Ginger's Art Journal

Ginger's Art Journal Features FINE ART TREKKIN in cities near you!

2011-10-18T01:32:00.000-07:00

The FINE ART TREKKIN series of blogs represents specific communities in the Los Angeles, California Area, as well as the United States.

We are here to represent the FACTS about the Fine Art Community as documentary records. (F.A.C.T.S) PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE NOT A POLITICAL ORGANIZATION, nor do we cover politics, news, religion or crime beats.

FINE ART COMMUNITY TREKKIN SERIES of blogs seeks to provide a documentary slice of our culture as it exists in the new millennium, after the year 2000.

WE ONLY REPRESENT THE INTERESTS OF ARTISTS IN THE FINE ARTS FOR SPECIFIC ART EVENTS with the permissions from the artists to promote their work.

The FINE ART COMMUNITY TREKKIN SERIES© of Blogs is licensed and copyrighted to Ginger Van Hook© as of 2008. This series of documentary works is also licensed and copyrighted on YOU TUBE as videos by EnildeVanHook©.

THANK YOU for reading about our artworks and artists!

SEE THRU EXHIBITION OPENED 8.14.10 GALLERY 825 LOS ANGELES

2010-10-27T12:55:00.000-07:00

THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 2010

SEE THRU EXHIBITION OPENED 8.14.10 GALLERY 825 LOS ANGELES

Professor Shinsuke Shimojo of CalTech,

a world-renowned researcher and expert in field of vision,

perception and cognitive neuroscience inspired artists from LAAA/Gallery 825

to create new work reflecting scientific principals

exploring the intersection between photography, neuroscience and the arts.

Ann Marie Rousseau photographs Romann Weber for "Science and Surveillance"

Photo by Ginger Van Hook

SMALL GALLERY and MAIN GALLERY

Science and Surveillance

A.M.Rousseau

Description:

The work in this project plays off Shinsuke Shimojo’s studies on perception and the interplay of emotion, decision-making and consciousness.* Our eyes are constantly scanning our surroundings in rapid leaps, instantaneously accumulating information as they move several times per second, all without conscious effort or knowledge. Shimojo describes the “gaze cascade effect,” in which a subject's gaze between two objects under consideration gradually shifts to favor the object ultimately chosen. Research has indicated that these gaze cascades, also called orienting, are deeply involved in higher-level brain functions such as decision making.

In experiments asking subjects to compare two faces and label one as either attractive or unattractive, Shimojo discovered that the more that someone looks at a particular face, the more he or she wants to look at it, and consequently the more likely it becomes that the face will be labeled as “attractive.” This happens even before the viewer makes a conscious decision. His research also found that the participants' judgments of attractiveness versus unattractiveness could be manipulated by limiting the length of time they were allowed to look at a particular face. According to Shimojo, the unconscious, spontaneous movements of the eyes work in concert and affect what are presumed to be more deliberate cognitive tasks when making choices.

Various studies in cognitive and neuro sciences have demonstrated that images—of a face, for instance—and semantic contents such as verbal labels interact through various mechanisms in order to produce a stable and consistent interpretation of the image. In today’s modern surveillance society, labeling occurs in myriad ways, both benign and nefarious. This continual labeling has far broader scope and more serious consequences than ordinary judgments of "attractive" and "unattractive," but it is perhaps influenced by some of the same subliminal forces shown in Shimojo’s work.

The lineup of "perpetrators" in this installation shows faces with labels quite contrary to the presumed task of security surveillance, which aims to identify malefactors, terrorists, criminals, dangerous subjects and other potential wrongdoers. Instead these labels, which have been loosely extrapolated from the Buddhist tenets of the ten perfections, seek to discern those with traits most useful, beneficial, lasting and constructive for society. Although these labels are essentially positive, the viewer cannot help but approach them with a consciousness of what it is to be watched and labeled specifically, and an appreciation of the complex tensions inherent in labeling in general.

•“Gaze bias both reflects and influences preference,” Shinsuke Shimojo, Claudiu Simion, Eiko Shimojo, & Christian Scheier, Nature Neuroscience, Advance online publication, 9 November 2003; doi:10.1038/nn1150

Romann Weber

Marcie Kaufmann

Ginger Van Hook

Elizabeth Tobias

Krista Kahl

Mei Xian Qiu

Meg Madison

Siri Kaur

Ching Ching Cheng

Shana Mabari

Krista Kahl and Ann Marie Rousseau

Krista Kahl, Mei Xian Qiu and Ann Marie Rousseau

Krista Kahl and Ginger Van Hook during the installation

of Connection 1 and Connection 2. Photo by Ann Marie Rousseau

ASSEMBLE

Dori Atlantis, Ching-Ching Cheng, Meg Madison and Mei Xian Qiu

6' x 17' x 13' Digital Photographs, Plexiglass, Monofilament

Photo by Ann Marie Rousseau

Color Space

Ching-Ching Cheng

9"x9"x9" Urethane, Pigment Photo by Ann Marie Rousseau

Blue Volumetric

Yoichi Kawamura, Shana Mabari and Shinsuke Shimojo

42” x 42” x 42” Plexiglass Cube + Mixed Materials

Photo by Ann Marie Rousseau

Color Space

Ching-Ching Cheng

9"x9"x9" Urethane, Pigment

Photo by Ginger Van Hook

Blue Volumetric

Yoichi Kawamura, Shana Mabari and Shinsuke Shimojo

42” x 42” x 42” Plexiglass Cube + Mixed Materials (Photo by Ginger Van Hook)

Optic Chasm

Mei Xian Qiu

Dimensions Varied – Plexiglass Cube, Water,

Used Motor Oil, Projector, Tempera.

(Photo by Ginger Van Hook)

Luke Van Hook installs the "BRAIN" 8.14.10 Photo by Ginger Van Hook

The "Brain" by Luke Van Hook. Photo by Ginger Van Hook

GALLERY WINDOW

Connections 1, Connections 2

Krista Kahl

48”x 60" silver gelatin prints with india ink.

Price: $3200 ea.

Magnetic vinyl "Neurons" approx. 8x10" $40 each. (16 total) Can be purchased individually or in sets.

Description:

Our urban environment is a by-product of our brains, our perceptions and ultimately our imagination. In this installation I share a glimpse of how I interpret the inner and outer connections of our brain to our environment, from micro to macro. Having an avid interest in astronomy, electricity and the inner workings of the mind I found it interesting how they are all intertwined. This idea began while I was driving around the city and trying to photograph the sky. I couldn't help but notice how the wires always seemed to get in the way. I started to obsess about them. The more I looked, the more I saw, until finally, instead of fighting to get rid of them I decided to include them in my photographs. I began to contemplate what exactly was going through all those wires.... visually, they are just black lines. But inside, it was obvious there was a whole other invisible world going on - a secret little communicative world of energy, electricity, sound and life. I realized this world was parallel to the inner workings of our brain, whether it is electrical impulses being transferred to our buildings and homes or electrical impulses being transferred through the neurons and synapses in our brain - it is all basically the same, depending on how you look at it.

I use black and white film and chemistry to capture the images, then draw lines extending onto the paper landscape and leave it to the viewer to imagine where these lines end. In the window, whimsical Neuron Creatures float through space; each one has it's own little life and is a part of the bigger whole.

SOUTH GALLERY

ASSEMBLE

Dori Atlantis, Ching-Ching Cheng, Meg Madison and Mei Xian Qiu

6' x 17' x 13' Digital Photographs, Plexiglass, Monofilament

Price: $4,000 total installation, photos available individually

Description:

ASSEMBLE explores the intersection of vision and perception through an installation that mimics the way congenitally blind people process information. Four artists have collaborated to dissect one photographic image into parts, fragments, slices, and pieces. The resulting installation of images attempts to simulate the way a blind person must confront all experiences, in a detailed piece-by-piece examination to understand an object, person or environment. ASSEMBLE also investigates the hierarchy of perception - by breaking apart one iconic photograph into bits and pieces leaving much of the final details to the mind of the viewer.

SMALL GALLERY

Science and Surveillance

A.M.Rousseau

Size, Medium

Price:

Description:

Various studies in cognitive and neuro sciences have demonstrated that images—of a face, for instance—and semantic contents such as verbal labelsinteract through various mechanisms in order to produce a stable and consistent interpretation of the image. In today’s modern surveillance society, labeling occurs in myriad ways, both benign and nefarious. This continual labeling has far broader scope and more serious consequences than ordinary judgments of "attractive" and "unattractive," but it is perhaps influenced by some of the same subliminal forces shown in Shimojo’s work.

BACK GALLERY – WURDEMANN ROOM

Blue Volumetric

Yoichi Kawamura, Shana Mabari and Shinsuke Shimojo

42” x 42” x 42” Plexiglass Cube + Mixed Materials

Price: $20,000

Description:

Throughout history, art and science have had much in common. Both disciplines tackle a subject in depth and with great curiosity. One uses methodic measures and recording of results, and the other uses internal intuitive reasoning to create artwork. ‘Blue Volumetric’ is a collaborative piece among a scientist/artist and two artists immersing themselves into the Science of Vision and using art to record that work.

The piece attempts to give color another dimension. By definition, color has three properties: hue, saturation and brightness. Even though volumetric (3D) color is everywhere in the natural environment, such as in the sky or the water, it has been neglected relative to surface (2D) color in perceptual psychology and cognitive neuroscience. This piece introduces volumetric, as well as temporal qualities to this unique “qualia”(a philosophical term for subjective quality) of the hue. Steam is enclosed to give blue light space, and at the same time, the steam is constantly changing from steam to water and back to steam. The piece is also meant to demonstrate sequential and simultaneous color contrast phenomena.

Brain Projector

Luke and Ginger Van Hook

24” x 24” x 24” Mixed Media

Price: $2500

Description:

Based on the traditional Marawa Doro Japanese Rotating Lantern, this light and space installation investigates the visual cortex as a metaphor for how the brain processes information.

Optic Chasm

Mei Xian Qiu

Dimensions Varied – Plexiglass Cube, Water, Used Motor Oil, Projector, Tempera.

Price: $ 4,200

Description:

This work is about optic illusion, the difference between what we believe is in front of us and what is actually there as a physical object. I am interested in human perception as defined by light, shadow, and belief. A thick slick of black oil from a '75 Chevy on a glowing liquid cube. A video projection that appears to move in, through, and around the cube. A serious comedy of optics, and ecological and fundamental opposites.

MAIN GALLERY

The New Zodiac

Grid of Politicians (Untitled Politician #1-6), Grid of Bunnies (Untitled Bunny #1-6)

Siri Kaur with Romann Weber and Daw-an Wu

13 x 19’’ Pigment Prints, 2010. Edition of 5.

Price: $400 each or $2000/ grid

Description:

The images were made using eye tracking software in the Shimojo laboratory at CalTech, where each image was viewed for a total of five seconds by the three collaborators. The parts of the images that are visible represent the course of the viewers’ eye movements. It’s as if their eyes became a razor, scraping out the relevant sections of each picture, charting a course of relevancy. The portions represented by the solid color and black areas reveal the portions of the pictures the viewers’ eyes neglected. Thus the images become visible maps of the way humans see the world. In five seconds or less, eyes, mouths, breasts, and flesh are what we look at first.

These cultural icons, both the politicians and pinups, were chosen by the artist for nostalgic reasons, because of their influence over her during her formative years, for better or for worse. The color palette of “Politicians”, borrowed from popular design palettes of 1960’s and 1970’s, displaces them from their typical flag backdrops; one of each color is arbitrarily assigned to each politician. The deep black ground of the “Bunnies” removes their fleshy bodies from the usual setting of sugary boudoirs.

Color Space

Ching-Ching Cheng

9"x9"x9" Urethane, Pigment

Price: $2500

Description:

Colors are inside our brain; outside is colorless because the physical environment contains only light waves. Colors that we perceive are determined not just by physical properties of light (i.e. wavelength and energy), but also physiological optics of the eye and neural processing. So any color that our eyes receive is a perception of color, as well as a psychological color. This installation aims to visualize perceptions of colors in space, which have three dimensions: color tone (first dimension), lightness (second dimension), and saturation (third dimension).

The Opposite of Love

Mei Xian Qiu

26.5 x 36.5, Lambda print, Edition of 10

Price: $850 ea.

Description:

This work explores ambiguity and intensities of emotion and intent. How do we visually perceive love, loss, and malcontent? A woman looks longingly or in anger? Two images of the same woman, different object in hand, one flowers, the other a gun. Her expression is the same, or is it?

MAIN GALLERY continued

Man,Woman and Revolver

Mei Xian Qiu and Meg Madison

10” x 28” Framed Chromagenic Print

Price: $

Description:

This exploration replaces incendiary primary imagery with words, challenging the viewer to create a complete visual context. I am interested with what is not in the frame as much as what is in it. There exists for the viewer a combination of a self created visual picture from the words, what something "should" look like, subliminally borne from memory and enculturation, in the same way we create a visual memory from reading a novel, with the remaining portion of photograph (where the visual information is readily divulged).

See Thru

Marcie Kaufman

Archival Digital Prints, 2010

Price: $600

Can you trust what you feel?

Marcie Kaufman

Archival Digital Print, 2010

Price: $450

Electric

Marcie Kaufman and Krista Kahl

Archival Digital Print, 2010

Price: $450

Crossing

Marcie Kaufman and Krista Kahl

Archival Digital Print, 2010

Price: $450

Description:

Marcie Kaufman is responding to Professor Shinsuke Shimojo's work on tactile cognition--how the brain "reads" touch on the skin. At different places and positions of the body, the brain reads touch in mirror reverse. She created photographs that make visible Shimojo's findings of invisible cognitive interpretation by drawing directly on the body, and developed poetic connections with the science behind the work.

MAIN GALLERY continued

Nostalgia

Shinsuke Shimojo & Shana Mabari

61”H x 10.5”W x 16.5”D, Mixed media (wood, brushed aluminum, goggles, flash bulb, battery).

Price: $12,000.

Description:

Where does memory exist? In the mind, the brain, or the world? We do not have a definite answer, but it should exist somewhere in our reality because otherwise, how could we sometimes be smiling or crying over a very personal mnemonic image which is years or even decades old? Memory is often tightly connected with emotional experience, as demonstrated in special phenomena such as “flash-bulb memory” phenomenon. Emotion helps to consolidate memory as well as to trigger and distort. This installation aims to “replay” such long-term dynamics of memory distortion, fading and reviving, within a frame of several seconds in flash-initiated afterimage.

Brain

Luke and Ginger Van Hook

12”L x 12”W x 12” Polycarbonate, LED Diodes, batteries, mirrored plexiglass

Price: $2500.

Description:

Transparent abstract sculpture performance that mimics the human brain. During this exhibition the “Brain” Sculpture will be born, mature, fade then die. This occurs as the LED lights burn the brightest at it’s birth, then begin to decrease in illumination as it ages, and eventually ceases to shine, culminating in its final electronic death. A birth notice is prepared in a local newspaper and an obituary notice will be recorded when it ceases its life cycle. Expected life cycle = 5 days.

Ferromagnetic Fields-LIGHT and Ferromagnetic Fields-DARK

Luke and Ginger Van Hook

30” x 40” Photographic Digital C-Print, framed in Plexiglass

Price: $3000 ea.

Description:

Ferrofluid is a liquid that becomes strongly magnetized in the presence of a magnetic field and is composed of nanoscaled particals of magnetite or hermatite or another compound containing iron. Invented in the late 1960s in NASA’S Apollo Program (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) ferrofluids are well known for their use in forming liquid seals and in electronic devices for computers, audiovisual equipment, some industrial applications and in medical and scientific research. Ferrofluids appear as a black fluid. They are prepared by dissolving nanoscale ferromagnetic particles in a solvent such as water or oil and remain strongly magnetic even in a fluid condition. Abstract shapes are created by the rising of spikes under a magnetic field that is controlled by electromagnets from below the surface. During a re-creation of this experiment, photographs reveal a battery operated red colored LED diode is swallowed up by the ferrofluids to form spiked shapes in mysterious configurations.

MAIN GALLERY continued

Electromagnetic Fields-First Steps and Electromagnetic Fields of Memory

Luke and Ginger Van Hook

22” x 42” Photography Darkroom C-Print, framed in plexiglass

33” x 42” Photography Darkroom C-Print, Collage framed in plexiglass

Price: $3000 ea

Description:

The memories in our brains are invisible to the outside observer. At best, the way we have of sharing these memories is through the medium of photography. All brain activity is based on a series of electrical impulses within a neuron, which then communicate neurochemically beyond synapses, much like our corporate culture has erected Power Towers to carry our energy and communications throughout the world. Vague perceptions, faded remembrances and filtered consciousness runs through these collages of images examining the relationship of electromagnetism to our brains, our bodies and our environment.

Streams of power lines, telephone cables, satellite transmission dishes, cell phone towers as well as electronics both inside and outside our homes run along our landscapes like the streams of consciousness run through our thoughts. Some images of memories are clear and poignant. Some images are obscured and reside in the outer edges of our consciousness; not revealing themselves yet providing the hint of a feeling one can never fully grasp like a dream that has evaporated upon wakening.

[Growing up in the late 1960’s, my sister Else and I lived in a home along Southern Blvd. and Dudlext Street in Southgate, California where rows and rows of High Voltage Power Line Towers dotted the landscape like dominos. These structures of omnipotent architectural beauty towering over our childhood, made me feel like wanting to climb up the triangular bars like the limbs of trees, but our parents warned us to stay away. These images reveal new layers of filters to my memories as we investigate the invisible powers of low-level frequency electromagnetic fields (EMF’s) and their alleged associations.]

(Ginger Van Hook, artist reflections)

Revealing the Invisible

Luke and Ginger Van Hook

15”L x 12”W x 8.5”H, Magnetic Viewing Film in glass, aluminum frame. Interactive with cell phones

Price: $600

Description:

Magnetic Viewing Film is used to show stationary or slowly-changing magnetic fields; it reveals their location and direction. It is a dark green translucent thin flexible sheet, coated with micro-capsules containing nickel flakes suspended in oil. When the “receiver” end of a cell phone is applied to the magnetic viewing film, it reveals exactly where the magnetic field is located. During this exhibition, the gallery visitor is able to interact with the art by “drawing” with their cell phones, exposing the invisible changing magnetic fields.

Inglewood Community Garden Thrives with Art, Culture & Music!

2010-05-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

Inglewood, California Written by Ginger Van Hook May 20, 2010

Inglewood Community Garden is a dream students at Morningside High School have realized today with the help of Inglewood City Council member, Ralph L. Franklin of District 4, Teachers and Mentors, Miss Roshondra Woods, World History Teacher, Mr. Shawn Stanton at Morningside High School with Mr. D'Artagnan Scorza, Director at The Social Justice Learning Institute, and Mr. Sirls, the Principal of Morningside High School. Photography Ginger Van Hook, 2010

For some of the students, it was hard to believe that these beautiful green corn leaves had come from all this dirt and gravel, but the miracle on Yukon and 107th Street in Inglewood was in full bloom. A student by the name of Jazz told the audience that she has been disheartened at first to see that this was a big empty lot with what seemed endless rocks. Then the students started clearing the land and putting their hearts and souls into the earth and the soil responded to their efforts to grow everything from tomatoes to chilies, jalapenos, lettuce, squash as well as herbs like parsley and oregano too.

'Jazz' told us about the transformation of the garden and the friendships that she had made. She explained how there was a new community where before there had been an empty space. The audience cheered for the success of the students and there was a heightened sense of community achievement in the air. There was a slight breeze coming from the ocean that brushed the leaves of the tomatoes and the peppers ever so slightly. The sun beat down upon the earth and music filled the air. Musicians played the guitar and percussion rhythms with their hands and their bodies moved to the beat. Guests were invited to take a water bottle from the center of the garden and in ceremonious ritual to bless the land with the names of their ancestors. I watered a patch of tomatoes and recalled my grandparents in the past. It was hard to remain objective. I was involved. I was now a part of this new blessing upon the community. I was no longer a reporter, witnessing for the writing of a story, I was pulled into the land, the dirt, the rocky earth and right into the story, taken in by the aroma of fresh tomato leaves and the scent of strawberry flowers and consequently, the encouragement of artistic, poetic, talented new friends.

D'Artagnan ScorzaDirector for The Social Justice Learning Institute

said his students are working on a Food Initiative

Mr. Sirls, the Principal of Morningside High School, gave the students and supporters encouragement then went over to the wall and autographed his hand print in green.
Mr. Sirl leaves his mark on the community garden wall.

Janet Simmons read her poem that she wrote for the Inglewood Community Garden:

I dedicate...

my words,

my voice,

my sound,

and my choice...

of speech

I speak of here.

I dedicate...

what I have seeked here

throughout, without and within this garden

I dedicate...

my rough hands

and my

rock indented knees

my wind tormented hair

and

the dirt infected breeze

that flows through this garden

like a stream of music through my ears

When it comes down to it

this would not mean as much

without you, me, us

I dedicate myself to you.

There were cooking demonstrations and watermelon slices.

The Los Angeles Times came to cover the event and I captured Glenn Koenig working in earnest covering the tree planting ceremony. This Photo is by Ginger Van Hook, but at least four or five reporters were on scene to witness this miracle transforming strangers into friends, and smiles turning lives into a tight knit community bonding over vegetables and issues of social justice, friendship and healthy meals...All good things going on in the City of Inglewood!

Julie Prejean a Forestry Senior Manager for TREE PEOPLE

came to support the garden opening and to donate and help plant a special tree.

She told her eager audience of new gardeners that they could choose its name.

City Council Member Ralph L. Franklin praised the students,

teachers and supporters for taking the initiative and making it all happen,

and 'what a beautiful day it is for a planting ceremony!'

USC reporter Christine Trang from the USC Annenberg School for Communications and Journalism
interviewed various participants and was preparing her report for southlareport.com

Inglewood Artists and supporters, Ken Ober, Renee Fox and Ceres Madoo, Alumni Relations at Otis College of Art and Design came to support the Morningside High School Community Garden Opening Ceremonies.

Photo by Ginger Van Hook 2010.

As an Inglewood Artist I was invited to attend this event, thanks to Ceres Madoo and when I arrived, I did not know what to expect; but whatever it was to be, I knew this was a GREAT IDEA! As I milled about I got the opportunity to meet Mr. D'Artagnan Scorza who told me how the students from Morningside High School had gotten together to discuss civic engagement, how to show school spirit, how to improve the community and how to better serve the needs of the school district. The students themselves came up with the concept of a community garden, but at first, did not have the means to make it happen. The original students were from Miss Roshondra's class and Mr. Shawn Stanton's class. A good idea took root then and there. One thing led to another and with the help of Inglewood City Council Member Ralph Franklin, their project got the encouragement and the support they needed right there from the school district's land.

This property belongs to the school so now the students are able to

develop a way to empower themselves to be a self sustaining community

with healthy nourishing meals for its students.

No better way to grow fine artists, fine students and fine citizens

than to take the seeds and cultivate,

water frequently, daily, encourage with wisdom and respect for the land.

The students have a great number of plans which includes a farmer's market, music, art and culinary culture events.

The Art Of The Summer Garden 2009

2009-08-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

A Photo-Journal Feature

written and photographed by

Ginger Van Hook

Features Beverly Hills Artist

LINDA KUNIK

"PLANT IT FORWARD"

Local Beverly Hills Artist Creates Art
From Her Garden
Launching a new project called
“PLANT IT FORWARD”

A local artist and resident of Beverly Hills turned her garden into an art form by creating a project called “Plant It Forward”. Linda Kunik, an artist and alumna from Otis College of Art and Design has initiated a project to enhance her artistic community as well as inspire local artists to do the same. “Plant It Forward” is about establishing community while reconnecting with the earth, a vision which includes artists bartering for vegetables either by working in the garden or helping in the documentation of the garden’s delights by photographing, videotaping and or journaling about the experience. Ms. Kunik believes trading services for food in these tough economic times makes sense because while cultivating the soil, a group of artists will also cultivate friendships and nourish the community. The foundation of Linda Kunik’s work is to get back to the roots of sustainable agriculture. “Plant It Forward” does exactly what it says. The seeds are planted now and the fruits of this labor go forward to feed people who take from the harvest the inspiration to plant their own gardens.

“…My vision is for everyone to have their own garden, large or small and if that is not possible, to raise enough awareness for the people to shop locally and support their local Farmer’s Markets…” Ms. Kunik states as she points to the five large gardens she created in the back yard of her home, replacing flowerbeds and lawns in order to plant vegetables, herbs and fruit trees. Kunik wanted to give back to her community, raise awareness of the need for personal gardens and utilize the artistic medium to make her statement. “My work has always referenced the land. From my early days as a watercolorist painting landscapes to later works making paintings of deforestation or global warming; the beauty and fragility of the earth has been a recurring theme. Combining my agricultural practice with my art-making seems to be an natural evolution.”

The prospect of jumping into an artistic adventure to produce homegrown fruits and vegetables with a group of fellow artists was contagious. Thus the enthusiasm carried this labor of love into the summer as Ms. Kunik worked with a group of artists to bring in soil, create raised beds and began to fill them with the seeds of tomatoes, carrots, spinach, lettuce, corn, and a variety of herbs, citrus fruits and assorted vegetables. Some of the artists participating in Plant It Forward include Juna Amano (Painting & Sculpture), Marissa Magdalena (Installation, Performance and Drawing), Ofunne Obiamawe (Photographer), Suzanne Oshinsky (Videographer), Michiko Smith (Painting), Whitney Stolich (Photographer) and Ginger Van Hook (Photographer) as well as the new artists joining every week.

It is the zenith of summer now and already some of the tomatoes have ripened looking fat, juicy and red. In recent weeks, there have already been harvests of endive lettuce, carrots and radishes. The important element in the formation of this garden is the artistic component of Ms. Kunik’s vision. The raised beds and gardens are shaped into asymmetrical forms with a walking path between them. Large Sunflowers adorn the corners of each of the vegetable beds and the aromas of fresh tomatoes and rosemary mixes with the fragrances of roses and lavender permeating the air in her back yard.

Linda Kunik has written a blog about her work and continues to support the arts by highlighting the artistry of organic gardening in photography and painting. She also founded a community artist forum called the O Salon. The O Salon is where artists network and take part in conceptual critique as well as share information about each other’s works. Ms. Kunik is involved in a number of professional organizations including the Los Angeles Art Association, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Docent Council and the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Linda Kunik photographed beside her painting
Exhibition at Gallery 825 in Los Angeles, California, 2008
(Photo by Ginger Van Hook)

Plant It Forward-the starving artist project
http://plantitforwardla.blogspot.com
lindakunik@gmail.com
www.lkunik.com

Additional artists websites and blogs:

Juna Amano (Painting & Sculpture) http://junaamano.blogspot.com

Marissa Magdalena (Installation, Performance and Drawing) www.marissamagdalena.com

Ofunne Obiamawe (Photographer) www.RepublicofPeace.com

Suzanne Oshinsky (Videographer) http://isoareyesore.blogspot.com/.

Michiko Smith (Painting)

Whitney Stolich (Photographer) www.whitneystolich.com

Ginger Van Hook (Photographer) www.gingervanhook.com
http://gingersartjournal.blogspot.com

Luke Van Hook (Painting) www.lukevanhook.com

"Plant It Forward" : The week of June 07, 2009

"Plant It Forward" : The week of July 01, 2009

"Plant It Forward" : The week of July 08, 2009

"Plant It Forward" : The week of July 15, 2009

"Plant It Forward" : The week of July 22, 2009

"Plant It Forward" : The week of July 29, 2009

"Plant It Forward" : The week of August 5, 2009

Artist, Linda Kunik planted a garden to share with fellow artists.

"Plant It Forward" : The day of August 08, 2009

HARVEST DAY!

"Plant It Forward" : The Week of August 12, 2009

"Plant It Forward" : Week of August 19, 2009

After the Harvest:

Cooking the Vegetables and Enjoying the Fruits of our Labors

The Art of the Summer Garden 2009

A Photo-Journal Feature

written and photographed by

Ginger Van Hook

Features Beverly Hills Artist

LINDA KUNIK

"PLANT IT FORWARD"