Christina Altfeld’s Photo & Print Gallery

I made this piece in honor of my dear nephew Dustin Huard who would have turned 31 years old  today.  This is based on a photograph  he took on a job as a Production Assistant.  He aptly named it “Keep Reflecting”  My sister Liz sent me the photo, I changed it over to B&W and eliminated the gray tones.  I then made an etching on a copper plate, hand inked it then hand printed the image onto watercolor paper on an etching press.

This is the first in a series I plan to do utilizing photos as well as Dustin’s  writings.  He was an avid journal writer.  His sister Kristen gave me one of his books he put together with some pretty profound writings.

I have sent this print to my beautiful and brave sister Liz.

Dustin will forever live on in our hearts

I love you.

At the same time that I was in the Buddha Abide Show, I also had a piece in the annual Santa Barbara Printmaker’s Show (of which I am a member) this is on display at the Ojai Art Center on Montgomery Street.  I did something totally different for this show.  I also belong to the Nature Printing Society and attended their annual workshop last year in Santa Barbara.  It was so much fun we did quite a bit of different printing using materials from nature, leaves, flowers, seaweed and fish for gyoko printing.  (I didn’t do that part) It was a lot of fun though.  I did this rather large seaweed print and wanted to enter it to this show.

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Here I am at the Buddha Abide Show opening at the Frameworks Gallery in Santa Barbara with my daughter Mika and Lark Batteau Bailey who puts on the show every year.  This year I submitted two pieces and they were both accepted.  This is my 4th year of participation as I so believe in the work that Lark does. She donates a portion of the sales to Tenzin Lodoe in the Tibetan Children’s Village and the women who are assisted by The Domestic Violence Solutions in Santa Barbara.

Art for a cause! We all love to create art and what a better way to create and be able to donate to a good cause. I’m all for it and I know a lot of other artists are as well. Witness the great turnout.

The show has now been held over due to the ferocious Jesusita fire in  Santa Barbara .  They will have the First Thursday (that was postponed)  this Thursday to again celebrate ART.

Lark did a really clever and fun addition to this year’s event. She had artists submit 5×5 pieces that are sold for only $50, what a great idea. I did 2 pieces for this and loved the size, so now I’m inspired to do a little series in this size.  We’ll see what happens!  .  All the 5×5 pieces were brilliantly displayed by Christi the owner of Frameworks Gallery.

Here is Lark with her fantasmagorical organic succulent strawberries that she served. I was lucky to go home with a basket full, which of course never made it that far as I ate them in the car on the way home they were so yummy!  Kind of reminded me of the wild strawberries we had in Sweden that I ate growing up there.

I have donated one of my limited edition giclees to Heal the Bay

They will be having a fundraiser this evening at the Barker Hanger They do such great work in educating the community and preserving our coastline and beaches.  I hope they do great tonight

This is “Spring Petunia II” printed on fine art water color paper.

This is one of a suite of 3 images.

I just found out that I’m accepted into 2 simultaneous shows.  One is the annual Santa Barbara Printmakers Open show, yeah!  I had some formidable competition and the juror is a fine arts printmaker. It was a little intimidating, but all I can do is what’s in my heart.
The show is at the Faulkner Gallery at the Santa Barbara Library 40 E Anapamu St Santa Barbara, CA 93101.

I will be gallery sitting on Saturday September 13thy from 10AM-2PM. Come by and visit, there is free parking at the adjacent structure.

The other exciting news is that for the first time I entered “The Art of the Book” Show at the San Buena Ventura Artist’s Union Gallery located at 330 South California Street Plaza, Ventura across from the Crown Plaza Hotel, right at the beach.  It’s a great venue and I’m excited to be part of this show.  The opening will be Saturday September 6th and I’ll be there as well,

After taking the summer off, I’m back at printmaking again and - getting ready for the Santa Barbara Printmakers annual Open show.  I spent a whole day and into the evening in my studio last weekend.  I was working on incorporating my intaglio etchings with monotypes as well as chine colle. I know, it may sound like Greek to some of you, but printmakers will know what I’m talking about. After a couple of frustrating hours of trying to make it happen, I finally got it and as I’ve come to find out, magical things happen once we let go and allow it. So once again that’s what occurred, I let go and it happened, I was happy with my print.

My inspiration for the piece that I entered into the juried Santa Barbara Printmakers Show was that of working with the girls at the Aviva Grad House.  I spent a whole weekend in my studio and this is the piece that I entered.

It was with excitement great anticipation that I attended the first Thursday opening event in Santa Barbara at the Gallery 3 East.  As I turned the corner I saw the small red dot indicating a sale. How exciting, someone loved my vision enough to want it in their space.  I was fortunate to meet Jill who purchased the piece. She recounted to me her connection to the framed monotype that I named “All you need is Love”.  It was such an honor to be thanked for creating this piece.

I will never forget the look on the girl’s faces when they entered the gallery and saw for the first time their work displayed on the walls of the Tracy Park Gallery. It was jubilation along with teary eyes for us all. I was so proud of them for their honesty and purity of heart. It was heartwarming to see how proud they were of their work and know that I had somehow made a little difference in their lives. Hopefully it was to be a steppingstone to a more positive self image.

Here they are seeing their work for the first time

I just got back from hanging the girls art work at the gallery. It looks amazing, I think they are going to be quite surprised at the work they did and to see it in a real art gallery. I am honored to have been able to participate as a photography workshop leader to a group of teenage girls at the Aviva Family and Children’s Services. I hope you can join us, it will certainly be a worthwhile evening.

Art Explosion is an exhibit for the community to experience artwork created by some of the children and families participating in Free Arts for Abused Children’s creative expression programs.

Saturday, June 14th
7 to 10pm

TRACY PARK GALLERY
1431 Ocean Avenue
Santa Monica
(between Broadway and Santa Monica)

The theme for this year’s exhibit is
“The Story My Heart Has to Tell…” including sculpture, mixed media, photography and more.
Including a silent auction with artwork from the volunteer artists inspired by their work with the children.

I had a great show in Sedona, sold a couple of pieces. One was a brand new image, I had just made the plate and printed only one print a couple of weeks prior. A nice young man bought it for his wife.

Of course it’s always fun to see Gary and Andrea Smith. Here we are at my artist reception Saturday May 24th.