Blind Insect Gallery featuring Russian speaking artists in Portland, Oregon

Three Graces
oil and acrylic on canvas
20x36 inches
2020
Available

BARRIO RUSO: artist block party on NE Alberta

“On July 29th, we are excited to present the third installment of BARRIO, a gathering of culture, sounds, flavors, and art. This month Blind Insect Gallery is featuring Russia. Under the umbrella of Russian-speaking artists, the culture that comes forth is unique and diverse in its roots.

As the third installment of this project, we’re going to feature the artworks by the Russian artists Aleksandra Apocalisse, Igor Snigirev, Inna Pustakhanova, Oksana K, Oleg Kash, Tatyana Ostapenko, Anya Mironets, Goni Na Lyubov, and Yana Golberg.

We will explore the sounds of Russian musician and songwriter Irina Myachkin and dance music with the Dj Zhenya. Fools House Art Collective will be bringing us a uniquely immersive experience via theater. @housefoolofart

This BARRIO We are bringing together the flavors of Russia via a participatory style pot luck. We will be happy to see your version of a Russian tapas to share with the community.

All are welcome to come and explore culture and art with the Blind Insect Gallery. Opening Reception and event runs from 6:30pm - 9:00pm on Thursday, July 29th at Blind Insect Gallery.”

— https://www.instagram.com/p/CRPMhuiB8f-/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

PORTLAND OPEN STUDIOS 2020

Portland Open Studios Tour

This is the first year I am participating in the Portland Open Studios tour. During this city wide annual event that takes place on the second and third weekends of October, more than 100 artists open their studios to the public. Any other year there would be a tour map that sends you all around town to get an intimate look at the creative spaces and processes of the local makers. And you’d discover new neighborhoods and a new favorite coffee shop or a brewpub along the way.

“Connecting with artists in their studios gives you the unique opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of their art and where it comes from”

— https://www.travelportland.com/events/portland-open-studios/

With this year's challenges, the tour had to adapt and go online just like so many other cultural events have already. At first I was pretty bummed because I was so looking forward to welcoming visitors into my space, showing my paintings, talking about my ideas and process. And as the year went on and pretty much all of my art presentation was happening exclusively online, I realized that there are great advantages to a virtual open studio tour.

Advantages of virtual artist studio tours

For one, I could invite my friends and collectors from all over the world to participate. I absolutely love my Portland art community. It has been nurturing and supportive ever since I started my journey as a painter 7 years ago. But I always want to take my art to other places, both nationally and internationally, so what a better opportunity to do it in a novel and intimate format of an open studio tour.

Talk about open: Open to the whole world! I love it.

⁠⠀

Technical Challenges and Solutions

I moved studios just a few months ago and while I love this space, it presents a few challenges. The main one is that there is no natural light. And coming from a large industrial loft with a wall of windows, it's quite a change. There was a lot of trial and error. I finally figured out how to light my work space properly just to discover that what is more than sufficient for painting, is woefully dark for video. 

It feels like an eternity since the last time I installed a show, and I can't wait to get all these small but mighty ladies up on my studio wall. It is so much fun to see them all together.

Installing artwork: A wall of babushkas

I am often so consumed by my projects and ideas, always working toward something new, pushing forward, that I forget to take a step back and take it all in. And installing artwork for this event gave me the opportunity to spend time with all these paintings and just be in their presence. It’s been a great experience, and new ideas and connections I haven’t noticed before emerged as a result.

You might wonder how long it took me to install this wall and honestly I didn’t count the hours, and it didn’t take days. Having curated a gallery for a few years, I have a lot of experience installing shows. My process might appear haphazard, but in reality it’s just a very intuitive approach to artwork installation. I hang shows the way I paint: I respond to the subjects and materials: I don’t think, I just move. And the same way as I am not afraid of mistakes on a painting (there is always more paint!) I am not concerned about trying a layout just to find out it doesn't work (there is always putty for the walls and more nails in the box.)

Here’s a little sneak peek of the Babushka Wall. Please forgive my less than stellar camerawoman skills. I recorded this while picking up the camera on the tripod and moving the whole cumbersome contraption around. Which made me realize something I never thought I would have to do, but: I have to buy a selfie stick for the official IG Live event! Yup, a selfie stick. They have stabilizers, so it will be less bumpy and woozy when I move around the studio.

How shaky is my camera work? 😅

Visit my studio virtually with IG Live

And you can see them all together, from afar and up close and personal if you tune into my IG Live on October 18th at 1pm Pacific Time. I am @postsovietart on Instagram. Here’s a link to my account and if you follow me, you’ll get a notification when the livestream begins.

You have to have an Instagram account to watch the broadcast. If you don’t or aren’t available at that time, send me an email contact@tatyanaostapenko.com and we’ll set you up with your own private studio visit.

But hurry, this orderly and well organized wall of babushkas will descend into the usual chaos of a working artist studio shortly after this Sunday open studio tour. 🙃

Now's the time to schedule a studio visit with your favorite artist

Image credit: Erin Chipps Photography

Do you follow artists on social media, quietly double tap the images, read captions and maybe occasionally leave a comment with a few praise words and emojis? Are you too shy to ask questions, offer your opinion or share how the artist’s works makes you feel just because you don’t think yourself qualified to express opinions about such lofty matters as art?

Guess what? The artists on the other end of this shy dance are shy and insecure as well! Hell, we are shyer and more insecure than most.

The “art world” is designed to feel exclusive and unreachable. It’s exclusive and unreachable for the majority of artists, not just for you.

But I really want you to take the following to heart:

YOU ARE A PART OF THE ART WORLD

Yep, you!

You are here reading an artist’s blog.

Paintings, sculpture and installations  regularly show up on your social media feed. You wish you knew if the artwork you saw this morning was for sale and wish you could afford it, but would never dare to ask for the fear of offending the refined and lofty creature that is the Artist.

You spend time with art, even if only on your phone screen. And you are a part of the conversation and I want to tell you that the artists want to hear what you have to say!

Image credit: Erin Chipps Photography

One way of entering that conversation is through an artist studio visit

Back in the good ol’ days that would mean walking into into a battered warehouse in an industrial part of town, climbing some rickety stairs to get to a suffocatingly hot or a freezing cold raw loft studio to observe this exotic creature, the Artist, in her native habitat.

So let’s make some lemonade from the new crop of pandemic lemons and use our newly acquired teleconferencing skills to bring the studio visit experience to the comfort of our homes without the turpentine fume exposure.

In the last four months I’ve had more studio visits than I had in the prior two years. 

The lockdown has normalized digital meetings and has forced many artists to turn to new ways of presenting our work and engaging with our audiences and art world professionals.

it’s been surprisingly easy, fun and comfortable.  I am not saying that a digital studio visit is better than a real one. However, it does allow a close approximation of the experience. And it’s fantastic for being able to meet artists who live far away from you.  While I hope that one day we can travel as usual, not all of us have the luxury of hopping on a plane just to meet our favorite artist and see their work.

This is what I want you to keep in mind about doing a studio visit:

• Artists WANT to show you their work 

• Artists tend to work alone a lot, they crave interaction and feedback

• You don't have to buy anything! This is an invitation to engage, exchange ideas, and mutual learning and discovery. It is NOT a sales pitch. But if you do fall in love with a piece, feel free to ask whether it’s for sale and the price.

• Your questions aren't stupid. You don't have to be an art historian or an art buff to have an engaging conversation with an artist whose work you find interesting. Art is not some sort of special category that only the select few are allowed into

And if you need a welcoming and easy going studio artist experience to get a taste for it, book one with me!

Just write me a brief message with your preferred dates and times and we’ll connect on a teleconferencing platform of your choice. I am always excited to invite you to my studio.

SCHEDULE YOUR STUDIO VISIT

And here’s a short video of a studio visit I had with a fellow artist, arts educator and podcaster Brainard Carey.

VIRTUAL STUDIO VISIT WITH BRAINARD CAREY

MURAL PAINTING DIARY. PART TWO

Strong and Silent Mural. 10x20 ft. Acrylic and latex on masonry. 2020
Location: SE Alder St between 14th and 15th Avenues, Portland, OR

Say hi to the babushkas, they are finished and here to stay on this Portland wall for the next three years!

Many many thanks to everyone who's supported this project!

It's been an amazing experience. In a way I can't believe I've never worked this large before. It feels so normal and natural now. And all I can think of is where to find another wall to paint ?

I had to take a break for a week because of the rain. A little drizzle isn't a problem for painting a mural, but the downpours we've been having are problematic for applying water soluable paint to an outside wall.

Thoughts and reflections

I am learning yet again that I am an alla prima painter. Not that all my paintings are done in one session, but my approach to making a painting is to move quickly, making changes in response to what is happening on the surface. Plein air painting is like that as well: gotta chase the light while it lasts, make a gesture in one breath.

I am glad that I created a smaller painting first before approaching my first mural, but for my next one I definitely plan on using my normal studio approach of just winging it. The spontaneity and discovery are too important. Also this larger scale and the public nature of the work demands attention also demands much more thorough consideration.

My image selection is the same as my painting process: intuitive and reactive. I don’t consciously consider too much, I intuitively respond to an image that I find compelling. But making something this large and this permanently installed in a public place makes me feel like I need to take a step back and really consider.

I’ve heard it time and time again that most of contemporary figurative painting is about identity politics. I’ve been toeing that line, dancing around it for a while now. But something about putting my work in a public space pushes me to fully admit that it applies to me. I am working with heritage, cultural inheritance, norms and customs passed through socialization and unconscious absorption from the environment. Painting this mural, and especially stepping back and looking at it now that it’s done, brings into focus the need to clarify and put more words to anchor the images I make.

I paint archetypes, I create my own pantheon. But it’s not a particularly diverse one. Perhaps I am a worshiper of a chthonic matriarchal cult of the crone. 

But then I am not a worshiper either. I bring forth to examine and clarify as much as to pay respects and acknowledge. 

More of an archivist really, whose work is both to preserve and critically examine.

Prints are on their way

For those of you who have selected mural design prints as perks:

I am working with a local fine art printer on the print proofs right now. As soon as I sign off on the proofs, I'll have a better idea about the delivery timeline. 

And for those of you who haven't grabbed one yet, or want another one, please claim them soon. I don't want you to miss out on having your own hand signed and numbered limited edition prints just because the campaign is over.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

MURAL PAINTING DIARY. PART ONE

Strong and Silent Mural. Acrylic and latex on masonry. 10x20 ft. 2020
Location: SE Alder St between SE 14th and SE 15th Ave, Portland, OR

First day of mural painting is done!

As always, I was over prepared, bought way more paint, supplies and tools than was necessary.

I anticipated painting on a wall this large to be dramatically different from painting on canvas and it is. It's more fun, faster and easier 🤩

Many thanks to the Portland Street Art Alliance for this wonderful opportunity and for all the support.

Danielle helped me out so much by patiently listening to my over-caffeinated chatter and keeping me organized.
🖼

Thank you Shawna for stopping by to take amazing action shots and making me feel like a star with her multiple flashes firing simultaneously. I am so fortunate to know many fantastically talented photographers in this town. Some of them paid me a visit and took some great action shots. She made me feel like a real star with your multiple flashes going off while I was painting.📸

And Tracy, a wonderful local photographer and film maker I appreciate so much for being patient, asking awesome questions and doing only 3 takes per brushstroke. Tracy is creating a mini documentary about the creating of this mural. He’s been with me at the site almost every day filming me painting and being super supportive and tolerant of my incessant arm waving.
🎥

And much gratitude for all of you who have supported this public art project by cheering me on, sharing it on social media, and contributing to the fundraising campaign. There are still many perks left for you to claim, check them out!

It's been so much fun, but not without challenges

I had a minor meltdown on the morning of the third day.

Really minor, I promise!

Every painting, no matter the size, goes through an ugly, awkward, unlikable stage. It happens consistently, yet it always sneaks up on me and catches me unawares. And the kicker is that it always happens when I think I am doing so well and ploughing through at an increased speed of awesomeness. Haha!

And to be sure, on the morning of the third day, just as soon asI arrived on site, it hit me: this painting, this huge mural, looks horrible and I don't know what I am doing!

🤯

I paced, shuffled paint cans, scowled and ranted about it.

My fellow artists who were working on their murals, graciously listened and offered support. And just like that my disgust and frustration lifted and I got my brushes out and went on to have a super productive day.

Thank you Kyra and Isis! 🥰

That pesky internal critic can get super loud, no matter what type of work we are doing. It's good to let it speak. It usually gets winded and runs out of things to say, especially when there is a kind and receptive audience.

Strong and Silent Mural. Acrylic and latex on masonry. 10x20 ft. 2020
Location: SE Alder St between SE 14th and SE 15th Ave, Portland, OR

GROW OVERWINTERING VEGETABLES IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST: PLANT IN THE SUMMER - EAT ALL WINTER

BETTER THAN THE PRODUCE AISLE

Overwintering chard is seriously off to the races!

So grateful to live in this mild Mediterranean climate where sturdy vegetables can grow through the winter without any special accommodations.

The only tricky thing for winter growing here in Oregon is having to start seeds in the heat of our super dry rainless summer.

I start mine in re-used nursery six packs, keep them in a shady spot and water twice a day until they are ready for transplant. And all the fuss is so worth it because this way I get to eat fresh chard, sprouting broccoli and all manner of collards and kale all through the winter.

It's especially awesome to have fully grown vegetables in the garden at this time of year when we are just planting new crops and the new harvest is still at least a month away.

FRESH CARROTS ALL WINTER LONG

45 pounds of overwintering carrots from one 4x8 ft garden bed.

🥕🥕💪🏾⁠ ⁠

Clearing out the weeds, I mean, erosion control cover crops, and getting ready to sow Korean radish (Kimchi! 🥢) and peas. ⁠ ⁠

I feel so fortunate to have my community garden nearby. Portland is such a fantastic place for growing food year around.⁠ ⁠ Is it warm enough where you are to start spring plantings? ⁠ ⁠ 🌱

FOOD NOT LAWNS

What was your first instinct once you realized just how serious and far reaching this pandemic was going to be? Did you also rush to extend your vegetable growing domain?! ⁠
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My household's response to the impending apocalypse was a run to a lumber store to get rough cut cedar to add extra garden beds to the back yard. ⚒️⁠
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We are glad we did it 4 weeks ago because everyone in our neighborhood had the same idea just a week ago and the store has been sold out for a while now.⁠
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It didn't rain too hard today so we braved extension cords outside and build us two 10 ft by 3 ft garden beds. Not that hard to do, but now I gotta transfer 2 cubic yards of dirt from the driveway to the beds in the back yard. ⁠
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I got a nice new wheelbarrow, but it's still gonna be hard work. But it's so worth it!⁠
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🥕🌱⁠
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What was your first instinct once you realized just how serious and far reaching this pandemic was going to be? Did you also rush to extend your vegetable gr...

Fun Casual Venue, Affordable Art

Happy to work with a new curator

Danielle is an awesome local artist and an avid art collector.  She curates a few casual spaces around Portland, and we just installed 26 of my earlier paintings at one of them, Blackbird Pizza on SE Hawthorne.  Music is loud, pies are solid good, booze is plentiful and there are arcade machines in the back. I love the irreverent spirit of the place and think my work is quite fitting.

I am clearing out my art storage and all older work is half off normal prices during August. I love my paintings but I bet they'll look better on your walls than in my storage.

Pleasant discovery about the past

It was really fun to excavate my painting storage and find some paintings from when I was first starting out. One thing I didn’t expect was to be pleasantly surprised by so many of them. Back when I was beginning to paint in 2012, I was using acrylic paints and felt constantly frustrated by their limitations.  I am fascinated by the freshness and raw quality of gesture and fun daring solutions that elude me now that I have the amazing malleability of oil paint at my disposal. Maybe I should give acrylic another try?

Good Paintings at Deep Discounts

Anyways, despite having rediscovered many good things about my earlier paintings, I have just a few too many and I would rather have you enjoy them on your walls than put them back into storage after the show is done. 

They are up for a month. Go get them.

Are you in town in August? Want to have a drink and talk art with me at Blackbird?

Tell me if you are around and would like to come to a casual artist reception toward the end of the month to hang out with me, ask questions, buy original at seriously low prices. If I get a lot of folks, interested, I’ll set up a reception date.

Thanks!

First Thursday Art Walk, New Art Friends and Good Music

Buying art directly from the artists

I love a good hustle. I love it when people take matters in their own hands and make the thing they want. Nothing against folks who work with established structures and institutions, but there’s something about making it one’s own and on one’s own, that always appeals to me. Maybe it’s my soviet upbringing, the distrust of the institutions and structures. Maybe it’s the suppressed entrepreneurial desire of the generations that came before me, but I sure love seeing artists sell their work directly to public.

A few years back, also during First Thursday Art Walk in the Pearl district in Portland, I came across an artist who was selling small paintings outside of one of the well known galleries. I was immediately taken with the expressive gestures, the edges of representation and rough realism dissolving into a vibrant chaos of vigorous brushwork. My friend and I each bough a painting and kept in touch and watched Charlie’s work develop. Check out more of his work at www.charliejmeyers.com

So I was absolutely thrilled to happen upon another talented entrepreneurial artist who was vending, just like Charlie, setting up paintings on the ground, at the same gallery crawl even the other day. Joanne Gravelin is from Portland, Maine.

She makes fresh and eloquent contemporary landscapes. I absolutely love her use of neon glow colors in combination with a muted palette of bluish grays, subdued lavender and sky blue. I was especially taken with the small works on paper, maybe 4x6 inches. Soft washy surfaces, subtle transitions are juxtaposed with bursts of unnatural and compelling artificial brightness. 

If someone wants to get me a little gift, or ten, you know what I want!

You can find Joanne on Instagram @mylastplaceonearth

Local finger style guitrist Amber Russell

Summer art evenings in Portland aren’t all about visual arts though. Two nights in a row I had a pleasure to cross paths with a wonderful musician who was performing at the rooftop bar at the Society Hotel and then at the art walk the next day. I don’t have a vocabulary to talk about music, I just know she is really good and I absolutely loved her free-flowing style. She is Amber Russell and I can’t wait to hear more.

And I met a fashion twin!

Karin is a clothing designer, she made her wonderful dress and mine was proudly procured from a thrift store in Buffalo, NY some 21 years ago 😊

See more of her work on Instagram @karingraves2

Out with the recent, in with the brand new

I am starting a new series of paintings and I will be sharing my process with you here. I am new to recording a posting video, so please bear with me, I will learn and get better!

As soon as I got all those canvases up on the walls at The Joinery, I got new surfaces up in the studio. Ready to start a new project!

I am still working with my favorite photo content: casual snapshots from the former Soviet Union and post soviet spaces. But now I am treating my references with less reverence by using digital editing tools and fracturing, duplicating and erasing images.

Usually I stay away from digital media. The whole reason abandoned my pursuit of digital photography and became a painter was to get away from the screens. But this process is painterly and I anticipate it allowing for much more freedom and expressive mark-making.

This is a time lapse of the first painting I am making using this digitally altered reference material.

I am brand new to video. I am totally open to all and any suggestions on how to improve it. Tell me how to make it better.

Solo Show at the Joinery

Please join us for an opening reception at the Joinery

on May 23rd, 5-7pm.

About the venue:

The Joinery began as a one-person furniture refurbishing and repair business in 1982. Today we are proud to employ a team of highly skilled people operating with a strong sense of shared values to design, build and sell our furniture. We use time-honored joinery techniques to create masterful pieces in a variety of modern and traditional designs. We challenge ourselves to continually improve, innovate, and create wood furniture that is as functional and durable as it is beautiful. We invite you to drop in to our Portland, Oregon woodshop and watch our craftspeople at work.  

The products you will see here represent only part of our offering. If you need modifications to a standard piece — or you have a vision of something entirely new — we invite you to talk to us: our team will work with you to make sure you get exactly the look, feel and function you had in mind.

Refreshments are provided by the venue and the artist will be present.

The Joinery

922 SW Yamhill St, Portland, OR

OPEN AIR at Multnomah Art Center

OPEN AIR: Solo show at Multnomah Art Center

WHO: Tatyana Ostapenko

WHAT: “Open Air,” paintings

WHERE: MULTNOMAH ARTS CENTER GALLERY

              Multnomah Arts Center

              7688 SW Capitol Hwy

              Portland, OR 97219

WHEN: Exhibit: January 6 – 31, 2017

           Opening Reception: Friday, January 6, 7-9pm

HOURS: Mon-Fri: 9am-9:30pm

             Sat & Sun: 9am-5pm

“Open Air,” an exhibit of paintings by Tatyana Ostapenko, will be on view at the Multnomah Arts Center gallery beginning January 6.  The oils on canvas and wood draw upon the subjects of her post-soviet homeland of Ukraine. They pay homage to the native traditions of realist and social realist painting.  An opening reception will be held in the gallery Friday, January 6, 7-9pm.  The show may be seen through January 31.