"Intelligent Life" at Twilight Gallery

"Intelligent Life: New Work by Laura Allen"

Nov. 10, 2016 - December 4, 2016

Twilight Gallery, West Seattle

Opening Reception: Nov. 10, 6 - 9 p.m.

Exciting news: my work will be featured in November at Twilight Gallery, West Seattle's own "...independent, woman-owned and operated art gallery and jewelry boutique. We cultivate and champion women and LGBTQ independent artists and designers, featuring contemporary art, eclectic designs and one of a kind handmade pieces from around the world." Owner and curator Tracy Cllona has an eye for Seattle's best female artists, and I am honored to be included among them.

 

For more information: 

"Intelligent Life" on Facebook

New Class at Seattle Recreative: Mixed Media in 3D



Starting in January, I'll be leading a new mixed media workshop at Seattle Recreative. 

This funky little Greenwood shop is a hidden treasure trove of (cheap!) second-use art materials: collage papers, assemblage odds and ends, previously unloved art supplies, and more. I'm excited to lead two four-week workshops on basic to intermediate assemblage and three-dimensional collage.

We'll work hands-on with:

  • elements of 3D design
  • theme, mood, and intent/function
  • assemblage techniques
  • textures and finishes
  • and more


Materials will be gleaned from Seattle Recreative's awesome hoard, but you're welcome to bring along some of your own if they're meaningful to you.

Classes will run Wednesdays from 6 to 8, January 6 to 27 and then again from February 3 to 24. Here's a link for more info and registration.

Oh, and Seattle Recreative accepts donations too....




Accretion

 Just checking in with a few new pieces...

...I draw and I paint and I do various things, but nothing makes me happier than creative accretion....

 "...I've discovered similar elements among works as varied as a sonnet or a series of assemblage sculptures: a love of fantastical, ambiguous narration and shifting frames of reference; a reliance on synchronicitous accident and stream-of-consciousness process; and a delight in repeated layers of time, wit, and image...."

New Work: A Planetary Series

 It should come as no real surprise to those of you who know me: science was my first love. If I had known at the time just how creative a science career could be, I might have channeled all my artistic energy into something like genetic engineering and stuck with my original biology track. As it stood, though, I couldn't stand not making new things. So I kept writing and making art instead.






I don't regret it. Much. But I am still preoccupied with all things biological, geological, astronomical, physical. I've been told that I can consume more science fiction in a month than the entire staff of the NY Review of SF. I read entomological field guides for fun, and when I paint, I paint to Sean Carroll physics lectures; cosmology is all the music I need.

And when a new abstract series starts to take on decided tones of strange, alien geology, I am very happy. As these new pieces emerged, I worked to develop those exoplanetary overtones: the unfamiliar strata, the unusual chemical colors of the sky and sea, the variable texture of the alien atmospheres.

(The piece below, "Blue Planet 3", will be included in Verum Ultimatum's juried exhibition 'Abstract Catalyst' in Portland in September/October 2015.)






Simulation Theory, Sexbots, and Sweet Potatoes

Long-exposure photo by artist Bruce Bischoff


Since I haven't posted anything in weeks, I thought I'd pop in and add, at the very least, a newsy sort of update.

Speculative literature journal Strange Horizons has published one of my poems, "Heirarch." This one comes from a series of posthuman poems that's been in progress for...well, for a long long time. Maybe it's not a series. Maybe I just like posthuman/Singularity/upload/simulation theory themes enough to keep writing about them.


And on that note, I have two other poems out now, too. The Canadian feminist literary journal S/tick will be publishing "Peeling Sweet Potatoes" and "GirlsGirlsGirls" in their upcoming issue, but both are also available online here. "GirlsGirlsGirls" grew out of the same posthuman roots as "Heirarch." How will our tools feel about us?

The sweet potato poem? Probably not technological at all, or is so only in its reference to a paring knife, that most perfect of manmade augments.

Another of Bruce Bischoff's "Bronson Caves" series