CRABBE FOCUSES ON MIND, BODY, SPIRIT

BY DANIEL FOSTER AND JILL JONES
THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
Published: 08 May 2012 03:43 PM

Artist Kathryn V. Crabbe has chosen to address issues of the mind, body and spirit in her artwork. She uses an intuitive, spontaneous and process oriented approach to her work in a variety of mediums.

Crabbe studied art in Canada where she shaped many of her artistic themes as she studied the female form and women’s studies. She moved to Laguna Beach California and exhibited at the Sawdust Art Festival for seven years. Her work has continued to evolve and embody more humor and playfulness during those years. Living in Southern California also injected a brighter color palette into her work.

In 2000 she moved to Temecula where she now lives and works while she displays her artwork throughout the Southern California region. Throughout During her time in California she has also expanded her studies in printmaking and other media, taking courses and workshops from well known local artists such as Dixon Fish, Helen Shafer Garcia, Amber George and Leslie A. Brown.

In 2008 she started working on a series entitled “Journey into Intimacy” which consists of mixed-media paintings using charcoal, pastels and acrylics applied to smooth surfaces, using both conventional and unorthodox tools and methods. She has been known to use garden rakes, sponges, house painting brushes, fingers and other body parts as she layers and scrapes the surface.

In the “Journey Into Intimacy” series, patterns and symbols are repeated and serve to evoke deep emotions and reverence for the spirituality of nature. “I depict an inner landscape of the senses. Part dream, part yearning and part sacred symbol, the work stems from a holistic perception of the world. Emotions are spiritualized into divine patterns pre-existing in nature — the circle, a seed pod,” states Crabbe.

“Crabbe’s mixed-media paintings and prints are a journey into the forgotten parts of the self; those places, both emotional and physical, that are rejected, neglected, or under-valued in our corporatized and sanitized culture. These neglected places exude a dark kind of beauty and complexity as they form themselves in her work. This work is a foray into sweetness, light and danger all at once. It is deep intimacy — a deliberate mirror and an intent of reclamation. I look forward to following this series,” said Tangerine Bolen, executive director at Revolution Truth.

Crabbe’s BodyPrint Healing series of printmaking includes etchings and monoprints in which she again uses a variety of techniques and methods this time to explore transformative healing through the work.

“Instead of falling victim to pain and suffering, these feelings can instead be transferred onto paper, objectified, transformed and healed,” Crabbe said.

“Kathy’s artwork caught my eye as soon as she arrived at the Mt. San Jacinto College Art Gallery to submit her work for the show I was curating. I was pleased that she brought with her both an etching and a print, representative of a range of her work. The monochrome color palette was both soothing and inviting, and I was beckoned to look more closely at the images to see what they had to say to me. The pieces, both part of the BodyPrint Healing Series, had a lot to say about the healing and release that can be experienced when making art. I was more than pleased to include “V Etch” and “V 1” in Your Face Here: The Modern Self-Portrait and I look forward to seeing Kathy’s art on display in the future,” said Leslie Paprocki, curator, Your Face Here: The Modern Self-Portrait.

Crabbe exhibits extensively throughout Southern California. She is a member of the Plein Air Artists of Riverside (PAAR) and the Printmakers Network at the Riverside Art Museum (PNET) as well as a member of the Dorland Mountain Arts Colony in Temecula.

Crabbe will have work in several upcoming shows including a one day solo show at the Sun City Library on Sunday, May 27, 2012, Art and Earth: My Art, My World at the Murrieta Public Library, Tuesday, May 1 through Saturday, June 30 with an opening reception on Saturday May 5 from 2 to 4 p.m., and she will have an additional solo exhibit at San Marcos Library from Sunday, May 6 to Tuesday, June 24, 2012.

For more information visit the artist’s website at http://KathrynVCrabbe.com
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Kathy Crabbe, Daffodil & Solara, 2001, watercolor on paper, 8.5 x 11”.

Welcome, with your lovely greenwood choir,
summery month of May for which I long!
~ Welsh, 14th Century

When the gates of Beltaine swing open on May 1, sunlight and blossom welcome the procession of the year into the green halls of summer…we celebrate life, growth, love, and sexuality: “the force that drives the green fuse through the flower,” in the words of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. ~ from Kindling the Celtic Spirit by Mara Freeman

Kathy Crabbe, Willow Goddess, 2000,silk dyes on silk, 8.5 x 11”.

Druidic Sacred Tree
Saille – The Willow
5th Lunar Month
Bird: Hawk
Color: Haze
Gemstone: Blood-Red Carbuncle

Beltane is the 2nd cross-quarterly festival day and is sacred to Sappho, the poet, Fairy Queen Brigid and the goddess Dana. Midway between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice, it celebrates the full blossoming of the spring. At May Eve, the goddess is one of Love and Death such as Freya, Frigg, Holda, Held, Hilde, Goda, and Ostara. Traditionally, this celebration was an orgiastic revel which celebrated the Maiden’s coming of age and the rebirth of flowers and the fertility of the Earth. ~ Paraphrased from Year of Moons, Season of Trees, Mysteries and Rites of Celtic Tree Magic by Pattalee Glass-Koentop

The paintings above are available as originals, prints and cards. Please email me for more information.

More Beltaine Musings can be found here.

Kathy Crabbe, Opening, 2012, pencil on paper, 8.5 x 11”.

I think that what artists do is they invent strategies that allow themselves to see in a way that they haven’t seen before – to extend their vision. ~ Richard Serra, art:21 Art in the Twenty-First Century, Essay by Susan Sollins.

My morning strategy involves drawing outside in order to ‘capture’ the seasons, things that move me, oddities, old tools and other found objects.

Kathy Crabbe, Fallen, 2012, pencil on paper, 8.5 x 11”.

See more here: Drawings

Kathy Crabbe, Skull, 2012, pencil on paper, 8.5 x 11”.

I’m on skull time. This morning while drawing, a roadrunner came very close and I watched as it scooped up a gecko for lunch.

]]> http://www.kathycrabbe.com/2012/04/skull-time/feed/ 0 http://www.kathycrabbe.com/2012/03/cactus-flower/ http://www.kathycrabbe.com/2012/03/cactus-flower/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:06:02 +0000 Kathy Crabbe http://www.kathycrabbe.com/?p=6273

Kathy Crabbe. 2012. Cactus Flower. Pencil on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches.

Kathy Crabbe, Cactus Flower, photo.

“I often think of artists as Vedic scribes or members of monastic orders, who secretly maintain analog technologies, archaic forms of knowledge and alternative ways of being in the world during times when there seems to be no hope, no alternative. With Occupy Wall Street, we see a slight change to bring these anarchic forms of wisdom back into the world. But as is often the case, we are our own greatest enemies.” ~ Erin Sickler, Art & the 99% (Art in America, Jan. 2012)

Kathy Crabbe. 2012. Migra. acrylic, pastel and charcoal on canvas, 48 x 48 inches.

Migra belongs to the Journey into Intimacy Series; an expressionistic, gestural exploration of intimacy expressed through a personal, symbolic language often synaesthetically inspired. This piece takes it name from Santana’s song “Migra” (Supernatural Album). Migra also refers to the Mexican border patrol. That’s interesting because I recently (twice in the last month) have walked over the border to Tiajuana. To me, this painting straddles several worlds, just as I do, having spent the first 26 years of my life in Canada and the last 20 in the United States.

Friends on Facebook shared these comments and title suggestions:

Summer Winds
Looking Within
It’s almost musical!
Ego
Ray of Life
Emerging
Peace Interrupted
The stomach noticed the stomach
Resembles a heart with the aortic artery where the esophagus would be if it was indeed a stomach

Kathryn V. Crabbe. 2012. Crow. Pencil on paper, 8.5 x 11 inches.

Crow Medicine: “All things are born of women.”
from The Greenwood Tarot by Mark Ryan and Chesca Potter.

Kathryn V. Crabbe. 2012. Presence. Acrylic on canvas, 48 x 48 inches.

Love this, like a dream catcher with a pool of tears, vulnerable, pouring out.
Are we under the sea again?
Oyster.
Pearl.

Recently, a painter friend asked me, “What were you thinking as you painted?” and I found myself waxing eloquent, which surprised me because it was the act itself of speaking aloud which helped me understand the ‘why’.

To me, Presence depicts a mystical, other-worldly landscape with an ethereal glowing ‘presence’ or circular object which could represent the moon or the sun. Forcing myself to keep it simple and uncluttered I filled the negative space with a misty blend of creamy whites, smokey greys and aqua.

More paintings from this series can be viewed here.