New WorkShops! Starting Jan 24th 2012

Investigate Your Identity. Jan 24-Mar 13

In this program the primary focus will be content. You will set out with the objective of telling a story visually. Your completed oil painting will give viewers an insight into its creator. You will begin by creating a personal diorama using items that are meaningful to you. We will explore various aspects of the diorama using selective cropping and preliminary sketches and or digital photography. The successful selection will form the basis of the oil painting. This piece will have interesting relationships between perspective, scale and depth, and a strong sense of narrative.

Where: 1250 Judith Lane, Arroyo Grande
When: Each Tuesdays 9-11.30am
Cost: $400 per session (8 weeks), $100 discount for all three sessions

Studio space available!!

CorkStop Studios is now accepting applications for contemporary artists looking for studio space. Access to the etching press and opportunity to exhibit at the studio during the annual Arts Obispo Open Studios and work featured on CorkStop's webs site. Email resume and at least 5 images of recent work to

info@CorkStopStudios.com

Sculpture workshops!

The studio is well into the 6 week sculpture workshop session instructed by Kate Britton ( a practicing sculptor trained in London). Here's what some of the students have to say so far...

"Thanks so much for a wonderful evening! You made me feel as if I belonged in front of that wad of clay. Your teaching style is perfect: coming over when you feel it's necessary, answering questions, providing help when someone asks, always encouraging."
Mary Kay Harrington

This workshop is about finding the movement and abstraction within the human form.

A three day weekend workshop is coming up. 5/6/7/June. Check the website for full details.

Technique, form and content

I visited the Henry Moore retrospective at the Tate Britain today and have to say I was very disappointed. The curator seemed to have overlooked a most critical factor, that of the three dimensions. I became irritated as I tried to move around the pieces pinning myself against the wall to get a glimpse of what I suspect the curator assumed was the back and therefore was of little importance. Smaller pieces were fitted into glass boxes which shouted "hands off thieves". It was of course jammed with people as well as it was a rainy Saturday in London today which made it even more unpleasant. I was more inspired by his drawings which showed his gradual path to forms that need space. Need I say more . . . .

Years ago I had seen a superb show at Yale of Moore's work, carefully placed, neither encapsulated in boxes or pushed against the wall and of course perhaps the best way to see his work was how Henry had intended out in the open field with sheep running around. Try the Yorkshire Sculpture Gardens.

Carol Paquet at Linne Calodo

Problem Child and Slacker made for excellent company (as they often do) at my opening night at Linne Calodo Winery. These were just a couple of the delicious wines that were flowing while folks came out to celebrate and share in the viewing of my new work. Taking center stage was my polyptych piece titled Suburban Juncture 1 - detail, which worked incredibly well in the voluminous, minimalist, industrial feel of the tasting room. A number of my newer pieces are printed on handmade Japanese paper with torn organic edges and embalmed in wax. These pieces are small in size but speak volumes... I hope! See for yourselves.

4 off the wall

Four contemporary artists, originating from far flung corners of the globe but now residing on the Central Coast, California, present their work on 3/4/5 March between 6 - 9pm at Native Lounge. Choose one of these nights to get up close and personal with the artists and enjoy the sophistication of The Native Lounge as it morphs into a gallery. Carol Paquet and Anne Stahl have teamed up with Kate Britton and Sheryl Daane Chesnut for this brief exhibit in media spanning sculpture, encaustic, oil painting, photography and digital printing. Native Lounge is located at 1023 Chorro Street, San Luis Obispo. Enjoy a cocktail while chatting to these artists in this beautiful creekside setting.

Workshops for 2010

CorkStop Studios is planning new workshops for 2010. We are considering workshops in the following areas: Printing (digital, encaustic print, solar etching), Photography (how to take professional grade photos of your artwork), Encaustic, Abstract Collage.

If you have any suggestions, or would like to submit interest in a particular area of study, please contact us at info@corkstopstudios.com.

Once we have completed our planning, we will post the 2010 schedule here and on our website. 

Digital Arts - 2 Day workshop

Learn how to turn your photographs into a fine art digital print using the latest Adobe Photoshop CS4 application. This two-day workshop will focus on creating a “digital montage” by combining digital photographs and original watercolor washes into a digital file that is printed on large format Epson printers with archival-pigmented inks.

• When: Saturday November 21st and Sunday 22nd, 2009
• Time: 10.00am - 5.00pm
• Place: CorkStop Studios. 1250 Judith Lane, Arroyo Grande (off Corbett Canyon)
• Cost: $240 plus material fee $60
• Reservations: Info@CorkStopStudios.com or Tel: (805) 544-1681

Bring a bag lunch. Coffee, tea and light refreshments provided.

• Prerequisites: Laptop computer with Adobe Photoshop CS4 (free trial copies at Adobe.com)
• Intermediate experience with Photoshop application
• Artistic imagination

Roger Lee, who teaches in the Cuesta College Digital Art program, will teach the class.

Visit digitalmonoprint.blogspot.com for information about his activities.

Reservations: Email Info@CorkStopStudios.com or go to www.CorkStopstudios.com for more info.

CorkStop Studios welcomes Jamie Bruzenak as the studios new resident artist. Jamie was born in Long Beach California and moved to the Central Coast when she was just one year old. She received her BFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute on San Francisco’s Russian Hill, and after a few years of city life, has made her way back to the beauty of the Central Coast where she continues to find creative inspiration.

Alternative Print Surfaces: Revealed. Workshop presented by Roger Lee

Stahl's latest print to come out the intaglio press.

Quiz: Can you tell what it is???

Ears on Art

Listen to Anne Stahl and Pacha on 'Ears on Art' a KCBX radio program.
http://kcbx.org/mp3archive/eoa090513.mp3

Meet the Press! Central Coast Magazine published a three page full feature article about the four CorkStop Studios artists: Anne Stahl, Carol Paquet, Roger Lee and Pacha.
http://ping.fm/hn7e6

Hard work is starting to pay off with more than 17 prints ready for the big show 'Beyond the Print: Revealed' at CorkStop Studios on May 22nd.

CorkStop artists on the radio

Ears on Art (KCBX)

Ears on Art with Crissa Hewitt & Steven deLuque - The first and second Wednesday of the month,

Crissa Hewitt and Steven deLuque explore the exciting world of printmaking in an interview with CorkStop Studio artists Anne Stahl and Pacha of CorkStop Studios. The interview will be aired on Wednesday May 13th at 4:30pm.

• Visit 'Ears on Art' at KCBX

CorkStop installs a show at The San Luis Jet Center!

Anne Stahl and Carol Paquet hung a selection of their work at the San Luis Jet Center this weekend. Anne Stahl's "untitled 23" acrylic of canvas was installed in the reception area and looked impressive. The other pieces, a total of 18 works were hung throughout the building.

Waxing poetic at CorkStop Studios

Lynn Kishiyama gave another great Hot wax Cool art workshop at the studio on the weekend. It was a varied group, mostly local but some came all the way from Los Angeles and made a weekend of it. The 2 day intensive, gave attendees the time to experiment with the process on the first day and then execute their ideas with outstanding results on the following day. The session wrapped up with a critique of the work accompanied with a glass of wine from one of the local vineyards.

Hot hot heat

Lynn Kishiyama leads a one-of-a-kind workshop at the CorkStop barn and art space

BY CHRISTY HERON

INTOXICATING Corkstop Studios presents an encaustic workshop with Lynn Kishiyama, titled Hot Wax/Cool Art 2, a two-day event taking place March 14-15. Encaustic wax was used over 2,500 years ago by the Greeks and is experiencing a revival in contemporary art. Beeswax, tree resin, and pigment is applied hot and fused to a substrate creating a beautiful, translucent effect that can’t be achieved by paint alone. Highlights will include safety, mixing colors, melting wax, individual work time, a 3-D demo, problem solving, critique and more. The workshop is held at CorkStop Studios in Arroyo Grande. $275. Info: 550-6399, Info@CorkStopStudios.com or o-washiart.com. IMAGES COURTESY OF LYNN KISHIYAMA

New Times You have an interesting background.

Lynn Kishiyama I was born in the Philippines but grew up outside of San Francisco. And I’ve lived all over the East Coast. Then I went to Japan and that is really when I started to do my artwork.

New Times You were a ranch hand, an actress in NYC, and you studied spiritual psychology?

Kishiyama I have a masters in spiritual psychology.

New Times How do those play a part in 
your art?

Kishiyama I believe that everything you do brings you to where you are today. All of my training, my experiences, working for a Fortune 500 company in sales and marketing taught me how to sell my artwork. How to market it.

New Times So how did you find this medium?

Kishiyama I went to Tokyo kicking and screaming in 2000 ... and I learned about paper and how important paper was in their culture. It brought me to study the art of papermaking. I had been trying to be an artist my whole life but didn’t have the focus. Everything I’ve done is self-taught. I wouldn’t recommend it because it gets expensive. But that is how I started doing the Japanese kimonos.

New Times But what about encaustic? Tell 
me about this workshop.

Kishiyama Encaustic is pigment in wax. What I was looking for with my paperwork was an alternative to showcasing them in glass (the glass wouldn’t be gentle on the art). I started reading about encaustic, and encaustic and paper love each other. They go together really well. I went to New York in 2005 and studied papermaking and encaustic. The pigments are oil based and they are mixed with beeswax and varnish (which makes it hard). You can use a heat brush, a dry brush. You can inscribe and put different coloring in, scratching it out. You can put dried flowers under it. And they will stay like this forever. It has a wonderful luster that you can’t get with oil.

New Times What do you want prospective workshop participants to know?

Kishiyama If they work in oils, and are frustrated because they can’t achieve a textural quality to the oil, mixing the oil with wax may be what they are looking for.

New Times Are you going to give them the freedom to do the encaustic work on any type of surface?

Kishiyama Just flat ... (on a square piece of wood) and we will do press molds. We’ll make a mold out of clay and we will press an object into it and you pour in the wax and pop it out ... and you have a perfect mold. You can have repeated patterns. It’s great fun. Barn boards are nice to work on. I will work on some pieces that are sticks, like bamboo sticks with wire, and I will dry brush this on the wire and it will become a free- standing sculpture. You can get everything from really textural pieces to quite controlled. I’ll do a slideshow of the history and what people are doing with it now.

New Times What do artists need to bring?

Kishiyama The only thing they would have to bring are some boards. I’ll provide everything else. It’s an opportunity for someone to experiment and have it be cost effective. It’s an opportunity for them to learn the tools, safety, learn the colors, see what it can do, and see if it’s appropriate for where they want to take their artwork.

Abstract Collage workshop a great success!

Lynn Kishiyama gave an informative and dynamic collage workshop to a large group of 20 people from the central coast.

The next workshop to take place at the studio is HOT WAX/COOL ART
Saturday and Sunday, March 14/15 (10.00am – 4.00pm)
Encaustic wax was used over 2500 years ago by the Greeks and is experiencing a revival in contemporary art. Beeswax, tree resin and pigment is applied hot and fused to a substrate creating a beautiful, translucent quality that can’t be achieved by paints alone. The workshop fee is $275 for both days. Payment in full required to reserve your space. More information is available on the website.

"The History of Roots" beds down.

Carol Paquet's "The History of Roots" was installed in a private home in Edna Valley, Central coast, California - starting 2009 off on a good note. The artwork was created initially on canvas with oil paint (part of the Penumbra series) and then overlaid with shadows to complete the vision. The final piece is an archival print on paper, 56" x 33" and framed in a solid steel frame with museum quality glass. The piece is installed at an adjunct to the grand entrance, at the end of a wide corridor flanked by floor to ceiling windows overlooking Edna valley.

Klaus and Sabine Strobel are now the proud owners of three of Paquet's works.