, Santa Rosa by appointment. (Showing Anchor Bay Inlet, above, and many other paintings in oil, watercolor and pastel)
marsha@marshaconnell.com 707·527·7754 main; 707·331·0105 cell
Open to public during Art Trails Open Studios
October 13, 14, 20, 21, 2018. Save the Date! Bring your friends!

Corrick’s (showing Pond in Bloom above), 637 4^thStreet, Santa Rosa,
10 am to 5 pm Mon – Sat
Art Trails Gallery at Corrick’s, and My Daughter the Framer
Receptions every First Friday 5-7 pm

Upstairs Art Gallery (showing Mimi’s Garden 1 & 2), 306 Center Street, Healdsburg, 11 am to 6 pm daily
21^st Anniversary Celebration June 23 Saturday 2-8 pm. Join us!

Empire College, 3035 Cleveland Ave, Santa Rosa 10 am to 6 pm Mon-Sat
On the walls outside the Law Library

 

Petits Bijoux Small Painting Jewels

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artists, bouquets, brushstrokes, California, dance, expressive, flora, flowers, France, gallery, garden, inspiration, Japan, nature, small works

Upstairs Art Gallery, 306 Center Street, Healdsburg

Please join May’s featured artists
MARSHA CONNELL and DAN SCANNELL
Saturday May 12, 2-5 pm for our artist reception

Petits Bijoux  Small Painting Jewels  by Marsha Connell

Plein air painter, Marsha Connell, is exhibiting a collection of Petits Bijoux, Intimate Scale Paintings from France to California, in the Upstairs Gallery’s Small Works Showcase. The Showcase is uniquely situated to be viewed as you climb up and down the staircase.

These “Small Jewels” celebrate encounters with wild and domestic landscapes, and traveled home in suitcases to tell the story. Marsha’s expressive and rhythmic brushstrokes are a dance of color, in oil and pastel.

Reaching the top of the stairs, you can meander in Marsha’s larger scale garden paintings, from the coast to tabletop bouquets.

Creek at Bowling Ball Beach by Marsha Connell, oil, 12 x 12″

Upstairs Art Gallery is on the Mezzanine above Levin Books on the Healdsburg Plaza, across from the Gazebo.

Stop in anytime to view this month-long show, open daily 11-6, hosted warmly by the dozen plus artist/owners.

Snow and Wildflowers 1 by Marsha Connell, oil on canvas, 12″x12″

I’m a new partner and will be hosting the gallery:
Saturday May 19, 3-6; Sunday May 20, 2-6; Sunday May 27, 11-6.

Renoir’s Bridge 1 by Marsha Connell, oil on canvas, 7 ½”x 9 ½”

Flora and Fauna in Silver and Gold  by Dan Scannell

Dan Scannell’s new series was inspired by Japanese screens from the 19th century.

He became interested in the highly stylized nature scenes, and thought it would be interesting to create paintings based on Sonoma county flora and fauna. He then finished the backgrounds of these paintings using gold and silver leaf as Japanese artists did when making screens.

Gold Magnolia by Dan Scannell