Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » Tsilli Pines + Diem Chau + MLHH + Julie Morstad

My good friend and now fellow Portlander, Tsilli Pines, is having a show entitled “The Figures” at Ogle Gallery here in Portland in May (opening May 1st, First Thursday). She has created works using pigment, vintage paper and cotton thread on rice paper, using a simple but prominent palette of red, black and creamy whites. I have a weakness for sewn paper… I love these. I’ll certainly be at the opening to snatch one of them up for myself.

Tsilli is a ‘Jill of all trades’. Photography, design, fashion, you name it. I once sent her a photo I took of birds along a wire in my backyard. A few weeks later, she handed me a pillow she had made with the birds silkscreened onto it, all in browns and olive green. It’s still my favorite pillow.

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I often browse the websites of galleries I love, usually ending up linking to an artist they represent, and then follow their links, and then their links… and it’s always worth the browse. There’s there’s my “spontaneous search mode”, where I just want to see what Google decides to pop up for me. Yesterday I typed in “tiny art”, and up came an image of a person carved into a crayon. I didn’t know it was a crayon at first. I was like, what is that amazing material? Crayola! Diem Chau is now one of my new favorite artists. The small dining sets in tea cups, the porcelain cups with silk and thread-drawn people, the crayon portraits… All very wonderful. I am always in awe and inspired by such works that evoke feelings of patience and serenity, that seem to have been without any effort, but make you wonder how anyone could dream up such an intricate piece. I am so sad I missed her show at OKOK Gallery in Seattle. Take the time to look through her gallery – every piece is even more amazing than the last.

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Here’s a new painting by Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch. I just like typing his name. And I like paintings where the subject is an out of proportion horse (in a good way). Which is probably why I love turn of the century horse paintings, with their heads much to small for the bodies they are painted upon. They have a folk-like, personal charm that goes a long way with me.
(pic: “horse.jpg”)

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I go to the site of Julie Morstad quite often. Her work is light and thoughtful, and oh so clever. It is a goal of mine to own a drawing of hers… One day soon…

amy, i am just loving your guest blog this week. tsilli pines is incredibly creative – i love those crayon sculptures! and julie morstad…wow. i could just spend hours looking at her site!

can’t wait to see what the rest of the week brings!

You can also see more of Julie’s work in a fab book from Drawn & Quarterly – it’s called Milk Teeth.
And she has illustrated the sequel to When You Were Small which will be out soon – it’s called Where You Came From and the drawings of baby Henry are really wonderful.

Hi! I wanted to let you, and your readers know about an upcoming show featuring new work by Julie Morstad at the the Atelier Gallery in Vancouver, BC. It opens on September 4 and runs until the 28th. It will feature 10 new ink and watercolour drawings. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at the gallery….

Thanks!

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