Clients in the News
NPR Radio Interview – Artist’s Show
Sonoma County NPR
March 7, 2024
Santa Rosa show spotlights emerging women artists
Photo Credit: TibidaboPhotography.com
“That’s why we created the Newcomers Art Project,” says Nick Mancillas, artist, and longtime high school art teacher, who is co-curating the show. “It’s a way for the artists to build relationships with each other and with people who appreciate art, and also a way to shine a light on this community.”
A local art show….the ‘Newcomers Art Project,’ showcases dozens of works by seven female emerging artists, along with their inspirations and creative drive.
Movement, light, water, making sense of life’s absurdities and big questions are some of the subjects explored in a bevy of works, on display in Santa Rosa through the weekend.
One of the artists in the show, Amelia Ketzer-Dean, said she’s been bitten by the creative bug since a young age.
“I think it’s just something that comes to me, naturally, I love to create and it’s almost like a driven force in my life, that if I don’t create, it’s just not, not cohesive with what my lifestyle needs, so, I’m just always creating, I’m always looking for things that bring me inspiration and right now, that is water, and its a really fun subject to play with and experiment with and the way the light reacts with it it, it’s really a marvelous subject,” Ketzer-Dean said.
It’s a subject with plenty of breadth.
“I think it’s either all different kind of, views of water, whether it’s underneath or bird’s eye or just, from a distance, but I’ve been really enjoying playing with that, that perspective of water,” Ketzer-Dean added.
If she makes finding the creative muse sound easy, fellow artist Jacklyn Finkle, has command of that other artistic challenge—knowing when to put down the brushes. Her vibrant oil pastel ‘Make Lemonade’ is creating something of a splash, featured in local print publications.
“I feel like I know and it feels right to me when I look at it and it feels like it’s finished and [it] tells me that it’s finished and I feel happy when I’m looking at it,” Finkle said.
The specific piece, she said, combines genres.
“I’ve been wanting to do abstract and portraits together and that’s where the lemon painting came in, because of that figure I really wanted to do,” Finkle said.
For her, creation is part compulsion, part therapeutic; helping her regain her footing.
“I felt like painting this series helped me realize–my purpose in life again–is painting–because I started painting every day as much as I could, and felt the joy in it and felt like I found what I was supposed to be doing and so just to make like, so when before the show happened I just had to connect back to that, the reason why I was painting these.”
Alina Nuebel, whose small paintings of natural figures appear reminiscent in a way of coral, said she finds inspiration everywhere.
“I’m a packrat. You take me to the beach, I’m going to pick up rocks, you take me to the forest, I’m going to pick up lichen. I’m going to bring the forest floor detritus home with me, and so this has been an exercise in painting that and paying very, very close attention,” Nuebel said.
She freely admits she’s going through a lichen period right now. Lichen, an algae-fungus combo, slowly converts rock into soil.
“When I spend time, looking at these, I’m also thinking about, ‘what is it?’ ‘What does it do?’ ‘How does it exist? And it becomes a philosophical jumping off place for me to think about, ‘what is my place within the context of, of my community?’ ‘What is my place within the context of my ecology?’ And it’s a really wonderful, beautiful, meditative space to to exist in— painting and thinking about those concepts,” Nuebel added.
Though silent and seemingly inanimate, lichen may be something to emulate.
“Small humble things, doing their business being about their business and kind of making the world livable for the rest of us, and not needing to be thanked for it, but it doesn’t hurt to say thank you,” Nuebel said.
The show is up, at Santa Rosa’s Backstreet gallery on South A street through the weekend, both Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 4pm.
As far as finding your own muse, artist Ketzer-Dean offered some free advice.
“Just keep creating. Don’t give up in the beginning stages. It can be really intimidating when you start putting paint on a canvas and it’s not developing right away. It really takes time, and layers. All my work is comprised of multiple sessions and layers and, and constantly changing, don’t be afraid of change and just, allowing your piece to develop,” Ketzer-Dean said.