If you haven't met Jess Mickey yet, a sneak peek into her work.

Jess Mickey is our new Co-Director as our capable Marina DiCarlo readies for another State Department posting.  Jess is unafraid to tackle almost any subject.!  From landscapes to portraits, Pets to seascapes she can do it all!  Meet Jess-

"I'm so excited to be the new Co-Director of Gallery Underground!  I have some big shoes to fill, but I believe I am up to the task!  Anytime I put my mind to something, I make it happen!  That is kind of how my art started too. A few years ago, in the process of figuring out what makes me happy, I decided to try a painting class through Arlington Adult Education.

 I've been taking the same class every semester now for 4 & 1/2 years, so I'm a relatively new painter, but it's absolutely become my passion.  Being in a classroom/studio space weekly with other artists inspires me to continue to get better and constantly learn new techniques.

Loving painting is what made me decide to work at the Gallery in the first place, to surround myself with creativity and inspiration, and then when the Co-Director position opened up, I knew I had to have it!  Now, being in the gallery all the time and working alongside art-minded people is another great way for me to grow my body of artwork, utilize my talents, and surround myself with my passions. 

 I couldn't be happier!"

We are happy to have you too, Jess!!!

Jean Stark - Honor & Awareness

March's theme of Perseverance continues as Jean Stark comments-

"This month in the Gallery Underground my work of art is about my parents who are 90 and 91 this year.  "We Dream Only of Love" is about what is left after living a full life.  It is about the transitions we make and the natural world supporting life's changing landscape. 

We Dream Only of Love by Jean Stark

 The difficulty in making this work had more to do with my emotional "therapy" as I worked on the piece.  Coming to terms with the death of parents is deep and heavy work and in this piece I felt very successful in my own desire to give honor to my parents.  This piece brought awareness to me of all elderly people who have given their lives by living them fully and who are still crucially significant as they prepare their way to a transition into another dimension."

Sandi Parker - Trancedent Persistence

TranscendenceI by Sandi Douglas Parker

This month I have a painting at Gallery Underground entitled "Transcendence II" .  Transcendence II began life as Transcendence I.  I was never happy with Trancsendence 1 - I always thought there was too much going on and the colors were too loud. That painting was one of the very early abstracts I did after taking a class from fellow Gallery member Bud Hensgen - I had gotten a feel for abstract, but had not yet found my "voice." I have recently been working on a series of abstract acrylics featuring circles. I thought that all that craziness in Transcendence 1 would work as a great base, so I flipped it on its side and re-worked it using primarily blues. Gone are the reds and turquoises and bright yellows, along with the squares.  What I ended up with is much more in line with the series of circles paintings I have been working on, and also more in line with my current color palette for my abstracts, which I now tend to do with only 2 or 3 colors. When I am long gone and my legacy lives on, I have no doubt that the conservators at the National Gallery will use imaging techniques and reveal that - just like the impressionists - I have painted over a painting that wasn't working!

Sandi Parker

Transcendence II by Sandi Douglas Parker

Marcia Finnerty - Persistence (& a snow shovel) Pays off

Marcia Finnerty tells us :The weather has provided some major obstacles in trying to dig out my kiln and fire my most recent work.  I had to shovel the snow UP and OUT of the basement stairwell leading from my studio to my kiln outside.  So close but yet so far. But the kiln gods have smiled upon my efforts.  When I finally opened the kiln late this afternoon………OMG! This is what I gazed down upon….."

Beautiful Marcia!

Linda Maldonaldo - Limbo plus Focus equals Completion

Linda Maldonado's work is co-featured in this month's Gallery Underground Special "Illuminations" show.  When I asked she if perseverance was a factor she replied that tenacity was always important in your work.  Linda explains -  

Aquascape by Linda Maldonado

"Two of the paintings I brought in for our "Illuminations" show at the Gallery this month are pieces that started out confused and stayed in a limbo phase for some time. I pulled each one out and set out to bring them to successful completion, one way or another. Sometimes the easiest way for me to do that is to pick a composition scheme -- e.g., cruciform for "Aquascape" -- and a limited palette of colors (blues and greens, with black and white accents), and keep working back and forth between collage and acrylic paint. Keeping a clear mental focus helped me enormously to get to the finish line.

All the Earth is Holy Ground by Linda Maldonado

With the second painting, "All the Earth is Holy Ground," the piece started as a warm underpainting with floral intentions. I changed my mind when I found the quote by Christina Rosetti: "Tread softly. All the earth is holy ground" -- and I decided to bring in some blues and use a horizontal orientation with vertical panels. Again, i introduced collage papers and coordinating stamps to create texture and interest, layered with translucent paint to enrich some areas. After several days of thinking and painting, I was pleased with the blend of warm golds and coppers with cool turquoise and dark blues.

For the past few years, I have designed most of my paintings to read well from a distance, and also to reward the viewer who comes closer with details not visible from a distance. I hope I have achieved that with both of these.

Thanks for the opportunity to think out loud about my art."

Laura Clerici - an icon 15 years in the making

We asked our Gallery Underground artist how or if perseverance played into their art making.  Here is our iconographer Laura Clerici's response.

"As for perseverance.....  One of the icons I hope to bring to Gallery Underground is one that was at the National Gallery of Art* it's called the Ustug Annunciation. (ed. note: Laura's work was recently featured at the Museum shop for exhibit Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections ).  I've wanted to work on this image ever since I started painting icons in 1999. 
Although it looks like a simple image, I knew it was not and that I would have to acquire a lot of skill before I undertook it.  Then, about a year ago, we studied it in one of my workshops.  
The green of Gabriel's robe is malachite, and I used it, because I know that Gabriel is usually shown with a blue or green outer robe.  I've seen the original 12th C icon (it's HUGE -- six feet tall), and unlike the photographs you see in books, you can see that there was once was additional color, which seems to have worn off over time."

Laura does her work in the traditional manner working with pigments taken from the earth.  Here is a bit more about the intimidating Malachite. 

Rough Malachite

Origin and History: Malachite is found in many parts of the world in the upper oxidized zones of copper ore deposits.Malachite was first used in Egypt and China. In fact, Egyptians probably used the pigment as eye paint even before the first Egyptian dynasty. In Western China, malachite is found in many paintings from the ninth and tenth centuries. Europeans did not use malachite very much in medieval times, but it was very popular during the Renaissance. However, it had been replaced by synthetic green pigments by about 1800. 
Making the Pigment: The natural mineral is crushed, ground to a chalk-like powder, then washed and levigated--swirled in water to separate the finer particles. 
Artistic Notes: To be useful as a bright green it must be ground coarse, as finely ground renders it too pale.  It is moderately permanent and unaffected by strong light. When used as a paint, malachite's shade also changes with the medium used. As a watercolor, it is a pale green, but it becomes darker in oil. It works better in egg tempera than in oil. (Laura works in egg tempera).

Does a painter need Persistence? Jackie Afram answers

I asked the artists at the Gallery Underground whether they needed to be persistent as an artist.  We got a variety of answers about being tested and thwarted but emerging triumphant in the end.

Our first featured artist Jackie Afram shares that the geometry of a mobile phone shot can sometimes be tricky to capture!   Jackie tells us "These two paintings were done from  cell phone photos a friend took while visiting Paris last fall.  It was difficult to catch all the angles in the Tuileries gardens.  The first is a contrast of Blues and  Yellows and the second a contrast of greens and oranges.

 They are titled "Jardin des Tuileries por Nuit" and "Jardin des Tuileries por Jour".  Since they are done in impressionistic style, I framed them in deep gold frames. "

I am sure the frames set these classical paintings off beautifully!