Jblack designs Etsy showcase

Jennifer Black of Jblackdesigns featured my little painting Kamiyama Memory in her weekly Etsy showcase:


http://jblackdesigns.blogspot.com/2010/01/etsy-showcse-izumi-shikibu.html

Thanks Jennifer!

Kamiyama Memory is from a series called Travel Notes.  The series consists of small paintings  oil on canvas or wood 6" x 6" or 5" x 7". I often like to go through old paintings and photos and rework them in to new paintings.  Re-use, Recycle.  Working in this way helps me keep the memory of my travels to far off lands alive.  Also, I can’t seem to get the lush greens of Japan out of my mind.

 

First Light 

New Space

Last year I experimented with having my studio at home. It lasted 9 months. Much too long in my opinion. It was a terrible idea from start to finish. Not only did the room I was using have bad light and carpet I was afraid to mess up, but I also felt it was very unprofessional. My attitude suffered for it. However, my four year old daughter was happy to have me painting at home and would sometimes paint along side me on her little easel. She was sorry to see me move to a new space. Two weeks ago I signed a lease on a new space and moved in. I am taking my time setting it up and getting comfortable before I start painting. The studio is in a building full of artists in the mission district of San Francisco on Alabama Street. It's such a relief to have a place (outside of the home) to work. Now I just have to figure out a schedule dividing childcare with my husband. It's a balancing act for sure.

Short history

I feel like I should give a quick history here.  I was born and raised in Houston, TX.   Always interested in creating - from drawing to forming objects in clay to sewing new outfits.  I never knew you could be an artist or what that meant really until I went to college.  In college I decided to pursue a career in art.  Whatever that meant?  The big thing to do was go directly to graduate school.  I wasn't sure that was for me at the time and went home.  Meanwhile I lied to my parents the whole time I was in college telling them that I was studying to be a teacher.  They were not happy when I graduated and went on a 3 month trip to France to "study" drawing and painting with Ted Seth Jacobs at L’Ecole Albert Defois, Association D’Ateliers D’Art Internationaux. I returned to Houston at the end of the summer and stayed around for five more years working for artists and non-profit art spaces and all the while painting.  Developing my craft.  Finally, I decided to take the big leap and move to New York City.  Wow, that was a big change of pace!   I started graduate school in art at NYU and ended up staying in New York for seven years.  I put in my time at an art gallery and continued my painting practice.  I met the man who would become my husband and we decided we needed a change and moved to Tokyo.  He was transfered after two years to San Francisco.  We have been in San Francisco for six years.  In that time we got married, bought a house and had a beautiful daughter.  I have been working full time on my painting since Tokyo.  Well as full time as a mother of a four year old can work.