IMG_0959

May 2019 Art News from Diane Jacobs

Grateful for a month of focused art making!

In this email:

The top picture is a panoramic view of my studio and work I produced during the four week residency. I had the pleasure of getting to know the visual artist and writer Bean Gilsdorf during our shared month stay at Pine Meadow Ranch in Sisters, OR. Thank you Roundhouse Foundation for sponsoring this opportunity and the supportive staff for helping to create an immersive experience in a gorgeous setting. While I was there, I visited Warm Springs Reservation, and the High Desert Museum. I hiked along Wychus Creek and the Metolius River. There were so many birds on the property: resident red tail hawks, barn swallows, robins, quail, flycatchers, Steller’s jays, a Western blue bird as well as a variety of finches.

I made over 52 animal Sumi ink drawings during my stay. Here is a coyote, flying squirrel, red tailed hawk, red tree vole, and wolf. I am planning to size the animals in relationship to one another and then make polymer plates of them to be printed letterpress for my mountain artist book.

I made 10 ceramic bats and 13 frogs that will be part of my solo exhibition at The Annex (Bush Barn – Salem Art Association) in Salem, OR during Oct. 2019.

Open Sesame! The Magic of Artist Books Revealed is only open through June 9, 2019 at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. I have three pieces on view in the main gallery – In These Five Remaining Days after Hafez (25 burned magnolia leaves with Kathleen Flowers’ poem), Before Surgery (laser cut copper moon with Kathleen’s poem), and This Hunger (28 twisted wire lines of Kathleen’s poem strung between two pin oak trees, ceramic apples in wire basket and two golden finches). It has been an honor to be part of this wonderful show. These two panoramic views were shot by Dan Swerbilov at the end of the opening reception in March. 

Art Zone, a locally-produced arts and culture show on the Seattle Channel, which then rebroadcasts on KCTS 9, recently made a stop at the museum to interview Cynthia Sears (BIMA’s founder and extensive artist book collector) about the artist’s book collection and the Open Sesame! exhibition. Segment starts at 6:49! click here to watch.


I have been collaborating with artist Alisa Banks from Dallas, Texas on two new artist books. Each one will consist of 26 wool felt 2.5″ alphabet squares that are 1/2″ thick. At the start of the project we made a running list of words for each letter of the alphabet and then narrowed it down to four words per letter which we will repeat for both sets. We each started imagery on a set of 26 squares. When we were both finished with one side we exchanged them. We are in the process of working on each side of the square started by the other person and stitching two words on two edges. We will exchange again when all that is finished. Then we will have one more side to work on and stitch two words to finish. The examples below on the left show 9 squares that Alisa sent to me and then the image on the right shows the additions I made to each square. All sides of the square will have our handy work. Each large side will have both of us responding and we will each stitch two words on the squares’ edges. The bottom images show the edge with words and both sides of Z and O. We began this process the end of January 2019 and hope to finish by the end of summer. We think the squares will be housed in a cloth covered collapsible box. It has been an incredible experience working in this way with Alisa. Much time and care is devoted to each square – ideas, textures, interplay of words, and varying sensibilities.

Exciting things are happening with $PEAK OUT! We have new blood and we are energized and growing our cohort of Portland State University Applied Linguistic students lead by professor Janet Cowal. $PEAK OUT is a recipient of a 2018-2019 President’s Diversity mini-grant. $PEAK OUT participated in the 2019 Culturally Responsive Symposium on May 9th, and on Wednesday May 22nd we had a booth at the Montgomery Pop Up Plaza from 12 – 4 pm. We spoke to a lot of people telling them about our project, dollar bills were donated, and we collected 21 new messages to be laser cut on currency. 88 laser cut bills are part of Bridges, a multimedia solo installation by Tereza Swanda at the Hendrick Gallery in Marblehead, Massachusetts through June 16, 2019. $PEAK OUT has a Facebook page: SpeakOutAgainstViolence, Instagram –Voicesspeakout, and a website: www.voicesspeakoutagainstviolence.wordpress.com. Check us out, follow us, like us, and get involved. If you donated messages after the first iteration of SPEAK OUT in 2015 your messages and bills will be included in our next exhibition in Spring 2020. We have a huge goal to collect and cut 6000 bills and adhere them to clear mylar scrolls. Thank you for helping us spread the word! 

This was a long newsletter!
Thank you for sticking with me.
love,
diane