Sunday, November 25, 2012

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Open studio December 1st

Georgie’s Great Adventure
Katharine Smith-Warren
Open Studio/book signing

 the studios at Dry Ice Factory are having a special Saturday afternoon Open House on December 1 from 12-5
Refreshments, door prizes, games and lots of art on Saturday afternoon. Children and families welcome.
Questions? call me at 303 949-4126  and check out who will be there at http://dryicefactory.info
What: Open Studio
When: December 1, 2012   12- 5 PM

Where: Dry Ice Factory 3300 Walnut St.  Denver
Other: exhibit of paintings from my new children’s book Georgie’s Great Adventure 

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Inscrutable text

I hate to be cranky but reading exhibit information like this makes me cross::

"Material Engagements" presumes that materials and their manner of manipulation and presentation function as carriers of meaning as much as sign, symbol, and representation. It presumes an aesthetic activism, an intentionality of content. It intends to interrogate occupations, intersections, erasures and spaces of complex messy positionings."

Why can't they write in clear English what they mean? It starts OK but then goes downhill fast. Is the second sentence even a sentence? and what does it mean to " interrogate ..... spaces of complex messy positionings?"

If "It" means materials" exactly how to they ask questions if I understand the meaning of interrogate? And they lose me completely at " complex, messy positioning". 

I will hazard a wild guess and suggest they have asked artists to take disparate material and present them in a new way  assuming that " aesthetic activism" is another way to describe creating art...

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

33 seconds of art

A very short slide show of recent paintings. Comments, please...

A new painting for July

 Wayward  36" x12" acrylic and collage on canvas

This has been challenging but fun to work on. I started it in May as a possible commission.  It wasn't quite what the client wanted and they chose one of the paper pieces instead. I got back to work on it in June and finally think it is finished in July.  I kinda love it, actually.









i


Thursday, June 14, 2012

New paintings on paper

 Crossroads   acrylic and collage  on paper   SOLD
 Urban Edge acrylic and mixed media on paper

A change from painting on canvas. Started working on paper in the studio and really like the results.
I am using 300 lb watercolor paper so it is plenty strong and could easily be shown without glass in a frame. I am liking the way it absorbs color and allows the lines to stay strong.

PS: I changed the design of the blog- had some  negative feedback about the black background  so am trying white. Appreciate any comments on the white versus black.


Sunday, June 10, 2012

Just found some photos from the Art Students League of Denver's website for last year's Summer Art Market. Carlos Fresquez and I were the jurors and we had a very hard time picking winners from so many fabulous artists. I went yesterday ( 99 degree heat !) but it was well worth the time. Some wonderful artists. Don't miss it today.
Best of Show award winner Arabella Tattershall

Monday, May 21, 2012

First Light acrylic on canvas 24" x36"
I will have my new studio open for First Friday June 1st from 6-8 PM. I was very happy to see so many friends and visitors at the RINO Open Studio Tour on May 13th and this will be an opportunity to see my great new space as well as some of my new paintings. I will have wine and treats so please come by if you can. The studio is a 3300 Walnut Street in downtown Denver. Walnut is the continuation of Market Street and it is also easily accessible from 1_70. There is a good map at the River north art district website,

Sunday, April 15, 2012

New studio

I have a new studio in the Dry Ice building at 3300 Walnut Street. Here are some photos; the lower ones are the studio and the upper ones show the studio as I have moved stuff in this weekend. I am lucky that it is so close to home and it has marvelous morning light. Can't wait to start painting there.








Thursday, April 5, 2012

For Jimmy


I finished this painting at the end of March and I am really happy with it. Though the form came from lots of different things, the content is really about missing my brother, Jimmy, who died last year. For a long time I felt nothing creative and didn't do much work but as time passed I sensed the need to put my grief into the work and not deny it. The formal title is For JBS, Full House
Full House is for poker, one of his passions and also because he did love home and family.

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Calle and Mura

Here is the photo I took in San Miguel Allende in July 2010 when visiting my dear friend, Nettie. I just stopped on the street fascinated by the geometry of how the colors of different walls and a window came together. Just a snapshot and I ended up making a painting Mura ( Wall) that is a pretty literal transcription, with a few painterly flourishes, of what I saw that day.



Here are three of the paintings that are part of Sextet. The last one on the far right is called Calle. Look below for the paper collages that referenced a photo and became the painting, Calle.( Street).

Thursday, January 26, 2012

how I made the paintings that are Sextet



Sextet is made of of (6) 14" high by 11" wide paintings on 1.5" deep canvases. It is based on streets in Mexico and the color of houses and walls. One of the paintings, is titled Blanca and it is a doorway on a street in San Miguel Allende. I photographed it and inspired by the colors I created a small paper collage. In my collage the gray concrete next to the door became white so I titled it Blanca. Here is the painting of Blanca, the photo and the collage.
I am installing Sextet in an order I fancy in the Ice Breakers show but I think it is only one of many possible ways to display the paintings, which could each stand alone too. I like the idea that someone could buy a few and create their own installation.

Here is the painting, the photo and the collage. Photo on the right, collage on the left. On the top is the finished painting for Blanca, the first of the 6 paintings that make up Sextet.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Icebreakers Juried show opening February 3


I am so pleased to have one of my favorite recent series, Sextet 14" x68" selected for the Icebreakers Show at Ice Cube Gallery, 3320 Walnut Street in Denver. The show opens February 3 and is up till February 25- Thursdays,Fridays and Saturdays from 12-5