Artist Talk Tonight! 5/29/15

Please come to the opening art exhibition and art talk for

Mimesis & Mourning: Insights for Conflict Specialists from Art Practices

3rd Floor of the John E. Jaqua Law Library

From 6 - 7 p.m.

Hope to see you!

Beth

You're invited to my masters thesis events!

You are cordially invited to attend the terminal project defense of

Beth I. Robinson, M.S. candidate

in Conflict and Dispute Resolution Program

"Mimesis & Mourning: Insights for Conflict Specialist from Art Practices"

Friday, May 15th at 10:00 am

Knight Law Center, Room 282

Also, please come to the opening art exhibition and artist talk for my terminal project exploring creative process within the context of grief and mourning.

Date: 5/29/15

Location: 3rd Floor of the John E. Jaqua Law Library

Time: 6 - 7 pm

The Stars are Not: Put Out Every One    

Artist Statement for 

Mimesis & Mourning: Insights for Conflict Specialist from Art Practices

Crow's Shadow

What can conflict specialists learn from artists about grief?  Certainly both professions deal with grief on a regular basis: many mediators work with clients who are dealing with losses and painful issues; many artists recount trauma and conflict in their narrative output. Often confused, grief is the internal feelings of loss, while mourning is the outward expression of grief. What happens if a conflict specialist is working with parties who are grieving and unable to express mourning through verbal communication? I believe that conflict specialists can learn more about the grieving process by examining how artists process grief through visual means of expression. I am a professional artist who decided two years ago to pursue a master’s degree in conflict dispute resolution at the University of Oregon.  Through my thesis project, I have created a research paper with a companion collection of original artwork that attempts to explore the creative process within the context of grief and mourning and its effect in and during conflicts.

One of the Lost Foolish Virgins

Through my artwork, I record emotional responses to the process of bereavement by creating collages and book structures. This recording of mourning started when I was eight. My grandfather, who was my best friend, died unexpectedly. The adults around me were heartbroken at his unexpected death. Even in their shock and awkwardness, they had the forethought to provide me with magazines, glue, and scissors. I learned to be fully present in those sobering moments of youthful innocence about death and refused to lose my sense of wonder. In those moments, I also rejected the dominant narratives about how to act regarding mourning, and I remained open to react in the way that was natural to the way I was feeling. Making meaning out of this bereavement allowed me to reconcile my conflicting feelings about loss and the rippling impacts of harm and confusion from the avoidance culture around me. 

The Gaze of the White Wolf

I had no idea how well these skills would serve me.  Years later, over a five-year period starting in 2005, my father, youngest brother, and mother died. These consecutive deaths gave a deeper awareness of a dominant incomplete loss mechanism leading me to further pursue how bereavement can be facilitated using visual methods and creative thought in mediation with the viewer. Bereavement made me focus on creating more artwork and showing it in a public sphere. Over the years presenting this work, grieving people continually come up to me during my shows, confused by trying to intellectualize their experiences and incomplete relationships with loss and not finding relief. Grief deals with the internal emotion of the heart and the reality of change, this first step is scary to many. Dr. Wolfelt wrote in his 2003 book, Understanding Your Grief, “Our society, western culture, has slowly converted into a mourning-avoiding culture, a culture that attempts to think of death as optional.”  Desiring deeper study of the subject, I entered the University of Oregon’s Law School in Conflict and Dispute Resolution program. 

Diagram: 282

During these last two years of study, my art and bereavement practice included obsessively collecting data, images, and information for the creation of collaged images. On completing my degree, I will have gathered 10,000 images, the largest amount I have ever collected throughout my career. During this process, I was trying to make sense and order of the universe through objects and the collection of data, information and ephemera in an effort to make bereavement visible. By making loss visible, it allows me to emotionally and intellectually continue to self determine new meaning and resolution of experienced change created from loss. This practice supplies a foundation for abstract and intellectual understanding of true self, place and the direct experience of being human, at times a substantial essence being covered over by social conditioning and anxiety surrounding grief.

I see my artwork as a portal for the viewer to witness and experience this collection or cabinet of curiosity about grief and mourning. Though this analysis and reflection, I hope looking at this work allows the conflict specialist to consider the unspoken and hidden part grief plays within conflicts in a prevailing cultural norm of grief avoidance.

All the Best,

          Beth

The May Queen

Jan 1st

From Robinpress

Wishing you a bright and joyful holiday and new year!

From Robinpress

SMALL PLEASURES INVITATIONAL November 29, 2014 ~ January 17, 2015

My work is included in the Small Pleasures Invitational 2014. 

Hope to see you at one of the events!

Free Events at the Jacobs Gallery

SMALL PLEASURES INVITATIONAL November 29, 2014 ~ January 17, 2015

Special Preview for Holiday Shoppers:
Saturday, Nov. 29 from 11am - 5pm

Opening Reception:
Friday, December 5, 5:30 - 8pm

First Friday Artwalk:
Friday, December 5, 5:30 - 8 pm
Friday, January 2, 2015, 5:30 - 8 pm

Check out this movie from the 
Small Pleasures Invitational 2014 Opening Night!

\\

Yes, Law school has kept me from blogging... NEW SHOW COMING

Dear all,

So sorry, I have been in a Master's Program in Conflict and Resolution at the University of Oregon Law School. It has been busy, trying and I have learned a lot of new things. I am hoping to bring together art and resolution skills. In the next few weeks, I will be onto a internship with more time for art and bloggin...

For now I will be in a new show 

Curated by my dear friend Moe Bowen...

The Box Show

at the

Liberty Arts Contemporary Fine Art Gallery

Opening Reception 

Friday, May 16th, 5 - 8

This show will be highlighting the shadow box tradition while exploring the concepts in and outside the box. I hope to make it down for an artist talk before the show closes on June 20, 2014.

Art Walk is this Friday, Cottage Grove, OR, September 27th from 6 - 8

I will be downtown at

Kalapuya Books

September 27th from 6 - 8

for the Cottage Grove Art Walk.

Work will be hanging for the month of October.

Looking forward to seeing you. Art Walk is

 being extended to October and November too! 

Print Included in Communities:West Portfolio Exchange

Never Kill Song Birds

14" x 18" William Turner Paper

Digital Collage Mixed Media

I was invited to be a part of the 

"Communities:West" 

Portfolio exchange this fall.

Co-curated by:

Andrew Rice

and

Sukha Worob

The goal of this folio is to get a small but diverse sampling of prints pulled together from printmakers who live and work in the western part of United States.

This folio will be submitted to be a part of the 

2nd Rocky Mountain Printmaking Alliance Symposium. 

It will be held this October in Salt Lake City.

Thank you for inviting me!

Be sure to check out this great event if your in the area!

Art Talk Sunday

Hello Awesome People,

Just a note.. to invite you to the art talk this Sunday, August 18 starting at 3:00. Location is the Art & Jones Infusion Gallery - Inside the Young & Jones Boutique 790 Willamette, Eugene, Oregon 97401... I hope to see you.


All the Best,
Beth

I received an email today...

After every show, I try very hard to sit down and write each person who purchases work. Sometimes the gallery provides contact info and other times not. An incredible artist purchased my work

 at The Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts 

by the name of Katherine Mead. 

She sent me the photo and link of "Iam the Master of My Fate;" in it's new home:

By god, is that cool!

Thank you Katherine!

I can not wait to be in another show with you.

Be sure to check out Katherine Mead's work as well!

Good Stuff! I fell in love with her work when we were in 

Mary Lou Zeeks 50 artists show.

In her blog post she talks about the artwork she has purchased over the years... 

it inspired me to photograph all the work I have hanging. 

Oh the stories they could tell...

Playing with a Full Deck

Recently, I was invited to help on a mail art collaboration

 started by Liz Cohn in June of 2010.

It was a great way to end the summer 

and I am hoping to help again.

‘Playing with a Full Deck’ is a unique project 

 which has the distinction of also being the largest 

collection of original art collaborations  created upon 

playing cards. It was launched in June of 2010 by Liz 

Cohn, as an experiment in freeform collaboration between

collage and mixed media artists by mail. The guidelines 

are that a playing card must be used as a canvas and that 

Liz Cohn must be one of the collaborating artists on each 

card. The resulting collection boasts over 243 participating

artists and more than 2051 playing cards.  

Playing cards were chosen as the canvas because they are

a small and sturdy surface, which readily accepts most mediums

 and cards, are mailed easily and fairly inexpensively.  It sparked

 when Liz inherited 128 full decks of playing cards from her 

father-in-law’s private collection, right at the moment when she 

was thinking about how to reach out and connect with other artists.

Reaching interested willing collaborators was facilitated via 

social media websites, such as Flickr, DeviantArt and Facebook. 

And then the word spread from artist to artist.

To read a full description 

of the project and see 4 galleries of cards @

Liz Cohn's Art studio.

Cards and notices of shows are also posted on:

www.lizcohn.devianart.com

www.facebook.com/lizcohn

Ephemera 6

Lolie

20" x 20" digital collage 

mounted to canvas

$400

Lenore

18" x 24" digital collage 

mounted to canvas

$400

Bastion

20" x 20" digital collage 

mounted to canvas

$400

I hope this message comes to you in full swing of summer fun and goodness. I would like to invite you to my opening a The Art & Jones Infusion Gallery - Inside the Young & Jones Boustique 790 Willamette, Eugene, Oregon 97401 on August 2, 2013 from 5 -7.

Also, We will be having a talk and small party on August 18 starting at 3:00. I hope to see you as I might not have a another show for a bit! This will be a great send off as I head to back to Grad school Monday the 19th!

The Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts

I am the master of my fate;

SOLD

Digital image printed on William Turner

 paper mounted on a birch panel.

June 21, 22 & 23

is the 50th Anniversary of the 

Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts...

In the hall of the Lakewood Center there 

will be 50 pieces on 24"x 24" 

birch panels celebrating 

50 years of art.

Opening Reception:

Friday, June 21, 2013

6 - 7 p.m.

KeyBank Pavilion Tent

Some involved are:

Ben Rood

Cyan Bott

Lisa Onstad

Kyle Durrie

David Bernard

Bill Schlegel

Jack Voekel

Benny Soeby

Jesse Reno

Dylan Burt

William Park

Cassandra Poulson

Theresa Andreas O'Leary

Bob Schlegel

John Allgood

Lisa Wiser

Judy Wise

Laura Buchan

Jan Rothermel

Stephanie Lee

Annie Goodrich

And a Eugene Favorite Painter:

Sarah Refvem

I am excited to be invited to participate and

hope to see you there!

While in town be sure to head over to

OCAC for a look at the Alumni Show.