Featured Chaboo artist Kelly Neidig has been working on a series of landscape themed work.  The series can be seen on her website.  In her own words:

My memories can be vague or vanish quickly and sometimes the only thing I have left is color. I see a connection between my memories and these fleeting landscapes I create.I focus more on color and less on shapes presenting little information to the viewer. This allows the viewer to call on their memories of place and connect with the painting based on their experiences.

It will be interesting to see how she uses negative space and the heavy linear quality of the bamboo ply left behind with her heavy colored lines.  I think it will be a great meeting of texture and color. I really wanted Kelly in on Project Chaboo after she talked to me about her creative crisis that led to her current theme of work.  It is always great to hear about the journey.  Thats what its all about isnt it?

Kelly also serves as board president of Portland Open Studios.

Portland Open Studios offers artists in the Portland metro area opportunities to showcase their work, engage a curious public, and network with other artists, all within a supportive environment. It’s a unique educational organization that serves the community and helps artists meet their professional goals through workshops, publicity, exhibitions, and the open studios tour.

Thanks for participating Kelly! Im glad you are on board and Im really excited to see how you work with the lines of the bamboo.  I also like your email last name of neidiggity.  Funny!  I get it!

In no particular order here are the artists participating so far:

Alisha Wessler - illustration

Lauren Wessler - wood, paper mache

Jennifer Mercede - painting

Chris Haberman - painting

Sohaila Adela - illustration

Kelly Neidig - painting

Nell Warren - painting

Robin Kaplan - illustration

Dave Laubenthal -wood, metal

David Bertman -wood, metal

Kari Merkl - metal

Joel Wakeman - wood

Juno Lachman - glass

Eric Day - wood, metal, fiberglass

Todd Griffith - painting

Joe Mansfield - laser

George Ramos - wood

Mike Halvorson - wood

Paul Sykes - wood

Lindsay Holmes - recycled skateboards

Jess Hirsch - watercolor

APAK - illustration, painting

Erin Albin (appetite) - screenprinting/fabric

Brendan Budge - industrial design

Lisa Kuhnhausen - interior design/fashion

Jason Hernandez - wood

Sarah Bennet - wood, epoxy resin

Karl Ramentol - industrial design

Ken Tomita - wood, bamboo

Amy Ruppel- designer

Maren Jensen- illustration

Sara Huston - furniture design

Orange design.build - salvaged materials

Marshall Ryan - architecture

Ryan Thomson - architecture

Megan Scheminske - painting

Don Jensen - wood

David Butts - kinetic sculpture

Marc Riera - architecture

Ryah Radomski - furniture

John Paananen - interior architecture

Emily Steen - graphic design, environment design

Oluwaseyi (Shay) Sosanya - mechanical engineering

Tom Huang - furniture design

Ben Wood - furniture

Emily Knudsen - interior design

Corbin Keech - architecture

Jim Haas - furniture

I had the chance to go to the closing reception for my friend, furniture designer David Laubenthal’s art show at OPSIS/920 Gallery today.  Dave and I share a similarity in that we are furniture designers who have all kinds of creative outlets besides furniture.  Ive seen his fun work with the Portland Pallet Project but Ive never seen his fine art in person.  I was interested to see how his creative energies translate into painting.

In his words:

For the show at the 920 gallery at Opsis, I created a series of paintings that refer to traditional architectural rendering techniques of the past. Graphite pencils and colored pencils were added to my process and traditional drawing tools such as compasses, drawing templates, t-squares among others were employed in the layout and execution of the work. For the color palette I referred to the color theories favored by the Bauhaus school. In my studio, I strive to blur the lines between art and design, both in my furniture work as well as my artwork, and this series has become an extension of that theme.

I was impressed at how well refined his technique and concept were.  Also, the scale of his work was quite large and the series very appropriate for the space.  His paintings had depth and a unique quality from using tools for sculpture rather than a brush.  It is inspiring to see a fellow designer developed as a visual artist.  Makes me think that I need to work harder at my fine art and put in the time and effort required for my creative soul to mature on the visual art side.  Its important to me to be well rounded and constantly create beyond the design work that I do.  I feel that fine art and design are not separate but rather inter-related outlets for our creative energies that feed off of each other.  Great inspiration and encouragement.

Dave was honored last night as a recipient of the Portland Spaces Magazine ROOT award for Rising Stars.  Awesome.  Congrats Dave!