EXHIBITIONS
Cultural Currency:
Contemporary Art from the Riemer Collection
Loveland Museum
Loveland, CO
January 27 - April 2, 2024
Several pieces from my Lucre series are featured in Cultural Currency: Contemporary Art from the Riemer Collection. This traveling exhibition originated at the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, and will travel to a number of museums through mid-2026.
RECENT ACQUISITIONS
Jewish Science
Bisexual-Behavior-Pattern
Two of my books have been acquired by the prestigious Cynthia Sears Artist’s Book Collection, housed in the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art on Bainbridge Island, WA. Jewish Science is a series of ten altered Christian Science-like pamphlets in which large portions of the text are excised to reveal a skeptical, irreverent philosophy. Images from diverse sources peek through the excised portions as though through Venetian blinds. Bisexual Behavior Patterns tells another iconoclastic story, that of an unnamed bisexual woman attempting to date lesbians back in the day before gender was as fluid as it is now. Images are taken from Radio Electronics magazines from the 1950s, text written by that anonymous bisexual woman.
RECENT COMMISSIONS
Perennial
The Mather Tysons Senior Living Community
McLean, VA
It’s always rewarding to create a piece for an eldercare facility. Thirty years of my working life were spent teaching art to elders, so I have a strong emotional tie to this type of venue. Perennial was made for the memory care part of the facility, so I chose easily understandable images and text to engage both residents and visitors.
Dorian's Rose
The Dorian #2
Calgary, Canada
This commission, for a Victorian-themed hospitality venue,
stipulated three elements: that the piece be made from vintage
copies of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, that the
overall shape be the Alberta Rose, the provincial flower of
Alberta, and that, although a wall piece, it needed to be
sculptural. I love working within these types of limitations.
Using six different copies of the book, I made Dorian’s Rose
from both the pages and the covers of the classic novel.
More commissions examples →
East Meets West
Raffles Boston
Boston, MA
Given the theme of East Meets West for a hospitality venue, I created fourteen patinated copper pieces which use asemic text, both horizontal and vertical, in the form of punctured holes made with a sewing machine. Manipulated safety pins are an additional element in some of the pieces.
More commissions examples →
MENTORING & CRITIQUE
I work one-on-one with many artists in my Coaching/Mentorship Program, an outgrowth of decades of mentoring graduate students in local colleges and universities. The program is tailored to the needs of each artist and includes six one-hour meetings or the equivalent to be completed within six months.
Artists use their coaching/mentorship sessions for critique and career development, as well as issues related to maintaining a consistent studio practice.
For artists who live outside of the San Francisco Bay Area, mentorships are available via Zoom.
Read more →
BLOG FROM URUGUAY
Patinated copper, watch springs
10 x 11.75 x 1 inches, 2021
My work featured on El Hurgador: Arte en la Red, a blog from Uruguay. A bilingual Spanish/English mini-survey of work from The Wordless Library, books made of copper with asemic text.
Read more →
VIDEO
Territory
A short video of Territory by Lia Roozendaal. Territory, part of the Raw Edge series, measures 49 x 80 inches, and is made of reclaimed fiber, scraps and failure fragments rescued from the studio floor.A commission I recently made.
Community Health Innovations (CHI)
Montage Health/Community Hospital of the
Monterey Peninsula, Monterey, CA
I received a large commission for the new Montage Health/Community Hospital in Monterey, CA. Nature Library will be viewed from both sides in a beautifully constructed Plexiglas box. The piece is the result of countless hunting and gathering forays to find discarded books at the local recycling center and is composed of dozens of book cloth covers from a wide variety of sources. It was a true pleasure to make the piece, knowing that it will contribute to a feeling of well-being and tranquility as people “read” the bits of text while waiting to see their doctor.
My photographer, Lia Roozendaal, made a video of the process from beginning to end titled Nature Library Enjoy!