“Sure Love,” oil and vinyl heart on canvas, 10″ x 8″
SOLD
The tiny vinyl heart was made by the brilliant Brandon Borchert, who left this world 12 years ago.
This painting was on on display at Zip 37 Gallery as part of the Valentine/UnValentine show through February 18.
After skipping a couple years, I have signed up for Leslie Saeta’s 30 in 30 Challenge again.
Daunting, but exciting too – could be a good antidote for my mid-winter slump. I’ve been busy working on paintings for a couple different shows, so I’m starting the month off by cheating just a little bit; I’ll post the four very fresh (still wet!) paintings I’ve made for Zip 37 Gallery‘s “Valentine/UnValentine” show, which opens this Friday evening and runs through February 18. Pictured below is “The Lovers,” oil on canvas, 10″ x 8″.
SOLD
I’m excited to be opening this ekphrastic show – painters responding to poets and poets responding to painters – at Zip 37 Gallery in six short days. The entire project had its origin in this blog, sort of, about a year ago. I was participating in Leslie Saeta’s 30 in 30 challenge after losing my studio made me wonder if I would ever want to paint again. Ken Smith was at that time writing a poem a day and posting those poems on Facebook. Ken wrote a piercing short poem titled Clown College Failure in response to one of my little 30 in 30s and I started a large canvas in response to his poem, “An Old Man’s Story.” Do you remember the old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Ads? Saying it was just like that is silly, but tonight I feel silly and I’m going to embrace that.
As the date for my show neared, I approached Ken to see if he would be interested in participating in a larger ekphrastic project, including works from some local painters I admire (Gina Smith Caswell, Rebecca Cuming, Joan Fullerton, Lance Green and Mark Penner Howell) as well as a few of my own. Not only was he up for it, he enlisted two Indianan poet friends, David Dodd Lee and Ross Taylor, to participate as well.
Each painting will hang along side its corresponding poem. I could not be more excited for this show. I haven’t seen most of the poetry yet, and one of the paintings will be a surprise to me as well. I love having something to look forward to in these dark times.
I look forward to seeing YOU if you can make it to Zip 37 between February 10 and February 26. The opening reception is Friday, February 10, 5 – 10 and there will be mini-receptions On the following 2 Fridays, Feb. 17 and Feb. 24. Zip is open Thursdays 5- 8, Fridays 5 – 10, Saturdays and Sundays noon – 6.
Posted in 30 in 30, art, contemporary art, Denver, fine art, Inspiration, new art, painting, poetry, Uncategorized
Tagged David Dodd Lee, ekphrastic, Fall in Love, Gina Smith Caswell, Jeff Buckley, Joan Fullerton, Joyful Circumstance, Katie Hoffman, Ken Smith, Mark Penner Howell, New Year's Prayer, Rebecca Cuming, Ross Taylor, valentines art, Zip 37 Gallery
On this Friday the thirteenth I have a spate of undeserved good luck to reflect on. The Summer Art Market at the Art Students’ League of Denver was better to me than it has ever been. (Until the deluge hit Sunday and we discovered that the EZ-Up leaks. But we survived that with minimal damage.)
Remarkably, I sold my Heloise and Abelard there,
to a terrific couple. Funny, smart, kind people who love her.
I am so grateful that someone loved her enough to want to own her. I am also grateful for the sorely needed money. But, weirdly, I will miss having her around. Never felt quite so attached to a painting. Hm. Onward and upward. Hopefully I will eventually make a painting that will make me forget all about that one. Or maybe not forget but just move on. You know.
I’m not only pining and crying and navel gazing these days (though I do all of that so well). I do have stuff going on. I’m working on a mask for the Denver Hospice’s Mask Project that is almost done. I’ll be delivering it next week. Almost done shot below:
I’ve been invited by the fantastically gifted ceramicist Pat Cronin to show in the “Creatures” exhibit at Zip 37 Gallery. I have been thinking hard about Rat Kings but have not yet started one. I think/hope/believe I will have new work to show.
And I am thinking about my fall show at Core New Art Space. Some canvases are stretched and prepped, and ideas are fermenting. I believe it will be called “The House that Jack Built.” I have been thinking lately about the concept of home and the structures that can serve as the places we dwell.
Wishing a very lucky Friday the 13th to you all.
I close the show I share with Christopher Fox at Zip 37 Gallery this Sunday October 6 at 5 PM. It’s a nice show, and if you are local I hope you stop by Friday (First Friday!) 6-10, or Saturday or Sunday noon to 5 to see Christopher’s beautiful paintings, if nothing else.
Here is Chris hanging the work a couple weeks ago:
And here he is in my mind-bogglingly accurate portrait of him:
Westword‘s Susan Froyd was kind enough to ask me for a 100 Colorado Creatives Interview before the show opened a couple weeks ago. That can be found here.
I’ve been with Zip 37 Gallery for seven years. Moving on feels like leaving the family home. I’ll stop here, before I get verklempt.
Posted in art, contemporary art, Denver, fine art, painting
Tagged Christopher Fox, I Did it My Way, Katie Hoffman, Sid Vicious, Zip 37 Gallery
Oil on canvas, 16″ x 20″
Feverishly painting now in preparation for my final show at Zip 37 Gallery, which opens September 20. I will be showing with Christopher Fox. If you haven’t seen Christopher’s work, you don’t know what you’re missing. Come. Treat yourself.
Press release pasted below:
New Paintings & a Last Hurrah for Hoffman & Fox
Katie Hoffman & Christopher Fox will be showing new paintngs at Zip 37 Gallery in Denver from September 20 until October 6, with an opening reception on Friday September 20 from 6 PM until 10 PM.
This will be the last of Hoffman’s 7 year run of annual shows at Zip 37. While sad to leave the gallery, she is excited that Fox, a painter whose work she has long admired, accepted her invitation to show togther. Fox has created a brand new body of work specifically for this show and expects it may the final appearance of his work in the Denver area.
Hoffman and Fox share a fascination for non traditional methods of paint application and a melding of abstraction with representational imagery. Fox’s work is characterized by “an aggressively abstract foundation overlaid with carefully rendered subjects as a floating film. Foundations are painted using tools like garden rakes, turkey basters, credit cards or bamboo skewers. Imagery is then painstakingly added over the course of several months as the story of each piece develops.” A self-taught artist, Fox currently works in acrylics n canvas or wood.
Hoffman begins her paintings “with a nonobjective under-painting and no preconceptions but texture and color to enter into a dialogue with the paint itself.The paintings are returned to over a period of weeks or months, as more layers of oil paint, wax, and various media are added and some areas are abraded or scraped down to reveal earlier layers, in a mimicry of fragmented memory and experience residing in an invented space. She brings recognizable imagery to the surface if it suggests itself during the process, but attempts to retain some of the ambiguity of the original vision.” Hoffman has a BFA from MSUD.
Zip 37 gallery is open Fridays 6 to 10 PM, Saturdays and Sundays noon to 5, nd by appointment. For more information, contact katiehoffman65@msn.com, call 303 881 5796, or visit http://www.katiehoffman.com
Posted in art, contemporary art, Denver, fine art, new art, painting
Tagged Beth Gibbons, Christopher Fox, Frightened Rabbit, Katie Hoffman, show, Zip 37 Gallery
Photo credit: Terri Bell
The closing weekend of my show at CORE New Art Space – entwined with my four friends and fellow artists Meg Voigt Meersman, Terri Bell, Jon Koenigsberg and Lokken Liane, is approaching. Our last weekend will coincide with the popular Denver Art District on Santa Fe’s First Friday Art Walk. I am grateful to Susan Froyd for writing about the show on the Westword Blog, here.
I was skeptical when Terri Bell proposed that we mix our work together and hang it as a single exhibit. I usually feel that my work coordinates poorly with other people’s work. I always look like the turd in the punch bowl, the rat within the grain. Her instinct were right, though- the show is wonderful and I think it’s the best looking exhibit in which I’ve ever taken part. Thank you, Terri. I will not doubt your aesthetic premonitions again, and we at CORE are so fortunate to have you with us.
I am also grateful to Pat Cronin for inviting me to take part in the “Creatures” show, opening on First Friday on the other side of town at Zip 37 Gallery.
I will be taking down “Lovesick” at Zip 37 tomorrow.
It was a lovely show, thanks to the artists who agreed to show with me.
Taking a show down is always a bit of a melancholic thing, no matter how many times I’ve been through it.
On an unrelated note, I’d like to thank Christopher Fox and Denverdart for publishing this 10 question interview. Denverdart is a new and very good online magazine focusing on the arts in Denver, & is well worth keeping your eye on.
Posted in art, contemporary art, Denver, fine art
Tagged endings, little shop of horrors, lovesick, somewhere that's green, Zip 37 Gallery
opens at Zip 37 this Friday, the good lord willing and the creek don’t rise. I’m grateful to Mauricio Rocha for giving us a shout out in this week’s Westword. Hope you can come by and take a peek if you’re in the neighborhood.
Posted in art, contemporary art, Denver, drawing, fine art, new art, sculpture
Tagged Hank Williams, lovesick, Mauricio Rocha, Westword, Zip 37 Gallery
My show at Zip 37 is over. I’ve taken the paintings away and prepared the gallery for the next artist. It’s been a good run and I sold 9 paintings between the two shows at CORE and Zip (essentially the same body of work on two different sides of town) as well as a handful of monotypes. I’m thanking whatever gods may be that smiled on me these past two months- but I’m especially thanking the good folks who like the work enough to fork over some money and take it home. (Maybe I can get that root canal & crown now.)
My next show is scheduled to open at Zip 37 on February 10, 2012. It wasn’t my first choice of date but I’ll work with it. I plan to do some reading and thinking about the sickness that is love in preparation for this show which falls around Valentine’s Day.
Posted in art, art issues, contemporary art, Denver, fine art, Inspiration, painting
Tagged aches & pains, animuse, CORE New art space, february, Katie Hoffman, love, Over, Portishead, valentine's day, Zip 37 Gallery
Paint Fumes 