Blog Posts

Homage to my father

9/16/2013

I found this photo recently, taken by my mother, of my family when we were all much younger. There I am painting away (it looks as though I'm wearing a nice smock along with my cowgirl hat), and it looks as though my father is teaching my brother how to hammer nails. It would have been before I entered second grade. I don't remember the easel – but my dad was a constant.

My father passed away at the end of August. It's still hard to imagine how someone so packed with vitality, good humor, and love could be gone, even though I was with him for much of that last month, and there helping give him hospice care his last two days, after he'd returned home from the hospital.

I found the photograph as I was going through as many photos as my mother was able to dig out, scanning them to make a slide show for his memorial service, which we held this last week. Although I don't remember the easel – which I'm guessing he probably made for me – I remember the patio. Dad built it himself, along with the lattice fence behind us and the arbor overhead. Out of range, to my left, my handprints, along with my brother's and the pawprints of our dog, Nipper, are memorialized in the cement.

Construction wasn't his first priority. Our family was. He was a social worker, for much of his career working for Child Protective Services. He worked with children and families who weren't anywhere near as fortunate as we were, and then he came home, and made sure we all knew we were loved.

He supported me in my choices, whether it was to study Art or English; to sing (he and my mother went to all my concerts); to tell stories or be in plays (they went to all of those, too); to teach high school, though it took me to another part of the state; to make art, this crazy life of creativity I would not be whole without; or to move into Calistoga, this little town I love.

I miss him tremendously; we all do. I was very, very lucky, to have been his daughter. Thank you, Dad.

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In the news!

6/8/2013

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The Napa River Inn and Napa's Grand Hand Gallery held a reception for the four artists (myself included) whose artwork was chosen for the inn's new luxury suites, and we got to see, for the first time, what the suites looked like with our artwork! I'd been looking forward to this for a long time. And Anne Ward Ernst, editor of The Weekly Calistogan, wrote up the story for this week's paper.

It's been an absolute joy working with the gallery and the inn for this project, and to finally see the work in place was the icing on the cake. I'll post some more photos from the afternoon reception, but in the meantime, here's a link to the article....

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Ekphrasis: a story of inspiration

4/15/2013

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Yvonne Henry is the genius behind the Ekphrasis show, which continues at the Calistoga Art Center through Saturday, April 20th, from 1 to 5 p.m each day. Her idea - what would happen if you combined a photographer with someone working in another medium, and the second artist began with a photograph from the first artist as the inspiration to create something new? Hence, Sharolyn Townsend's wonderful drawing, using Michelangelo as inspiration (one work of art begets another)....

Yvonne presented the idea at the Calistoga Camera Club show late last year, and artists and photographers began pairing up. I was absolutely blessed to be able to work with Wes Thollander, whose photography I have long admired.

But in my case the inspiration works in multiple ways....

Bug Haiku - illustrations by Earl Thollander

Long before I met Wes, I knew of his father, artist Earl Thollander. Wes's and my grandparents were friends – Swedes in Cloverdale, a small Sonoma County town with a reasonably good-sized Swedish community. After my grandparents moved to Santa Rosa, Wes's grandparents would visit whenever they came down to Santa Rosa, and Earl would drive them. My grandmother would tell me about Earl, and he autographed a copy of Bug Haiku for me.

Back Roads of California and Barns of California, by Earl Thollander - two books which began what became a series of books of his sketches of the back roads of America

I loved the way he drew - with a freshness of vision, originality, and humor that inspired me. I was a drawer, too (it was many years before I thought of myself as a painter), and I was enchanted by his work. Such beautiful lines! (Oh, what he could do with a bamboo pen!) When Back Roads of California, and later Barns of California came out, I loved looking through them.

Wes, as it turned out, was accompanying his father on some of those sketching trips, and photographing the scenes they found – the beginnings of his photographic career.

It was not easy to choose only one of Wes's photographs as my inspiration – his work is profoundly beautiful. I narrowed it down to two images, but kept leaning to the one you see on the left, Mund Road. The trees twisting their way up to find the light, and the light streaming down to the forest floor, create a magical scene.

I wanted to give a sense of those trees nearly dancing in their places, and the light filtering in between them. I used to live in a forest – Wes and his family live in one, too – and there is something about it that feels magical and reverential.

I wanted to begin with Wes's composition, which required subtle shifts to make the painting work, because the canvas's proportions were different. Some people might have found that direction too literal, but that was part of what I so loved about it. I wanted to work with the image in black and white, so the painting could find its own color. It feels to me that it still wants more color – so I may see where else it may want to take me after the show. But I love the dancing of the trees – I think we caught them behaving as though unobserved, celebrating? – perhaps conversing? - in the circle of the light.

I am absolutely honored to have Wes's photograph as my inspiration for this show, just as his father's drawings have inspired me for so many years. There's a wonderful circularity about it, even though I never got to meet Earl. I just know my grandmother is up there smiling....

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A great review!

4/1/2013

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A five-star review for the Napa River Inn, taking special notice of my artwork! Barb and Barbara called the Calistoga Art Center to confirm the time, and then joined us for class. It happened to be on a day when my students had asked for a demonstration. I'd begun the painting the week before, and worked on it while we talked about it and the process of painting during the class. We had a wonderful time – but how particularly nice it was that they mentioned it in their review of their time at the Inn!

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Taste of Yountville 2013 - II

3/19/2013

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Artist Karen Lynn Ingalls, in front of some of her paintings of rural California, at Taste of Yountville 2013 • photo by NVOS artist Marylou Schingler

What a wonderful weekend! The weather couldn't have been better, and the town of Yountville and Yountville Arts pulled out all the stops to create an event – Taste of Yountville – that drew thousands of people from all over. And many of those people stopped in to look at the artwork of Napa Valley Open Studios artists, in the special exhibition we have presented annually for three years now.

Paintings of Karen Lynn Ingalls at Taste of Yountville 2013

This is the only place where you can see so much work in one place by many of the artists of Napa Valley Open Studios. This year, Yountville Arts added special lighting to a second large room, giving us two exhibition spaces and extra room for each of us to present our work.

Paintings of Karen Lynn Ingalls at Taste of Yountville 2013

One reason I enjoy the weekend is that it brings new people to see our work, people who may not have heard of Napa Valley Open Studios before, or met any of the artists who live here in the Napa Valley. We have a chance to meet and talk with them, sharing what we do and love, and, in my case, sharing what I love about this place that makes is special to me.

Paintings of Karen Lynn Ingalls at Taste of Yountville 2013

With the extra space, I was able not only to hang more paintings than before, but to put them together with more of a gallery-setting eye, hanging them with work of a similar palette, or with work that was similarly framed.

Painting demonstration set-up at Taste of Yountville 2013 • photo © Karen Lynn Ingalls

This year several of us also gave demonstrations. Although it is challenging to engage in conversation and make any real progress on a painting at the same time, I gave it the old college try. I set up my plein air easel and a table with all my materials, and went to work on a painting whenever I had an opportunity.

It was a wonderful weekend, altogether. I sold four paintings, as well as some small matted reproductions, met some delightful new people, and got to visit and talk about art and the Napa Valley with all the visitors, friends, acquaintances, and family (including my cousins, newly arrived from Sweden!) who were able to stop by. My thanks to all of them (especially the people who loved my paintings enough to take them home)! And my thanks to Napa Valley Open Studios and Yountville Arts for all they do to share our artwork with the community of both locals and visitors!

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Taste of Yountville 2013

3/11/2013

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I'm looking forward to this next weekend's show at Taste of Yountville, with my other Napa Valley Open Studios colleagues. The opening reception is Friday night, March 15, from 5 to 7 p.m., in the Yountville Community Center, from 10 to 5 on Saturday the 16th, and from 11 to 4 on Sunday the 17th. I'll also be giving a demonstration on Saturday and Sunday.

So I've been working on new paintings to debut at the show, including Mustard and Mt. St. Helena, which you can see in process in my previous two blog posts (I'll post the final stages later).

I'll also bring The Colors of Dawn, above. It began one morning at dawn, a few years back, when I lived at a ranch across the road from my current home. Perched higher on the ridge top, we had a perfect view of the back of Diamond Mountain – and on this morning, the colors of the light suffused a layer of ground fog behind the trees on the next hill with a radiant apricot–colored glow.

I began this painting as a workshop demonstration piece, and brought it to a degree of completion later, but something wasn't quite gelling. I've come back to it this week, recognizing what it needed now that I couldn't see before, and this is the result. Sometimes paintings just take as long as they need to take before they're all grown up....

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Mustard and Mt. St. Helena in process - II

2/28/2013

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I've continued working on Mustard and Mt. St. Helena some more tonight – it's developing! Each successive layer brings a little more fine tuning.

You can see here how, besides the evolution of the sky, there's more development of the details of mustard flowers in the foreground and the purpley winter vines behind them. But I'm not done yet. The joy is in the process... it's as much a process of discovery as anything else.

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Mustard and Mt. St. Helena in process

2/26/2013

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Mt. St. Helena rises above the Napa Valley floor just north of Calistoga. This field is part of an old farm called The Yellow Rose, on the upper edge of town. Every year the field is filled with mustard flowers, and the winter vines of the vineyard behind them looks vaguely purpley. I've painted it before, in a different, cooler, palette, and a very different size - 36"x48", in contrast to this small 8"x10" painting on panel.

Mustard and Mt. St. Helena is another one of the small paintings on panels I'm working on for my show at Taste of Yountville in three weeks. I begin with the basic composition, then with blocking in the large areas of color.

It's a process of painting successive layers of color, with each layer underneath influencing what's on top of it, and breaking down the large areas into smaller and smaller levels of detail with each layer.

One of the things I appreciate about painting with acrylics is that its quicker drying process makes layering so wonderful, and enables me to leave bits and pieces of the painting underneath, as I continue painting new layers.

There's still more to come!

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Ridgetop Vineyard

2/24/2013

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Time is flying by – and the Napa Valley Open Studios show at Taste of Yountville is only a few weeks away. I have so much work to finish! I have somewhere between half a dozen and ten pieces in process. To mis-paraphrase Samuel Johnson*, deadlines do concentrate the mind wonderfully....

Ridgetop Vineyard is painted of a view just down the road from my home, where vineyards line either side of the road down to Calistoga.

* As Samuel Johnson actually said, "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." Preparing for a show is quite a different sort of hanging altogether!

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