Kauai - the red dirt land

A red dirt landscape

A sketch. It's a tree with houses behind.

A palm painted with red dirt.

by Ekaterina Levina


A local Kauai company manufacturing T-shirts started using red dirt for dying T-shirts after a hurricane ruined a lot of merchandise in 1992.
It's very common to see red hills on Kauai when you drive around the island.

I decided to use the dirt for my sketches. It was pretty easy – I mixed the dirt with some water and used a watercolor brush to paint. The mixture reminded me gouache paint with its texture.

I thought that this how medieval artists managed to find painting material – they looked around and used common things, and some of them were dirt cheap like clays and charcoal.

If I painted on a wall somewhere I probably would feel like a cave artist, but I used watercolor paper, so I wouldn't go that far in my imagination.

“The icon & the Iconic” at St. Ignatius Church

Father James Blaettler talks about icons

Saint Nicolas, The Miracle Worker (c. 19th century)
Russia, bronze with enamel, 9”x10”

Old and modern icons

Saint Catherine by D. Papadopoulos
Greece, 20”x14”

by Ekaterina Levina



The exhibit “The icon & the Iconic” brought back my childhood memories. One of my grandmothers was a devoted Orthodox Christian. I remember her praying in the front of icons in a red corner (right corner of the house) since, well... I remember myself.
The icons were dark, very old, the faces of saints were wise, serene and otherworldly.
I remember my grandmother praying to St. Nicolas for all her children traveling somewhere in the world. A thin wax candle was flickering in front of St. Anna, a silver cross, other saints – I don't remember who they were. Unfortunately, all these beautiful icons burned with the house a few years after my grandmother died. All, but one, which was given to my aunt when she got married. I didn't get a chance to inherit anything except my grandmother's intuition.

When I was looking at 17-18 century icons and crosses at the exhibit, I remembered a serene and illuminated face of my grandmother whispering words from a book of prayers. The book was heavy with an old lather cover and written in old style language decorated with red and gold ornaments. For me, when I was a kid, all those religious symbols were beautiful and mysterious objects, they were so different from everything around.

This icon exhibit at St. Ignatius Church features traditional Christian icons (from Russia, Greece, Bulgaria and Ethiopia) as well as iconic works by contemporary artists such as Andy Warhol.

A few beautiful old and contemporary icons were landed to the exhibit by families who knew Father James Blaettlet. I guess that the church (this one is a Jesuit Parish ) is one of the greatest networking systems in the world.

A lady from my art history class organized a tour for our class. Father James gave us an insightful 1,5 hour lecture about icons and art works at the exhibit. There are 69 traditional icons and icon interpretations at the exhibit.
Look up at the dome, and you'll see a pair of angel wings spread over you. A video installation shows people making a snow angel.
A bell “St. Nicolas Shadow” tolls every hour for civilian people who were killed in Iraq on that day.

Last chance to see this beautiful exhibit is Sunday, June 7, 2-5 pm.
Manresa Gallery, St. Ignatius Church
650 Parker Avenue, CA 94118

College Night at the de Young Museum

My painting “California Boys” (center)

Live art drawing demonstration by CCSF Museum Drawing Class

“This is not a box of Wheaties” by Beth Bloom

“Dindelion” by Nining Muir

“Obsession” by Melissa Love

by Ekaterina Levina


I participated in the student exhibit “Warhol Now and Then” with my painting “California Boys” at the de Young Museum last Friday. Yep, it feels good to get to the show at the museum!
It was one big fun party, kind of “an art gallery meets a night club meets an indie film festival”.
I met a few people from the art school who also participated - Beth Bloom, Nining Muir and Simone Guimaraes, who' been a very enthusiastic president of the Art Club of CCSF this semester.

A Museum Drawing class of the City College did a live drawing demonstration in Piazzoni Murals Room. They manage to stay on their places despite all that action and music around.
Usually this class has three costumed models, but this time a male model didn't show up, so Rick Rodrigues, an art instructor, stood for a model. You could see that he wasn't used to modeling – Rick couldn't stay still for a minute.

I have a couple of favorites from the show.
I loved a short film (I think the title was “Anonymous”) by Melusina Gomez in collaboration with Tokotzli and Aztlan Media Kollective. It was a combination of a film, music, and performance with old-fashioned nostalgic imaginary and beautiful poetry with a hint of desperation of a broken heart.

The art exhibit had a bright colorful and optimistic feel for the most part. One work stood out and had none of that cheerfulness - “Obsession” by Melissa Love.
I haven't had the chance to talk to the artist, but I assumed that the young and pretty woman taking her picture next to this photo was her.

It's difficult to see the whole image, but there's also a shadow of a leaving man on a door on the right side. It's simple, concrete and wonderfully dark.
You can find a much better quality image and other photographs by Melissa Love on her website:

http://melissalovephotography.com/

In her statement for the museum Melissa Love wrote:

“.... Death fascinates us as it is one of life's many mysteries. One will never get to know what it is like, until he or she is faced with it. Until then, it seems all that we can do is observe.”

Open Studio event at the end of earth in San Francisco

Industrial landscape at Hunters Point Shipyard

Beth Bloom greets a guest

Sculptures by Beth Bloom

Linda Hope in her art studio

Assemblage boxes by Linda Hope

by Ekaterina Levina


I went to Spring Open Studios at Hunters Point Shipyard for the first time yesterday.
This place at the end of earth has been an art community for about 20 years.
I know a couple of artists who work there.

Beth Bloom is a future interior designer. She does everything – painting, printmaking, sculpture, jewelery. I met Beth when she was a president of the Art Club at CCSF last year. I think she's been the most energetic president so far. She makes art, studies for her interior design degree, runs her own design business and trains for marathons. I don't know when she sleeps.

At open studios Beth presented her jewelry - very modern pieces combining silver and wood and her sculpture. For some reason, my attention is always drawn to things that have a heart shape. It doesn't matter, if it's a painting or a sculpture, if it's a heart – I love it.

Check out Beth Bloom's web site:

http://bethbloomdesigns.com/

In a studio next door I met my ex-instructor Linda Hope. I took Linda's class a few times. I love how she teaches Figure Drawing. Her approach to explaining a process of drawing a human figure could be applied to drawing anything. Her class is about how to open eyes and hearts to creating something on paper. Drawing is a process that involves an eye, a hand and a mind. Linda teaches how to engage everything.

This summer Linda Hope teaches Figure Drawing “Life Beyond Fundamentals” at Fort Mason (Continuing Education CCSF) on Saturdays, June 13 – July 25.

I recommend this class to everybody who's serious about drawing.

Hunters Point Shipyard is a very busy and vibrant art community.
All art studios were taken, all were open, all available space had art works in it. Clearly, the artists have been working there – they had a lot to show.

Many people came looking for something – paintings, photographs, prints, sculptures, ceramics, jewelery... As one artist said: “people come just looking on Saturday, then some of them come back to buy what they love on Sunday.”
I hope they would.

Such a great art community deserves great patrons who appreciate art.

New ceramics at Market Street Gallery

“Between Absurd and Obscene” by Sherri Cavan

“Locked Mystery’s of Our Ancestors” by Maggie Malloy

“The End of The Mechanical World” by Maria Sosina

by Ekaterina Levina

You won’t find a single vase or a plate at this show of ceramic sculpture.
Instead you’ll see a ceramic ship with words of wisdom written on it, ceramic bones and locks, an abstract shore house and amazingly real looking parts of rusty plumbing system.

The show runs until April 30 (Market Street Gallery, 1554 Market, San Francisco, http://www.marketstreetgallery.com/index.html)

The exhibit was fun and I enjoyed it!
It gives you an idea about the wide range of things that artist find inspiring – from conversations with God, meditation, personal memories to politics and mechanical creatures. Every piece there deserves a story about it.

I loved deeply spiritual sculptures of Maggie Malloy.

Check out her website:
http://www.mesart.com/maggiemalloy

I watched how surprised people were to find things looking like something from under the sink on a gallery wall. They obviously wanted to touch and check out if it was really a clay sculpture.
I saw how Maria Sosina explained the process of creating “The End of The Mechanical World” .

Find more Maria’s art on a website:
http://www.segmentusart.com/

I was lucky to share an art studio with Maria last summer. I watched her working on this installation and how she combined different things to build a new visual world.
I had a few conversations with Maria during our lunch time. Once she mentioned her childhood in Moscow and told a story about beauty and challenges of living in a XIX century building with an ancient plumbing.

The gift of the show – you’ll find and see the beauty of places like the one on this picture.

On the wings of friendship

“Night butterfly”

My friend’s airplane

by Ekaterina Levina

I miss my friend. I terribly miss my friend.
He’s a graphic designer in Moscow. We used to work together, well… long time ago.
Was it 1996 when we met? It looks about right.

He’s insanely busy with his work. The biggest downside being a graphic designer working for a video production company, besides crazy hours and clients who never know what they really want, is that everything must be done “yesterday”.
I’ve seen two types of designers: one is a nervous wreck, who screams at the computer screen, and another is a Zen philosopher who says, “This could be even worse… and it’ll be”.
My friend is a Zen type. He’s wonderful.

I remember when he made this screensaver picture with an airplane with words from a song written in 1943 (he was interested in the WWII history):

"Мы летим, ковыляя во мгле,
Мы ползем на последнем крыле.
Бак пробит, хвост горит и машина летит
На честном слове и на одном крыле...”

Comin' in on a wing and a prayer
Comin' in on a wing and a prayer
Though there's one motor gone
We can still carry on
Comin' in on a wing and a prayer

I loved the picture because it perfectly described my emotional state at that time. I think that I’ve told my friend million times about how much I admire his picture. For me, it’s symbol of my life 10-15 years ago.

Now it’s spring and my friend is in love. It’s about time.
My friend’s had his share of troublesome relationships in the past. I hope he’ll be happy this time. I cross my fingers and wish him luck.
I’m waiting to hear his story (there’s nothing better than a love story)!

I can reach him in my dreams when my imagination flies across the ocean under night sky. I imagine butterfly wings which take me there.

Friendship doesn’t care about time and distance.
The wings of friendship can bring people together anytime and anywhere.

I can’t wait to get his e-mail.

Somebody had to make the first apple!

“The First Apple”

God as architect of the world, a moralized Bible from Paris, ca. 1220-1230.
(from Gardner’s Art through the Ages)

by Ekaterina Levina

A few years ago I wrote a term paper for a Medieval Art History class about an illustration from the Bible “God as architect of the world”.

A medieval artist clearly understood that such complicated thing as creating a new world required some thought, planning and draft drawing.

Artists imagine and create impossible things. They paint gods, angels, dreams, nightmares, moods, and even things that don’t have names.

I imagined how the first apple was made.
First, there was a thought, an idea, then a plan, then a draft (a drawing on the right side of the painting). Now, add some light, some color, some juice and substance – and you have your very own apple, at least on the painting!

I included this painting in my café show last spring.
A local San Franciscan poet Steven Mackin saw it there and wrote a poem:

A History of Apples

Did the First Apple
Stem from a Platonic ideal
Somewhere in the sublime still

Is there a form
The Perfection of Apple
Equation of seed core flesh and skin

From brown leaves black thorns chaos
A Fibonacci derivation
Begins the Second Apple

And how many apples had to fall
From trees in Kazakhstan
Before Apple replaced Fig

As the Fruit of the edenic Tree
Or was it the Grape
Made old Adam Dumb

SPMackin

Steve is a regular feature at the café, and I know that he writes a lot about art.
You can read some of his poems here:

http://poetrymatters.150m.com/index_files/places_files/SacGnds_files/stevem.html

For me it was a wonderful gift to meet Steve and read his poetic response to the painting.

Let's get out!

by Ekaterina Levina

Today I painted en plein air for the first time in California.
I had an outdoor easel and an artist umbrella. Typically for Bay Area, the moment you bring a white umbrella to the beach, the sun disappears and the fog comes in. I enjoyed painting anyway.

I was standing close to a trail on a cliff overlooking a south part of Fitzgerald Beach.
Most passersbys said “Hi!” People were nice; nobody disturbed me when I was actually painting.
After years of painting in Art School with 15-30 people around, I’m not shy about working in public. Sometimes I also draw sketches at coffee shop. I can tune out anywhere.

The moment I stepped back from the easel, different conversations started.
Children asked questions about my “stuff”. Their parents made comments. A few people took pictures. Some asked me about the history of the area. A couple of Russian guys made a joke that they wanted to be my students. One promised to write a poem my painting.

Who knew that a palette and a brush could be such icebreakers.

My friend’s wedding dress

by Ekaterina Levina

I always pay attention how artists paint white objects. It’s fascinating how differently people interpret this color.
I enjoy painting white. One of my painting instructors said that the artist should see green in red and red in green. I think that when it comes to white, it’s up to the artist to see the whole rainbow in it.

Last summer I was looking for an ultimate white object to paint and had an idea to paint a still life with a wedding dress. It doesn’t get any whiter, I guess.

My girlfriend let me borrow her wedding dress a few days after her wedding.
My friend is a beautiful young woman with an incredible kind heart and courage. Her love story is a story of star-crossed lovers. As how poetically our mutual friend said about her and her husband, “they both fell down from the sky to be together”. The adventures of young lovers didn’t stop after the wedding. The new bride had to leave the country for a month, as she thought. But it’s taking much longer…

Now it’s been eight months since she left and couldn’t come back. It’s heartbreaking to see people who are so much in love but have to be apart. I and all her friends hope that she would come back soon and she and her husband would finally get a chance to live happily ever after.

Meanwhile, I finished that still life with the dress. The painting has a bright optimistic spring feeling.

It’s a wedding season again!

Girls’ best friends

Courtyard at the Legion of Honor

by Ekaterina Levina

I wonder how many people in the States know about The International Women’s Day on March 8.
This holiday is celebrated in post soviet countries and in China. Even Austria made it an official holiday about three years ago.

To celebrate the occasion I invited my girlfriends to the Legion of Honor to see the exhibit “Artistic Luxury: Fabergé, Tiffany, Lalique”.

No woman could feel indifferent looking at all that splendor of the jewel world! We loved it!

I realized that I prefer Tiffany style, while my girlfriends couldn’t stop talking about the beauty of Faberge eggs and flowers. Amazing craftsmanship! The best of jewels, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, aquamarines, topazes, amethysts, were presented in their most artful forms.

I’ve never seen kunzite before. It’s a light purple stone with a diamond quality to collect light and sparkle even in the dark.

My favorite of the show was a brooch “Belle de Nuit” by a French artist. The brooch is about the size of a palm. It consists of an ivory female nude with bluish grey enamel bat wings and diamond stars. This piece has a mystical feel about it. It probably was made for a beautiful witch…

One of my girlfriends was a jewelry designer, so when we had a glass of wine at the museum café (always a pleasure!), she told us stories about challenges of making such wonderful things. These details added to our appreciation of genius of jewelry artists.

“Pop to Present” at Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University

by Ekaterina Levina

“Pop to Present” is a bright and exciting exhibit. I envy people who are not familiar with the permanent museum collection and would discover all these wonderful art works at the show.
I go to this museum at least once at month for a number of reasons: the collection is great, the new exhibits are original, the admission is free and the Rodin garden is always a visual pleasure. I’ve seen at least 90% of art works presented at the show before.

Even for me, there was one surprise that made my day! It was a painting of a sitting woman with one hand around her head by Richard Diebenkorn. I read the name of the artist on a title card and exclaimed to myself: “Of course, who else!” That level of abstraction of the figure, that angular pose, that “ocean” blue, that California air, that poetry!

This beautiful painting was the “Mona Lisa” of the show. I was puzzled that I couldn’t remember this image from art books or from the museum collection. This is definitely the image that museum postcard and posters are made of. Anyway, I was really happy to see this beautiful work of art.

Being a nice museum visitor and fairly judging the number of security guards around I asked a permission to take pictures. It was granted.
I looked around the exhibit taking notes of my favorites. Then I walked straight to Diebenkorn and started taking pictures. To my surprise the same security guard who answered my question about taking pictures came to me and said: “Excuse me, but this is the only painting which isn’t allowed for taking pictures. It’s the order from the curator. I’m sorry.”

Intriguing. I looked again at the title card which said that “this painting is not yet formally accessioned into the collection.” It’s a promised gift from a private collection.
It would be wonderful to see this painting in the permanent museum collection.

Once again I fell in love with Diebenkorn.

Where is contemporary art going?

2008 SECA Art Award exhibit

by Ekaterina Levina

The 2008 SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art) Art Award exhibit at SFMoMA promised to show new directions of contemporary art in Bay Area.

There were no surprises at the show. Social statements and political issues are as big as ever, and geometrical and symbolical abstraction is still in favor.

What is regrettable is that art presented at the museum is going as far away from working from life as possible. It looks like nobody cares about human emotions, about joys and sorrows of life, and their personal interpretations.

The exhibit had an intellectual and dry feel. Everything was digested from mass media - TV shows, political news, newspapers. Nothing came from artists’ personal experiences and hearts.
There were five or six oil paintings at the show, but they were very obviously painted from photographs.

I blame curators for the general boredom of the exhibit. What’s the point to select art which gives the impression of being made by one person? New directions shouldn’t look like one sterile anonymous picture.

A creative justice art exhibit “Those Without Voices” at USF School of Law

“On Your Own”.

A poetry reading at the reception.

by Ekaterina Levina

Yesterday I saw a couple of ravens picking fuzzy balls of wool on a sidewalk for their nest. It’s spring… I was on my way to the Legion of Honor Museum to take some pictures of paintings for my Art History term paper. I’ll tell more about this paper ordeal sometime in May.

Last month my painting “On Your Own” was accepted for the creative justice art exhibit “Those Without Voices” at USF School of Law. The show benefited The Forgotten International: Finding, Helping & Bringing Hope to Forgotten People Worldwide.

http://theforgottenintl.org/

This is my description of the painting for the show:

“The painting expresses fear of losing the ground under feet.
In the current financial situation people are losing their houses, jobs, places to live.
It’s about fear of the future in the turmoil of an economical crisis.
Would my house, my world, be able to keep its ground?
There are real people behind numbers reflecting the downfall of the economy”.

A couple of my friend came to the reception, and I met a few artists that I knew there. The reception was fun – a nice band played, poetry readings were exciting and the art was inspirational.
Lawyers ARE wealthy, so the food was fabulous. One of my friends couldn’t leave the buffet for the whole time.

The Asian Art Museum exhibit “The Dragon's Gift: The Sacred Arts of Bhutan”

Two monks from a Bhutanese monastery perform daily purification rituals and prayers for sacred objects in the exhibition.

A sand mandala.

The Buddha Vajrasattva, 1300-1600.

by Ekaterina Levina

I visited the Asian Art Museum to see the exhibit dedicated to the Buddhist art of Bhutan.
Bhutan is a country located east of Mount Everest and bordered by India and Tibet.

The exhibit consists of religious objects, mostly Buddha sculptures and mandala paintings, which are still used in temple and monastery rituals.

The Buddahs were amazing. Some of them were small, about 10-12”, glowing with gold and intricate jewelry details. Some were bigger bronze sculptures.

All Buddhas had their usual serene face expressions, but at the same time they had different human personalities and characters. They are real masterpieces. With graceful lines and expressive gestures they give a feeling of the ancient time and life. Somehow they look very human and approachable.

I loved a wonderful sculpture which showed an embrace of the Buddha and the Goddess.

A bit of a coffee shop life

by Ekaterina Levina

A few days ago I stayed late in a coffee shop. The café have local bands playing almost every night at 8 pm. I like some, I hate others. There is a schedule of performances on a door.

Around 9 pm a local musician came to play piano. He’s not listed in the schedule, and I don’t know his name. He comes to play when the mood strikes. He’s about 40, has expressive almost ugly features and long hands.
He’s my favorite pianist. I always stop doing whatever I’m doing and listen to him.
He plays classical music. He never fails to move me in some way. His piano makes beautiful, rich, velvet sound and the music is soulful.

So he played, I enjoyed and when it was my time to leave, I had this conversation with a barista:

- I LOVE how this guy plays!
- Yeah… Too bad he has a mental problem.
- ???
- He’s on medication. Sometimes he gets really gloomy and doesn’t notice anything around. I had to remind him to stop playing and to leave like five minutes before we closed, and he gave me such a look!
He’s a bit weird.
- Aren’t we all? I’m used to weird people in art.
- True…

My submission for a juried show “Beyond Warhol's Imagination” at The Art Institute of California - San Francisco

"Pocket Therapist"

"Pocket Therapist" back

"The Martian"

by Ekaterina Levina

This is a submission for the de Young Satellite Exhibition. Same theme, different place.
The college night show at the de Young would last only one evening, when the show at thw Art Institute of California would last for about two weeks. Both shows have the same curator from the museum.
Here are my explanations for this submission:

“Pocket Therapist”

Pop Psychology has become a modern day commodity. We consume magazines, talk-shows, numerous self-help books dedicated to the subject of what we want/need/have to know about a state of our mind.
I distilled three the most common recommendations from casual conversations I’ve had with my friend, a practicing psychiatrist:
- It’s not your fault.
- Put yourself first.
- You have a choice.
I made a portable “therapist” to keep “in a pocket”.
It’s possible to blow out a single image and multiply it, so it becomes something giant to get our attention.
I use a reverse method of converting a complex idea to a size of a pocketbook.

“The Martian”

A fragment of a picture of a stranger I met in a café and a magnolia flowering in my neighborhood combined together became something from another planet.
A flower could have a gloomy mood to the point of becoming an alien.
One way to bring attention to regular objects is using high saturation images multiplied in different arrangements.
Instead, I use a small scale combination of familiar things to bring out their new otherworldly possibilities.

My submission for a juried show at the De Young Museum

Found object sculpture "Love Game"

Painting "California Boys"

by Ekaterina Levina

Sometimes it’s necessary to put in writing the meaning of an art work. Especially, when it’s required by rules of an art competition.
It’s easy to do for new paintings, and not so easy when something was done a year or more ago. I look at my last year painting and try to remember, what the hell did I mean doing this?
I remember the feeling of some kind of great and exciting idea that I had at that time…
But what was it exactly? Trust me; it isn’t that easy for the artist to remember.
I submitted two things for the college night event “Warhol: Now and Then” at the de Young Museum. They asked artists to describe how their art works are related to the theme.
Here are my explanations for the submission:

“Love Game”.

In this found object sculpture the playful repetition of card contrasts with a straight order of chess pieces.
The heart shape from a card jumped under a screwed chess board, while chess figures play a game and support a tin box stage.
The common objects play familiar roles in new unexpected ways.

“California Boys”

I took pictures of my friends from my neighborhood to make this collage.
In my mind, all of them are celebrities in a small local way. Every person in this picture could recognize others.
For viewers, who are not familiar with this crowd, they represent an image of people living today and give an idea of a colorful, all-accepting and sparkling California attitude.
This snapshot of local celebrities of my world is a portrait of our moment in life.