February 2019: Paula Blackwell & Hanna Traynham

Paula Blackwell has been exploring abstraction, creating mixed media paintings that incorporate complex layers of paint, mark-making, and texture. The resulting paintings are serene and ethereal, and are influenced by color, light and atmosphere. “My current body of work joins my love of gestural calligraphic and flung paint brushwork with several layers of pigmented washes, and hand painted, stamped or stenciled elements characteristic of asian luminaries or lanterns, architectural elements and spheres. From an artist “as creator” viewpoint, each painting is the result of my fascination with what is above, out in the atmosphere, what makes it change in color and feel, and what I imagine could be floating or happening out in space.”

Hanna Traynham knows the value of acceptance. As both a ceramicist and a high school art teacher, she sees beauty in the unplanned, and can enjoy the journey without attachment to the destination. Hanna is passionate about learning, teaching, development and growth. t and help to guide her journey as a ceramicist. Hanna pushes the limits of the material piercing her wheel thrown forms with careful attention to how the piece may alter under the high heat of the firing. Often her work will slump, acquiring an entirely organic movement that occurs only by nature. Her work is a metaphor to life’s unpredictable circumstances. Her fragile forms reveal, with sincere intention, how uncertainties in life most often become something greater than planned