Portland Art and Soul Art Book Class

I was lucky enough to take a class with Leighanna Light at the Art and Soul Retreat in Portland, Oregon last week. The class was The Construction of an Art Book. We made it out of long strips of canvas that we folded to make book pages. Leighanna taught us great collage techniques -- painting, distressing, using copper patina on canvas (who knew you could do that?), attaching rivets, gluing and painting great papers. The class was informative, but then we were left to do our own playing. It was a fun group of women, from all over. I was surprised to find that there were a few others from Florida in the class! Here are some of the creations from the ladies in the class:











And this is the book that I made:

Meeting Artists

One of the best parts about attending Portland Art & Soul, and probably most art retreats, is attending the vendor night. Instructors, local artists, and art stores sell their wares to the hundreds of attendees. I look forward to buying unusual art supplies and maybe a couple of small works of art.


This year's vendor night showcased the work of wonderful artists, and yet I didn't buy any art. The prices this year seemed outrageous for today's economy. Although even in a robust economy, a $500 painting is not in my budget. So I was pleased to discover quite a few artists' books for sale. To me, owning a book with beautiful photos of an artist's works is the next best thing.

I came upon a Portland artist named Jesse Reno. He practices "outsider art." He is untrained and yet very skilled. He uses acrylics and paints mostly on wood. Deep, rich colors are used to create fantastic animals and figures. The backgrounds contain words, symbols, and a variety of colors. He told me about an award he won at an exhibition in France.


Unfortunately, I can't afford any of his paintings. Thankfully, he's reproduced a good deal of them in a book. I'm now the proud owner of Jesse Reno's . . . book. Thank you, Jesse, for your interesting art. Here is Jesse and his friend, who is a talented fabric artist. Jesse is on the right.

Art & Soul

I finally feel my head is above water after returning from Portland Art & Soul. My cross-country trip left me in Portland time for a few days. But boy, was it worth it! This was my third trip to Portland for Art & Soul. Half the fun was visiting with friends I've met in the last two years, a lot of which I've swapped with throughout the year. You can feel very close to someone if you've exchanged emails all year, but it's fun to meet them or see them again.

About 16 members of our Charmsters group attended. I met up with most of them Saturday night during dinner. Here's a photo of some of them:

My Saturday class was Copper Enameling with Richard Salley. If you ever have an opportunity to take a class from Richard, you should make every attempt to do so. He makes bold, tribal-like pendants (or should they be called talismans?), and he is a generous, patient instructor. We saw his patience first-hand when a student laid a lit torch on the table and caught it on fire!

We learned to apply enamel to copper pieces. The class samples were leaves. I made my own leaf shape, rather like a heart. But I just couldn't get into using the red, orange and yellow colors of Fall, despite the beauty of the other students' leaves. I guess the Floridian in me, who never gets to see leaves change color, decided to gravitate toward blue. O.K., so these would never be found in nature. I like them anyway.