Brooklyn Bench, embracing fall

Opening tomorrow night at Muriel Guepin Gallery - 6:30-8pm. Stop by if you're around - 83 Orchard Street. Good art, wonderful artists, including Nathan Vincent and Kathy Halper...

My newest addition, below - stitched right up until the installation.

Embroidery, watercolor and applique. 2013. 

Latest embroidered selfie + look out for more images of new work...

Oh, Facebook. We never met, but...

"Visual assault of your Facebook
photos the morning after we
didn't meet. Your flimsy excuses
and unrepentant arrogance.

"Piecing him together from
Facebook and OkCupid photos.
We never met, yet I almost ended
up at his apt one night..."

Embroidery, watercolor, and
appliqué. 2013. 6" x 4.5"

Another piece for my December 13th show with Muriel Guepin Gallery. Stay tuned for opening reception and exhibition details!

A boyfriend for every mood...

Preview of my work for a 2-person show with one of my favorite artists, Nathan Vincent, coming up in December 2013 at Muriel Guepin Gallery - stay tuned!

Aerial View, Cloud City: FiberGraf and the Brooklyn Love Exchange at Muriel Guepin Gallery

Today is the last day to see The Brooklyn Love Exchange and FiberGraf at Muriel Guepin Gallery.

The piece shown here, "Aerial View: Cloud City," involves multiple steps and processes. My FiberGraf collaborator, Jon Baker, and I each worked on it for several months. I started by painting the fabric a medium blue-purple using permanent fabric paint. I deliberately left some of the fabric bare. Jon began drawing on it with fabric markers, and kept going...In between his drawing sessions, I added in French knots, which are denser in some areas than others. I started with embroidery thread that matched the medium dark purple in the background. Later, as I ran out of thread, I started to use my fabric paint to dye grey and light greyish-green thread to match some of the lighter and darker areas of the ground.

We are planning more pieces of this nature, where we mix media and techniques, and work simultaneously and alternately on the same piece.

Intro to Embroidery at Muriel Guepin Gallery

If you are in the NY area, why not spend Wednesdays in July with me at Muriel Guepin Gallery?

Starting July 6th, I'm teaching an Intro to Embroidery class where you will learn basic stitches, and methods for using embroidery as a drawing tool.

The class is four weeks - July 6, 13, 20 and 27, and is from 7-9pm on each of those evenings.

The gallery is located at 47 Bergen Street near Smith Street, convenient to the F/G train to Bergen Street.

Basic supplies included. $200 for the class.

To register, call or email the gallery:

718-858-4535 or contact@murielguepingallery.com.

The only way I'll date you...

More than eye candy, he's the kind of guy I always feel good around. So important to hug him and keep him in my life.

The only way I'll date you is if I like myself even more when we're together than when I'm solo. If I ever have a daughter, I will paint this on her walls or tape it to her mirror.

I wish my dates came with instructions

The myth versus the man

The Affordable Art Fair is this May 5-8 at 7 West 34th Street in Manhattan. I'm stitching like crazy to prepare. Thanks to Muriel Guepin of Muriel Guepin Gallery for representing my work there. I can't wait for this annual show.

Preparing for Affordable Art Fair, NYC, May 5-8

Man in a Crowd moves forward (towards me)

I visited my gallerist today, and she selected some new work, including this piece, "The Man in the Crowd." She and I agreed I needed to visually distinguish one man. I love his tie. I love him (even though he is not the tallest man pictured, and I almost always pick the tallest man in the room).

MTA: Brooklyn's veins and arteries...Get there from here

J train: ReJoice

L train: BeLoved

G: Get going

C: Come on

M: Mystery train

D: Diverge

R: Ride

(c) 2010 Iviva Olenick

Final art-fair ready version of Bygone Brooklyn

Here is the final version of "Brooklyn of a Bygone era." Muriel Guepin, my gallerist (of Muriel Guepin Gallery in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn), thought the piece needed a little more visual information on the top right corner, which I added in as narrative. I also removed the graffiti. I knew she would prefer the sign without it!

The Affordable Art Fair is from May 6-9th in New York City, and I am nearly finished with piece 4, which I will post soon. 

In the meantime, I have been working away at some FiberGraf pieces (check out FiberGraf's blog here) in preparation for an application due this hot minute...I am also set to teach every Saturday in April. More info about that imminently.

The Paper Bride at McNally Jackson Books and Window display at Muriel Guepin Gallery

Esther Smith of Purgatory Pie Press, a collaborative book-making venture with her husband, Dikko Faust, invited me to be a guest artist at a promotional event for her new book, The Paper Bride, which shares step-by-step instructions for using paper left over from our daily lives to create invitations, decorations, and gifts for a wedding. Esther and Dikko teach at numerous New York City arts and crafts venues and universities. Their spirit of creating through collaboration is present in everything they do. 

Last Sunday, on Valentine's day evening at McNally Jackson Books, a lovely bookstore in Nolita, Esther led audience participants in a group project to make a paper garland out of recycled bridal magazine clippings. Later on, I shared my narrative embroidery. I had brought with me fabric, thread, needles, scissors, as well as a framed example of my work. I invited audience members to share with me stories of love and broken hearts. I asked participants to share with me the one sentiment they had wanted to tell a loved one but hadn't. Several young women approached me. As we talked, I shaped their stories into a sentence or two to embroider onto fabric. Working quickly, I made sure to hand each woman her finished piece before the end of the event. 

Thank you, Esther, for inviting me to participate in your event. And thanks to audience members for making it successful by trusting me with your stories.

To purchase The Paper Bride, click here.

Also on Valentine's Day, Muriel Guepin of Muriel Guepin Gallery kindly installed about a dozen of my post-it note pieces in the gallery window. The picture above shows part of the installation. Thanks, Muriel, for creating this display.

Embroidered love notes for VDay at Muriel Guepin Gallery

It's that time of year again: mid-February otherwise known as February 14th or Valentine's Day. 

I believe in honoring the people you love every day. What better way to do so than with an embroidered love note?

I am very pleased to have 13 new post-its, or embroidered notes about contemporary love and dating available at 

Muriel Guepin Gallery

47 Bergen Street, between Smith and Court Streets, Brooklyn. F/G to Bergen Street. 

Open Wednesday-Saturday, 11am-7pm and Sunday 12 noon-5pm.

My pieces are available now through the 14th, and potentially thereafter.

For more info about Muriel Guepin Gallery, click here.

Art review by dating coach, Dr. Paulette Kouffman Sherman

A big thanks to Dr. Paulette Kouffman Sherman for a review of my "Were I So Besotted" artwork on the the New York Love Examiner: http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-2473-NY-Love-Examiner~y2010m2d2-The-Art-of-Dating-Expressing-dating-lessons-through-art.

Paulette is a dating coach and author of "Dating from the Inside Out: How to Use the Law of Attraction in Matters of he Heart."

After seeing my work in Muriel Guepin Gallery in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, Paulette contacted me on Facebook, and we spoke briefly by phone. She then crafted this lovely review.

 

Grand Opening of Muriel Guepin Gallery tonight!

If you're in Brooklyn, or anywhere near the NYC area tonight, Saturday, 1/23, then come to the grand opening of Muriel Guepin Gallery. Easy to get to by taking the F/G train to Bergen Street. You can also take the 2/3, 4, M or R trains to Court Street/Borough Hall and walk on Court to Bergen Street, about 6 blocks. 

Muriel Guepin Gallery

http://www.murielguepingallery.com/

47 Bergen Street between Smith St and Court Street

Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

Tonight's opening features the work of Arpie Gennetian Najarian, Michiyo Ihara, and Paula Overbay. Arpie Gennetian Najarian creates delicate collages with paper and thread. She also has some "punched" drawings, which look as though she used needles to poke holes in paper, and some pieces made with ink. 

Michiyo Ihara is a master at fine detail and hand-drawn symmetries. She creates snowflakes with layers of small images that cohere into a large, drawn doily. Her work is meticulous, precise, and utterly awe-inspiring in its consistency and precision. 

Paula Overbay is a painter whose work has a quiet, celestial feeling. The many dots on a deeply colored ground cohere into abstract patterns that remind me of textile designs. She draws inspiration from her hikes on Mount Hood. Her work is meditative and reflective.

The new gallery space has an open, airy feeling, and retains the warmth of the former Shop Art Gallery space. Wooden floors give it a rustic feel, and full-length glass windows beckon you in from outside.

If you can't make it to tonight's opening, I recommend visiting during regular gallery hours: 

Wednesday-Saturday 11am-7pm 

Sunday 12-5pm

Muriel regularly includes in the gallery the work of the other artists she represents. There are myriad opportunities to discover the work of primarily Brooklyn-based artists, so come on by when you can!