New SebArts Virtual Open Studios, SAVOS

Tags

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.

Petits Bijoux Small Painting Jewels

Tags

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

FOLLOW those BLUE Art Trails signs, NEW DATES October 21-22 & 28-29!

Tags

artists, California, community, conversations, Environment, gallery, home, inspiration, journeys, joy, life, love, meditation, nature, originals, spirit, support, weekends

 

Art Trails Open Studios rescheduled:

October 21-22 and October 28-29

In the spirit of an offering, a gift to our community, about 130 Art Trails artists throughout Sonoma County, will open studios and hearts to the public, sharing beauty and hope. My studio, #24 on Art Trails map, 2180 Beverly Way, Santa Rosa, will be open both weekends, 10am – 5pm.

Just as music can be inspiring and soothing, light and dark, taking us on emotional journeys without words, seeing wonderful art can be uplifting, inspirational, moody and joyful, bringing comfort, solace, contemplation, refuge, and pleasure. I invite you to visit, and have a hug, share a story, tea and cookies, and travel through my plein air paintings to healing landscapes, places of memory, dreams and renewal.

Our hearts are breaking for those who have been devastated by fire. Several Art Trails artists have lost homes, studios and/or their entire art inventory. The Art Trails Artist Relief Fund has been established. Donations can be made directly at many Art Trails studios and exhibits, and on-line at www.SonomaCountyArtTrails.org or www.SebArts.org. Make checks payable to SCA, with a notation indicating Art Trails Artists Relief Fund; checks may also be mailed to Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 S. High St., Sebastopol, CA 95472.

I will be donating a percentage of painting sales, and will also be offering my contemplative Dream Vessels collages and some hand held carved clay sculptures.

An updated list of artists and maps showing participating studios will be posted by the weekend on the www.SonomaCountyArtTrails.org home page. We encourage visitors to stay up to date on road conditions.

Thank you for supporting the arts!
Marsha Connell, Chair Art Trails Steering Committee

The Human Race: Support The Living Room

Tags

caring, children, community, donation, Environment, home, homeless, inspiration, Mother, non-profit, spirit, women

I’ve recently joined a business referral networking group (a stretch and an education for an artist!). We are supporting The Living Room here in Santa Rosa through Sonoma County’s outstanding annual Human Race, a truly creative and open-hearted event. Some of the fun takes place on the pavement through efforts by thousands of runners and walkers, and some of the fun and good works take place behind the scenes, for example right here. (In 2016 there were over 8,000 participants with almost $600,000 raised to date for over 225 nonprofits who will benefit from the event. The first Human Race in 1981 raised $1,800.) I invite you to learn about the important services that the Living Room provides for homeless and at-risk women and children and to make a contribution if you are so moved. $10, $20, $50, or an amount of your choice. This is a straight donation fundraiser. No Pledges. Thank you so much for caring and helping our community thrive. Follow link to donate:
humanracenow.org/Participation/BNIMidDayPowerPartners

Two Landscape Painting Workshops

Tags

barns, bucolic, California, Calistoga, creeks, Environment, expressionist, hillsides, impressionist, inspiration, Mt. St. Helena, nature, orchards, realist, spirit, techniques, tonalist, wildflowers

Recording & Expressing “Spirit of Place”

Sunday, May 7, 2017, 9am – 3pm
Pepperwood Preserve
2130 Pepperwood Preserve Road
Santa Rosa, CA 95404

Meet at the Bechtel House
$45 per participant ($40 for members)
For ages 13 and up

Explore plein air painting with artist and Santa Rosa Junior College instructor Marsha Connell. Deepen your naturalist and artist observational skills. Express your responses to Pepperwood’s verdant and blossoming spring landscape. Open to beginning painters, who will learn basics of working in the field, and experienced painters, who may expand their repertoire and enjoy support for finding their own voice. Demonstrations will be given in oil and pastel,  but students may use any drawing or painting media of their choice.

Marsha’s approach to landscape painting conveys the spirit of place and evokes the mood of the inner landscape. Marsha has also taught at Sonoma State University and at a variety of other venues in the US, Mexico and France.

A suggested materials list will be sent upon registration.

Reserve your spot

Painting Iconic Rural Landscapes

Saturday May 13, 2017, 9:30 AM – 2:30 PM
Class level: All levels
Class Size: 6-15
$60 per person, $45 per Sonoma Land Trust member

Learn how to convey the spirit of place and embody the rhythms and forms of the landscape in this plein air painting workshop at Sonoma Land Trusts’ legendary Laufenburg Ranch near Calistoga. Beginning and longtime artists alike can benefit from Marsha’s expertise and extensive history of teaching, which brings out the joy of the creative process.

Enjoy a day in the bucolic setting of Laufenburg Ranch in Knight’s Valley. Create a record of your experience, which might include the magnificent 1883 barn, native oaks, old orchards, creek and hillsides, even Mt St Helena, by painting in the field. Explore gesture, shape, composition, light and shadow. Beginning artists: learn the basics of using painting materials and composing images. Experienced painters: expand your repertoire of painting techniques and visual approaches, realist, tonalist, impressionist, expressionist. Demonstrations will be given in oil and pastel, but you may use any drawing or painting media of your choice.

Materials Required: You will be able to do this with simple minimal supplies, for example, just black and white or three primary colors (red, yellow, blue) of oil or acrylic, and one brush, or a basic small set of pastels, or any materials you may already have.

Sign up here

3 Art Receptions for 3 Great Events

Tags

artists, California, community, Environment, flowers, gallery, garden, inspiration, joy, nature, originals, reflections, spirit, weekends

Sunday, October 23, 2-5 pm, La Crema Estate at Saralee’s Vineyard

La Crema Estate at Saralee’s Vineyard, 3575 Slusser Road, Windsor, CA, is hosting an Artists’ Reception, welcoming collectors, aficionados and friends to view the Estate’s permanent collection of artwork, and a revolving exhibit changing seasonally, through our partnership with Healdsburg Center for the Arts. We are currently featuring fourteen large expressive landscape drawings and paintings by Marsha Connell. (Exhibit dates August 15-January 15) View and purchase the art online.

Our permanent collection highlights a diverse selection of local artists, including James Armstrong, Elaine Greenwood, Chris Henry, Cari Hernandez, Dusanka Kralj, Benjamin Owen, and Paula Strother.

We invite you to enjoy these fabulous artworks, and light hors d’oeuvres expertly paired with La Crema’s acclaimed wines, including selections only available at the Estate, in a panoramic vineyard setting.  

              RSVP appreciated: marsha@marshaconnell.com

Friday, October 21, 6-7:30 pm,  Sebastopol Center for the Arts

A Cabin Above a Lake began as a demo for AWS (Art Workshop of Western Sonoma County), just last month, inspired by small plein air paintings from our recent East Coast annual summer sojourn. As Helen Frankenthaler once said, ” I had the landscape in my arms when I painted it. I had the landscape in my mind and shoulder and wrist.” After revisiting it in my studio, I entered the painting in this juried exhibit, and am pleased that juror Sukey Bryan selected it, (along with about 56 other works from a pool of almost 700 entries).  Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 282 High Street. Exhibit dates: Oct 21 – Nov 27, 2016. I’d be pleased if you joined me at the Artists’ reception for YOUR LANDSCAPE.  

Saturday, October 22,  6 pm – 8 pm, History Museum of Sonoma County

Reception for  Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) Altars. This exhibition brings together altars created by community members, festive artwork and three-dimensional sculpture associated with the Day of the Dead celebration. I am honored that Peter Perez requested that my painting, Thinking About Bonnard, from my Murder of Crows series, be included in his altar against violence.

Exhibit runs October 18 – November 27.

The reception in the History Museum of Sonoma County is concurrent with a reception in the adjacent Art Museum of Sonoma County, for Faith Ringgold: An American Artist featuring storyquilts, works on paper, tankas, soft sculpture, and original illustrations.

Exhibit runs October 23 – January 29.

Art Trails Open Studios – My Plein Air Suitcase

Tags

artists, California, conversations, Environment, flowers, gallery, garden, home, inspiration, journeys, large works, map, mountain, nature, ocean, originals, small works, Sonoma county, studio, suitcase, weekends

It will be as easy as 1-2-3 to find my studio the next 2 weekends. It’s #123 on the Art Trails map. 10am-5pm. Come see what came out of my suitcase from my recent plein air painting journeys, West Coast to East, ocean to mountain, and back home in Sonoma county, and how it inspires studio work. Drawings, pastels, oils, watercolors. Small works to large. Hope to see you!

Here’s a great map of most of the artists in the Northeast Santa Rosa area participating in Art Trails. #123 is just about in the middle.

Spring Retreat at Pepperwood Preserve: Landscape Painting “En Plein Air”

Tags

art, California, demonstrate, drawing, exploration, inspiration, landscapes, nature, observation, oils, Pepperwood Preserve, Sonoma county, techniques, weekends, workshop

Expressing the Spirit of Place Spend an exciting weekend painting on location in iconic Sonoma County landscapes with Santa Rosa Junior College instructor Marsha Connell. Engage your senses and the body to awaken an energetic connection with the land. Plein air painters share a commitment with scientists to deep observation, to documenting and protecting our open spaces for future generations, and to sharing the joys and solace of nature. Beginning painters: learn basics of working in the field. Experienced painters: practice and expand your repertoire. Explore aspects of realism, impressionism, expressionism, or abstraction. Enjoy support for finding your own painting voice to express the spirit of this special place. Use any painting or drawing media. Demonstrations will be given in oils, drawing, and pastel. You are invited to stay overnight at the Bechtel House or camp under the stars. The retreat includes moderate hikes of less than a mile at a slow pace with long stops. A catered dinner Saturday night and continental breakfast on Sunday are included. Saturday’s schedule includes evening sunset painting. A materials list and instructions will be sent to participants in advance. Saturday, May 30, 9am-3pm & 6:30pm-8:30pm AND Sunday, May 31, 2015, 9am-3pm with optional overnight FEES: $170 per participant ($150 for members) Ages 13 and up welcome More info> http://app.pepperwoodpreserve.org/pls/apex/f?p=514:2:7453991560835 Reserve here> http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/898371

A Studio Sunday Painting Demonstration

Tags

Corrick's, demonstrate, discussing, inspiration, oils, open studios, spontaneous still life, Studio Sunday, techniques

I will demonstrate painting a “spontaneous still life” in oils during Studio Sunday at Corrick’s, May 26, 12:30-4:30pm this weekend. You are invited to stop in!