Today was the reception at Nina Uppaluru’s show at Gallery 9. Nina has about 20 watercolor and acrylic paintings there.

“Up And About” is probably my favorite from the show. All those lush colors and intricate shapes are mesmerizing. I say “probably” because other works make it hard to choose just one.

Up And About – acrylics on canvas, 36″ x 48″

It was nice to see how many people came to see Nina’s beautiful art and to talk to her. Attention well deserved.

Today was a gallery day. We went to see the Absolute Abstraction show at the Viewpoints Gallery in Los Altos. I anticipated seeing Jane Ferguson’s acrylics which of course were awesome but was surprised to see that Floy Zittin created an abstract too, ant it was a very unusual one with tree branches growing from nowhere. I love Floy’s new pieces done on canvas, they have a wonderful touch of magic to them; not a fantasy art, just something a little different than traditional realism. It’s still watercolor, but it looks so different on canvas, its amazing.

The rest of the gallery was just as much pleasure to see as the featured exhibit: Terri Ford’s glowing pastels, Jean Prophet’s pottery, Berni Jahnke’s watercolors (she had portraits of old people on display, and shared their stories with me and Slava), Diana Jaye’s colorful oils, Kathleen Alexander’s graceful flowers and exotic fruit (at least I think that green thing was a fruit, I loved it more than flowers, and it looked great in watercolor), and so much more. It seems that every time we visit this gallery it becomes better and better.

We stopped at Gallery 9 too, since it is located on the next street. Nice to see what Belinda Lima and Rajani Balaram have there, and I don’t remember if I saw Kiyoco Michot’s ceramics before but those bowls that resemble fruit split in half are very beautiful.

To add to the pleasure of taking in art, it was pouring outside. Such a wonderfully quiet, rainy day!

Since oil pastel is my newly found favorite medium (going back to it after an almost 6 year break), the title of Tanya’s blog caught my attention. She works primarily in oil pastel, but her acrylic and colored pencil works are just as delightful.

Tanya’s Charming Critters – oil pastel paintings

Patricia the rat drinking baileys on a quiet night out
Coloured pencil on black card, 2.5 x 3.5 inches (ACEO)

The festival moved to the Pioneer Memorial Park, Mountain View this year. It’s a smaller place than the grounds of the Triton Museum (or so it looked to me), but the park is right next to downtown Mountain View – a place that is more popular than Triton. No, seriously, many people have no idea what the Triton Museum is or even that Santa Clara has an art museum.

Fine Arts League of Cupertino and Campbell Artists’ Guild, to clubs to which I belong, were sharing a lawn at the edge of the park. I was showing with FALC and chatting with CAG friends too – nice!

Kushlani Hall only brought her jewelry; no encaustics, no oils or oil pastels. Her jewelry was gorgeous, of course.

Saw the finished piece that Holly Van Hart was doing at the FALC demo in May. It’s changed a lot, and I still liked it very much. She also had a larger painting similar to that one, and they complimented each other nicely, hanging on the same panel.

Haven’t seen what Donna Orme was doing for almost a year, so it was a special pleasure to stop by her display. I am yet to see a single monoprint of hers that I didn’t like. I can’t even pick a favorite because if I turn my head and look again I’ll change my mind. Her work is that awesome.

Found some great new art that I haven’t seen before: graceful watercolors by Cheryl Kampe and dreamy acrylics by Nance Wheeler.

This time the weather was certainly better then during the last weekend – not too hot, not too cold, with a nice breeze. Both Slava and me were showing in the backyard of the Nina Uppaluru’s house. Iona Ezaki, Janki Chokshi, and Rajiv Khilnani kept us company.

Don’t think I saw Rajiv’s abstracts on paper before – they are awesome. He also brought my favorite acrylic one, and the big acrylic that he had on the easel next to his booth was pretty good too. The fact that acrylics can be put in direct sun and still survive makes me slightly envious. I kept my pieces in the shade at all times.

Nina said the first visitor came at 7:30 am in the morning, and there were more early visitors while we still were setting up. Nina’s gorgeous Japanese Shiba (I keep forgetting her name) was in dog heaven, enjoying attention from new people and closely following some of those who seemed to be interested in art more than in her.

Two nice horse ladies brought good news that the racecourse in Pleasanton is to become a replacement for now defunct Bay Meadows. I suppose they are going to improve it and make the season longer than current 20 racing days or so during the Alameda County Fair. Exciting! Would be even better if a harness racing track materialized nearby, but chances of that happening are nill. I will gladly take Thoroughbred races as the next best thing.

Another very nice lady offered to send me horse photos as a reference for my work, free of charge. She showed them to me on her camera – head shots of pretty sport horses from Mozhaisk, Russia. Yay!

Art from the Heart by Cara Bevan is a blog by a very talented artist who is only 20. Her stories that accompany pet portraits, wildlife paintings, and Zodiac series show that she’s a gifted writer too, but more importantly, they convey the passion that Cara has for her subjects. There is a great question at the bottom of the blog: “If art isn’t from the heart, then is it art at all?”

We had just one more day to see the rest of open studios, so we started it by planning the route. That took some time because less sites were still open on the third weekend, and they were scattered all over the valley. We did make it to many more sites than yesterday, so I will be brief.

Margaret Prendergast Washington was the first artist we visited. Her watercolors are like fine China – light, elegant, and very pleasing to the eye.

A lot of interesting artists were showing in the Alameda Galleries – a labyrinth of studios behind the Recycle Book Store with a very unassuming entrance.

The artwork that caught my attention first was four pieces of burl with colorful pictures on them done with some dry media that I could not identify. It had no information next to it, but I was assured that the artist herself is about to arrive soon and I could ask her. We did not get to talk to the artist, but her husband was kind enough to explain that it was pastel on burl and that it’s a lot of work to complete such a large piece. I would imagine it was, but the result looked fabulous. The name of the artist was Patti Linder-Dodd, and her business card said she specializes a murals.

Nancy Walters shoots and paints wild animals. The portrait we saw go beyond capturing likeliness, they convey personality. Nancy must feel strong connection with her animals.

I am not sure how David Lippenberger’s art should be classified or if it even needs to be put into any specific category. He had many unusual pieces in his studio of which one with black wooden shapes for a city and rope-clad skies was the best. There was something about earthy tones of the rope playing against ominous black mass beneath that captivates the eye.

On the wall of the passage next to David’s studio were several abstract painting of Simone Raoux, a wonderful sequence of gorgeous pieces rich with texture and radiantly warm colors. In her studio, there was more wonders to see, all very different, each of them with its own emotion. Somehow they did not clash with each other; despite their differences, they formed an intricate harmony on the walls. I don’t remember being that immersed in abstract art since I first saw paintings by Karen Hale years ago.

There were more artists in the Alameda Galleries, but we wanted to see other sites too so had to leave.

Douglas Vincent’s Ilfochrome photos of nature seemed to glow from the inside and have almost a three-dimensional feel to them. He’s obviously a very talented photographer who does not need to rely on an unusual technique or materials, but they certainly add a special touch to his art.

We barely entered Amy Brown’s yard when I was stopped by beautiful ceramic fish on the fence. The whole yard was full of birds, fish, shark head vases and so much more that I was not sure where to look first. Amy had to invite us into the house more than once, and I finally followed with a small pelican in my hands. I am partial to ceramics, what can I say. She paints her tropical scenery, flowers, and frogs in acrylic, but the result looks like oil. There was a triptych of Red Eyed Tree Frogs above the fireplace that to me was the best thing in the whole room, I am not even a frog person.

Noreen Christopher and Jeanette Turkus were showing at the site that had a funny contrast between very good lighting and wooden floors generously spattered with paint of all colors imaginable. I liked Noreen’s abstract acrylics and Jeanette’s figurative art most of all, but the whole exhibit by those two artists was very strong.

Judging by the imagery outside, I expected to see a cat or two in Joe Decker’s house, but we saw none. His breathtaking photos were hanging, laying, and standing everywhere, and Joe could tell a story about each and every one of them down to the exact name of the place and a year when the shot was taken – what I would give to have that kind of memory!

Janet Trenchard works in many different media, and her display reflected that. She creates unusual mixed media assemblages, paints in acrylics, and does some sort of printmaking that I never saw before. Unfortunately, the name of the technique escaped my mind as soon as we left the site, but it had a delicately weathered look to it. Janet said that because it is not an easy technique, very few artists are engaged into it.

By that time studios started to close down, and we decided to call it a day. And it was a very good day, I might add.