The Studio Tour is back after a two-year forced hiatus! This is the third of four articles in honor of the Tour’s 20th anniversary, each featuring 3 of the 37 artists participating on the tour.
Delbar Azari is a multi-disciplinary artist with over 25 years of experience. Throughout her career, she has utilized many mediums and techniques, including oils, acrylics, ceramics, and photography. Currently her materials are primarily acrylics and epoxy resin.
Azari’s works in both figurative and abstract modes but there is a strong thread of continuity that runs through her works: the rhythm of nature, the undulating ocean, the clear blue of Southern California’s skies and the dramatic light of sunsets and sunrises that the artist experiences from her Pacific Palisades home.
Delbar has worked with private collectors and commercial entities on numerous site-specific, commissioned pieces both in the U.S. and abroad.
Delbar will be showing at the home of Zo Frampton, with her drawings. Zo was profiled in our first Studio Tour Artist column in April
Online:
https://www.delbarartstudio.com
Carole Carpenter has been a silk artist, painting with fabric dye on silk for the past 15 years. Carpenter paints landscapes, animals, flowers and abstractions. She has recently combined a few of her paintings and digitally printed bamboo fabric to create clothing. She describes working on silk as being like painting with watercolors; expressing light in each piece is paramount. She employs various techniques ranging from applying spray starch, wax or gutta-percha (coagulated latex of Malaysian trees), to control the dye from flowing or mixing. Carpenter teaches the entire process in her classes, including stretching the silk, drawing the image, applying the resist and dyes, steaming the painted silk to set the dye, and mounting the silk on canvas before framing.
Carpenter will be showing her silk paintings and clothing created from those images. She is joined at her home overlooking the state park by four other artists: Kit Plumridge, showing his plein air oils; Patrick Ramsey, with his people-focused photography; Sari Scheer, presenting post-consumer glass sculptures and jewelry; and Idelle Okman Tyzbir, with watercolor images.
Online:
https://www.carolecarpenterart.com
https://www.IdelleOkmanTyzbir.com
Matt Doolin creates predominantly in ceramics but also employs wood, and metal in his works. Painting and drawing are almost always part of his process as well.
At his Studio Tour location Doolin will be presenting sculptural artwork that addresses social issues which could be considered more controversial than his usual work. This will be balanced with other work, including some sculpture and wall art, with a more optimistic bent.
A native to Topanga, Doolin is the child of parents who were also artists and had a positive influence on the artist’s approach to his life and art.
“Drawing and painting was the mode of communication that seemed the most obvious to me, but sculptural and structural art was also in the mix,” Doolin says. “That’s where ceramics came in and it offered the combination of all of these, to create thought, through-line, color and form.”
Doolin studied art and graduated with a design degree from UCLA. His travels around the world to study and see art influenced his thinking. “The ultimate goal is to create art that imitates life as you wish to see it for yourself, or conversely to bring attention to things you feel need to be seen and changed.”
While Doolin is showing alone at a Topanga Center studio, he is joined in that area by Geneviève Ruddock showing her mixed media work in her own studio located nearby.
Online:
Make sure you save the date: June 11 and 12. A ticket is for the entire weekend, so visitors can see as many of the 18 locations as desired. Each guest will receive a full color graphic map of the tour with an image and information about each artist. Tickets are available at www.topangacanyongallery.com/studiotour. The Gallery will host an exhibition of one work by each participating artist two weekends prior to the tour, as well as a silent auction of small works May 27 – June 12.
John S. Couch is the author of The Art of Creative Rebellion, a product design leader and fine artist. He is the Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Galvanize Studios.
Instagram: @shadow.and.sun.art
Website: john-couch.com
