coldwax

New Date for Solo Show!

Art For Sale, creativity, Exhibition, Film, Gallery, Installation, Narrative

I have a BIG update ~ my solo show in Seattle has been moved up two months!

So now, “Loving & Letting Go” opens Thurs. July 3rd, 5-8pm at SlipStitch Studios. We have also scheduled a screening of my film and an artist talk later in the month. Then the show closes on August 2.

Of course, you are welcome to visit during gallery hours ~ Wed-Sat 12-5.

Additionally, I am scheduling private tours of the exhibit (on all days). If you’re interested, please DM/text/email me!! I’d love everyone who wants to see this exhibit to get a chance to experience it.

Thank you kindly.

ELIAICHI KIMARO
Loving & Letting Go

SlipStitch Studios
604 2nd Ave, Seattle
Gallery Hours: Wed – Sun, 12-5pm

EXHIBITION EVENTS

OPENING RECEPTION
July 3, 5-8pm
First Thursday Pioneer Sq Art Walk

SCREENING & DISCUSSION
A Lot Like You
July 10, 5-7:30pm
(Doors at 5, film at 5:30)

ARTIST TALK
The Narrative Throughline
July 26, 3-5pm

CLOSING RECEPTION
Sat., Aug 2, 5-8pm

EXHIBITION STATEMENT

Loving & Letting Go is a multidisciplinary body of work by Eliaichi Kimaro that reflects the emotional terrain of a life in transition. In a short span of time, Kimaro’s closest relationships have shifted — her daughter left for college, her husband relocated for work, and her parents are 9,000 miles away.
This body of work explores the emotional dichotomies shaping her life in this moment — presence and absence, intimacy and independence, acceptance and grief. Each piece holds opposing forces in conversation — stillness and motion, geometric and organic, light and dark — reflecting the tension between loving from afar while learning to let go.
Loving & Letting Go is both a personal meditation and a universal invitation to sit with complexity and to find beauty within life’s contradictions.

Origin Story – Wish You Were Here

Art For Sale, Origin story, process

Wish You Were Here
48″x48″
Oil & cold wax

 

Jan 30, 2024: Beginning again. Starting this 48×48 piece with my favorite warm glow.

 

Feb 4, 2024: Deepening the colors on day 2 of this WIP.

 

Feb 5, 2024: Listening to Colin Hay got me over the hump today. Diving head first, past those familiar first steps, and into the Unknown. Now I can finally begin…

 

Feb 7: Working in some bright opaque colors to mitigate the mud. And now this piece is entering into quite the ugly stage.

 

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The Art of Daily Practice – Opening Reception

Art For Sale, Art Journal, CLUSTER, collaboration, creativity, Exhibition, Gallery, inspiration, Installation, process

Lynann Politte at Vashon Center for the Arts has been a joy to collaborate with on my solo show ~ The Art of Daily Practice. My work this past year has been fueled by a vision of what an exhibit of my journal pages could look like. And now, seeing how it all came together, I have to say reality far exceeded my dream!

So much creative collaboration goes into putting on a “solo” show. Many thanks to Lucky Rabbet Framing for doing such a mega job floating & framing 28 journal pages. Thanks also to Lynann and her mentor Paul Martinez who had their work cut out for them with this installation. The placement of every piece has been carefully considered…and the resulting exhibit looks spectacular!!

Coming up
Artist Talk: The Art of Daily Practice
Vashon Center for the Arts
Saturday, Feb. 17 at 2pm.

Thank you to all who came to the opening!! It was lovely to meet so many people new to my art, and to hear their reflections and see the work through their eyes. I was delighted to see old friends from all chapters of my adult life. And Vashon is home to members of my creative team from my film, A Lot Like You. I spent a lot of time on this island in the 8 years it took to make the film, and it was lovely to reunite with Eric Frith (editor), Pete Droge (composer), Elaine Summers (music supervisor) and Jeff Hoyt (voice over coach).

And finally, my gratitude to event photographer Wade Yip, as well as June Sekiguchi, Eric Frith and VCA gallery, for sharing their reception photos. Feel free to click on any image below and scroll through. Enjoy!

Vashon Center for the Arts (VCA)
#Hashtag (is hidden in the painting.)
Artist Statement
Install shot
Grid of journal pages
Install shot
w/Lynann Politte, VCA Gallery Manager (June Sekiguchi)
w/CLUSTER members Theresa Neinas & June Sekiguchi. (We’re heading to Stockholm in April for a group show!) Photo courtesy of June Sekiguchi
Photo courtesy of VCA Gallery
w/Eric Frith, my film editor. Photo courtesy of Eric Frith.
Photo courtesy of VCA Gallery
Talking w/Eric, Jeff & Cindy Hoyt. Jeff was my narration coach for my film. Photo courtesy of VCA Gallery
Photo courtesy of Wade Yip
Photo courtesy of VCA Gallery
w/Pete Droge, my film composer. Photo courtesy of VCA Gallery
Photo courtesy of VCA Gallery
Photo courtesy of VCA Gallery
Photo courtesy of VCA Gallery
Photo courtesy of VCA Gallery
Photo courtesy of VCA Gallery
Talking art & making plans with Ann Leda Shapiro.Photo courtesy of VCA Gallery
Artist & her Grid. Photo courtesy of Wade Yip

 

Origin Story – The Offering

Art For Sale, creativity, Exhibition, Gallery, Narrative, Origin story, process, Story, Works In Progress


The Offering (48″x48″): I love pieces that develop in their own time. As these paintings grow with me over months, my challenges, wishes, joys and sorrows get embedded in the layers. The painting becomes a time capsule that captures who I am and how I’m feeling as the piece evolves.

I love some of the color and energy in the earlier versions, but these passages, while pretty, were meaningless. I relish paintings where the struggle leads me to unknown places and pushes me beyond my capabilities. At their best, my paintings feel like an archeological discovery, as if I’m unearthing something that’s always been there. The finished piece is something I never could (or would) set out to paint. So these origin stories remind me of how a painting came to be…

 


June 15, 2023: I am both here and not here…a meditation on impermanence that is resonating with me today. And so I embedded it in the first layer of this 48″x48″ piece.

 


June 18: Starting to build up surface history that I can later work back into. Happy to be working large once again…

 


June 22: Working on large pieces in a small studio makes it hard to stand back and view the painting from a distance. So posting progress pics on Instagram scales down the image, allowing me to troubleshoot compositional problems and figure out where the piece wants to go next…🤓

 


June 25: Very early stages yet, but after a brief TimeOut, we’re starting to listen to each other…

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McMILLEN FELLOWS EXHIBIT

Art For Sale, collaboration, creativity, Exhibition, Gallery
REMIX
Gallery One, in partnership with The Robert B. McMillen Foundation, celebrates the McMillen Fellows: Katie Miller, Eliaichi Kimaro, Chandler O’Leary, Frank Casey & Emily Somoskey for an exhibition of their work.
.
Thank you to Renee Adams and Cassandra Lynne for making this show possible! So lovely to see my paintings playing so nicely alongside the works of my fellow MAC Fellows.
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Gallery One Visual Arts Center
Main Gallery & Mezzanine
408 North Pearl Street, Ellensburg WA 98926
First Friday Opening Reception March 3, 5-7pm

Upcoming Feature Show

Art For Sale, Exhibition, Gallery

The Seen & The Unseen World  –  60″x 36″ Acrylic mixed media on wood panel

I have been steeped in learning over the past few years, and am excited to share this new body of work. My latest series explores formal and informal grid compositions using a limited palette.

Just a Moment
Columbia City Gallery*
March 23 – May 8, 2022

Opening reception: Sat. March 26 from 5-7pm

Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Sunday, 11-6pm (or by appointment)
* While this is my annual feature show,
Columbia City Gallery exhibits my work year round.

Come As You Are – 24″x 24″ Oil & cold wax on wood panel

Winter/Spring Art News…

Art For Sale, collaboration, creativity, education, Exhibition, Gallery, inspiration, Narrative, process, Speaking, Story

Just published my Newsletter with updates on 1) creative collaborations with filmmakers, authors, musicians & chefs, 2) my foray into teaching, and 3) shows in venues around town.

You can click the Subscribe button at the top of the page if you would like receive my newsletters (I send out 2-3 a year).

“Composing a Life” – Acrylic mixed media on 24″x 24″ wood shipping panel.

 

Memorial Day (Commission) – Origin Story

collaboration, creativity, inspiration, Narrative, Origin story, process, Story, Works In Progress
This Spring, I received a captivating commission request. Chris Weber and Jack Gingrich were long-time employees and soon-to-be co-owners of The Herbfarm, a restaurant that creates thematic 9-course dinners showcasing the exceptional seasonal food and wines of the Pacific Northwest.

In his initial email, Chris shared The Herbfarm’s compelling origin story. Theirs is an inter-generational story of hope, ambition, success, tragedy, resilience, and grace. At its essence, this painting would be about inheritance and legacy ~ my creative core. As I read it, I could clearly see how every layer of this painting could correspond to a chapter in The Herbfarm’s life.


On our site visit, a few more things came into focus. The decor of the restaurant is formal Victorian, which is not in my artistic wheelhouse. Having an abstract piece was going to be a departure, so I wanted to keep it simple, organic and elegant. I wanted the painting to feel like a weathered, textured rock face you might encounter on a hike. Against the dark walls, this statement piece would be mostly white and monochromatic. We decided on a diptych with a circle connecting the two halves, but wanted to make sure the two halves could also stand on their own. And mimicking the restaurant’s palette, I limited my paint palette to natural, earth-based pigments ~ ochres, umbers, saffron, indigo… 

 

The following process photos show the evolution of this painting. The captions are pulled from Chris’s initial email…but you can find a beautiful rendition of The Herbfarm’s history on their website.

The original owners, Carrie Van Dyck and Ron Zimmerman, started this restaurant in a plant nursery; Memorial Day 1986. 

 

 
It was built from the ground up…

…

 

The restaurant flourished…

 
…receiving national recognition and a dedicated cult following within a decade. 

 

 

 

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When We Were One

Art For Sale, creativity, family, inspiration, Narrative, Origin story, Story

Everything I create is about exploring the stories I’ve inherited and the stories I’m passing down. I make art to better understand my place in this flow of cultural inheritance and legacy.

When I was pregnant, I had a book that gave weekly updates about the fetus development. I remember reading one week that if I was having a girl, my body was creating all the eggs she will ever carry.

Having worked for 12 years as a crisis counselor, and knowing what I know about inter-generational trauma, I didn’t take this news lightly. So I took that week off, and reflected on what it means to be creating descendants whom I may never meet.

“When We Were One” deals specifically with this week, being pregnant with my daughter ~ and more expansively, considers the bloodlines that connect us all. 

Here is a short video where I reflect on what this piece means to me…

 

The many faces of “Broadstairs” (Origin story)

#NoPanelLeftBehind, Exhibition, Narrative, Origin story, Story, Works In Progress

One painting, from start to finish, in 768 days…

This 24″x 24″ painting has undergone a surprising number of transformations before finally settling on the Broadstairs piece currently exhibiting at Northwest Encaustics. As one of the more epic #NoPanelLeftBehind pieces, I decided to trace Broadstairs back to its origins, and offer snapshots of its evolution over the past 2 years…

March 13, 2017

Most of my pieces begin with writing…whether it be part of a journal entry, passage from a book, lyric, poem. The base layers here also includes wood glue burn, yellow india ink, and several clear coats of encaustic medium.

March 13, 2017

School’s out, which means my studio assistant is on hand to scrape back the layers. Always happy to let the kid loose on my paintings. I consider this a good return on my investment.😉

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