The event was held nearby, at the entrance to Mark’s Garage Art. Hawaii Craftsmen brought raku kilns, set them near the entrance to the gallery and started doing their Magic. Us, plein air painters situated nearby and were painting (sketching) the urban surroundings.
Here are some painters with their works:
Mark Brown, the Leader and the Teacher of the Saturday group of Painters.Yvonne Manipon, one of the main organizers and curators of this show. Joannie StolzEvelyn Johnson
It was my first time seeing the process of Raku firing. For me it was Magical. Have you seen it? If not I want to share:
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“Pictures from an Exhibition” (Картинки с выставки) is a suite composed for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874. Click on this link to provide yourself a musical accompaniment for viewing my photos of the exhibition reception that I attended on July 2, 2021 with my family at a fabulous new building of the Downtown Art Center (DAC) in Chinatown, Honolulu, HI.
As you can see the concept of the exhibition “Out in the Elements” was to show different types of work united by the fact that they were produced outdoors: Plein Air paintings and Raku ceramics – here are the links if you are not familiar with these terms. This explains those strange objects you see on the exhibition floor – Raku kilns. There will be a public event on Saturday, July 17 from 10 a.m. t – when everyone will be able to come to learn about and make Raku glazing and watch and see this ancient firing process.
And here are again three of my paintings that found a great match with the Raku ceramics pieces made by a fabulous artist Rebecca White Taggart.
Rebecca and me
And here we are Mark Brown, and I, posing with our paintings.
Me and Mark Brown
Mark, is quite a famous artist in Hawaii: see his website. He is a Signature Member of Plein Air Painters of Hawaii. He is also an incredibly generous and kind person who bought and presented the lei that you can see on me, as well as to EVERY artist who had work in this show(!!!). Mark is also an excellent teacher. He has a large following coming to his Plein Air classes on Saturday, which I also started attending since February this year. Mark is helping everyone with his artistic advice, makes jokes and makes everyone laugh. I occasionally include him in my paintings, as you can see here in my painting below – Mark is painting in the sunflower fields.
Mark initially criticized my painting for the proportions of his figure. I promised to improve it but… well, I did not. I felt since it was made on location, under the sky and under some certain impression, this would be easily ruined by “straightening” the proportions. I was going to tell everyone that is it my imaginary “Van Gogh in Hawaii”. However, everyone who sees this painting, if they knew Mark, guessed it was Mark. So, there was no way to hide it. So, sorry, Mark! Your legs are NOT really that short!!! LOL
So, anyway, I felt honored to have my painting exhibited next to Mark’s. He presented 7 of his great paintings, and one of them already was sold even before the exhibition opening. He is a great colorist and I admire the richness of his paint application. Here are, again, Mark’s paintings on the walls:
Make sure to check out his website www.marknbrownfineart.com to see more of his beautiful paintings.
After the show we went to a nearby brewery:
A day after the reception I was volunteering at the exhibition, sitting the show, making sales and providing art demonstrations along with another artist and friend Marina Borovok. Here is Marina and her beautiful paintings:
Marina Borovok
Marina went LIVE on Facebook during the show where she literally went over EVERY artwork created by 48 artists participating in the show. I highly recommend to watch this recorded video, however, I am not sure how long it will be available online.
That is all I wanted to share about this wonderful exhibition.
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As I mentioned earlier, today is First Friday. If you are not familiar with this term – it is a day when all galleries in downtown (in many towns) are open and have something on display, and also there are some refreshments, such as cheese and grapes, and sometimes some wine.
The latter, not the wine, but cheese and grapes part, was a major argument when we were teaching our students to attend such events.
If you are familiar with First Friday events, and attended them in the past – no matter what city you live in, and no matter if it is a First Friday, or a Second Friday, or a Last Friday, or whatever – you will be happy that such events are coming back. Since COVID and lockdown started in 2020, we all were longing for such events, when artists are gathering together, when cheese and wine are in abundance and laughter and art go together hand in hand.
These events are coming back, as well as our freedom to travel and live our lives and I hope this progress will continue.
So, here! Please, come to the First Friday event in Chinatown Honolulu if you are around. If not, I am sorry, but hope you enjoy some photos I have taken while hanging my work.
The address of the new Downtown Art Center is: 1041 Nuuanu Ave, Honolulu. Exhibition is on the 2nd floor.
I promise I will take more photos at the event today, especially since I forgot to take photos of all my works while installation was in progress. But here are a few:
Now I have to show the photo of how it is hanging on the gallery wall. I was really excited how these two paintings fit with the raku ceramics. The ceramics artists was helping me to hang my pieces, and she was also really excited about the fact that our work was WORKING together!
We discussed the fact that we both use natural Hawaiian colors in our work – blue/green of the sky and water, browns of the trees and rocks. You can see my excited face here:
My excited face with N2 and N3 paintings plus Raku Ceramics.
And here is a photo showing you are truly beautiful space of this gallery:
Yes, as you can see on this photo – I have a special shoe on one foot – it was a foot surgery. Nothing serious, and I am recovering now.
The tree painting below N 4 was done in Foster Botanical garden in Honolulu. It is very special tree – it was presented to Mary Foster and it is a direct descendant of that very tree under which Siddhartha Gautama Buddha attained enlightenment in the sixth century B.C. I was very curious about this story and here is what I found: The story of how this tree appeared in Honolulu
This is a link to the video of how my tree painting looks with the ceramics in the gallery. I just give you a link to my instagram page since I want you to follow me there! I am not sure if you see it in the video very well, but the ceramics pieces not only match with the colors of my painting. They are also meditative ceramic lamps that glow with a soft flickering light. I think there cannot be a better match with my Buddha Tree painting!
This is all for now! I am very excited and happy and proud to be in this show!
Aloha to all of you, and I hope some of you can come to see the show in person!
Aloha!
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Today I was lucky enough to paint with a group of Charlotte artists Plein Air Buds. I hope to continue painting with this group as much as I can! It was a wonderful day. The Duke Mansion was in the process of being redecorated, it was interesting to watch. Not much painting was done since I just met many people for the first time and there were conversations and introductions. Hope to be more accomplished the next time I go to paint outside!
I started with a small sketch (above) and then a bigger sketch (below). Scratched out the trees that were light on a dark background with the intention to “finish later”. I have a pile of such “finish later” paintings at home…
It is not the result that matters! It’s the process! Like and share if you agree 🙂
Scratched out the trees that were light on a dark background with the intention to “finish later”. I have a pile of such “finish later” paintings at home… 
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