SHOWS and EVENTS

New Book ! 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.

Experiments in the studio toward the end of 2009 proved fruitful: monotypes, other work on paper, calligraphy and oils. Some of these, along with medium sized encaustics dealing with landscape and language were shown at Traver Gallery in February. See Undo Every Woven, below.

February 2010
UNDO EVERY WOVEN

February 13 – March 7 2010
Opening reception: Saturday, February 13, 4:00 – 7:00

For this show, I’m staying within a theme: intimate immensity as experienced in the high desert; vastness felt from endless repetition of small forms (such as sage brush, stones, rabbits, questions, hairs, hopes, prayers, steps taken on a path, breaths, mantras, kind gestures, songs); pattern and gesture guessed from buttes and mesas, valleys and deserts.
While the motif is consistent, the media are quite varied: encaustics, sumi ink on paper, etchings, monotypes (some large), oils and even photos. Many are in the wide formats I've been experimenting with lately.

William Traver Gallery, Tacoma
1821 East Dock Street
Tacoma, WA 98402
253-383-3685
www.travergallery.com

Mine will be one of ten ceramic urns featured at this year's Cascade Aids Project (CAP) 21st Annual Art Evening and Auction May 1, 2010 at the historic Bison Building in NE Portland. for more info go to capartauction.org

May 2010
The Great Outdoors Group Show of Gallery Artists (six artists)
my grouping were landscapes in oil on panel
The first showing of my landscapes since 1984

Augen Gallery
716 NW Davis St
Portland, OR 97209
503.546.5056
www.augengallery.com

CLASSES

I enjoy helping others learn about the making of art, whether a technical challenge, like color theory or encaustic methods, or matters of composition, content and meaning. Through the Continuing Education branch of Pacific Northwest College of Art (Portland), I offer courses in Drawing, Painting, and Encaustic Painting.

Out of my own place, The Tiger’s Cave Studio,various classes in painting, drawing and awareness have been offered. Currently, these classes mostly concern Nature and Landscape. Please refer to my BIO on the About page for more information on my studies and interests.

From 2006 to 2008, I led landscape workshops into the Oregon High Desert through PNCA. Now I'm offering that workshop out of the studio. We stay in Diamond, Oregon (population 5) at the Hotel Diamond, est. 1898 when Diamond boasted 50 citizens. They offer incredibly good food and western hospitality. And we paint hearty for three days, learn a lot about painting, hold a few critiques, and generally have a great time at it.

In the coming year I will offer a critique class, as well. Please look here for announcements for Tigers Cave Studio classes, or send an email to request course descriptions, or to put your name on the list for class announcements.

this class ended in June 2010. It was very inspiring for all. I will make a similar offering next Winter.

MASTERS STUDIO PAINTING CLASS –NATURE OR LANDSCAPE

This is a class for painters who are ready to center in on their work and push forward. It’s not a class on style or vision; it’s a class about discovery and the exploration of your leading edge. This winter season we will focus on the many approaches to working with Nature, the Wild, or Landscape. Whether you work by eidetic imagery or from observation of light and land, from concepts or through pattern and abstraction, together we will examine what intrigues each of us in painting and in turn how to make your work clearer and stronger. Through group and individual critiques, lectures and open discussion, we will cover formal issues in painting. We will address philosophical questions about the social, political or spiritual aspects that are taken and shaped through images of wilderness, nature or landscape, from contemporary, historical and cultural perspectives. The lectures will be in the form of six slide talks on various painters’ orientations to Nature. There could be a video or two and some reading assigned. Participants will work on their paintings or other work in their own studios and bring what they’re working on to class meetings.

Beginning Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Meeting every other Tuesday evening for 10 meetings (ending in late May)
6:30 - 9:30
$345

Hike - & - Paint

This year we’re going to do it: go paint in beautiful places that are only accessible on foot. 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.

Next Outing Friday, August 6, 2010 • Wahclella Falls in the Columbia Gorge
$80 fee includes a great hike, inspired instruction & snacks to boot!

May 22 - September 4

WEEKLY LANDSCAPE PAINTING CLASS Summer 2010

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Summer Afternoon

Six brown cows walk down to drink
(all the little fishes blew bubbles at the may-fly)
Splash goes the first as she comes to the brink
Swish go the tails of the five who follow
Twelve brown cows bend drinking there
(all the little fishes went waggle-tail, waggle-tail)
Six from the water and six from the air;
Up and down the river darts a blue-black swallow
---A.A. Milne

This will be a course in painting vast nature. A good part of our activity each Saturday will be to pit our abilities toward depicting all that space out there on a smallish rectangle of canvas, using the opaque greasy substance of oils or acrylics. Such a strange endeavor, yet thoroughly captivating.

This is more than just a plein air class; we will take a seasonal look at the world around us. In Summer we care less about the why and wherefore; just let's paint. We've been hoping for an end to the rain, and now it's hot so don't complain! (sorry, couldn't help it)

COURSE OUTLINE : please contact Jef for the schedule of classes

We will paint en plein air, out in the wilds of northwest Oregon or southwest Washington, engaged in painting from observation. We will begin each outdoor session at 12:30 with a discussion of the day’s practical issues like color, composition and paint handling. This will be partly structured and partly not so structured. Then we paint until 4:30. Optional picnic lunch together at noon.

There will be sufficient breaks in the weekly schedule to plan for your summer travels.

Saturday afternoons 12:30-4:30pm    Spring section begins May 15.

10 Sessions    $345
5 sessions    $175
Drop- In    $40 per class

August

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 13 – Tuesday August 17

$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 19, 20, 21,22,    
(Arrive for scrumptious dinner Wed. 18)

$420

OTHER CLASSES OR WORKSHOPS

These are the basic offerings from The Tiger’s Cave Studio through Summer 2010. 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.