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Hello! Spring is officially upon us! I’m enjoying signs of budding life, homemade lemonade with my kids, cool morning runs and new inspirations.
After many years of dedicating my creative process to growing skills with watercolor, ink and pastel, I’ve recently begun to include additional media in my paintings. It is exhilarating to plunge into other directions. I’m also taking an even more immediate, direct approach using abstraction with surrealism. A most recent work includes cotton thread, colored pencil and markings from charcoal twigs my youngest son made for me as a surprise gift one afternoon. It delights me to create artworks that come not only from within myself, but that are a collection of efforts and energies all around me.
Below is my brand new painting with detail pictures, The Drops 54321, 28″ x 21″, watercolor, ink, charcoal and thread. Also here.
If you have not signed up for my email newsletter, please consider it! This month through the beginning of April I am offering a subscriber only…
Spring Special
On All Paintings and Drawings!
Signing up is also another to keep abreast of my upcoming exhibitions and recent developments. And it won’t clutter up your inbox because I only send one or two a month. 🙂
Here are some other new works from this year.
I am deeply thankful to my agent and Scottsdale gallerist, Nicole Royse of Royse Contemporary, for the opportunity to show my works and exhibit in Arizona. Thank you to all of you for your many kind and generous ways of showing support.
Pictures above from Pan Door, my recent January solo exhibition at Royse Contemporary.
In my studio, there rests a progressing mother/child drawing in deep cerulean blue pastel, and two large abstract paintings which feel all at once mischievous and full of longing. My work is cut out for me.
This is one of my new paintings, Rain With Different Frames, 9″ x 7″, made with watercolor, ink and pastel. My work moves in organic directions; I draw or paint what is authentically in my vision at the time, and stay very open to whatever else could surprisingly evolve. The themes take form as characters and textural atmospheres, both of equal importance, which relates my conviction that we are a part of this world, and it is a part of us. That is spiritual to me. When I am asked what inspires me, the “what” for me is found wherever my life is, or where my mind has wondered while reading a news article, researching, observing my children, listening to a song, walking through a temperate rain forest… the wondering finds me again in my studio.
Each work contains story lines woven together to form a whole narrative. Though the drawings and paintings may be fantastical in appearance, I feel they also contain metaphorical expressions that embody every day experiences.
And mysteries too.
Below is another new work. A miniature. This is The Appearance, 4 5/8″ x 4 1/8″, watercolor, ink and pastel.
You can find both of these works and others at my website, http://charmagnecoe.com.
Thank you for reading! Have a lovely weekend.
I’m thrilled to announce I am now represented by Royse Contemporary, a new gallery in historic downtown Scottsdale Art District. It is a great honor to work with gallery owner and Arizona arts vanguard, Nicole Royse.
Royse Contemporary celebrates it’s grand opening, Southwest Contemporary Today, this Thursday during the Scottsdale ArtWalk. I will be exhibiting new work alongside exciting artists, Angel Cabrales, Monica Aissa Martinez, Daniel Shepherd, Marilyn Szabo, and Fred Tieken. The opening has been celebrated in Phoenix New Times, Superstition Review and several other cultural arts publications. Please join us on this wonderful debut evening for boundary-pushing art, refreshments and music. You can also RSVP at Facebook.
Southwest Contemporary Today
Thursday, September 14th
5 PM – 10 PM
Royse Contemporary
7077 E. Main Street Suite 6, Scottsdale, Arizona 85251
Thursday, September 14th
5 PM – 10 PM
Royse Contemporary
7077 E. Main Street Suite 6, Scottsdale, Arizona 85251
If you didn’t attend the Opening Reception, or would like to see my work again, please visit me at the Closing Reception of my Phoenix debut solo exhibition, The Reaches. It is occurring during this Third Friday Art Walk in downtown Phoenix. Many art aficionados prefer the more focused, relaxed atmosphere of Third Friday to view and discuss work with the artists. My twenty works include never-before-exhibited pieces and some are even in the raw, unframed. Also enjoy some live jazz by Alan Jones and refreshments. RSVP here.
The Reaches
September 15th
6pm – 10pm
Chartreuse Gallery
1301 Grand Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85007
September 15th
6pm – 10pm
Chartreuse Gallery
1301 Grand Ave, Phoenix, AZ 85007
It’s been quite a while since I’ve worked on very small pieces. I like the refinement of brushstrokes and condensing thoughts into such a little space. I think of it like creating a mini pandora’s box…. Here are two I’ve just finished. Enjoy!
This first one is Jewels for My Baleen, 2015, watercolor, ink and pastel, 5 1/2″x 4 1/8″ (framed 9 1/2″ x 8 1/8″).
And, Sweetness Then Go Outer Skins, 2015, watercolor, ink and pastel, 4″ x 4 1/4″ (framed 9″ x 9 1/4″).
If you are interested in my work, you can visit more and sign up for my newsletter at http://charmagnecoe.com. You can also reach out to me at my Facebook page.
I am mostly settled into my new home art studio in Vashon, WA. It is a bright space with just the right amount of room to maneuver several paintings at once in various states of progress. Favorite mementos and pictures are arranged. The scanner is ready for business. Outside my window is a small Japanese Maple that keeps me company in rain or shine… mostly rain these days. It has been at least two months since I’ve been able to really dedicate time to to serious art projects during the transition from Flagstaff. For the last two weeks, I’ve tried to hit the ground running and do feel back in a flow of drawing, painting, writing poetry, correspondence and visiting regional artists and gallery spaces. Here are some samples of my recent creativity. 
The Seeds of Stretch Marks the Body
Diaphanous
Enveloping
Two of many paintings in progress.
In my future are many day-trips to surrounding Seattle and Tacoma. I’ve taken a few already and found myself basking in a botanical garden, playing pinball, eating bacon on a stick, watching salmon jump at Ballard Locks and reading/viewing the thoughtfully curated “Painting Poetry” exhibit at Women Painters of Washington Gallery.
Most of the time, I’m at my house nesting and painting. Vashon is a rare gem of a place — a small island with much to uncover. I am not even close to being used to all the gray weather and rain, but the temperatures are fairly mild and nature is exquisitely unfettered. Just the other day, I was sitting on my deck sketching quietly when suddenly the neighbor’s geese exploded in a hullabaloo of angry honking. A large bald eagle flew over them, then landed in a towering fir tree nearby. Well, no wonder, I thought.
It’s been extremely rewarding to pursue some new palettes this month and attend to several projects. Below are two of four paintings in progress, and I’m beginning another one today… I woke up thinking of rich indigo and filigree-like white lace. I’ll see where the spark takes me.
Having several concurrent paintings in progress affords me the ability to step back from one when I need to but also keep working on others. It’s important for me, and many other visual artists/writers, I’ve heard, to avoid developing myopia. As well, a kind of block can develop when all one’s hopes are tied to a single project — particularly one that is large and inundating. That happened to me several years ago while doing a large commission. At points, I felt completely overwhelmed; when I got to a puzzling element I would fixate on it and become mired. Time ticked away. I’d paint something that didn’t work, paint it over, then over again. Trickles of self-doubt began to form. Hitting the wall, my efforts became forced, which is anathema to my automatistic, spontaneous flow of creativity I need to create work that is truly alive, surprising and authentic. In frustration I found myself breaking away and taking out a sketchbook. I began drawing unrelated projects and it extinguished my anxiety. What emerged were some of my best drawings AND I returned to the large commission feeling rejuvenated, fueled and having fresh eyes. Time-wise too, it was crucial that I met the deadline, and thankfully I did! It was a learning curve.
I’ve since utilized this healthy discovery in creative process and I make sure to explore art in several directions at once. Not to an overwhelming degree, but just enough so that the projects are mutually beneficial as a whole. Each venture is informing the other, whether on a conscious or subconscious level. When a piece falls flat, I don’t trouble over it as much as I used to. Instead, I usually set it aside (I will often resurrect it later) and get to painting or drawing or writing something else. One creation is happily percolating while another creation is reaching a satisfying completion. I read along the way that “art feeds art”. It’s true.
The above painting, Windows Watch Us In, is the focus of my April art column installment, Honey Wove the Marrow, at Arcadia Magazine’s Online Sundries. In it I discuss identity, relating and a bit about fishing with my dad.
I have now completed the painting that I’ve worked on for so long. Rider, 27″ x 19″, watecolor, ink and pastel.
Detail pictures.
I have enjoyed reading about the biophilia hypothesis, created by evolutionary biologist, Edward O. Wilson, which states humans inherently have an attraction toward participating with other life forms in nature. Evolutionary psychology is also a good part of such a discussion; we are thus attracted because of adaptations occurring through the evolution of our ancestry. I search out and am drawn toward nature encounters, like dipping my hands into a writhing mound of convergent lady-beetles or discovering an Arizona cliff-side honeycombed with bald-eagle nests. These encounters are intersecting points that stir something deeper within me, something deeply known that is beyond this present life. Separated from those experiences, I feel less of nature, less of me, less of you. It is yet another fascinating layer of experiencing and being aware of interconnectedness. We are not solo journeyers.
Here are recent drawings.
Pedigree, 2014, ink drawing.
An older drawing I recalled while writing this post. Returning, 2012, ink drawing.
And…
Feverers, 2014, ink drawing.
I’ve lately been combining ink colors. Also, I continue to concentrate on menagerie drawings which intermingle creatures, organic structures and themes of pathos and bliss. “Just This, No Matter” is submitted to Illustration Friday’s theme “Refresh”.
“Down Feather Stronger”
“Jump” is the theme for Illustration Friday this week. This is my simple drawing entry.
Other drawings.
“Creatures in Shallow Breaths”
“Comfort”
Do come by and see me as I show new works and very small paintings at Arizona Handmade Gallery this Friday from 6pm – 9pm. Click here for more details.
