SHOWS and EVENTS
New Book ! (February 2010)
UNDO EVERY WOVEN : Paintings and Prints by Jef Gunn
With this book, I've done the best job to date of opening a way into the artwork I make. I must say it, came out beautiful.
available through blurb.com for $45.
Old Book The Paintings of Jef Gunn
32 pages in full color with an essay by Stephanie Snyder
Bilingual English and Spanish published in 2005 and still available for $10 + shipping.
Ask for it through the contact page of this web site.
2010 was a strong year in the studio and full of surprises and new directions for encaustic work.
2010 was also the first year since 1984 that I exhibited any of my landscape paintings in oils. They were included in the Undo Every Woven show at www.travergallery.com William Traver Gallery in Tacoma. Also at a May show at Augen Gallery in Portland, and other group shows. Some of last year's encaustic paintings are now on view at www.cedarstreetgalleries.com Cedar Street Gallery in Honolulu.
2011 has been a year of meaningful change. The studio has moved, and I've made an effort to simplify the paintings to the bare essentials. See the exhibit description below for more on that. The new studio is smaller, more compact and efficient.
September 2011
Transition
A show of paintings in encaustic medium (wax & resin), collage and gold leaf. Intertidal and Desert motifs.
Show Statement
know the silence of things,
and the radiance of things.
the light of space;
and the ringing quiet of space.
mind meets the world;
mind and hand and
materials make
color and form.
lake as it is.
rock as it is.
if you interpret
or
explain, you miss.
just look; be
in your body mind
eye and just be.
now.
To see images from the show, please go to the gallery web site, click on the ARTISTS link, then on my name
Augen Gallery
716 NW Davis St
Portland, OR 97209
503.546.5056
www.augengallery.com
November-December 2011
Exquisite Craft
First time showing with this wonderful small town gallery with class in the Methow Valley of Washington State, between the Okanagan National Forest and North Cascades National Park.
Confluence Gallery104 Glver St.
Twisp, WA
509-997-ARTS
Wed - Sat 10 am - 3 pm
for more information:
confluencegallery.com
December 2, 2011 - January 14 2012
Specific Environments: Landscape as Metaphor
Lincoln Center for the Arts, Fort Collins, Colorado
For more information on this interesting show, go to the Lincoln Center website: fcgov.com/lctix/galleries-exhibitions.php
This is not your typical landscape show, but is deeply tied to how we experience and interpret our relationship to the land, the environment, and our surroundings. The focus of the exhibition will center on work that stretches the idea of how we view our environment, surroundings and the 'scape and scope' of the land as metaphor for something else entirely. Award-winning art critic Leanne Goebel is our Guest Juror for the exhibition. Besides a number of artists selected by the curator, additional artists were selected from applicants in all media from around the country. Don't miss this intriguing exhibit that will have you thinking about landscape art in an entirely new way.
CLASSES
Classes in Encaustic Painting are offered through the Continuing Education program of Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland), These classes are now oraganized into three levels over the course of each year: Introductory in Fall term (begins late September); Intermediate in Winter (beginning late January); "Advanced" in Spring term (beginning in March).
Out of my own place, The Tigers Cave Studio,various classes in painting, drawing and awareness have been offered. Currently, these classes mostly concern Nature, Landscape, Abstraction and Process. Please refer to my BIO on the statement page for more information on my studies and interests.
Please look here for announcements for Tigers Cave Studio workshops in 2012, or send an email to request course descriptions, or to put your name on the list for class announcements.
ABSTRACTION from the LANDSCAPE
“The only order that exists is the regularity of certain processes of Nature.”
- Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche
“The foundation of reality is imagination.” - Anonymous
This will be a class in abstract painting, its goals and processes. Our abstractions, in this class, will have the raison d'être of connection to the landscape, to nature or her processes. However “non-objective” or “non-representational” a painting may look, it may still have an emotive quality reminiscent of place, or a metaphorical presence. Its presence as a painting, as a painted thing, communicates its meaning as metaphor. Each week we will alternate between presentations/discussion, exercises/painting, and review of our work in progress. New ideas about process, composition, color set, paint quality, motif, etc. will be developed through presentations and group critique. Requires a commitment to attend all class sessions and to develop work in each week in class and at home.
10 week course, meeting every Thursday (skipping First Thursdays)
First class Thursday, January 20, 2011 final class: April 14
6:30 - 9:30
Hike - & - Paint
Last year we went out to paint in beautiful places that are only accessible on foot. We were rained out most of the scheduled days. Dang it all. I will schedule hike-&-paint excursions throughout spring & summer & into the fall. Maybe we’ll snowshoe out in the winter!
Pack frames will be available at minimal cost to carry your easels, paints, alternate clothing & lunch. Or you can rig your own. You should be fit enough for a hike of a mile or more with some weight. You’ll need to dress in layers, have good sturdy shoes or boots, sun hat, rain hat, gloves etc. & bring your lunch. Suitable for painters with some plein air experience.
No outing is currently scheduled. Please contact Jef if you're intersted in this fine, robust activity.
$70 fee includes a great hike, inspired instruction & snacks to boot!
April & May 2011
PLEIN AIR WORKSHOP
OREGON COAST PAINTING RETREAT
The coastline is that edge between the continent and the sea, soft and hard, dreaming and waking. It’s a mysterious zone and difficult to capture in paint. We will give it a try over three days on the Oregon Coast. We will be staying in Oceanside, just west of Tillamook, south of Cape Mears. We’ll stay in the Ocean Front Cabins (at the winter rates). Paint outings will include views of the local beach, rocks and headlands, the intertidal zone, coves and bays.
This workshop will involve the same insightful instruction in painting: composition, color, layering strategies, and brushwork.
Arrive Thursday evening for group dinner; begin painting Friday morning. Limited to 9 painters. (We must have five by March 8th or we cancel the reservation.)
TWO PAINTING RETREATS:
April 8, 9 & 10 (Friday – Saturday - Sunday)
May 13, 14 & 15 (Friday – Saturday - Sunday)
Three full days of painting $300 (does not include lodging)
Make your reservations now at Ocean Front Cabins Or call the Ocean Front Cabins at 888-845-8470 or 503-842-6081
For further accomodations, visit www.tillamookchamber.org
Look for anything in Oceansside or Netarts.
June
One week Encaustic Workshop through Pacific Northwest College of Art's Continuing Education program. Please go to their website for more information.
June 13 - 18
July 2011
HIGH COUNTRY PAINTING RETREAT in the Wallowa Mountains
I’ve been dreaming of this one for many years now. Much remains to be arranged, but the plan is to go with a small number of artists into the high back country to paint what simply cannot be accessed any other way. Pristine Wilderness. Pack animals will bring our gear, and we’ll have a cook. All hail to the cook. Although mules will bring the bulk of our weight, participating artists should be fit enough to walk about 7 miles in to camp at high altitude, and then on day outings in the area to paint. We had some interest last year, but not quite enough to run it. Let's hope this year we do it.
Scheduled for
Friday July 23 – Wednesday, July 28
Three full days of painting* $900 (approx. depending on costs) includes mule and muleskinner, cook, all food. All you need is your clothes, paints and gumption.
*Entering the Wallowas out of Joseph, Oregon. Allow one day to get from trailhead to camp, and another to hike out, and drive home.
The Wallowas Wilderness Painting Retreat was cancelled; moving the studio this winter put us behind schedule in preparations. We will be better prepared for next year. But look at the Long Look Workshop instead!
TAKE A LONG LOOK: Landscape Painting of Depth
Long looking and repeated painting are the way of making better paintings and improved experience of the craft. This workshop on the practice of sustained observation and work at the easel will improve and deepen your landscape art. In an inspiring location in the Columbia River Gorge, not far from Portland, we will carefully choose our own subject and respond in paint every session. There are depths of painting only possible through the long look.
Henri Matisse said in his essay Notes of a Painter (1908) that the initial impression would tire him, the painting would wear out its promise, if he did not work it more deeply to more fully express his feeling for the subject. He is known to have reworked a painting dozens of times. How can we know, as painters, our subject on first look? It takes time for a subject to fully reveal itself. There will be instruction on this contemplative and attentive approach to the motif, preparing ourselves even before painting. Together we will paint our own chosen motif, over and over. The potential benefits of long looking are great.
From the Twenty-Four Qualities of Painting by Huang Yüeh (1750-1841):
VIII. Archaic Simplicity
Great wisdom comes back to the naïve; the basis of truth refound in simplicity,
Like that of pristine man clothed in grass and leaves.
Simple talk conveys essentials.
From the obscure bring the obvious; give soul to matter.
As bitter winter turns to spring.
Viril power held in restraint,
With mind concentrated and spirit penetrating."
Three Day Workshop
July 8, 9 & 10 9 AM – 4 PM
$350
August 2011
PLEIN AIR WORKSHOP
Crooked River : Painting Camp Out
Paint for three days in the rugged wilderness of Central Oregon in the spectacular Crooked River Canyon. Paint like heck all day; sing around the campfire at night. Only a three hour drive from Portland. Arrive Friday night for some Haute Cuisine Camp Chow; ready to paint Saturday through Monday. Break camp Tuesday. This plein air workshop is designed for artists with at least some painting experience.
This workshop will involve the same insightful instruction in painting: composition, color, layering strategies, and brushwork.
Friday August 11 – Tuesday August 15 (Arrive Friday evening for camp dinner; Paint Saturday, Sunday & Monday; pack up Tuesday morn.)
$550 includes all food, a cook, all camp site fees and inspired instruction.
OREGON HIGH DESERT
We’ve been going out to Diamond, Oregon, the gateway to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Steens Mountain, Catlow Rim and the Alvord Desert, for five years. This place is out there! Quiet. Intense. Wonderful. This plein air workshop is designed for artists with painting experience. We will focus on ways to convey all that expansive space onto this small rectangle of canvas through the development of subtle color relationships and the abstraction of the observed physical forms – buttes, valleys, mountains, plains and sky. “The reality looks weirder than the unreality,” said one artist of the surrounding desert. This is always a wonderful experience for all, and people really improve their painting. We will stay at the Hotel Diamond, which offers delectable meals and Western hospitality.
Thursday – Sunday August 18, 19, 20, 21
(Arrive for scrumptious dinner Wed. 17)
$420
OTHER CLASSES OR WORKSHOPS
These are the basic offerings from The Tiger’s Cave Studio through Summer 2011. I am developing ideas for landscape and cultural outings and classes to add into the calendar here and there and these will be offered as the year unfolds. I'm working on a couple of them right now to take place in the Wallowa Mountains, near Joseph, Oregon. These are somewhat inspired by the literati poets and painters of China and Japan. These could range in effort level from Easy to Medium to Extreme. Easy means a plein air class in close proximity to Portland, Oregon: the western Columbia Gorge, Sauvie Island, Lower Willamette River. Medium level is something like the trip to the Oregon High Desert, where we stay at the Diamond Hotel and paint a full day and retire to a great meal and sound sleep. Extreme could mean car and tent camping on Steens Mountain or with pack animals in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. We would have a cook, sleep in tents, paint like hell, recite poetry, tell tall tales. The Zen level would involve a stay at a retreat center, following a contemplative routine including periods of meditation and periods of repetitive art making, interspersed with creative outbursts. Again, please keep an eye on the site and contact me with any questions.