AYODversary

On March 10th, 2012 I quietly celebrated one full year of accountability at A Year of Days.  Every day (except for the one that I totally blew*) since March 10th, 2011 I took a photograph.  I carried on an east coast/west coast image conversation with a person who warms my heart and sparks my brain into action whenever I think of her.

Over this past 365 days I’ve had a lot of lows; just plain lousy photo days.  Which, oddly, is something I really appreciate about this project.  There is something about facing humiliation that I can really sink my teeth into and deal with–it keeps me humble, which in turn keeps me hard-working.  It is almost empowering.

There were also a handful of days that I return to with delight.  The shots that most satisfy me do two things:  deliver visually and capture the essence of the particular day.

There are other days in which our pairs of photos sing.  That is a moment of major payoff.  Regarding the relationship between us, the two friends, it is notable that we haven’t seen each other for at least a decade.   Yet we have a deepening friendship; across a ton of time and thousands of miles we continue to inspire each other and get to know one another better–like multi-media penpals.  This is a real and evolving connection.  To my mind, this is the best thing about the internet.  Connections.

Good days/embrassing days, taken as a whole, AYOD is a document that reflects my doings back to me.  It says to me “it is a good life.”

*So, to my disappointment I failed, on January 12th, 2012.  I was enduring a long and difficult labor and let 24 hours pass without taking a photograph.  Maybe this next 365 days will redeem me with a 100%.

RED CURRENT (sweet fruit)

Two of my paintings are en route to Seattle today to be included in Red Current (sweet fruit), a group show at Roq La Rue curated by Seattle artist and art provocateur Sharon Arnold.  This show features an array of work by 37 Northwest artists–I am humbled and super excited to be among this truly stellar group of artists.

Bette Burgoyne, Water Wood white pencil, black paper, 12" x 12" 2011

From the press release:

Roq La Rue Gallery Presents RED CURRENT (sweet fruit)

Curated by Sharon Arnold

Opens Friday March 23rd  6-9pm (Show runs through April 7th)

Roq la Rue Gallery scheduled a winter break in it’s programming, and found that it presented an ideal opportunity to fulfill a goal the gallery had for awhile, namely working more closely with local contemporary artists who work closely to but outside the gallery’s usual realm of Pop Surrealism and underground contemporary. Gallerist Kirsten Anderson enlisted Sharon Arnold who had been curating dynamic shows around town to come on board and create a group show for Roq la Rue.

Arnold was inspired to create this exhibition by contemplating the definition of a current, something present and electric, a dynamic force with great power. Citing the exponential blossoming of the local art scene, Arnold wanted to take the opportunity to feature a snapshot of what she feels is an important moment in the growth of the Seattle art scene. “ I believe this will be a very strong collection, and something that hasn’t really been put together to this extent in recent history ”.

Arnold chose artists on the strength of what she felt they brought to the table. “I want this exhibition to feature artists in Seattle who I’ve been watching work hard, inspire, create, build community, push themselves, and move forward.”

The show itself will feature 37 artists in a salon style setting and will feature an array of media including painting, drawing, installation, and video. Roq La Rue is thrilled to work with such an abundance of Northwest talent. Please join us for a very festive opening on March 23rd from 6-9pm!

Artist list:

Mandy Greer  Kimberly Trowbridge  Amanda Manitach  Izzie Klingels  Serrah Russell  Saskia Delores  Debra Baxter  Jess Rees  Anne Blackburn  Erin Frost  Lynda Sherman Laura Ward  Jennifer McNeely  Susanna Bluhm  Counsel Langley  Erin Shafkind  Claire Johnson  Klara Glosova  Andrea Wicklund  Gala Bent  Rumi Koshino  Naomi Faith Allyce Wood  Julie Alpert  Crystal Barbre  Deborah Scott  Kristen Ramirez  Allie Manch  Ellen Garvens  Cristin Ford  Gretchen Bennett  Francesca Lohmann  Emily Pothast Bette Burgoyne  Jennifer Borges Foster  Jennifer Zwick  and Stacey Rozich

Amanda Manitach, Interior Decoration (Second Empire) | graphite and colored pencil on paper 28 x 36 " 2006/2012

striving for Freddie Mercury

I recently had the pleasure of sitting and talking with Kiera Miller Hodlik about making art, making a career while raising kids, and my, possibly unattainable, goal of making paintings that feel like what it must have felt like to watch Freddie Mercury perform.

Kiera was an pleasure to be interviewed by; prepared, comfortable, and insightful.  She was limited by a tight word count and wasn’t able to squeeze in a lot of what we talked about, but I am honored and impressed by the meaty article she put together.  Here it is:

Counsel Langley, painting like Freddie Mercury sang

where i have been

I haven’t posted in a very long time.  I haven’t had any desire to.  And, I’ll tell you why.   I am pregnant.

Pregnancy changes the system.  Chemically.  Your scope of the world shifts.  The intensity remains as strong, you just begin to operate on short-wave rather than long distance.  I think this may be what some call nesting, but I feel it is more fundamental than that.  One’s desire to broadcast decreases, and one’s reactions to information taken in is dampened.  Simply shifting interests from shouting into the wind to impacting the immediate.  This is where I’ve been.  At home.  Limiting my range, although not the strength of my output.

Despite, the very real results of these internal changes they are only a shift of focus; they have shades of effect on tendencies.  I remain actively working and exhibiting.  And, am very appreciative of those who are interested.  With that in mind I’m about to dish out a bit of a round-up of what I’ve been up to.  Please, bear with me as I catch up all at once; as I say less than I am thinking.  Like I said, my broadcast mode has been installed with a governor for the time being.

There was this great post at Beautiful/Decay.  Thank you Amir.  (I’ve been watching this blog for some time, and Amir’s posts consistently catch my eye and often take my breath away–it was an honor to discover his post about my work.)

And, another by a fabulous collector/lady I like:  The highlight of my day.

There were two three-person shows that I was honored to be a part of.  These shows went up back to back, one in October the second in November, and were packed with stunning work.   Both groups were thoughtfully brought together.  It was a great pleasure for me, as they each drew out quite different aspects that are present in my work.

The first show was shared with Gala Bent and Sharon Arnold, (so) Much (too) little, was at Northwind Arts Center.

About a year ago NAC invited me to have a show with them.  They asked that it be a two or three person show and I immediately began thinking about who I would like to invite.  Gala and Sharon came to mind quickly and I can’t say how delighted I am that the both agreed.  Our work is not immediately visually similar, which is exactly what I wanted for this show.  The places where we  overlap lies below and is rich territory:  repetition, pattern, and a reach for balance of geometry and control with fluid natural phenomenon is present in all of our work.  This is spiced with a serious crush on science and the approach of asking or why/how/what do we do and where do with do it, plus a healthy dose of storytelling.

Foreground left, painting by Langley, foreground right, drawing with ribbons by Gala Bent; background left, two peeks of Langley paintings and background right four from Sharon Arnold’s 1:1 series

Three framed works by Gala Bent, with one feathered Langley

Sharon Arnold’s Gutted

Far back wall work by Gala Bent, with Langleys to either side.

Emerald discussing Sharon Arnold’s work 1:1
About which she says, “I like that so little material was just pretty much transformed into awesomeness.”

The other show is still happening at Artisans on Taylor; it will be up until the end of November.  This time, grouped with Ollie Glatzer and Shellee Miggins.  The title You, Me & Geometry let’s you know that the primary focus is our shared love of geometry, which is strongly present in all our work, but also allows for a nod to oddly human interactions with structures, forms and how we use them to build relationships.  There are a ton of installation views and shots from the opening here.

There was also the realization that the daily photo habit I have going over at A Year of Days, has truly become just that.  A habit.  I no longer experience days of ‘ack, I’ve gotta take a picture!’  It just seems to happen.  Here’s some recent favorites:

This shot of an orchard at Finnriver Farm ended up gracing their newsletter.

Oh, and one other thing:  We have had the absolute most stunningly beautiful fall.

marc giai-miniet

These images via

Marc Giai-Miniet’s work is now wedged firmly at the front of my mind.

future ruins: palette

image via cracktwo
Please do click the link, choosing just one of these images was just about impossible.
They are all stunning, particularly as a group.

The palette and texture of objects that look like future ruins is inspiring me.   A futuristic form or structure worn with the patina of extreme old-old age; rubbed black, white and grey.  Again I love the long stretches:  I’ve worked with extreme scale shifts as if looking through a microscope or a telescope all at once; now am drawn to ancient/future reaches through time.

image via The Coolist
Again, as above, please do click the link, these images are all haunting and beautiful.

image via The Coolist
Definitely worth the link click; all interesting images, but this time only this one feeds my current focus.

back country

A recent piece, 2AM, has gone to the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center to be included in The Back Country.  2AM has been shown in Seattle, but this will be its first Olympic Peninsula outing.  About the show, from PAFAC:

Along with 2009’s Envision Cascadia and last year’s Safe Harbor, The Back Country will complete a trilogy of exhibitions intent on searching for a contemporary identity for this corner of Paradise. Inspired by the 1971 book of the same title by the seminal Cascadian poet Gary Snyder, The Back Country sets out to explore the hinterlands both of the earth and of the mind.

The impending removal of the Elwha River dams brings to the foreground a renewed awareness of the Olympic back country that will again be open to returning salmon runs. Trees, peaks and fast water will certainly play a major role in the art that finds its way into the show.

But what of other back countries? Where are the wild lands of the psyche and the intellect? What untamed corners might be turned up in the political landscape? Are there remote island refuges in the turbulent economic seas?

The Back Country
July 10 – October 9
Opening Reception July 10 from 2pm to 4pm

at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center
1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd.
Port Angeles, WA 98362
360.457.3532
http://www.pafac.org

Contributing artists:

Mitchell Albala, David Berger, Michael Berman, Jean-Marie Clarke, David Eisenhour, Karen Hackenberg, Newell Hunter, Bob Kaune, Suzanne Lamon, Alan Lande, Counsel Langley, Peter Malarky, Jeremy Mangan, Holly Martz, Pablo McLoud, Michael Paul Miller, Randall Page, Polly Purvis, Erik Sandgren, Tom Schworer, Ken Smith, Jeffree Stewart, Sharon Strauss, Christian Swenson, Harry von Stark, Charlotte Watts, Eva Skold Westerlind, Anna Wiancko-Chasman, Steve Wilson, Helga Winter, Dave Woodcock, Suze Woolf

filter literary journal

Filter III cover, designed by Kate Fernandez

Filter Vol. III has arrived. This 3rd issue of the entirely handmade journal is a box of wonder:

The cover has a paint-by-numbers theme, and the box structure is letterpress printed by Kate Fernandez of Fernandez and Sons (I absolutely adore this image). The book will be filled with brilliant work in individually bound chapbooks of prose and poetry, with art postcards and posters that you can remove and display.

the contents of Filter III, as seen from above

About Filter Literary Journal:

“Filter is a literary journal made entirely by hand. Each issue contains erasures and other literary art alongside unaltered poetry, fiction and visual art. Filter seeks to represent the work it holds on a visceral level, so that the book is as carefully crafted as the poetry, fiction and art that it contains.”

There are many things I love about Filter, including:  the slow deliberate process of the handmade, which results in an object of sheer beauty and strong physicality; that it is its own record of the intense labor that went into creating it; the cross discipline inclusion of literary and visual art; and, possibly above all, that it “seeks to represent the work it holds on a visceral level.”  Filter is a rare treasure.

I am honored to contribute artwork to Filter for the second time. This time around my presence in Filter is in the form of recent painting, Dusk, which is included as a poster which can be removed and displayed!  This is especially cool since the original painting has very quickly gone off to a good home, so I’m super happy that the piece will get this ‘bonus round’ as a poster.

Dusk, acrylic, ink, graphite, paper, 30 x 30″ completed in 2011

FILTER RELEASE PARTY!

Friday, June 17th, 8p.m.at the Fremont Abbey, 4272 Fremont Ave North, Seattle, WA 98103

An evening of readings from Zachary Schomburg, John Osebold, Stacey Levine, Maged Zaher, Karen Finneyfrock, Ed Skoog, Elizabeth Colen, Elissa Washuta, Susan Rich and Sarah Bartlett.  Freshly letterpressed copies of the book will be available for purchase.  Bring cash or checks to buy copies.

Tickets for the Filter release party are on sale now through Brown Paper Tickets:

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/178844

Tickets are $8 in advance, $10 at the door, and $5 for students and seniors.

Can’t make it to the party but still want a book?  You can find them on tickerfinch.etsy.com

The Filter folks will be posting videos and photos of the Filter making process on their blog:  http://filterlit.blogspot.com/

The contributors in Filter III are:

Yusef Komunyakaa, Zachary Schomburg, Stacey Levine, Amanda Manitach, Maged Zaher, Sharon Arnold, Martha Silano, John Osebold, Rebecca Brown, Counsel Langely, Ed Skoog, Karen Finneyfrock, Sean Ennis, Sarah Mangold, Gala Bent, Rachel Contreni Flynn, David Lasky, Elizabeth Colen, Sandra & Ben Doller, Brandon Shimoda, Ben Beres, Brandon Downing, Sarah Kate Moore, Dan Rosenberg, Susan Rich, Susan Denning, Sid Miller, Sarah Bartlett, Shawn Vestal, Marie-Caroline Moir, Lucy Corin, Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer, Jill McDonough, Jessica Goodfellow, Jessica Bonin, Friedrich Kerksieck , Erika Wilder, Elissa Washuta, David Bartone, Chris Dusterhoff, Britt Ashley, Becca Yenser, Anne Gorrick

GIRL MEETS UNIVERSE

Dusk, acrylic, ink, graphite, glitter, paper, 30×30″ 2011

I will be presenting more than 40 new works this month at Ghost Gallery.   I am absolutely thrilled that this body of work is so close to going live!  I truly hope you will find a moment that works for you to come visit Ghost Gallery and see GIRL MEETS UNIVERSE.

GHOST GALLERY
504 E DENNY WAY AT SUMMIT
SEATTLE, WA 98122
info@ghostgallery.org
http://ghostgallery.org/current-upcoming-events/

Thursday, May 12th – Sunday, May 29th, 2011
Opening Reception Thursday, May 12th 5-8:30pm

About GIRL MEETS UNIVERSE:

There’s these video games that involve beginning with a world that is almost entirely unexplored.  It is all there in its entirety you just can’t see it yet; it is ‘undiscovered’.  You get your start on some random swath of land that floats, as if under a spotlight, in a sea of black.  As you progress through the game the spotlight expands to illuminate more and more territory.  You are exploring and discovering.  Perhaps, you started out in the desert, but eventually you hit an oasis, river, mountain range, tundra, rain forest etc.  These places have significant differences from one another, yet despite these differences they are all part of the same world.   They are subject to the same underlying laws of physics.

This is how I find myself describing my art practice.  As I work over the years I am discovering and mapping wider swaths of a world inside my head.  Some of the areas are quite different from others in appearance, mood, use of color, technique, or material, but they are part of the same world.  So far, my work remains unified through certain ‘laws of physics.’  These laws continue to be a drive towards a balance between precisely applied tool use and allowing materials to follow natural tendencies.  Jake Seniuk, Director of the Port Angeles Fine Arts puts it well: “Langley’s precisely textured mixed media paintings hinge on dynamic tension between an underlying architectonic structure and organic bleeds that ebb and flow.”

detail . . .

The works I am showing at Ghost Gallery this May are all bound by these continuing threads.

There is in them, as well, the fact that my life as a mother and an artist are completely entwined.  So, that as I work the awareness of childhood and the constant emerging that defines it is always there.  One aspect of this is that in seeing my girls develop and discover that which fascinates I am reminded viscerally of my own earliest loves.  This  comes out in several ways in this show.

One series I present, called EPs, have in them in the influence of my very early passion for my mother’s record collection.  As a kid I listened and danced to her albums obsessively.  Not yet entirely informed about the adult themes in much of the lyrics I unconsciously created my own stories and imagery to go along with many of the songs.  For me they functioned like fairy tales.

detail . . .

The Distressed series is done exclusively on wood cut from dilapidated boat hulls.  This work has its beginnings in the place where my childhood access to my father’s pristine drafting tools intersects with the fantastical landscape of his shipwright’s shop and yard with all its magic piles of cast off wood.  This wood made beautiful by the particular kind of wear-and-tear that the punishing marine environment can inflict.

Some of the larger works in this show have their origin in a poem by Campbell McGrath called Nights on Planet Earth.  The overwrought scenes they depict also reflect the wonder, and sometimes terror, brought on by youthful moments of awareness that so much was happening all at once–at once powerfully beautiful, disturbing, inspiring, overwhelming, enlightening and unpredictable.

detail . . .

In one set of work alone, the Strange Attractors, I do not find, although it is probably there, an obvious connection to my youth.  These are largely a study in how underlying structure effects what is visible.  The series is also a reaction to stunning satellite imagery of plant cultivation on a massive scale.  There is a beauty and strangeness that results from something natural being placed into a grid.  Grids seem to be very useful to us humans.

Ready to Start, acrylic, 8×8″ 2011

outtakes 5

Outtakes 4
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Outtakes 1
A Year of Days