This is the first woman I painted in the series. She is a metal artist and when other responsibilities take precedence, her work pauses. The light switch, in the hall outside her home studio, came to represent for me the social aspect of art-making and non-making: that innocuous interruptions, accumulated, become significant and that other people in our lives – as our enablers – are part of the affair.
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Loreen Oren, @loreen.oren.art. This artist works out of a corner of her children’s playroom. I honor her carefully constructed life, with my tender application of paint. And then - with a swipe of it - I suggest some things could change. Belying her focused gaze, you can see her reflection in the window, from a distracted moment after her twins arrive home. I notice the colors of toys find their way into the paintings and wonder if “a room of one’s own” is too simple a prescription.
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TAAS artist Laura Malone, @lauramaloneart. I met Laura in ArtLab and flew out to Oakland to visit. Painting her, the patterns of Laura’s work spilled into the environment around her. And then there was a moment of clarity when I realized that, for her, it’s the other way around. So that the viewer can share my experience getting to know Laura, I’ve placed the main area of interest on the canvas below eye level. The crick in your neck snooping doesn’t mean it’s an unwelcome visit, but I want my viewer to feel the voyeuristic joy an artist feels transgressing the privacy of another artist at work.
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TAAS artist Epiphany Couch, @epiphany_couch_art. As I watched Epiphany unearth family photographs from a trunk in her Portland studio, I came to see how her practice - to understand her Yakama, Puyallup and Scandinavian lineages - manifests in everyday ways. The painting contrasts Epiphany, seated on the floor, with her western-style worktable. The stark hue shift in the painting between left and right tries to convey the tensions in process that Epiphany experiences in her work.
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TAAS artist Danielle Schlunegger-Warner, @naturalistandco. I zoomed into Danielle’s Portland studio and we talked for a long time about the importance of tinkering. From creative chaos, Danielle assembles potent juxtapositions; worlds emerge that shed light on larger truths. The two fulcrum points in the painting are her hands: first, the one giving her comfort embodies Danielle’s inner voice; the other hand constructs. I intend for the viewer to consider the nested worlds of Danielle’s creation, the studio space she inhabits and the larger world through the window beyond.
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