Seattle Print Arts Member Show September 9th and October 14

Come see several of my prints as well as a diverse set of artwork by many Seattle Print Arts members at 6-9pm at Ballard Works, 2856 NW Market Street, Seattle, WA,98107. Saturdays, September 9th and October 14th. Many works will be for sale.

Sew Factory Dance. Printed from two linoleum plates plus sewn yellow lines

Glide - Printed from Linoleum Plate 10 1/2 by 16 inch paper dimension

Housing Ship - Two plate linolem plates “Jig-sawed” for clear color separation. 15 x 10 inch paper size.

Speed Sail - Two ink printed from linoleum plate. 20 x 14 inch at frame.

Transparent Buildings 2 - Stencil screen print with watercolor and pencil overlay. 17 1/2 x 23 3/4” at frame.

Jon Taylor's Artwork at 3922 Corliss Avenue North 98103 June 11 and 12, 2022

Come visit the Open Studio and Pop Up Gallery at 3922 Corliss Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98103 to see Jon Taylor’s artwork Saturday and Sunday, June 11 and 12, 2022 from 11-5. See a preview of the work at https://youtu.be/XyzmhGnVVaE and learn more at the other blog posts on this site.

Two part linoleum plate with an insert for two color single pass printing

Printmaking techniques are so varied and vast. A simple go to printing exercise is to use linoleum plates and carving tools. Often I use several plates and register them in the inking process to get a layers of colors and information on one proof doing several passes. An easy way to do two or more colors on the same proof is to cut several pieces of a finished lino plate before or after carving the image. The following example shows how a plate was carved as a single image then a piece in the middle which described an outline of a ship and its reflection was separated from the base plate by carefully cutting out the shape then carefully treating the edges of both the cut out piece and the base piece for easy inertion after inking and easy removal after printing for the next round of inking.

Glass topped inking table with proof at top left and the base plate and cut out pieced together at bottom left

Detail of base plate (black) and cutout insert (orange?) about 10 x 5 inches after both base and insert were inked separately with different colors.

Upper left shows the base plate and cutout insert separated. The two first proofs had the black too viscous and the yellow was not defined as a color for my tastes. More ink was added to the black to stiffen it and a sienna was added to the yellow to give more definition to the cuts. A series of future prints will probably be printed in different colors in the future.

Good proof showing how strong and aligned the colors are when using the differential inking, in this case with a two color process.

Open Studio/Pop Up Gallery for the Artwork of Jon Taylor June 11-12, 2022 11am to 5pm

This house is being used as a temporary art studio.
Come say hi, visit and talk art from 11-5 pm Saturday and Sunday June 11 and June 12, 2022 at 3922 Corliss Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98103. Feel free to schedule an appointment if other times work better for you. More gallery pieces may be posted later.

Working configuration of Dining to Living

Working setup/display of finished works and works in progress in living area

Sewn and modified pet food lids and painted canvas on 16 x 24 inch raw canvas

Seven by water. Watercolor on 24 x 16 inch watercolor papaer

Acrylic paint and graphite on 16 x 24 inch panel referencing early morning flight over Amsterdam greenhouses.

Work in progress: The upper piece approximately 24 x 18 inches on Clearprint 1000H drafting paper with graphite and watercolor to experiment with additional shapes. Watercolor dehydration on this highly sized paper is interesting. The lines were drawn of the top piece on the translucent paper that was taped over the dried watercolor piece below. That upper piece has had a initial painting with the same watercolors used on the piece below. The piece below is on Canson 24 by 18 watercolor sheet from a tablet and has a graphite grid and lines.

This is a single pass double inked proof that will be part of the visit. More information on a lino plate with an insert for double color / single pass printing is on the next current blog post . The inked area is approximately 10 x 5 inches printed on a quarter sheet measuring approximately 15 x 11 inches.

Seattle Deconstructed Art Fair at Barbara Robertson's Studio 2021

Please join us …

What:

“Something to Talk About”,

Pop up group exhibition

Where:

Barbara Robertson’s studio: 1304 NE 63rd Street, Seattle, 98115

When:

Opening reception: Saturday, August 7th, 3-6PM

Closing party:

Saturday, August 21, 6-9PM with video projections by 3 exhibition artists and music performance by Rick Bidlack with martinis in honor of Agnes Martin (the Agnesmartini)

Who:

Amanda Knowles, Gene Gentry McMahon, Sue Danielson, Barbara Robertson, Gretchen Van Dyke, Rachel Holloway, Robert Hardgrave, Jon Taylor, Sheila Coppola, Barbara Noah, Steph Harmon, Tim Cross, Ellen Sollod, Chris Crites, Robin Green, Dionne Haroutunian

Exhibition Description:

These 16 artists have met weekly for breakfast for many years to talk about art, teaching, exhibitions, process and community. During 2020 and ongoing into 2021, our meetings took place on Zoom and were so important for sustaining our emotional and creative lives. The group is made up of empathetic, intelligent and creative people, all practicing artists with differing skill sets and aesthetic points of view making the zoom meetings stimulating and rewarding. This group exhibition is a celebration of all our work and is a hopeful beginning to a new post pandemic future.

Gallery Description:

The Garage Studio Gallery is a pop up space in the Ravenna neighborhood where it is, most of the time, the painting studio of artist Barbara Robertson.

 I will probably have three pieces of small ceramic works mounted on steel bases.

Neighborhood, Dark and Yellow Circles and Three Houses

Neighborhood

Dark and Yellow Circles

Three Houses

Barbara Robertson’s Studio

Seattle Deconstructed Art Fair

I am happy this year to be part of a North End gallery space shows participating with the Seattle Deconstructed Art Fair at Barbara Robertson’s Garage Studio Gallery .

“For the Seattle Deconstructed Art Fair, August 2020, The Garage Studio Gallery will present a group exhibition of small works by Amanda Knowles, Ellen Sollod, Chris Crites, Barbara Noah, Gene Gentry McMahon, Jon Taylor, Robin Green, Sue Danielson, Dionne Haroutunian, Steph Harmon, David Hytone, Gretchen Van Dyke, Rachel Holloway, and me, Barbara Robertson. Reception on Saturday, August 15th, 2:00- 5:00 pm.”

The Garage Studio Gallery address is 1304 NE 63rd Street, Seattle, WA 98115 For appointment 206-327-2256

Please see the link for Barbara’s space and Barbara’s on going shows of artists she admires and helps at:

https://www.barbararobertsonart.com/garage.html

You can look at other galleries showing more artists participating in the Seattle Deconstructed Art Fair at:

https://www.seattledeconstructedartfair.com/

Here are some more Instagram tags:

@azwithnancyguppy, @azwithnancyg, #seasoncz

For this event I am showing an 18 x 24 inch acrylic painting on panel, a slightly political notion of the times, maybe a glimmer of us all lending a hand to others. The title is “Community” and recalls real people in Mennonite and Amish groups that literally move buildings by hand showing physically and socially their strong commitment to others. Not to say everyone should live in these places or believe in what these communities teach overall, but wouldn’t it be better if we all pulled together in these times of cronyism, corruption, corporate greed, climate change, racism, sexism and wealth disparity. Let’s stop bowing down to the hopelessness, hate, ugliness and lies and come together and do what we all know is the best thing by helping each other.

The work is purposely simple, almost cartoon like in line, color, composition and graphic projection of the building. There is a dusky dusty feeling as the people labor to move this large structure. It is either early or late in the day to be a bit cooler and the people are almost faded out in the dust that ghosts their individuality to support the idea of moving something that at first seems insurmountable, but in reality just needs a coordinated effort to complete the task.

Community - Acrylic painting on panel 24 x 18 inches

Current Printmaking Work

Some recent changes have given me the opportunity to shift my focus from working full time to selling some property, finishing remodeling home projects, travelling, engaging more in the art community here and around the world and being able to concentrate on art work. Here are some examples from a current printmaking class taught by Kelda Martensen at North Seattle Community College. 

Two of the pieces shown are printed from carved linoleum plates in a module I have been using for years that measure 6 x 8 inches. When stacked in a 3 x 3 array they can fill an 18 x 24 inch image that neatly fits on a standard 22 x 30 inch full sheet of print making paper or can be used individually as these examples are intended. I generally use Rives BFK for the paper. Inks used are Charbonnel, using either their oil or their newer water clean-up line which is a little duller in sheen. Graphic chemical, Daniel Smith and Gamblin are other great brands also used.

What is unique about these two prints from linoleum cut plates? They are reduction linocuts. Reduction prints take some planning and the artist needs to think backwards for the process to work well. Many artists plan out a cut from an image or a series of tracing paper overlays to predict the outcome of the final print so there will be few surprises when the final reduction cut, inking and printing is complete. Generally, you start with your largest color field, with the lightest color first. This first cut defines any white of the paper you want to preserve.  A strong registration system needs to be used and set after the orientation is decided.

The “Racer” cut started out with a dark gray and I felt it needed to be lightened so for the second printing a slight additional reduction was carved and a white ink was applied over much but not all of the gray. A third reduction carving was applied and ink was rolled with green on the bottom of the plate and another gray on top. The fourth and last reduction carving was done for an almost black gray with added ultramarine blue. What was exciting to see was the over cuts on the background on top and bottom that enlarged the color “holes” below at every additional printing and gave the impression of blurring and speed.

The “Backyard’ print was going to have only three colors, but ended up with four.  That takes a lot of concentration in the cutting and alignment when printing over the last three runs of color. Generally speaking, the more color runs or separate printings on a proof you do, you should triple the proofs to be sure you get the amount of acceptable prints at the end. I did 12 prints and was satisfied with about 4 or 5 of them.

Although I rarely print “exact” multiples when printmaking, I was happy with these editions.

The third print “Valley Gliders” was for the final project. I haven’t printed from leather plates in years, but I have been doing leather objects and sculptures, so this final project gave me an opportunity for inking at least one leather plate and printing it.  My intent initially was to sew some leather pieces together because the thread holds ink in an interesting fashion and embosses well. For this print I wanted to concentrate on the lines and tooling in black and “paint” ink like a monotype in the plate or print the black lines and overlay color with watercolor or gouache on the proof after the ink is dry. This print was sized for a half sheet or 15 x 22 inches paper and has a 10 x 16 inch plate size giving a 2.5 inch boundary at the sides and top and a 3.5 inch at the bottom to accommodate writing for the title, print number and signature. The print shown was the last one of five prints - two fully inked runs and a ghosts each off those plates, or printing a second (and in the last case a second ghost) proof without re-inking the plate. That second ghost off of the second printing received color pencil marks.

I will try to put another blog post soon just on my process for preparing leather plates which will include selecting leather, carving, tooling sealing, inking and printing.

“Backyard” Four color linocut reduction print. 6 x 8 inch image.

“Racer” Four color linocut reduction print. 8 x 6 inch image.

“Valley Gliders” 10 x 17 inch image. Colored pencil over second ghost printing of sealed leather plate.

Neon Enhances New Sculpture - Work in progress

I finished three intensive years managing the Helen Sommers Building during the end of design and start and end of construction as well as helping with the move-in processes from Olympia while living during the week in an apartment a 10 minute walk from the field office across from the project.  I worked as an employee of the Washington State Department of Enterprise Services as the Project Director acting as the management lead and the owner until the end of February 2018.    Since I had very little time in the last three years working in Olympia and decompressing on the weekends in Seattle I spent much less time producing and promoting my art.

After a month off, I accepted a new project manager position, again with DES working mostly from my Seattle home office and managing all state funded planning, design and construction projects for Shoreline Community College and North Seattle College.  The new position for the Seattle schools started March 1, 2018 and though the intensity of a new way to work on many projects is challenging I will now have more time to work in my shops and studios in Seattle and have noticed an slight uptick of work during some evenings and weekends. Hopefully the learning curve of the new state job will lessen and give me even more time in the off hours in the next several months and in the future.

Several of the present works in progress and future work will have neon tubes. I had the honor of learning at Western Neon's classrooms and studios during a session I took with my daughter during some evenings and weekends in January, February and March.  I have made sculpture for years based on my conceptual view of work, often employing  sawtooth roofs on factories and sometimes adding site planning or landscape surrounding work places representing a broader narrative in the pieces.  A decade ago I thought it curious that the second Bush presidency was going to depend on technology to solve the world's environmental problems instead of reducing our carbon footprint.  This led to a variety of sculptures that imagined sites that could control the character of the atmosphere improving the quality of air and focusing the sun's energy to produce better crop yields, create clean educational jobs and reduce pollution.  The "factories" in this case were neutral or positive in their being.  The latest sculptural mock-up shows neon tube inserts I learned to bend using some custom tube holders to keep a double back shape's double tube legs parallel while giving both simultaneously a 90 degree twist. One of many tubes bent was successful. One of the instructors for the Western Neon class welded electrodes to the tube and it lit up well.  After one mock-up for the plexiglass base for the neon and the wood factory a second factory was reduced in length and the neon tube was laid in without the final supports as shown in the following images. 

Are these industrial compounds used for good or just profit? Does the neon tube refer to a new substance gathered from earth or from beyond?   Will the public ever know what this really does or the source of energy. Will it be open to discovery, shared openly?  Will there be an interpretive center for visiting and viewing these installations? 

This is a mock up and there will probably be a half dozen iterations made with sheet acrylic, wood, some in steel, maybe some with cast or fused glass components, maybe some ceramic components. Hope to make the finished pieces soon.

Jon Taylor in Seattle Times article for Easter

For the last two years I have working and doing a weekly commute down to Olympia, living there for four days and working remotely on Fridays then relaxing and enjoy the weekends in Seattle. This leaves little time for writing about my art. Even with the time needed and the stress of being the 1063 Block Replacement Project Director, I still have time to produce artwork.  As part of my ethics training and job requirements, I choose, as most ethical government employees do - not to use any State systems to promote my artwork. That doesn’t mean I can’t talk to my work mates about what I do, I just can’t promote my work in any State forum or use any State hardware or software for my business. So, even though I use art as meditation to counteract a daily grind on a highly stressful job that I enjoy immensely, I am still producing a great amount of thoughtful work.

Here is one example of a recent mock-up I did for the Seattle Times  using my love of working with wood and plexiglass for sculpture after asked by the Seattle Times if I would like to submit an interpretation of some piece for the Easter Holiday. Below the image is the written copy from the Times.

"Jon Taylor is an architect and artist. He created his barge or flat-bottomed boat design from plywood, plexiglass sheets, wooden eggs and mirrors. “I chose a barge as a place that people could be separated from their land-based lives to celebrate in a large formalized barge …” Taylor said. (Photo by Jon Taylor)

Growing up in Salem, Oregon in the 1950’s through the early 1970s, it was an unspoken rule (mostly emanating from an evil-eye from my formidable mother, Bertha, a good Southerner from Baton Rouge, Louisiana) that our family would attend the First Christian Church every Sunday, maybe two or three times during the day for an early church, a coffee hour, Sunday school and as you got into junior high and high school you would be expected to do youth groups in the evening with possible Saturday outings mixed in.  In 1975 I married a beautiful Catholic woman and had to learn about the church and do some rituals to make sure I wouldn’t compromise her faith before we married. As time and attitudes moved on neither my wife or I attended church until our kids in their youth went to a Bible day camp with some neighbors. All sorts of innocent questions arose, we looked at Disciples of Christ and Catholic churches in Seattle and after a 10 church visit we decided on St. Joseph’s on Capitol Hill where many other parents of our age were conflicted about organized religion and as a group persevered through the kids' religious curiosity. We all attended for about 10 years then slowly dropped out of the need to go. As an architect and world traveler to England, Scotland, France, Germany, India, Russia as well as visiting all around the States and a bit of Canada and Mexico I have been particularly interested in religious places and the history of that part of architecture.

I wouldn’t say I have lost the faith, but I am more skeptical about religion and yet more open to other’s beliefs. I certainly feel the work I do on art is reflective, meditative and a vehicle to search for order, beauty and calm in all its forms. I don't think this "replaces" religion for me, but it certainly gives me peace. This work was done for a photo that would be manipulated in PhotoShop, but the Seatlle Times really wanted the base photo, un-retouched.  I was happy to oblige, even though that wasn’t the intent of the piece. The photo was really to use as a base to add clarity and color, but it still worked with the story of how you may meditate around a dozen symbolic eggs - and whatever they contain - and what could that piece be made of in this Northwest land of wood and water. I had recently done a sculpture from some mill ends of slabs I was joining together for a work bench that had been shaped into a sea going freighter. I tried and made a carriage for a dozen eggs for the freighter.  That was fine, but it wasn’t quite right so I  made a much better scaled version of a barge then added a trellis, a ramp, a dock and some toy float planes that were already appropriately scaled then put a couple of one foot square mirrors underneath to approximate water.

Here was what I would have considered the final, but I like the Seattle Times inclination to be honest about their photos and their ethics of not manipulating photos. In some ways this works well on the screen, but looses it's illumination in print. As well as other manipulations, I wanted to express that ancient eggs for Easter or any other proceeding rebirth or Spring festivals were red.

Ballard Art Walk at Captains with Artist Jon Taylor present August 13, 2016

What a summer! Working daily in Olympia during the week on the 1063 Block Replacement Project as the State of Washington Department of Enterprise Services Project Director since January 2015. The project is just about to complete its concrete slab holding the roof, large skylight and a vast array of photo voltaic panels in September. Only about a year to go for Final Completion for this five story 82 million dollar project for over 700 state office workers.

In June and July I was asked by two different friends on short notices if I would like to have a show first at Captain's Supply in Ballard for July and August and a second show at Johnston Architects for August as a second artist to fill up the gallery. Reluctantly, but with interest I told the galleries I would fill their spaces up with work within the last year or so and have several new pieces for each show. Although a lot of effort especially since I live in Seattle from late Friday night to early Monday morning most weekends. 

The shows are different, the "Prints, Paintings and Sculpture" show at Captain's is appropriately themed as marine and navigation-centric with smaller newer sculptures using 3D printing and pigmented epoxy as well as more analog materials of wood and steel depicting boats in locks. There are many riffs on a linoleum print called Speed Sail showing different inking techniques and there are a couple of new paintings about sailboats and a variety of mixed media sculptural pieces. 

I will be at Captain's Supply for the final Ballard Art Walk for the show from 6-9pm Saturday August 13, 2016 at 1120 Ballard Way NW Seattle 98107. If you can't make it Saturday to talk about the work I would encourage you to visit during Captain's business hours through August.

The Johnston show is more of a collection of industrial pieces, titled "Industry Simplified" and has a variety of small sculpture on steel bases for a glazed clay or wood pieces and four hanging sculptures of wood and turned wood truncated cones that house turned stainless steel lozenges. There are three very recent Sumi paintings on very rough watercolor made in India that are made with an economy of brush strokes and powerfully depict their simple almost iconic forms. The composition of the work in this gallery space is balanced and adds strength to the pieces. The opening is over, but you are encouraged to visit Johnston Architects during business hours to see the art.