Dazzling art and gardens

The most splendid, engaging convergence of art, native plants, delightful people, and refreshments will take place this Friday & Saturday, July 18 and 19th, at the home & garden of Paul & Susan Damon. This is their 7th-annual Art Sale and Garden Tour.

The garden, at 355 Cleveland Ave. No., (on the southwest corner of Cleveland Ave. No. & West Roblyn Ave., St. Paul, 55104) is a certified Monarch butterfly way station and pollinator habit. Susan and Paul are growing plants I’ve only read about! It is dazzling!

Paul and Susan’s home and garden, the site of their 7th-annual Art Sale and Garden Tour.

Paul Damon—oil paintings—http://www.pauldamonlandscapes.com

Susan Damon—hand-marbled papers

Liz Carlson—collage

Sue Filbin—nature prints & note cards

(including intermittent hands-on demos)

Fri., July 18, 5–9 P.M.;  Sat., July 19, 11–5

Paul and Liz are both working artists who are staff members at the wonderful Wet Paint Artists’ Materials and Framing in St. Paul, MN. Both are accomplished artists as is Susan. Also, I learned a lot as a student in Liz’s exuberant, creative collage class this spring through St. Paul community education. Please plan to stop by—and tell your own creative friends about this inviting event. Thanks so much! We look forward to seeing you!

Here is the postcard Paul designed for his 7th-annual art sale and garden tour.

Discoveries

Often during a class or demonstration, I’ll remind people to place the inky brayer on its stand or to keep track of which side of the paper is the right side. It’s easy to become absorbed in the printmaking process; to get excited about the possibilities of color and pattern and lose track of things.

Well that happened to me last night. I was intrigued by the patterns that developed on my palette and decided to make those patterns part of the print of a twig from a tart cherry tree. In the process, I printed some images on the front side of the paper and some on the back. I know better, and the front was easy to determine because of the specks of gold leaf in the Sprinkle Gold paper from Wet Paint. Because the paper is somewhat translucent, this type of error can occur, although it may not be an error at all—simply a new way of looking at a familiar situation.

And as I looked at the print, and emailed the image to my teacher, she raised the question of whether the print is most appropriately viewed vertically or horizontally. What do you think?

The “right” side of a print of a tart cherry tree twig on Sprinkle Gold paper.

The print’s “wrong” side, shown in a horizontal orientation.