It's Spring in the Temecula Valley and the smell of wild flowers & orange blossoms fills the air.
My New Class Awaken Your Creative Soul is at Yoga For Life in Temecula
My new class "Awaken Your Creative Soul" is now being offered at Yoga For Life in Temecula on the 1st and 3rd Friday of every month at the New and Full Moon so come on down and get inspired!
Coming Soon!
Bi-monthly classes starting Dec 21, 2014 at Inspire San Diego Studio
Coming in February 2015 ~ 4 week class plus intro at Mount San Jacinto College (Menifee Campus) - dates tba ...More info here.
ABOUT KATHY
Kathy Crabbe is a Creative Soul Guide, artist, author and educator. Originally from Canada, Kathy currently lives and works in the wine country of Temecula. Kathy created the Awaken Your Creative Soul class after spending 7 years drawing a Creative Soul Deck using her non dominant left hand. This awakened Kathy’s intuitive, creative soul in new ways and inspired her to help others follow their dreams. Since then Kathy has given over 1000 intuitive readings using her Creative Soul ‘lefty’ deck as well as teaching at the Wise Woman University. Her art has appeared in galleries, museums, magazines and on HGTV. Kathy formed a writer’s group in Temecula to share her ‘lefty’ art and poetry which she also published in a zine featuring local writers. Kathy and a life sized Lefty were invited to speak at an International Women’s Day event in Los Angeles that the LA Times dubbed “self esteem boosting” which was almost as dreamy as hearing her favorite song performed by Michelle Shocked in the background as she spoke.
Wild Lotus Gallery in Temecula, California now offering the Art of Kathy Crabbe
I am very pleased to announce that Wild Lotus, a lovely new art gallery and gift shop in Temecula, California is now carrying my LuLu cards and prints. This shop is owned and operated by Anju and her family who are originally from Nepal. They stock crafts and culture from their homeland such as Buddhist statues, mandala paintings, clothing, crystals and the work of local artists from Temecula and area. They are very kind and helpful and I hope you stop on by and support the local community and especially the work of local artists.
A life in art: drawing and painting from life & inner need
To create is only to reveal what essentially is. It is the vivid recollection of the as-yet-unknown in the known. ~ Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological MandalaNothing is less real than realism. Details are confusing. It is only by selection, by elimination, by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things. ~ Georgia O'Keefe, The Poetry of Things
Unlike Georgia O'Keefe, my own still life drawings are filled with detail. Life is in the details. Details can be infinitely small, often go unnoticed and are over-looked, which is something I care about in relation to objects and to people.
My current series of nature drawings were created with the hard line of pencils, pastels and occasionally with watercolors (when I'm around water). I often choose subjects so filled with minute detail that they become a thing of abstraction. Details are confusing, which is my intention. I appreciate and value the ambiguity, metaphor and poetry that accompanies abstraction. My large paintings are also abstract, but without a lot of detail which acts as a sort of counter balance to the hyper realism of my nature drawings.
Elimination and editing is key, as it is in life. By releasing detail from my paintings I can focus on the essentials which are often spiritual and symbolic. There are hard choices to be made and discipline to be followed (not a popular concept I realize) in the building of a structure and a firm foundation for a life in art.
The drawings in this post and on my art website capture my wild surroundings in the Southern California inland desert valleys, but so too does "My My My Precious Love" pictured at the top, but in a different way. I am at a time and a place in my life (my mid forties) where abstraction calls to me louder than anything else.
The artist must be blind to the distinction between 'recognized' or 'unrecognized' conventions of form, deaf to the transitory teaching and demands of his particular age. He must watch only the trend of the inner need and harken to it's words alone.
Wassily Kandinsky, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, published 1911.
P.S. Select drawings are now available for purchase on my website on a private page. To view these drawings please email me for the password.
Press Enterprise Artist Spotlight: CRABBE FOCUSES ON MIND, BODY, SPIRIT
CRABBE FOCUSES ON MIND, BODY, SPIRIT
BY DANIEL FOSTER AND JILL JONES THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION Published: 08 May 2012 03:43 PM
Artist Kathy Crabbe has chosen to address issues of the mind, body and spirit in her artwork. She uses an intuitive, spontaneous and process oriented approach to her work in a variety of mediums.
Crabbe studied art in Canada where she shaped many of her artistic themes as she studied the female form and women’s studies. She moved to Laguna Beach California and exhibited at the Sawdust Art Festival for seven years. Her work has continued to evolve and embody more humor and playfulness during those years. Living in Southern California also injected a brighter color palette into her work.
In 2000 she moved to Temecula where she now lives and works while she displays her artwork throughout the Southern California region. Throughout During her time in California she has also expanded her studies in printmaking and other media, taking courses and workshops from well known local artists such as Dixon Fish, Helen Shafer Garcia, Amber George and Leslie A. Brown.
In 2008 she started working on a series entitled “Journey into Intimacy” which consists of mixed-media paintings using charcoal, pastels and acrylics applied to smooth surfaces, using both conventional and unorthodox tools and methods. She has been known to use garden rakes, sponges, house painting brushes, fingers and other body parts as she layers and scrapes the surface.
In the “Journey Into Intimacy” series, patterns and symbols are repeated and serve to evoke deep emotions and reverence for the spirituality of nature. “I depict an inner landscape of the senses. Part dream, part yearning and part sacred symbol, the work stems from a holistic perception of the world. Emotions are spiritualized into divine patterns pre-existing in nature — the circle, a seed pod,” states Crabbe.
“Crabbe’s mixed-media paintings and prints are a journey into the forgotten parts of the self; those places, both emotional and physical, that are rejected, neglected, or under-valued in our corporatized and sanitized culture. These neglected places exude a dark kind of beauty and complexity as they form themselves in her work. This work is a foray into sweetness, light and danger all at once. It is deep intimacy — a deliberate mirror and an intent of reclamation. I look forward to following this series,” said Tangerine Bolen, executive director at Revolution Truth.
Crabbe’s BodyPrint Healing series of printmaking includes etchings and monoprints in which she again uses a variety of techniques and methods this time to explore transformative healing through the work.
“Instead of falling victim to pain and suffering, these feelings can instead be transferred onto paper, objectified, transformed and healed,” Crabbe said.
“Kathy’s artwork caught my eye as soon as she arrived at the Mt. San Jacinto College Art Gallery to submit her work for the show I was curating. I was pleased that she brought with her both an etching and a print, representative of a range of her work. The monochrome color palette was both soothing and inviting, and I was beckoned to look more closely at the images to see what they had to say to me. The pieces, both part of the BodyPrint Healing Series, had a lot to say about the healing and release that can be experienced when making art. I was more than pleased to include “V Etch” and “V 1” in Your Face Here: The Modern Self-Portrait and I look forward to seeing Kathy’s art on display in the future,” said Leslie Paprocki, curator, Your Face Here: The Modern Self-Portrait.
Crabbe exhibits extensively throughout Southern California. She is a member of the Plein Air Artists of Riverside (PAAR) and the Printmakers Network at the Riverside Art Museum (PNET) as well as a member of the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony in Temecula.
Crabbe will have work in several upcoming shows including a one day solo show at the Sun City Library on Sunday, May 27, 2012, Art and Earth: My Art, My World at the Murrieta Public Library, Tuesday, May 1 through Saturday, June 30 with an opening reception on Saturday May 5 from 2 to 4 p.m., and she will have an additional solo exhibit at San Marcos Library from Sunday, May 6 to Tuesday, June 24, 2012.
For more information visit the artist’s website at http://KathrynVCrabbe.com Article Source