Things are happenin'!

This week, while waiting on a new manuscript I'll be copy-editing, I've been
working on finalizing some of the drawings for the Radium Girls exhibition,
which will appear in the windows of Pittsburgh's Future Tenant Gallery next
January. I'm not in the studio here, but in the living room, watching all those fun
court shows (like Judge Matthis) that run on network television during the day.
So entertaining!

"Magic Snail" has been accepted into Limner Gallery's
"Small Works" exhibition. The show will run between the end of
January and the end of February at Limner's Hudson, NY location.

"Women in Water: Pisces" is on its way to a collector
in Kansas, along with....

"Women in Water: Jeanette Dreams of Laundry". They
should arrive today!

Studio Pictorial Thursday

Today, a glue bath for colored tissue paper....the stuffed toys on the floor
are Jasper and Fred's, not mine. ;-) No, really.

Lavender tissue paper taking a dip in the glue bath....

The magenta colored tissue paper is clearly not colorfast....

Time to dry.....

My secret stash of tissue paper and sticky-backed glitter paper that I purchased
at Pearl Paint in NYC during spring break of 2000.



The basis of something new....experimenting here.

What am I listening to now? Something from 2008: the Dublin-based band One Day International, which for the record, is awesome and just doesn't get nearly enough play. You can listen to I'm Not Over You by clicking on the Youtube link below.

http://youtu.be/6qlQVIINzHw

Sister Moon and other stories....

Savannah Schroll Guz, "Sister Moon" (2013)

Savannah Schroll Guz, "Oracle" (2013) revised from yesterday!

Savannah Schroll Guz, "But I Believe" (2013)

Savannah Schroll Guz "An Old Belfast Friend" (2013)

Savannah Schroll Guz, "Very Glad" (2013)

Savannah Schroll Guz, "Lemon Moon" (2013)

Genesis of a new work....and signs and symbols

I've been steadily working on new pieces over the last few days. "Signs & Symbols" (the last image in this post) was begun as I was watching CNN introduct Pope Francis to the world. Although there is no bird in my work, it is still partially influenced by the story of that curious seagull, which landed on the Sistine Chapel chimney shortly before the white smoke came billowing out. I'm really interested in the idea of prophetic communication.

The first three images below show progress on a new work, which I started last night and continued this morning. It involves a great deal of sewing and beading, and I'm not sure what I'll call her yet. I'm thinking she might be an oracle. We'll see how she continues to develop..... 



Beading the oracle is a laborious process; often, my needle
won't travel all the way through the seed bead. Instead, the
eye gets stuck right before the bead reaches the thread and I
have to find another. Yet, I mean to approximate tesserae (or
the tiny tiles that make up mosaics), at least in the background
so, it's a necessary process.

My work space and tools.... 

"Signs and Symbols" charcoal, paper collage, watercolor, cotton embroidery
thread, and glass seed beads on paper

The Presence of Mast Cells....

New work out of the studio...a depiction of where all that histamine comes from:

Savannah Schroll Guz, "The Presence of Mast Cells" (2013)
charcoal, ink, Sharpie, paper collage, and watercolor on paper

My work at Pittsburgh's GalleriE CHIZ and new studio work

I'm excited to announce that my art jewelry and several of my works on paper will be on display and available for purchase at the fantastic GalleriE CHIZ in Pittsburgh's Shadyside neighborhood. I've always loved this gallery for its creative atmosphere and happy vibe. Owner-Director Ellen Chisdes Neuberg and Assistant Director Blanche Baxter are wonderful, and I'm so glad to be among the gallery's artists. Check out the gallery's beautiful mosaic facade--

GalleriE CHIZ is located at 5831 Ellsworth Avenue  Pittsburgh, PA 15232
Here, my art jewelry is currently available for purchase, and my works on paper will also be
available for purchase shortly.   

Right now, I'm working on pieces for Rochester Contemporary Art Center's 6" x 6" exhibition. On Monday, I finished the first of three works,"Astronomy Professor". An update on this will appear soon, as I am almost done with work two of three.


Savannah Schroll Guz, "Astronomy Professor" (2013)
aquatint, oil pastel, gouache, gold leaf, cotton thread, drawing paper
 and ball point pen on heavy grade cotton paper.

Does he look familiar? He's on my sewing machine in this post.  More to come!

New swanky things from the studio

Lots of things are happening in the studio this week...here is a glimpse:

"Luna" polymer clay, acrylic paint, protective
sealant, fire-polished Czech glass, and amethyst
beads.



"Traveling with the Blood Tide" is getting a
tentative frame fit, to see how it might be best
to exhibit it....more on this as plans take shape!




"The Dream" is also getting a tentative frame fit for the same
upcoming project....more on this soon!



I'm taking part in the Brooklyn Art Museum's Sketchbook Project. I ordered my sketchbook on Friday night, so it should be here by next week. I'll be completing the "Right/Write When You Get There" themed sketchbook, which, along with 2,499 other artists' sketchbooks, will tour Kansas City, Louisville, Columbus, and Pittsburgh this October. Also, I opted have mine digitized, page by page, so it will be available to view online, and not just in the mobile library. I'm really excited about this!

And...one more art necklace, which I beaded on Monday morning!

"Geisha Girl II" polymer clay, acrylic paint,
protective sealant, glass beads.

"Geisha Girl II" (detail)

New Illustration, Interesting Music

Savannah Schroll Guz, "Radium Girl" (2012)
ink, watercolor, colored pencil, gold leaf on paper

Above is a new work I completed yesterday and is now in my shop. I'm on the fence about how it turned out because I can see its flaws, and it has many flaws to my eye. However, Michael, who saw it sitting on the kitchen table when he came home (since I kept trying to get a fresh-eyed look at it as I was making dinner--to see if the image had the right visual impact), said, totally unprompted by any questioning, "I like that. It's got a Helene Bohnam Carter look to it.' So, okay then. It passes muster for me, too. What I did gain from the experience is a new-found enthusiasm for gold leaf as an, albeit expensive, collage element. I had a tiny bit just lying around (literally, under a side table in the living room) from having gilded a picture frame. So I used the rest of it as an experiment, which I've been wanting to do for weeks now. I just hadn't previously found the right work to apply my experiment to.
Speaking of experiments...I've mentioned Lemon Jelly before, likely a half dozen times. I found them by way of Lastfm, when I play Blockhead radio. When you play a particular artist radio, it chooses not music by that artist  but by bands that have a similar sound. They were a happy discovery, since they have the kind of retro/scientific weirdness I like and make musical collages of sampled sound bytes.

A Doodle Becomes a Series



Savannah Schroll Guz,
"Herringbone Shine" (2012)
watercolor, colored pencil, ink
on Strathmore 400 Series paper



It's strange, the series that are born from idle doodles. Well,  I suppose the first 'doodle' wasn't necessarily idle. I was starting to experiment with watercolor because I knew that I couldn't work forever in only black ink on white paper. My shop had begun to look monochromatic and bland *yawn*.  I also began experimenting because I wanted to stretch beyond what I was comfortable with, beyond what I knew. So, with my fingers hanging from my beltloops in an aisle of Hobby Lobby, I decided on a set of Niji watercolors. After some false starts, I've begun this series, which I've talked about here before. However, "Herringbone Shine" was just completed today.



Savannah Schroll Guz, "Sea Stars"
(2012), watercolor and ink on
Strathmore 400 Series paper



Watercolor itself is so, so different than acrylic. There is little room for error. Obviously, you can't simply paint over a portion you don't like without losing the gorgeous translucence that makes watercolors so visually appealing. Watercolor is almost like a thin scrim of fabric pulled over a light box. It glows from within. And I like these brilliant jewel tones. I remember having tried watercolor in college and having had a subtle dislike for it because I couldn't 'work' the colors. It had no bulk to build up or move around easily. I like to make the images I create with acrylic bend and shift. But watercolor...watercolor stains the paper and dries. Period. Plus if I did apply wet color on top of dry color, as I often do with acrylic, everything would go all muddy on me. A subtle veil of glaze (glaze = watered down pigment washed over an existing image painted on canvas), which usually covers a multitude of canvas-bound sins, simply doesn't work in watercolor. And, perhaps most disquieting, is that watercolor wrests control from the painter...you may not have intended for the pigment to explode into the surrounding moisture like a broken capillery, but it often does. And, as with ink, you have to work with that new pattern of pigmentation. So, not only can you not fix mistakes, you, as a watercolorist, must incorporate the accidental seeping of color or the mistaken brushstroke. All of this makes the artist--at least this artist--feel very vulnerable. But I'm starting to get the hang of things...I've got so much more to learn.

More from "Exodus"

Image from Extraordinary Intelligence

I've been working pretty steadily on the new sci-fi story, since my deadline is Sunday night....been consumed by that, so some more substantial postings will appear here as soon as I am done. In the meantime, an excerpt from the developing story...just a shorty for now, since I don't want to steal the thunder of what will eventually appear in the magazine:

"A strange red light seemed to rise over the rubble, and at first, the trio thought the Leviathans had found them. They all ran for cover, even Walter, who had previously wanted to die. Inside the spider-webbed glass front of a boutique, they stumbled over toppled shoe boxes and scattered boots and heels. They did not sit on the cushioned bench once intended for customers, but hunkered down on either side of the entrance, in case they had to move again. Once they caught their breath, Walter said, “I haven’t seen a living soul for the last four days. I was afraid I was the last one.” He paused when his voice cracked. “I tried to ...you know…kill myself, but I…I just didn’t have the guts.” He pulled back his sweater sleeve to show four or five light parallel cuts he’d made across his pale wrist.



Tina, crouched beside Rayray in a way that indicated she still looked to him for physical protection, said nothing. She glanced at the wrist and then shifted her eyes to the black and white floor tiles, where the sun’s light waned. The group could hear thunder, distant at first and then suddenly louder, until it seemed as if it were right overhead. Tina began to shake. Rayray looked through the windows, calmly, as if he already knew what was coming. The old Rayray would have gotten up, kicked the boxes around, raged against whatever was overhead, vainly challenging it. Now, however, he was composed. As the building shook with the percussive impact of the thunder, Rayray said, loud enough for them to still hear, “Behold, the Lord is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence, and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.”

Within moments, a heavy burst of yellow-colored rain fell from the sky, striking the ground with the force of tiny hammers.  Walter, kept his place in the doorway, holding the lapels of his cardigan closed. He rolled his eyes around and wrinkled his nose, exposing his teeth, while he tried to see the sky beyond the boundaries of the doorway. The smell of sulfur suddenly rose from the pavement, along with a thick steam." -- from "Exodus"