Wishing you

And a Bright & Joyful New Year!

from Beth @ Robinpress 

& the Robinson Hartpence Family...

This next year for the studio is looking full of more wonderful adventures... please stay tuned...

Write when you can...

Object Acquisition # 77-129.6.6 Rubber Stamps: Interior of Eye

Documenting objects from The Hunt Show:

Object Acquisition # 77-129.6.6 Rubber Stamps of the Interior of the Eye


Object interpreted and Statement by: Elyse Gambino
to see more of her work go to www.elysegambino.com


Sometimes I forget how creative scientists must be, that Charles Darwin loved to draw and sketch. In my studio I often feel like an explorer making new discoveries, a scientist experimenting with ideas and testing my hypothesis. Art and science are intertwined conceptually as well as historically, and going into OHSU and completing this project gave me the opportunity to examine art and science in a different way. My pieces from the Hunt are creative representations of parts of human anatomy: a set of stamps used for medical publications. I made a large scale "stamp" to hang on the wall and made the subject matter imaginative rather than representational. I was particularly drawn to the stamp of the ocular cavity and had fun experimenting with symbols and objects that are a solely artistic portrayal of the inside of my own eye.

Curators note: Elyse also printed this block. The empty box under the print block was full of prints. 

Small Pleasures Invitational 2011

New Boxes

 for the Holiday Season at the

 Small Pleasures Invitational 2011 

December 9 thru January 28, 2012

Artist Talk: Fri. Dec. 9, 3:30 - 4:30 pm

Opening: Fri. Dec 9, 5:30 - 8:00 pm

First Friday Artwalk: Fri. Jan. 6, 5:30 - 8:00

@ 

The Jacobs Gallery

The Gallery is in the lower level of the 

Hult Center for the Performing Arts

Located between 

7th Ave & Willamette Street, Eugene OR

http://www.jacobsgallery.org/

Gallery Hours:

Tues - Fri, 12 - 4pm

Sat. 11am - 3pm

About the Exhibit:

20 artist have been invited to create artwork no larger than 12 inches in any direction. As a special holiday offering, if you purchase a piece of art from this exhibit as a gift, you may take the artwork with you on the day of purchase!

Artists included:

Johnny Beaver, Bets Cole, Betsy Credle, Lavonne Tarbox-Crone, MarDee, Jan Eliot, Ann Blumb Hamilton, Laura Jaszkowski, Jeanne Maasch, Rogene Manas, Sally Metcalf, Jerril Nilson, Rich Norman, Marilyn Odland, Lynn Ihsen Peterson, William Pickard, 

Beth I. Robinson, Kirsten Shende, 

Jo Warren and Shannon Weber

Special thank you to Beverly Soasey

Symbols, Letters, Words

"The Between Times"

Looking for a little sun & warmer weather...

How about heading south...

I have some work @ 

The Umpqua Valley Arts Association

1624 W Harvard, Roseburg, OR 97471  

 November 4th  2011– January 6th 2012 

A great space to see work...

This weekend they are having a great event

Music for the Arts on December 2nd!

You'll need to RSVP soon!

The Harvest

Happy All Hallows' Evening!

Harvest Moon

The Winter Squash

And lastly

Brother Gus making venison sausage from his recent hunt.

( Max Dog making sure each morsel is used)

These are just some of the things we are thankful for...

Wishing you all the best...

Object Acquisition # 77-363.1 Pneumothorax Apparatus

Documenting objects from The Hunt Show:

Object Acquisition # 77-363.1 Pneumothorax Apparatus

Object interpreted and Statement by: Dorothy Sharrar

The object I "found" was a Pneumothorax Apparatus. It was used in the 1930's to collapse a lung diseased by tuberculosis, allowing it to heal while the patient breathed through the other lung. The process was called "resting the lung" and it could take months or years for healing to take effect. There was only about 50% chance of success.

My response to the object was elicited from my family history and my father's personal experience of losing both of his sisters and his father to tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was a stigma, a family secret that my father was taught not to divulge to anyone at the time because of the disgrace it would bring to the family.

During the process of working on this project, I thought a lot about the aunts and the grandfather I never knew, about my grandmother who endured the loss of her daughters and her husband to the disease, and about my father who fed his sister her last meal at 21 years old, witnessing her struggle for breath and life to the very end.

I used materials and processes that were able to reflect the qualities of breathing-- movement, transparency, weightlessness; and at the same time the qualities of the disease process-- the struggle to breathe, the strictures and scarring from the disease as well as from the veil of secrecy surrounding it. I chose to work with fabrics and hand-sewing, utilizing found handkerchiefs; a common item used for personal hygiene, they hold a sense of intimacy and fragility-- cared for, monogrammed, embroidered, tatted-- valued as a personal possession, reflective of the era in which they were used.

My piece is titled "For Kathryn" in memory of my aunt.

Curator's note: Small white crosses embroidered over and over, meditation and reflection.

Chandler & Price Press Finds New Home With an Unlikely Mate

This is the new press for Robin Press Studio.

This Chandler & Price is from 1889 and is 112 years old.

My sister, Carey, has dubbed him Johnny Tremain.

He needs a little cleaning up, new rollers and a treadle.

In the novel Johnny Tremain, it concludes 

on a note of hopefulness for the future. 

Although the beginning of the war 

has wrought great death and destruction, 

American Patriots have defeated the 

British army and surrounded Boston, 

a doctor will have mended Johnny's hand, 

and Cilla and Johnny have exchanged their first kiss.

Johnny recieved a nod from the older(?) printer 

Obie - the Epson 9900 I purchased last year.

I think they will be fine mates and 

am eager for them to play together.

Note: 

Obie is the artificial intelligence with the ability to alter local regions of reality, in Jack L. Chalker's Well World series (1977)

Time to get to work!

Object Acquisition # 77-28.2.66 Drug Kit

Documenting objects from The Hunt Show:

Object Acquisition # 77-28.2.66 Drug Kit

Object interpreted and Statement by:

Derek Faust  www.derekfaust.com

Using my designated object, a late 19th century traveling doctor’s medicine kit, I created “graduated cylinder” using acrylic, mylar and uhmf plastics. I used the shape of the vials filled with various chemicals and remedies to inspire my material choices. Also housed in the kit was a variety of scratch papers, when folded these acted as containers for the doses of powdered medicines to be taken by a patient. 

My process began by investigating the visual and conceptual elements of the object. Then I worked with this element through a minimalist and formal approach using materials that resonated with the original but in a contemporary context.  I created “graduated cylinder” so that without the original object or context the work would read as a simple gesture, an exploration in an arrangement of materials, whilst within the context the piece begins to reveal the language of the tubes and vials of medicines from the doctor’s kit.

Curators Note: This is a great reminder for myself... the more you take away the better and more wonderful it can be....

Object Acquisition # Spratt, G.

Documenting objects from The Hunt Show:

Object Acquisition# A newly acquired book with anatomical flaps: Spratt, G. Obstetric Tables: Comprising Graphic Illustrations, with Descriptions and Practical Remarks: Exhibiting on Dissected Plates Many Important Subjects in Midwifery. Philadelphia: James A. Bill, 1850
Object interpreted and Statement by Cyan Bott

Thank you for looking.

Can anything be art when imbued with meaning? Is it art or is it memory?

Do they function the same?

For this piece, I was working from the memory of an object, trying to recreate that memory in tangible form. That image that I saw initially - and the meaning I took from it - were the jumping-off point. From there it was just a free-fall of responding to the materials at hand.

Process - based work, created by the natural rhythms of the hands, has a different resonance than that which is premeditated. There is room for evolution, immediacy and expressiveness when responding to things as they surface. It's a process of decision making and being able to follow your gut. Ultimately it is all about the confidence you have in your decisions and the actual conviction behind them.

For me, making is an escape from intellectualism, It's one of the few things that I can do on autopilot, using my eyes and hands to guide me.

"Manipulating material is a way to speak."

Jessica Stockholder

More Heart Valves:

OHSU will be highlighting M.Lowell Edwards... 

the co-inventor of the Starr Edwards Heart Valve that our hunt show artist Clare Carpenter interpreted. 

Hope you can check out these great artifacts.

New exhibit: Oregon's M. Lowell Edwards: 

Co-Inventor of the Starr-Edwards Heart Valve

MILES LOWELL EDWARDS (1898 TO 1982)

Object Acquisition # 2007-2.102 Heart Valves

Documenting objects from The Hunt Show:

Object Acquisition # 2007-2.102 Heart Valves

Object interpreted and Statement by 

Clare Carpenter www.tigerfoodpress.com

The prints in this series represent the processing of many complicated sets of dual ideas. Valves, by their nature, are mindless gatekeepers. They are almost binary in their function. Yes, No. Open, Closed. The Mitral Valve is itself a bi-leaf structure, and the artificial Mitral Valve first developed and implanted in 1960 by Portland’s Dr. Albert Starr and engineer Lowell Edwards are defined by dualities. The artificial valve is at once representative of improbability and overwhelmingly successful innovation. In the process of making these prints I wanted to explore representing duality using positive and negative space, abstraction and representation. A heart that is not really a heart, the areas where black and white make grey; because in fact, a valve’s function is not simply binary but may comprise many degrees of open and closed.

Participating in The Hunt has also, for me, been an exploration of duality. At times it’s felt like an exercise in patience with myself and my process. The opportunity to take in so much information from the historic archives at OHSU, to the immense amount of medical information I’ve sifted through, to the personal anecdotes I’ve heard from people who’ve been treated by Dr. Starr, within all of that I could get lost for many, many months. However the incredible help of fellow artists participating in the project, and other artists simply willing to lend an ear when I needed to blurt through everything I’ve taken in to help me discern the tiny nugget that needed to be gleaned from all of that information – that has been a truly wonderful and certainly lasting result.

Recapping the Summer...

About this time of year as the rain comes down... and I have to remember to wear socks... I reflect on the warmth and lazy days of the summer...  and the funny things I take photos of...

Sometimes these make it into work... 

other times they feed the work.

Enjoy! & as always thanks for reading these wandering...

Sunrise...

a sign...

to head to the sky for a better look...

landing...

night...

bench sitting...

peeps...

 

reflecting on the line of people...

back to the beginning...

waiting to rest...

or roll in the grass...

enjoying the last bits of abundance...

Object Acquisition # 2007-11 Acuity Projector

Documenting objects from The Hunt Show:

Object Acquisition # 2007-11 Acuity Projector

Object interpreted and Statement by Casey Judy www.caseyjudy.com

"It’s not easy growing old"

My 90-year-old- Grandpa is mentally sharp for his age and has always been an avid reader but he has macular degeneration, which blinds some areas in his eyes’ retinas. These days he can’t read nearly as well and is forbidden to drive at night, both of which diminish his quality of life. Because I’ve been living with him for the last three years to keep him company and help him when I can, I see his degeneration first-hand. And, it’s painful to watch.

Grandpa’s failing eyesight became a source of inspiration for my artwork in the OHSU scavenger hunt project – as did a little serendipity. That is, to decide which artist in this exhibition got what object to work from, we pulled numbers associated with the objects from a basket. I blindly selected the acuity projector by Kenneth Swan, founder of the Casey Eye Institute. This turn-of-the-century machine measures the acuity of a person’s vision, which really hit home for me because of my Grandpa; and it’s a funny twist because my name is Casey.

What I have made for this project is very different from my usual work of bright and vibrant colors. My piece is white representing the light projected from the Acuity Projector. Then I have carved the chart into the plaster, but the numbers and letters shown are significant to my Grandpa’s life. Reading this eye chart I have created, all in white makes it difficult for some to even see at all. This is similar to what my Grandpa sees. The splotches of white paint on top of the plaster represent the splotches in his eyes.  The complete work reflects what we all must deal with, if we’re lucky: Growing old.