Heather Watkins

Clouds Inclose Comets: The Envelope

2012-01-30T18:08:00.000-08:00

My work is included in a group show at PDX Contemporary Art this month. Clouds Inclose Comets: The Envelope runs January 31–February 25, 2012.

Excerpts 16, 7, 13, 2. 2001–2005
Security envelopes, dryer sheets, embroidery thread
9 x 6 inches each

http://pdxcontemporaryart.com/clouds-inclose-comets-envelope http://pdxcontemporaryart.com/clouds-inclose-comets-envelope

Thank You RACC! Project Grant

2012-01-26T11:49:00.000-08:00

In December, I was awarded a 2011-12 Project Grant from the Regional Arts and Culture Council to work with Mark and Rae Mahaffey on a new print collaboration in the coming year. Very excited!

Regional Arts and Culture Council
http://www.racc.org/grants/2011-12-racc-project-grants

Mahaffey Fine Art
http://www.mahaffeyfineart.com/

PDX Contemporary Art!

2011-11-16T13:43:00.000-08:00

I am excited to share the news that PDX Contemporary Art represents me.

http://pdxcontemporaryart.com/news/heather-watkins-represented-pdx

Interior Margins at lumber room

2011-11-10T20:20:00.000-08:00

Thrilled to be part of this amazing exhibition.
http://lumberroom.com/

Reviews of the exhibition:

Less and More
by Lisa Radon
http://www.orartswatch.org

Interior Margins at The Lumber Room, Portland, Oregon
by TJ Norris
www.visualartsource.com

This is Real: Interior Margins at the Lumber Room
by Lisa Radon
www.orartswatch.org

Interior Margins, featuring regional women artists working in abstraction
by John Motley
www.oregonlive.com

Interior Margins: A Question of Language
by Amy Bernstein
http://www.portlandart.net/archives/2012/01/interior_margin_3.html

Gradual Instant at Kahnaway

2011-11-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

A few images of my installation Gradual Instant, which was included in the exhibition The New American Landscape at Kahnaway Art & Ecology in Washougal, WA in August. This body of work is comprised of drawings of varying size, each made individually by saturating kozo paper in dilutions of india ink, then arranged together for specific sites.

Momentum!

2011-06-20T13:10:00.000-07:00

Recently these drawings (Momentum, I-V, 2007) were placed in a home designed by Jessica Helgerson Interior Design http://www.jhinteriordesign.com/brush-prairie-house/. Her project was featured on the design blog Design Sponge, http://www.designsponge.com/2011/06/weekly-wrap-up-jessica-helgerson-design.html

Printmaking Residency at Sitka Center

2010-11-30T18:00:00.000-08:00

In late October, I was invited to spend two weeks at the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology, working in collaboration with master printer Julia D'Amario on a series of etchings. A truly amazing experience! Images above show our test-print wall, and various stages of processing. Jordan Schnitzer Printmaking Residency at Sitka Center

Signed and Numbered at galleryHomeland

2010-10-23T07:09:00.000-07:00


Test Print (Yarn) 2006


Test Print (Ribbon) 2006

Included in an exhibition on view at galleryHomeland in Portland, October 15-31, 2010. Prints made during my print collaboration with Kathy Kuehn at Pace Prints in New York in the fall of 2006.

Recent Thread Drawings

2010-10-12T20:12:00.000-07:00


Untitled No. 1-4, Thread and glassine. 30 x 23 each

A suite of drawings from my Senior Artist Residency this summer at Oregon College of Art and Craft, included in an exhibition at OCAC's Hoffman Gallery, October 7-27, 2010. photography by Dan Kvitka

new drawings

2010-05-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

Caldera

2010-04-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

An artists' residency on a beautiful expanse of land outside of Sisters, Oregon. As one of six artists-in-residence for the month of March I had a large private studio, a cozy a-frame cabin to live in, and plenty of time for hikes in the woods and around the lakes. The experience was both restful and productive.

In The Dark At Sea: an exhibition of work in progress

2010-02-23T17:29:00.000-08:00

During my residency at Em Space I worked on three projects:

—a 30-foot drawing made with large loosely threaded stitches on Japanese paper

—two window installations constructed from screen-printed sheets of kozo and black glassine, featuring illustrated images of rope sections

—a series of text-based pieces made with a variety of transfer papers (such as carbon paper, and graphite and white transfer paper). This series is a mediation on language—and euphemism in particular—that describes intense or disorienting emotional experience.

All works are on view at Em Space Book Arts Center

February 21-March 28, 2010

open to the public Sundays, noon-4 pm

www.emspace.org

photo by Jonathan Snyder

Artist's Residency at Em Space Book Arts Center, January - February 2010

2010-02-15T13:59:00.000-08:00

Veils

2009-11-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

Materials Under Consideration (from Ravel/Unravel exhibition)

2009-11-03T18:03:00.000-08:00

Hello, Ohio

2009-06-10T17:32:00.000-07:00

Images from my solo exhibition, Ravel/Unravel on view at Paper Circle in Nelsonville, OH through July 26, 2009. Extra special thanks to Molly Schoenhoff, who made this exhibition possible, in ways both large and small.
http://www.papercircle.org/exhibits/heather_watkins.html

Ravel/Unravel

2009-05-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

preparing for an exhibition in Nelsonville, Ohio.

2009-05-01T15:49:00.000-07:00

… that iron string …
2009
Ink on mylar
20 x 16 each

Recently …

2009-02-23T19:16:00.000-08:00

gouache on paper, 8 x 8 inches
Winter 2009

Lucinda Hitchcock, book designer/professor of graphic design at Rhode Island School of Design, is working on a series of typographic responses to these drawings. Here are #1-5 of 20.

Installation view

2009-02-04T10:55:00.000-08:00

of Word exhibition at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, November 2008.

Fresh

2008-10-26T07:13:00.000-07:00

An exhibition on contemporary letterpress printing that I co-curated with Inge Bruggeman for the Hoffman Gallery at Oregon College of Art and Craft, February 2008. www.ocac.edu/fresh

Studies in Flow

2008-10-13T08:02:00.000-07:00

Currently working on a project that will present the first phase of my collaboration with poet Paul Merchant for WORD: A Celebration of Font and Text curated by Ryan Burghard at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center in November. I will show selected works on paper that Paul studied during this early phase of our ongoing studio conversation, from the series Studies in Flow (2006, Sumi ink on paper; 14 x 11 inches). In addition, we are producing a printed piece that excerpts his poem Cape Cod Threads, written as a partial response to my drawings.

More images from Character Study exhibition

2008-09-18T08:07:00.000-07:00

Top to bottom: Wallflower (Self Portrait); Giddy; Shroud; Siblings.

Character Study at Nine Gallery, August 7-31

2008-08-06T19:10:00.000-07:00

An installation of twenty-some portraits, constructed with and mounted on fibers, evoking personalities, behaviors, states of mind, roles and social scenarios.

left to right: Prom; Unrequited; Passive Aggressive

Rise

2008-06-26T20:41:00.000-07:00

Rise, 2008, 42 x 27 inches, Ink on mylar

PDX Contemporary Art Window Project May 2008

2008-06-04T12:16:00.000-07:00

I found a tattered basketball net in a parking lot in Claremont, California in 1991, which became item #1 in an ongoing collection of fragments of rope, cord, string, line, netting, mesh, ribbon, cloth, wire and twine. To date my trove is made up of many frayed fibers gleaned from beaches, river banks, garbage bins, city curbs and friends fruit baskets. I use these materials in a variety of ways, but each drawing or assemblage involves and exchange—I trade intended function for aesthetic value.

2008-03-05T18:55:00.000-08:00

Forty Stories, I-III 2008
Ink on paper, 30 x 22 inches each
Title taken from a line written by Paul Merchant, in response to an earlier series of ink flow drawings.

2008-01-26T16:27:00.000-08:00

From a series of mixed media drawings mapping various social scenarios using string, yarn, rope and other fibers. Dinner Conversation, above, was on view at Navarre in Portland in Fall 2005. It is approximately 11 feet wide, and was bought by a private collector for her dining room in Seattle.

2008-01-25T08:08:00.000-08:00

the studio, before most of the stuff arrived …

Gift

2008-01-09T15:39:00.001-08:00

From a suite of four prints titled Gift, which I made in New York last fall with the extraordinary help of Kathy Kuehn. The line is a blind emboss of a ribbon, the ground is white ink. My friend and colleauge Paul Merchant remarked upon seeing some of these prints, "it's as if you're flirting with invisibility."

Momentum

2008-01-07T08:55:00.000-08:00

A series of over 30 new ink flow drawings, some of which will be included in the Lewis & Clark College Faculty Exhibition, January 24-March 16, 2008.

The Valentine Exchange

2008-01-07T07:59:00.000-08:00

A quasi-annual, invitational artist's valentine exchange that I curate and orchestrate, started in 1999.

Recent Work

2008-01-07T07:15:00.001-08:00

Drawings made by moving the paper as the ink flows.