changes in Biocenosis exhibition dates NOT!

After lengthy email correspondence, Phinney Center is keeping Biocenosis until April 29 at 5pm despite their scheduling conflict, preparing for their annual auction. I hope that you are able to see the show before this scheduled close. Exhibition information is still below.

Biocenosis: An exhibition at Phinney Center Gallery

Exhibition on view April 8 through April 29, 2010

Phinney Center Gallery
Phinney Neighborhood Association
6532 Phinney Avenue North
Seattle WA 98103

reception April 9, 2010, 7-9 pm (part of Artwalk)
Gallery Hours

• Monday through Friday 9am–9pm
• Saturday 9am–2pm
• 206.783.2244

Biocenosis is the process or system of organisms and natural phenomena interacting within a particular environment. The works in this exhibition include paintings and prints from 1993 through 2006. Earlier ones, from the series, Re: Seeding Gaia, link the politics of industrial botany with women's reproductive rights. A few are from the series, Penelope's Web, referring to the Odyssey and caretaking for posterity. More recent works reflect on biocenology and our approaches to landscape representation. See the statement for the exhibition below.

Please see http://www.planetart.us/ for biography and curriculum vitae.

Here is the catalogue of works, grouped by series. Sales are handled by the Phinney Center Gallery and retail prices reflect accordingly. WA state sales tax will be added.

SERIES: TITLE OF WORK MEDIA DIMENSIONS (UNFRAMED) DATE PRICE

Crisis Management in Reproduction: Sustainable Post Germination acrylic on paper 30 x 44 inches 1993 2150
Crisis Management in Reproduction: Invasive Procedures acrylic on paper 30 x 44 inches 1993 2150
Penelope's Web: Skylla's Cliff acrylic on paper 15 x 22 inches 2000 725
Penelope's Web: A Great Wave acrylic on paper 15 x 22 inches 2000 725
Penelope's Web: Departing Skheria acrylic on paper 18 x 23 inches 2000 860
Re:seeding Gaia: Germination Impression puzzle piece collagraph 9 x 12 inches 1995 360
Re:seeding Gaia: Diversity Yields Stability multi-plate relief print 8.5 x 11 inches 1996 325
Re:seeding Gaia: Brown Earth acrylic on paper 22 x 30 1998 975
Re:seeding Gaia: (Flowing Consciousness) Enlightenment is a Social Responsibility acrylic on paper 22 x 30 inches 1998 975
Re:seeding Gaia: Creek Chum in Salt Water acrylic on paper 22 x 30 inches 1999 1290
Resistance/Resilience: Children of the Rivers acrylic, photocopy and mixed media on paper 60 x 85 cm 2002 1290
Resistance/Resilience: Mountain Mudflow acrylic, photocopy and mixed media on paper 60 x 85 cm 2002 1290
Resistance/Resilience: Fish resist acrylic, photocopy and mixed media on paper 60 x 85 cm 2002 1290
Resistance/Resilience: Imagination resists domination acrylic, photocopy and mixed media on paper 60 x 85 cm 2002 1290
Resistance/Resilience: Ross Lake Crows and Trout acrylic, photocopy and mixed media on paper 60 x 85 cm 2003 1290
Resistance/Resilience: Pumpkin Mountain/Diablo Dam Crows and Trout acrylic, photocopy and mixed media on paper 60 x 85 cm 2003 1290
Resistance/Resilience: Ross Lake: High Summer acrylic and mixed media, photocopy on paper 60 x 85 cm 2005 1290
Strategic Clearing: White Pass and Bumping Lake acrylic, photocopy and mixed media on paper, mounted on stretched canvas 60 x 85 cm ea 2000 3450
Strategic Clearing: Douglas Wilderness acrylic and photocopy on paper, mixed media 60 x 85 cm 2003 1290
Strategic Clearing: Mt. Rainier acrylic, photocopy and mixed media on paper, mounted on stretched canvas 60 x 85 cm ea 2004 2450
The Slave Trade Was Free Trade: A Tale of Money acrylic and mixed media on paper 60 x 85 cm 2000 1290
The Slave Trade Was Free Trade: Trade A Tale of Struggle acrylic and mixed media on paper 60 x 85 cm 2001 1290
The Transformation of the Landscape: Worm Flows collagraph and mixed media 28 x 19 cm 2001 290
The Transformation of the Landscape: Ape Cave collograph and mixed media 19 x 28 cm 2001 290
The Transformation of the Landscape: The Breach collagraph and mixed media 28 x 38 cm 2001 350
We Call It Columbia: Iyagathl Imathl Bridal Veil, Bonneville Dam, Hood River acrylic, photocopy on paper, mounted on stretched canvas 60 x 85 cm ea [triptych] 2000 3225

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

Slide List for Social Injustice, The Gallery at Tacoma Community College

Diego Rivera
Mujeres Muralistas
Alice Dubiel, Lay Women Healers in Medieval Europe
John Heartfield
Hannah Hoch
Deborah Lawrence
Judy Chicago
Miriam Schapiro
Joyce Kozloff
Alice Dubiel, Crisis Management in Reproduction: Women and Agriculture

The Slave Trade Was Free Trade

A Statement

I believe that visual traditions and themes create a kind of language that exerts a powerful effect on social consciousness. I am interested in the Western landscape tradition, especially in its ability to distance the viewer from the outdoors and other people.

When exploring themes with ecological content, searching for different visual languages for landscape, I have been inspired by many traditions including contemporary pattern and decoration strategies, Roman and Byzantine mosaics, Japanese decorative art, indigenous Australian paintings and the shrine technologies of many cultures. The term biocenology is useful because it is the study of communities and member interactions in nature.

These acrylic and mixed media paintings in the series, The Slave Trade was Free Trade, incorporate the words of Frederick Douglass, the 19th century US orator. Inspired by the writings of historian Robin Blackburn, The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery and The Making of New World Slavery, I was interested in identifying the intersections of human activity, economics and culture, ecosystems and geologic presence. I am trying to develop a visual and symbolic language to express the contradiction of diversity and overlapping multiplicity within a culture whose dominant ideology expresses conflict in individualism and capitalism. Paintings are framed as if laboratory specimens, reflecting the culture’s attempt to contain such truth and control it.
January 2002

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

Penelope’s Web

A Statement

From The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Robert Fitzgerald, Book 5, ll. 315-35

A great wave drove at him with toppling crest
spinning him round, in one tremendous blow,
and he went plunging overboard, the oar-haft
wrenched from his grip. A gust that came on howling
at the same instant broke his mast in two,
hurling his yard and sail far out to leeward.
Now the big wave a long time kept him under,
helpless to surface, held by tons of water,
tangled, too, by the seacloak of Kalypso.
Long, long, until he came up spouting brine,
with streamlets gushing from his head and beard;
but still bethought him, half-drowned as he was,
to flounder for the boat and get a handhold into the bilge--to crouch there, foiling death.
Across the foaming water, to and fro,
the boat careered like a ball of tumbleweed
blown on autumn plains, but intact still.
So the winds drove this wreck over the deep,
East Wind and North Wind, then South Wind and West,
coursing each in turn to the brutal harry.

Penelope was the wife of the ancient Greek warrior, Odysseus, who fought ten years in the Trojan War and journeyed for ten more years before returning home. Penelope waited for Odysseus’s return: during this wait, her son grew to maturity; her mother-in-law, with whom she lived, died of grief, suiciding; and many suitors courted Ithaca’s queen. Her father-in-law retired to the hills, living among the herders: she, alone, managed the household. As was the custom, the suitors came to her home, exploiting her hospitality, screwing her servants, insulting her son, insisting Odysseus was dead and would never return. She developed a stratagem to delay them against his return: every day she wove the shroud for her father-in-law’s eventual burial, and each night she unraveled nearly all the day’s work. For years, she kept the suitors away until they found out about the unraveling from a servant. They confronted her, and still she declined their posturing, seeking the goddess’s protection until Odysseus, in disguise, drew near.

Penelope’s power is self-contained and not contingent upon Odysseus’s presence.
The series, Penelope’s web, is about power: the power of personal integrity amid the complexity of domesticity. The web is a symbol of protection. It is about connections to the dead and the living, about hope’s secret struggle against despair. It is about connections and threads, which may unravel but remain connected to the true heart. It is about sending messages across the wine-dark sea, never knowing whether they will be heard. It is about protecting oneself, one’s household in the face of insults, adversity, transgression and abandonment.

Penelope’s web of protection can be a metaphor to explore our stewardship of the planet. We cannot neglect our duty, especially to our urban environment; we can use our creative skills to devise new strategies to protect our earth household, neither to exploit nor abandon it. Nor can we await someone else to complete it. Rather, we are the caretakers whose struggle retains the inheritance for posterity and dignity for the honored guest.

Alice Dubiel October 1999

From The Women’s Dictionary of Myth and Symbols by Barbara Walker

“Penelope’s web is an interesting pattern of ten small pentacles ranged around a central wheel of ten spokes. All the pentacles together are composed of only two lines, as can be seen by following their interlaced patterns with the eye. This is a sign of protection like the simple pentacle, made even more suggestively defensive by the ring of twenty outward facing points, and the lines of connection drawing all sections together in the center, as a unifying cause or concept draws people together for the preservation of all.

“The mythological figure of Penelope is especially associated with preservation and protection because it was she, with her constant refusal to cut the thread of like, who preserved the life of her husband Odysseus through his many adventures, even after a death curse had been laid on him by the Trojan Queen and High Priestess of Hecate. Penelope, whose name means ‘veiled one,’ was really a title of the Fate-goddess who could determine men’s destinies by the treatment of her woven threads. When she cut, the man would die. According to Homer, Penelope unwove her web each night rather than cut the thread that represented Odysseus; and so he escaped all dangers and eventually returned to his home.”