Pond Girl

The Goods

Now THIS is what makes me a very popular woman this time of year…yeah, team Halloween builds a set to wow the smallest child to the oldest senior…but we know it’s all about the candy and toys!
This years helpers were Cody, Bella and Marina…

It’s 9:38pm, I’ve been up working since 8am, and I can’t feel my own feet. BUT Proudly, we are ready to premier the Alien Halloween Scene. One child (who helped decorate the Halloween mobile today) asked what I would be doing the day after Halloween. I told her (with a serious face) I would be in a coma 😉

Raina Colvin

Recently, a friend of a friend (thank you Dan) was introduced to me through the webwaves. I took a look at the work of Raina Colvin through her beautifully designed, totally clean and uncluttered website and found myself immediately ooohing and ahhhing. I thought I would share this talented woman’s gift with all of you, still keeping one foot in the art world, via virtual gallery.

I should let you know I did liberate her biography (heck people…it was already typed!) from her website and the questions came from Red Ravine. (ybonesy and QuoinMonkey are more “Steinbeck” and I tend to lean towards “Bombeck”). Now all I have to do is sit back, enjoy the mesmerizing quality of Raina’s work and delete any spam comments!

Anuvue Studio proudly welcomes the Fine Art of Raina Colvin.

Raina Carman was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Being three months old when her family moved to Southern California, Raina has spent the majority of her life in California. Her interest and skill as an artist was evident from the time she could hold a pencil. As a child Raina found great pleasure in drawing. It was an excellent way for her to learn about the world around her.

At twenty, Raina began her formal education in art at El Camino College. There she found a wonderful community of fellow students and artists eager to develop themselves and their art work. Through this community, Raina found work first as a children’s art instructor. Later she found work as color separator at Morrosstudio making limited edition serigraphs. The process of recreating another artist’s work and analyzing the colors to mix each one for printing was an invaluable experience. After three years, Raina left Morrosstudios to study with several private teachers and to explore her own approach to creating art. This began a time where painting outside in nature was Raina’s passion. The Santa Monica Mountains were a particularly favorite place to roam with her watercolors in her backpack.

In 1993, Raina moved from Redondo Beach to north county San Diego. Establishing her own studio Raina felt it was time to allow her art work to be her own. At this time Raina began to explore her inner landscape, working with mandalas as a template. As her art life developed Raina began a career in the healing arts as a massage therapist and soon began to teach massage at Healing Hands School of Holistic Health. Raina finds great reward and inspiration teaching massage. She feels very blessed to have the ability to paint, draw and express her art freely. Raina is now Raina Carman Colvin and lives with her husband and all their critters in Valley Center, surrounded and shaded by the many oaks that populate their home.

How long have you been painting?

I’ve been drawing ever since I can remember. I started painting in 1982 when I began studying at El Camino College.

1. Transformational Goddess
2. Fluidity
3. Full Breath
4. Radiating Heat
5. Dynamic Balance
6. Oceanids

Mandalas

How has your work evolved over time?

Drawing has always been a way from me to observe the world around me. Throughout my adolesence, drawing was the only way I was interested in expressing myself. As I began college my focus was drawing and painting, working from life. I spent a lot of time in the life drawing studio as well as outside painting plien air with watercolors. After I left college I went to work as a color seperator. This really helped move my understanding of color to a greater level. All the work I did was all by hand, separating the images to be printed and mixing each color. When I left my position as color seperator at Morrosstudios I was very prepared to explore my own vision. I began studying under Don Blaisdell’s in Topanga Canyon. With Don I focused on plein air landscape. This was when I finaly understood watercolor on a visceral level and began painting in ernest in the Santa Monica mountians. My next big leap occurred the following year when in took an “Artist Transformation” course with Linda Jacobson through UCLA extension. I had many eye-opening experiences in this class. I discovered a passion for working with mandalas. By painting mandalas I learned to tap into my subconscious, work with my inner conflicts and look at my internal processes. I began to divide my time working from life and with my inner landscapes.

Who are your influences?

My parents were and are strong individualists who taught me to think and act following my own sensibilities. My teachers at El Camino College and those who I sought out helped me with the mechanics of visual art. They guided me expand my bounderies and grow my understanding. Both my teachers and my life experiences have shaped who I am as a person and as an artist.

Oil Paintings
1. Family Nova
2. Malibu Flood 1

What living artist do you admire most?

I don’t really follow many living artists. I can only think of Alex Grey, Helen Nelson-Reed and Laurie Anderson. Most of the artist I admire are now dead.

What drives your art.

Creating art is the most successful way for me to make sense of the world. When idle I’m restless with a need to create. Art brings me peace. I feel satisfaction when I have communicated my intent. Art is what I use to understand myself and find deeper meanings of the connections that bring us together.

Landscape
1. Old Castle Ranch

What messages are in your art?

I hope to kindle a passion for life, encourage exploration of mysteries, expose how fear shapes our lives and the beauty that is everywhere.

Where do you go for inspiration?

I get inspiration from dreams and life experiences. Sometimes I explore themes like numbers, colors or ideas. Sometimes I just get a bug in my ear to do… whatever.

Innerscapes
1. Green Man
2. Dance of life
3. Three Graces
4. Mysteries of Birth

How old were you when you knew you wanted to be an artist?

As a child with dyslexia I found it painful to be anything else. It was an outlet for my passions and the only thing that earned me praise.

Where do the themes in your work come from?

I work from life because I have a passion for it. I love to commune with nature. I also love to see the underlying patterns that connect us all – numbers, symbols and events. I like to observe the similarities in my experiences of nature, human interaction and whatever else is happening in my life. I choose to be captivated by the magic that surrounds me and express it in my work.

To view more of Raina’s work, please visit her website

To purchase, please see her detailed price list for inventory still available.

Our thanks to Raina for allowing Anuvue to exhibit and share her work and inspiration!

Where Heaven meets Earth

A place in the sun

Anuvue Cordially Invites You

We do sincerely hope to see you all at our next show. Laura Arellano is a multi talented artist who excels in all mediums. We will be showing 20 selections of her work in oil, pastel, charcoal, graphite and water color beginning Nov. 15th. The colors alone are mesmerizing and you will not want to miss this one. In addition to all this creativity, Laura is a very talented dancer, writer and one of the most positive spirits I’ve ever met. Please come out and meet and support this very lovely, gracious woman, whom I’m so very blessed to call friend.

I’m also very pleased to announce that Laura’s show will be accompanied by a young prodigy. We have 16 year old Megan Aikawa, who writes her own music and sings like a song bird, coming to play piano and guitar for your listening enjoyment. This will be her first concert in front of an audience, other than her adoring family and I know she’s ready for the challenge. Please do come out and support her as well.

Party Time

I took a few shots early on as people started arriving for our opening…and then had to put my camera down to eliminate bodily harm in the mayhem. A few people picked it up towards the end and took some of me and my fat cheeks. I wish I had more to show you just how many beautiful people came to see and enjoy the Studio. We had such a great time. Everyone…

Anuvue signage

Visitors and new Friends

Today was visiting day at Anuvue… It gave me unexplainable joy to see some of the Artist’s take a look around for the first time and to meet fellow members. I’m all about having it feel more like a Family of people all trying to create something wonderful together and I could see they all felt the same…that we were all about to embark on a great shared adventure

It was wonderful to see the excitement on their faces as I described the full vision of what is still to come (and describing what’s in my head is never easy). I have to laugh because one of my lifelong friends, Jamie, left me a voice-mail… and it all these years… it was the first time I’ve ever been able to render her speechless… when she saw the classroom she will teach in.. Now that alone was worth it 😉

Meet some new Friends…

Photos (Mostly) by Jim McGill. (He’s the one behind the laptop bag.)

Leona and others

I’ve been asked by several people “How do you find your Artists?”…well…all I can say is “In my travels I find them and they find me”. Sometimes I get the feeling they are being sent to me…at the right place and the right time. It’s not something I question. I accept it as just something meant to be…not sure exactly who’s directing…but I have my suspicions. That’s the truth.

For the last 5 years, when I go anywhere I’ve had a habit of picking up cards. I never knew exactly when I would be able to open a Gallery…I just knew I would. So, for years, I’ve been collecting cards…from Artists. They have to be (of course) talented…but they also have to be friendly, easy going people. I have headaches enough on my own…I’m not interested in having more…so each person’s personality is taken into account. Whenever I stop and see something I like (and think others would too), I ask about it. Depending on the eye contact, the willingness of the person to explain, the light in their eyes and my comfort level around them, I make a decision. Life is short and this is supposed to be fun. I’m easy to talk to so if they aren’t, then it just isn’t for me.

Leona is a perfect example of the right place, right time theory. About 14 months ago while I was traveling with my lovely niece Nicole, we decided to go to Death Valley (the best kept secret I know). Death Valley only has 3 places you can stay at. One, which is ridiculously priced at something like 300.00 bucks a night and 2 older (but still nice and homey) lodge type places right in the heart of the valley. I pulled my jeep up to one of the 2 lodges to go inside and get our room secured. I past a woman sitting on the bench just outside the office. I noticed she was making something and I can never resist watching someone work with their hands. I used to sit for hours and watch my Dad at his drafting table, or tying fishing lures or propagating plants…so the habit has stuck from childhood. It’s probably why I love Artists in general.

When I came out of the office, I plopped my rear down on the bench next to her and asked what she was doing. She was making a basket…and not just any basket but the most intricate little basket I’d ever seen up close! She had some type of large bag with her and she proceeded to take others out. Now I’m not really a basket person. I’m have very techie modern tastes but these baskets were…well they were magnificent! I remember seeing one with some sort of carved turquoise handle on the top while I asked her how she had learned to make them. She told me she learned the craft from her Mother and that her Mother had won awards for her baskets. My heart began to smile.

Well, we talked for a while and then I realized she was a great match for my little Gallery that (at this point) was still in my head. I told her what I had in mind…and I saw that light in her eyes. She gave me a card and I held onto it until I finally found my building. I contacted her and the rest of the story will continue in the Gallery. Oh yes, her Mother…she’ll be a participant too!

Leona sent me a couple of pictures. One is of some of the baskets she and her Mother have made recently. The other is of something I have never seen done in all my life. She makes purses…out of cowboy boots! You have just got to check these thing out!