Trilobites at OWCA exhibition at Portland Center for Performing Arts September-October

Because of the honor to the late Madeline Janovec and the past presidents Joan Glebow and Una Kim, I plan to attend the reception on September 5 (see below). Madeline is an essential connection to the work I've done in Korea and was a good friend for nearly 20 years. We attended numerous conferences, worked on projects, shared meals and each other's houses. I'm so grateful for OWCA's efforts to expand awareness of feminist art and art history in the metro Portland area. The honorees are tireless organizers.

Alice

PS The complete title of my work is Trilobites: kootenia burgessensis from the series, The Book of Shadows. I'm so grateful for OWCA publishing my artwork image on their PR, including the printed announcement. The work is 50 (h) x 95 (w) cm, inspired by a visit to the Mt. Stephen trilobite bed in Yoho National Park near Banff, Alberta, part of the Burgess Shale.


Link to exhibition information

Here's a statement I made about this and the other work, a print, which will appear in the exhibition.

The Effect of Snowmelt on Past Cultural Landscapes and The Book of Shadows

 I like to explore different landscape representations to express my personal experiences and cultural interactions with geography. Seeking alternatives to the Western landscape tradition and its relentless desire for control, I currently focus on atmospherics and biological residues such as fossils and ancient human activities. With the approach of pattern and decoration, I can investigate and create a different language of varied traditions including maps, classical and middle eastern mosaics, decorative art, textile design, indigenous paintings and shrine technologies.
Currently I work with acrylic, encaustic, mixed media and printmaking. I like working with handmade paper and enjoy using simple print techniques such as relief and collagraph to express human mimicry of natural processes.
As an artist in residence at North Cascades National Park, I learned from archeologist Bob Mierendorf that to understand wilderness, we must be open to the existence of many past cultural landscapes.
Topographic maps appeal to me because they are created by physically active scientists and engineers who document the terrain directly by walking on it. Intimacy with a place affects our relationship to it. I try to see as much as I can most of the places I depict. Further, erosion and other natural effects reveal the evasiveness of geography to reinforce a static view of landscape. During my visit to Korea in June 2011, I experienced the dramatic landscape transformation from the increased intensity of typhoons, including Meari. There I was impressed by traditional construction and landscaping techniques to work with the effects of massive precipitation.
In the series, The Book of Shadows, I depict fossil residues to create an alternate reading of the landscape through geological clues to life’s effects on our planet.
Visual traditions and themes create a kind of language that exerts a powerful effect on social consciousness. Artists choose particular traditions and themes to explore and alter these ranges of expression. I want to create new narratives that reaffirm our ties to where we live, people who came before, the planet, nature and its cycles.
Alice Dubiel September 2013

Pecha Kucha Seattle Slide List

The Hazel Tree Mother: The Tree in Winter, 2007, acrylic and digital collage, Alice Dubiel
Lay Women Healers in Medieval Europe, mural for Student Health Center, San Jose State University, 1979, acrylic media, Alice Dubiel
Apocalyptic Visions: Scrolls for a Fearful Time: We feared the slow death of fish and marine life from the poisoning of the planet, Scroll II, watercolor on paper, wood, silk, 1984, Alice Dubiel
Rhinewater Purification Plant, installation, 1972 Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany, Hans Haacke
Dreaming the Earth Whole: Watershrine, 1990, Bumbershoot Seattle, mixed media installation, Alice Dubiel; for complete installation, collaborators Marita Dingus, Ann T. Rosenthal, Sarah Teofanov
Flowing Salmon Shrine, 1997, mixed media, (Carkeek Park and other locations) Alice Dubiel
Agriculture and Reproductive Freedom: A Tale of Crisis Management, 1992-1997 (2 images), Alice Dubiel
Re:Seeding Gaia: Flow, 1996, acrylic on paper, wood, Alice Dubiel
Penelope’s Web: The Light Bursts Forth, 1999, acrylic and mixed media on paper, Alice Dubiel
The Landscape Tale, from Agriculture: An Alchemical Treatise, 1993-4, installation at 911 media arts, Seattle
The Landscape Tale, exhibition announcement, 1993, commercially printed art card of image by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, 1809, and letterpress of map of Paris c. 18th C. superimposed, Alice Dubiel
Strategic Clearing: Mt. Rainier, 2004, acrylic, photocopy and mixed media on paper, mounted on stretched canvas, Alice Dubiel
Strategic Clearing: White Pass and Bumping Lake, 2000, acrylic, photocopy and mixed media on paper, mounted on stretched canvas, Alice Dubiel
North Cascades Lichen Leaves, 2006, digital print and relief paint, Alice Dubiel
Mt. Stephen, 2009, photo by Alice Dubiel or Jim Hopfenbeck
Walcott 2009, conference reception at Whyte Museum, Banff, Alberta, photo by Alice Dubiel
Opabinia regalis, specimen prepared by Charles Doolittle Walcott, described by Harry Whittington, photos by Chip Clark, and Opabinia action figure, courtesy Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto
Sculpin egg mass, Summer 2009, Golden Gardens Park Beach, photo by Alice Dubiel
A New Song in Praise of Peace, 2009, acrylic and mixed media on board, Alice Dubiel (also cover to Laude Novella, compact disk recording by Medieval Women’s Choir)

Also included Seed Card piece, Imagination Resists Domination: Crimson Clover, 1994-2003. This was a revision of seed packets pieces accompanying shrines and other installations.
Here's the text:
Imagination resists domination
Crimson clover
Plant in urbanized areas to colonize increased plant space, roots break the subsurface. Green manures fertilize and cultivate soils. Plant the seeds of your dreams in the dark of your imagination. As you sow, visualize a city which nourishes without depletion, where fertility is wealth. Hold the soil in your hand. Make your wish come true.
© 1994-2003 Alice Dubiel
http://www.planetart.us/
for The Landscape Tale: http://www.varoregistry.org/dubiel/more4.html
for Crisis Management: http://www.varoregistry.org/dubiel/more3.html

Approaching Biocenology: Meditations on the Wild and the Sacred

A Statement

We have some technologies for aiding our quest toward consciousness, toward life-death-life cycle affirmation. These are the technologies of symbol making, experiencing community as spirit, infusing wildness with cultivation, blending the natural and the cultural with conscience. These technologies make each of us everyday artists.

I like to explore different landscape representations to express my personal experiences and cultural interactions with geography. I am interested in the conflicts which arise from our expectations about land use, expectations shaped by idealized art and design images and our vernacular urban setting. By employing the approach of pattern and decoration, I would like to create a different language referring to many traditions including maps, Roman and Byzantine mosaics, Japanese decorative art, textile design, indigenous Australian paintings and shrine technologies of many cultures. I like to use the term biocenology in this interface of cultural and natural systems because it is the study of communities and member interactions in nature; it is an exploration of systems, part of the science of ecology.

Much of my work over the past twenty years expresses the theme–Land Use: An Alchemical Treatise to explore the connections between our belief systems about society and how we treat the planet, each other.

Currently I work with acrylic, encaustic, mixed media and printmaking approaches. Some paintings feature topographic maps which I photocopy onto handmade paper. Others incorporate images or formal structures. Upon this layer, I lay acrylic or encaustic washes; sometimes more than one to build luminosity and relate to the landscape. Then I add stamped images of animals such as fish, birds and eggs and seeds, using brilliantly colored and iridescent pigments derived from mica. With these techniques, I am trying to express the complexity of overlapping multiplicity and the tendency of natural processes to pursue cycles of life.

In its relentless desire for control, the Western landscape tradition distances the viewer from the outdoors and people. Visual traditions and themes create a kind of language that exerts a powerful effect on social consciousness. Artists choose particular traditions and themes to explore and alter these ranges of expression. I want to create new narratives that reaffirm our ties to where we live, the planet, nature and its cycles.

Alice Dubiel January 2009