Welcome to my blog!

My paintings evolve from journal entries, every-day inspirations, and a desire to be mindful of the good things. Blogging is a great way for you to share in my journey, and perhaps let me share in yours. Here, you can find sneak peeks at new art. I’ll let you in on some of the musings behind the paintings, keep you up-to-date on my shows and news, and connect with you more than at just the occasional street fair. If you like what you see, please share my blog with your circle of friends. Thanks for stopping in! —Jen 

 

Melody vs. Lyrics

 

"Downtime" © Jen Norton

Thank you to all my wonderful art friends who attended our Open Studio this past weekend…your patronage is always SO appreciated, but especially during these hard times. I am now able to buy a little more paint!

 

Today, I’ve been cleaning up, packing up the art for my next show, and listening to music. To those who know me, it will come as no surprise that two of the CDs in the mix were by Amy Grant. I’ve been a devoted fan since I was 18 (only a few years ago, really…) Today John Mayer, U2 and Sugarland also made the cut. It got me to thinking…am I more drawn to the melody of a song, or to the lyrics? Of course it’s a little of both, but I think for me lyrics might hold more water. I have to like a melody, but if the lyrics are uninspiring or too “pop”, I’ll lose interest in the artist after a song or two. If the lyrics are amazingly-crafted and speak to me, I can grow to love a song, and an artist, even if the melody doesn’t grab me right away. And when both are complementing each other…well, need I say more? Euphoric! 

 

Paintings are like music in that way. Colors, textures and artist’s technique make up the melody. Then there are the lyrics, the story between the lines and shapes. This comes from the artist’s intent. Sometimes the concept is obvious, but sometimes it’s more obscure, leaving the viewer to come to their own conclusions. Next time you’re viewing art…especially art that you don’t understand…see if you can decipher the artist’s objective. Whenever possible, view original art. Seeing things in books is a start, but it’s more like what happens to the message when you play the child’s game “Telephone”. The meaning can get lost in translation. Stand in front of original work, let it speak to you, and then try to understand what it might be saying. Last year I had the chance to experience some of Jasper Johns’ work in NY. I was aware of his work from college art history, but it didn’t really grab me then. This time, with a better understanding of history and years of making art under my belt, it was a totally different experience. I realized there might be some similarities in our art-making. The conversation has begun, and now I want to find out more. So, what speaks to you? Melody or Lyrics? Technique or Concept? Can they exist separately?

 

By the way, if you’re a fellow Amy fan, she has a new EP out on iTunes. Two new songs, two older ones. “Unafraid” is very personal, and she sings it like she’s across the table from you. Check it out if you’re so inclined…

 

ABC7 News Segment: Art of Possibility

When I’m not working on my own art, I serve as Art Director for my good friend Ketra Oberlander’s cause-oriented brand company Art of Possibility. We were recently interviewed by Karina Rusk of ABC7 News (SF Bay Area, CA) about our mission. I’m always amazed at the editing process that they must go through to get several hours of footage down to 60 seconds…but this is a 60-second spot worth watching, and whether you’re a consumer of goods or manufacturer of goods, Ketra is a woman worth watching! Click here to view the broadcast.

 

Have I been here before?

 

A couple of times a week, I walk about 2 miles through my neighborhood, iPod blasting, weights in hand, attempting to stop agint at 43! I change the order, but I pretty much walk the same streets every time. So, a few days ago I’m out doin’ my thing, and I notice a house I’ve never seen before. Not a newly-built house. An old one…yucky yard, peeling paint, not the kind to make me wish I lived there. Maybe they trimmed the bushes or parked the cars differently, but something made me notice this house for the first time that day. Marching along to Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back” (oh yeah, that song’s got my name all over it!), I started to ponder the revelation of this “new-old-house-revelation”. How often is life like that? We glaze over the same old thing until one day we’re ready to see it differently. A person. A job opportunity. A house. Suddenly, there is meaning in what was commonplace. Distraction is abundant in a world with a ton of hot air (with or without global warming!). Sometimes it’s hard to find those grains of truth, but they’re there…waiting until we’re ready to reveal themselves to us. Art is like that for me. I begin a painting with an idea in mind. Along the way I get lost. I have to “fix” things to find my way back. And in that fixing process, I arrive at a new and better end. If I didn’t allow myself the luxury of mistakes, I would never achieve the enviable sublime.

Art show season follows real estate season, which means this spring artists all around you will be coming out to festivals, hosting Open Studios and having gallery shows to present their work. Especially during these tough times, I encourage you to get out and see what all of us crazy “out-of-the-box” thinkers have been thinking about. You may love what you see…or you may hate it. But if you make some attempt to engage and understand it, you might find your world altered just a bit. You might notice a possibility that previously didn’t exist for you. You just might become different enough that someone else takes notice!

I’ll be hosting my Open Studio on May 9 & 10th, along with five other fabulous artists. I’d love for you to stop by, if you’re so inclined. Details are on my website.

 

Open Studios Postcard Image for Jen Norton and friends.

 

 

Sea Turtle Flag

This is just a quick message to my fellow art and garden lovers…my first licensed product through my fabulous agent is now available at a few online retailers. It’s my sea turtle painting on a Toland Garden Flag! I’ve got a sample, so I can tell you that Toland makes really nice products and I’m grateful that they chose some of my work for their line this year! If you are so inclined to purchase one for your home, or for a gift, I will be forever grateful for your support in making Jen Norton Art Studio a success (poles and stands sold separately). The flag comes in two sizes. Here’s the list of where they can be found online as of April 11, 2009. 

ebay listing

Dragonfly Garden

Just for Fun Flags (search for “sea turtle”)

Botanical Accents (not a secure site)

 

Can a painting change the world?

  

"Bow Down", 36 x 24, Acrylic on canvas.

Last summer I grew some sunflowers, quite unexpectecly, because a friend gave me a packet of seeds (thanks Andy!). I tossed about 50 seeds into the dirt, and watered them when I remembered. Magically…sunflowers grew! Not all 50 (which was probably a good thing), but about 8-10 sturdy plants. By mid-June, they began to flower in magnificent 6- to 12-inch blooms of cadmium yellow, orange and red oxide booms! Amazing! They attracted bees and birds, and brought me great pleasure every day as I looked out my window each morning. 

I took lots of pictures. I didn’t really intend to paint them…I was going to paint food this year…but they captured my imagination. Maybe just one painting; OK…one more. I began to see the amazing geometry within them. Ancient Roman road tiles must have been laid to mimic their seed patterns. They mirror the sun with their bright faces as they follow it across the sky each day. Their colors perfectly compliment the balmy mid-summer sky during their flowering season. Just by “being”, they are perfect. So, how might that change the world? Only God knows for sure. But I was reminded that without doing anything, I am already perfect in God’s eyes. I was moved to create something tangible from that intention. Maybe my art will inspire you. It might cause you to see or experience a moment differently…perhaps next time you see sunflowers yourself. And you might bring light to someone else’s world because of it. Who knows. They are amazing, aren’t they?

 

"Prelude to Glory", 12 x 24, Acrylic on canvas.

These paintings can be seen at Avalon Yoga in Palo Alto, CA until May 1, 2009. After that, you may be able to view them at the Saratoga Rotary Art Show (May 3), and at my Open Studio on May 9-10. Please see details at my website!

 

Craft & Hobby Show 2009

Hi folks…just a quick note to share some photos with you from my recent trip to the CHA show in Anaheim, CA. I learned some new “arty” things, consulted with my agents and assisted my friend Ketra Oberlander, founder of Art of Possiblity with her booth (I serve as her Art Director when I’m not making my own art!). She exclusively represents disabled artists, and is a blind artist herself. I urge you take a look at what she’s doing! This was a great show for me to not only see art, but find out what art actually made it to licensed product…Now, to put my ideas into concrete form…

My display table at the CHA Designer Showcase.

Ketra Oberlander, Founder of Art of Possibility at CHA 2009.

 

Art Smart

 

Ballo dell'alba (Dance of Dawn) © Jen Norton

 

 

Over the last several years, I have developed this method of drawing with my left hand, free-forming shapes that later become content and parts of other shapes. Sometimes I use this technique to begin a painting. Sometimes I use it to “fix” a painting. Either way, I love the result….the almost mathematical, yet chaotic way that the shapes connect together to create form and content. Organic, tribal…it fascinates me in the way that PBS specials on “String Theory” or hearing Deepak Chopra describe “SynchroDestiny” pull at my gut emotions (yes, I’m geeky). Because it is a very intuitive way of drawing, I can never achieve the same results twice. Sometimes I stand back from a finished piece and think, “Wow, I pulled it off!”. But you know, whenever you get too high on your own horse, God has a way of gently reminding you that He is in control, and His ways are not ours. Such was the case one day when I found myself cleaning my garage….

I came across a drawing my brother Mark had done in high school and given to me. Mark is 10 years younger than I, and has always been fascinated with special effect movies, big-time wrestling and 80s music. We don’t have much in common. He can be focused, obsessed, unwavering…OK, we have a few things in common. In this particular drawing, he had rendered the “Bat Cave”, with in his own personal vision. I had received it graciously, on the surface, and had tucked it among my “old college art”. There it remained hidden for over 20 years, until I was ready to truly receive the gift. So, years later, here I am re-discovering my brother’s work on a hot dusty California day. It has a familiar feel to my current work…organic shapes, slightly off-kilter patterns that could be seen as chaotic, but that work together. Underlying order. Symmetry. Beauty. Something I have discovered myself, after years of searching. Somehow my brother figured it out way before me. There’s something else I should tell you about Mark. He has Down Syndrome.

 

The Bat Cave © Mark Duris

Jen’s painting, Ballo dell’alba, can be seen as part of the Allied Artists West exhibit at the Pacific Grove Art Center, Feb 20-April 2, 568 Lighthouse Ave, Pacific Grove, CA. Artist Reception, Feb 20, 7-9pm.  http://www.alliedartistswest.org/

 

Art Appreciation, Kid-Style

"Emma was Here" © Jen Norton

This essay has been published on iParentz.com. I wrote it to remind myself to always look at things from other points of view…in this case, my daughter’s.

Recently, we had an opportunity to take our family on a trip to Italy. As an artist, I relished the idea of exposing my young daughter to the wonders of the creative seat of Western Culture. I tried to excite her by explaining that much of the design culture we enjoy now got its start in Italy…way back when the wealthy and powerful Medici family began funding the arts, inadvertently pulling us out of the previous “Dark Ages”. Her eyes glossed over and she countered with a newly-found fact about Hannah Montana. In Rome, we wandered through the Forum and Colosseum and I attempted to ignite her imagination with the thousands of variations of Roman civilizations that had built these structures. No luck…it was July, about 120 degrees Farenheit, she was pining for gelato and declaring the ruins “just a pile of old rocks.” The Duomo in Florence, vertical architecture of Cinque Terre and the Piazza del Campo in Seina all met with similar enthusiasm. 

I was just about to give up, when her eye focused on something that really interested her: Graffiti!  It was everywhere…on old stuff, new stuff, trains, sidewalks. Anything that stood still bore the mark of modern Roman youth. It’s not that I hadn’t noticed it before. I just wondered why no one seemed to care about cleaning it up. But my daughter loved it, exclaiming, “Look at that mom!” over some spray-painted animae character or colorful wording. I should have known. She loves to write. She never draws a picture without including dialogue in those “talking bubbles”. When I drag her to art shows (“not anuuuther art show!”), she only taken with the calligraphers. She loves colorful, graphic pop art. And why not? What it lacks in subtly, it makes up for in immediate communication and fun. What kid doesn’t respond to that?

As a consequence, I began to look at this display of modern ego in a different light. All those layers of line and color…mark over mark over mark. It’s like Italy itself, especially Rome. You have centuries of humanity building and living one over the other. Unlike the states, no one tears down the old to build the new. You can’t. Half a shovel down, you’ll probably hit something archeological every time. So, you just build up, next to, across…imagine any preposition, and the Romans have architecturally rendered it. The Roman Colosseum isn’t off in some protected national park. It’s smack dab in the middle of modern Rome, vespa traffic, graffiti and all. In my daughter’s eyes, graffiti is just the next generation leaving it’s mark, and far more colorful than that old “pile of rocks”. 

In honor of her appreciation of “graffiti as art”, I began to incorporate it into my paintings as well. I can over-think just about everything, so I’m relieved when I can just take something at face value. “Hey mom, graffiti is cool!” OK, I get that. I don’t understand it all or experience it with the same emotion, but I get that it speaks to her, and that makes it interesting to me. In my work, it shows up mostly as a background texture because that’s how I relate to it in the real world. Sometimes it tells something more about the painting. In the end, all good art is a form of communication first between the artist and God, and then the artist and the viewer. Graffiti is certainly an art of communication, even if not everyone can understand it. My Italian’s not so good either, but it doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate the melodic rhythm of the language or know that it has meaning.

As a parent, we all want to infuse our kids with our life lessons, enrich them, make them see beyond their own elementary-school universe. But sometimes it pays to listen to them too. In the bible (Matthew 18:3), Jesus says, “Truly I say to you, unless you change and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” What if this moment is heaven? Can you see it? The wisdom of decades is a good thing, but for added appreciation, try seeing through the eyes of a child.

(In defense of my daughter’s culture appreciation, I should add that she did find a few other things fascinating: the preserved head of St. Catherine in Siena and the leaning Tower of Pisa (as well as the tchatchkis stands along the road leading up to it) were big hits. Also, the marble sculpture in the Vatican, tiny European cars and the plethora of pizza.)

© Jen Norton. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

 

Celebration of Craftswomen, Dec 6-7, 2008

 

Garden Charms™ Aluminum art by Jen Norton Art Studio

 

 

Join me this weekend, Sat & Sun, December 6 & 7 for the 30th Annual Celebration of Craftswomen in San Francisco! I will be at booth 415 in Herbst Pavilion, Fort Mason, San Francisco (at Buchanan and Marina). 10am to 5pm both days. Adult tickets are $8, and the show benefits women and girls in San Francisco. A great place to find unique, hand-crafted gift items! I’ll have big art, small art, matted art, aluminum art (shown here)and cards. Everything you need to know can be found at: http://www.celebrationofcraftswomen.org/ . I hope to see you!

 

Art that Speaks the Heart

 

 

Lovenotes® : Love is found in small places

 

“Art that Speaks the Heart”…what does that mean? Why not “from the heart” or “to the heart”? Slightly left of center, it does stop your eye. I’m OK with that. In fact…I like it. As with my paintings, I hope you might stop and ponder it, if even for an extra few seconds.  

Go a step deeper.. “Art that Speaks the Heart” has more to do with my intention. I wish for my art to originate from a place independent of my ego; my role merely the interpreter. What would I say with my paintbrush, if I could truly let God speak through me? Simplicity, thankfulness, connection? This is always my question. I trust the process.

I once had this lofty idea that I could change the world with my art. Now I know my mission is to simply to call attention to the good that is already present. My hope is to speak of something greater than individual desires. My intent is to “speak the heart”.