PRIDE POP-UP at TINY TOWN GALLERY Sept 29th and 30th

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I’ll be showing at Tiny Town Gallery* 408 N. 4th Ave. during Tucson Pride’s 40th Anniversary celebration (Pride on Parade on 4th Ave. starting at 7pm on Friday, Pride in the Park at Reid Park from noon to 9pm on Sunday).

PLEASE JOIN ME FOR A RECEPTION AT TINY TOWN ON SATURDAY FROM 5:30PM to 7PM

I will be donating 10% of my sales to The Montrose Center’s HURRICANE HARVEY LGBTQ DISASTER RELIEF FUND. To donate directly go to https://my.reason2race.com/DNicol/HurricaneHarveyLGBTQDisasterReliefFund2017

* Tiny Town Surplus and Gallery will be open from noon to 9pm Fri. And Sat.

I make joyful 2D and installation art to counter cruelty in the world. My paintings, installations, and encaustics, assert that, even at this time, the ideals of tenderness and compassion serve as the foundation of a prosperous society. My work transcends boundaries between critical ideas and lighthearted forms. My intention is to create a fearless environment to contemplate politically charged imagery– guns, rainbows, plant life and reproductive organs that can be read as male, female, or both. I hope that experiencing familiar impulses in unexpected surroundings will educate our emotions and influence a comprehensive reconsideration of how we see ourselves, each other and the world.

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GIVE LOVE: AUTOPOIESES RECEPTION AND BENIFIT FOR CASA LIBRE $5 VIRTUAL OR IN PERSON WINNERS’ CHOICE RAFFLE TICKETS

Please join me SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21 at 8pm for a RECEPTION and WINNERS’ CHOICE RAFFLE At CHE’S LOUNGE
350 N 4th Ave, Tucson, Arizona 85705. 100% of the proceeds go to benefit CASA LIBRE; raffle tickets are $5 AND ARE AVAILABLE IN PERSON AND AT CASA EVENTS IN FEBRUARY OR ON LINE AT casalibre.org. Winners need not be present or may choose a work on display to take home that night. There will be no charge to mail prizes to locations outside of Tucson.

The mission of Casa Libre en la Solana is to cultivate and enrich a vibrant community of writers and artists through the invention, presentation, and appreciation of creative work.
Casa Libre provides- a venue for classes, residencies, readings and workshops, opportunities to artists by offering the resources and support they need to make their artistic dreams a reality and offers space for other community events related to arts and letters.

Casa Libre has these previous works in my Autopoiesis series on display.

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A generous portion of the sale of any of these works will be donated to Casa as well.

Raffle Prizes
One intaglio print
One 3″x3″ acrylic or mixed media on canvas
One 3″x3″ or 6″x6″ acrylic or mixed media on canvas or pine
One encaustic or acrylic or mixed medium of any size

Please see the slideshow below or visit valyntinagrenier.com to view potential prizes.

Work will be on display through February
Cafe Passe is at 415 N. Fourth Ave. Tucson, AZ 85705
Su-W 8 am – 8 pm
Th-Sa 8 am – 10 pm

Casa Libre is at 228 N. 4th Ave.
Tucson, AZ 85705

AUTOPOIESES at Cafe Passe January|February 2015

Please join me SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 21 at 8pm for a RECEPTION and WINNERS’ CHOICE RAFFLE. 100% of the proceeds go to benefit CASA LIBRE; raffle tickets are $5. Winners need not be present or may choose a work on display to take home that night.

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Interview by Jane Miller

JM: What is autopoiesis?

VG: Autopoiesis is a scientific term that describes the paradox that, in order for beings to be autonomous, they need to obtain resources from their environment. It plays out in these works metaphorically in the relationship of the pieces to each other, and in the way the viewer interacts with the pieces.

JM: What are the advantages to working in a small format?

VG: I can produce a lot of pieces that I can sell affordably.

The size gives me an opportunity to move back and forth, which inspires new combinations of forms and methods. In this case, I worked with oil paint in the encaustics, and I painted with acrylic, water, polyurethane, and some special mineral pigments from Peru; the look of the pigments, when sprinkled as dust and then wetted, inspired me to use oil paint over the encaustics to create some similar effects.

JM: Do you encourage your encaustic pieces to imitate sculpture?

VG: Definitely. I use sculpting tools when I make them. Pottery tools, dentistry tools, too. Also, many of the encaustic techniques imitate intaglio printmaking – similar to the way one etches lines in a metal plate, I start with a well of encaustic medium and carve the figures into it. Instead of using ink, I use medium in different colors to create an image or story.

JM: Your work seems to use both figurative and abstract elements. Do you see a relationship there, or do you experience those forms separately?

VG: I would call this series abstract symbolism, meaning my figures are less literal and more symbolic – some viewers experience the shapes as human, others as plants, etc.

JM: Your themes are often dark but your color palette is bright. Do you care to comment on that seeming disparity?

VG: I have seen that in other series I’ve done, but in this current body of work even the black, while literally “dark,” has bright, airy figures who are doing things, lively things, together at night. So I would say it is simply night, rather than describe the black backgrounds as emotionally heavy. No one’s alone, everyone’s with someone having a good time.

Café Passé is at 415 N. Fourth Ave. Tucson, AZ 85705

Su-W 8 am – 8 pm
Th-Sa 8 am – 10 pm

LA DREAMING

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TRICKHOUSE LIVE at Casa Libre celebrates: at the intersection of 3, THIS SATURDAY NIGHT!

Jill Darling, Hannah Ensor, and Laura Wetherington will be reading from at the intersection of 3. They have chosen my painting NINE CIRCLES MAKE A RAINBOW AND A TARGET  for the cover.This is a very special event – a chapbook pre-release reading and celebration! These 3 put their very smart (and equally charming) brains together and made a thing and now we get to experience the wonder of it!

Saturday, April 12
7-9 p.m.
$5 Suggested Donation

Trickhouse Live is an integrative arts series that brings together people working with words, images, sounds, videos, and performances. The series serves as a venue for visiting artists to interact with local artists and for the borders between genres and media to be permeable. Trickhouse Live is a physical world extension of the online cross-genre arts journal, Trickhouse.org, which is based in Tucson.

TUCSON OPEN STUDIOS Saturday and Sunday, April 12th and 13th, 11am-5pm

When you are out and about at Tucson Open Studios, stop by Splinter Brothers and Sisters Warehouse to see Fred Soto at Fred’s Custom Stretching. Fred is showing my work and the work of several other artists. He  does all my stretching and framing as well as makes substrates for my encaustic art, and he deals in supplies. My work on display is discounted from online prices.

Splinter Brother’s is at 901 N. 13th Ave.

ANNOTHER SUNNY DAY AT CAFE PASSE

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ANOTHER SUNNY DAY IN THE DESERT | MARCH 3 – APRIL 30 | CAFE PASSE | 85705

I owe the title of this series to my sex-same partner, who often opens the shade of a morning and exclaims, “It’s another sunny day in the desert.”  The phrase can be understood as a point of fact, irony, or wonder.  In a state that votes discrimination into law with such Senate bills as the federally-disputed SB 1070, and that narrowly vetoed SB 1062, which would have legalized a faith-based right to refuse service to assumed members of the LGBTQ community, it doesn’t always feel like a sunny day.

So much behavior comes from, and makes for, heavy hearts. To oppose fear and hatred, I am compelled to expose and explore with light-heartedness and whimsy.  It is important to me to bring heavy subjects to “light.”

The master images for ANOTHER SUNNY DAY IN THE DESERT exist as light.  Reading about David Hockney’s use of iPhone technology to make art led me to explore the drawing applications available on my iPhone. I settled on Green Gar’s Whiteboard app.  I began making digital paintings in 2012 at local businesses, and outdoors at home of an evening or afternoon.

My use of color was greatly expanded by working with a digital palate.  It was a delight to match colors in encaustic and acrylic with the digital colors.  Each encaustic or acrylic corresponds to a digital fingerpainting and is one of a kind. Translating digital images into encaustic art required me to use tools in new ways. Previously I relied on incising, using paintbrushes to fill incisions, but with these pieces, I also used the brushes to paint.  Next, I used a heat gun to move and to fuse the layers that I’d painted on. The process of moving back and forth between ultra-contemporary and ancient techniques is liberating.

The prints are produced in a range of sizes, with a maximum of 5 images per size and a maximum of 25 prints per image.

All works are discounted for purchase during the exhibit. If you would like to take a piece home today, Café Passe will accept cash on my behalf. If you would like to pay with a credit card ($5.00 processing fee on purchases of $100 or less) via PayPal, please contact me.

Thank you to Betts Printing and Fred’s Custom Stretching.

LOTS OF NEW WORK DUE TO DEBUT IN MARCH

ANOTHER SUNNY DAY IN THE DESERT showing MARCH 3 – APRIL 30 at CAFE PASSE and at BENTLEY’S MARCH 15 – APRIL 15

DON’T SHOOT showing at FemArts: ART INSTALLATIONS BY WOMEN ARTISTS Hosted by Dinnerware Artspace FRIDAY MARCH 7th 6-9pm THE STEINFELD WAREHOUSE | 101 West Sixth Street | 85701

FLAGS PROJECT

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With these series of flags I am working w/ Peruvian mineral paints I brought home from the Pisac market in the Sacred Valley. The paper is 140lb watercolor paper from a roll and sheets of Canson printing paper.  I brush the blank paper w/ h2o then sprinkle on the mineral powder and use a squirt bottle to spray the pigments and paper w/ a mixture of Dr. Bronner’s mint soap. Then I use a monoprint-inspired technique by laying another damp sheet on top and rolling a wooden dowel back and forth over the stack. I add and remove strips of painters tape throughout the process as well as a bit of acrylic paint here and there. I also favored a variety of metal scraping tools over brushes to add texture.

FemArts TUCSON