Sunday, February 2, 2020
Saturday, March 17, 2018
Come to Three Stones Gallery to get a breath of spring in this wintery March.
Here are images of the work that I have in the show. The opening is March 24 form 6:30-8:30. the show is up from March 13 - April 28 and is the last show for Three Stones Gallery at this location before they relocate to Rockport MA.
Here are images of the work that I have in the show. The opening is March 24 form 6:30-8:30. the show is up from March 13 - April 28 and is the last show for Three Stones Gallery at this location before they relocate to Rockport MA.
Hellcat Swamp Plum Island
Watercolor
8" x 8" Image Size
15" x 15" Framed Size
Iris Buds
Watercolor
9" x 4" Image Size
15" x 9" Framed Size
Iris Opening
Watercolor
9" x 4" Image Size
15" x 9" Framed Size
Iris
Watercolor
9" x 4" Image Size
15" x 9" Framed Size
Garden Daylily
Monotype
9" x 4" Image Size
16" x 10" Framed Size
Roadside Daylily
Monotype
9" x 4" Image Size
16" x 10" Framed Size
Yesterday's Tulips
SolarPlate Etching
8" x 10 "Image Size
18" x 24" Framed Size
Friday, January 22, 2016
Questions and answers inspired by Vermont Studio Center blog
I was just looking at the blog from the Vermont Studio
Center and was wondering what I would say in response to some of the questions
they asked the studio participants.
So here we go
In the Studio with Jane M Johnstone
Jane M Johnstone is a visual artist working out of her home
and her studio at ArtSpace Maynard.
Do you have any
routines or rituals while you work?
No. I tend to work in different rhythms at different times. Nothing
is a set routine or ritual. Lately, I have been enjoying the winter morning sunlight
at home; sitting with a cup of coffee, the dog at my feet, and a sketchbook
with pencil, pen or gouache to observe the blooming Christmas cactus on the
table next to me, or the slumbering dog on the sunny rug. At the studio, I either
work on a painting that is in process or start a new one depending on what
calls to me when I enter the room. Sometimes I listen to music, sometimes to
NPR and sometimes to silence. I also have a chair in the afternoon sun inviting
me to pause, step back and observe what I am working on, sometimes saving that
overreaching mark that smothers the work.
What one material/tool
could you not work without?
If I had to only have one tool, it would be two, a
mechanical pencil and paper.
What inspires you
besides other art and artists (movies, good food, songs, books, birds, etc.)?
Nature is the biggest inspiration for me, whether it is a
walk in the woods or the light on a living object in the house. I am drawn the
line and energy of life .
What is the best piece
of advice you have ever received?
Do it
What are you working
on now?
I am learning to paint. I have been working as a printmaker
for years and am reaching out to add new media to my work.
What role does
identity play in your work?
My life and my experiences definitely influence my work but
my work is not about my life and my experiences. My work is about observation
and medium. I am not interested in work as autobiography, rather as connection.
Often when titling pieces I find out how particular experiences have influenced
the aesthetic choices I have made.
When the narrative becomes title it is usually because the work has
taken some experience that I have had and made it feel more universal. I choose
untitled when I want the work to mean what it means to the viewer without
words, allowing observation and medium rather than narrative guide the viewing
experience.
What does community
mean to you?
Community is amazing, which is why I maintain a studio space
in a studio building. I have contact with other inspiring artists when I want
and I have privacy in my studio when I want. We encourage each other, inspire
each other, motivate each other, critique each other, show our works together,
and gather for art movies, openings and art outings. We remind each other of
the value of art-making in a society that often doesn’t prioritize the arts.
Monday, April 7, 2014
birds and nests and poems and books and prints and collages and sound and light = Call and Response,
Michele, Susan and I, assisted by our most amazing helpers Colleen, Betsy and Jack, have hung our show Call and Response - a multi-media exhibit at ArtSpace Gallery in Maynard. We have combined poems, drawings, collages, prints, paintings, artist books, sound recordings, lights, nests - both real and imagined - along with a writing desk with beckoning typewriter for your creative participation.
The idea for the show was conceived when Michele and I peeked around the partition in our studio and realized that we were simultaneously working on images emanating from a common muse, birds. I was in the midst of a series of works called Emptying Nests and Michele was working on a series with collaged birds and painting on board.
We had both studied literature in college and Emily Dickinson's poem Hope is the Thing with Feathers came to mind and we envisioned a show combining poetry and visual art.
When we met Susan Richmond, reading from her book of poems called Birding in Winter, the show was hatched. We wrote a proposal to the ArtSpace Gallery and we were excited when they gave us the month of April for our exhibit. It gives us the opportunity to celebrate Poetry Month and the return of spring.
Meeting monthly for a year, we delighted in letting ideas and inspirations take flight and finalized some of these inspirations into a show we called Call and Response. Existing works were selected, new works created, and the collaboration of both literal and inspired calls and responses between the artists and their works began.
Inspired by Michele's works, I started to draw and include birds into my work. I experimented with collage and bookmaking. I thought of the bird as form as well as being. I played with brighter colors and more lyrical forms. I cut the form of birds out of brightly colored collage and combined it with one of my black and white pronto print creating the piece Spring Catalog Birds.
I longed to learn from the complexity and richness of her work and the "twinkle in the eyes" of her birds. I played with layering and altering the drawn images to see the lyricism of their shape not just their species. In Spring Song Bird, I used an unfinished monotype and overlaid it with a composite image on transparent vellum. The image was a digitally altered drawing on top of a scan of another print. I applied the inspiration of collage by using mixed media layers of my own works. I have only begun to explore the many avenues that have been called forth from responding to her marvelous work.
I longed to learn from the complexity and richness of her work and the "twinkle in the eyes" of her birds. I played with layering and altering the drawn images to see the lyricism of their shape not just their species. In Spring Song Bird, I used an unfinished monotype and overlaid it with a composite image on transparent vellum. The image was a digitally altered drawing on top of a scan of another print. I applied the inspiration of collage by using mixed media layers of my own works. I have only begun to explore the many avenues that have been called forth from responding to her marvelous work.
Inspired by Susan, I created interpretations of her words in the pieces Balance and Nest. I wanted to go beyond illustrating the poems to try and create a sense of the work. In Balance, I used visual elements of placement, transparency, color, movement and stasis. With Nest I recreated the sense of plein air discovery and investigation using multiple but slightly varied imprints of the same nest, spaced around corners and nestled in soft paper made from gathered materials. I moved from two-dimensional works to three-dimensional works and became mindful of installation and mixed media. Her magnificently evocative poems resonated with my experiences observing and creating in response to nature.
Further challenged by combining poetry and image, I started to look at the pieces I was creating as parts of a poem, set within the context of the works around it, enriched by rhythm and metaphor. In the work Dawn Chorus, the work as poem is explored in the rhythmic repetition of image size, the variation of the images of altered birds, the integration of musical metaphor and the presentation of two panels recalling a poem of two stanzas. Vellum panels mounted like door sidelights with curtains of light vibrating off cut paper surfaces invite the viewer into a multifaceted view of an audible experience.
Poems also appeal to me as marks on paper. I wanted to respond to the calligraphic nature of the written poem with line-work. I drew in graphite, pen and charcoal and wanted to transfer those calligraphic works to prints. Due to health challenges I couldn't use traditional etching or drypoint to capture the lines. I experimented with ways to transfer line that were less labor intensive than drypoint and etching and did some pronto plate and paper lithography. I also investigated digital printmaking and altering images in photoshop. In some instances, I realized that the drawings were the final product that I was looking for, but I had been so used to thinking of myself as a printmaker, I had limited myself from sharing these with others.
Monday, October 28, 2013
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Upcoming Printmaking Demonstration for Melrose Arts
Here is a sampler of some different printmaking marks.
From left to right; Drypoint with Chine Colle, Monotype using solvents and brushwork, Two Plate Etching with Line and Coffee Lift Aquatint, Monotype using Brayer Painting, Trace Monotype, Monotype using Stencils/Mask.
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