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Kathleen Mattox and Mixed Messages Art

March 13, 2020 2 Comments

I want to tell you about my artist friend and local-art partner in crime, Kathleen Mattox.

When my husband and I moved to Sanger, I was immediately drawn to her gallery, Mixed Messages Art—a cute brick building in the heart of downtown. Soon, she invited me to show my art jewelry there, and was introducing me to other local artists.

After a retiring from a career in education, Kathleen followed her dream to open this art space in Sanger, California. Mixed Messages Art is a gallery, studio, and website that reflects the variety of mixed media Kathleen uses in her art, including watercolor, paper collage with watercolor, other gel and texture mediums, and acrylic with paper collage.

More than that, the name is a hat tip to her “first career” as an elementary school educator teaching the alphabet and symbols which often appear in her work and acknowledge the power of language.

Mixed Messages carries local art and products that are small enough to fit into the petite gallery—all of them unique and different. Including my art jewelry, nine artists have their work for sale at Mixed Messages including Don Munshower’s art mobiles, two ceramic artists—Laura Fraedrich and Karen McQuown, two wire artists—Paul Parichan’s heavy-duty wire sculpture and Terrance McArthur’s colorful miniature characters, and Mary Lee Otto who makes lovely quilted baby items. Also featured are Basilwood Farm’s goat milk soap and Busy Bees Honey Farm’s local and infused honey.

As the only painter in the gallery, Kathleen’s work is bright, creative, and colorful. Featuring other other artists compliments her work and adds variety and spice to the Gallery.

One of the things I value most about Kathleen is the camaraderie we share. Getting together to brainstorm creative projects or resolve challenges when I get stuck. I think every artist needs a sounding board. When you live in a small community, collaborating with local artists makes such a difference. Kathleen is excellent at setting ambitious creative goals, so I recently sat down with her to talk about her art and goals for 2020.

What have you been creating lately?

Kathleen: I needed to create two paintings for a local show last October, but needed to complete them quickly. I decided to do them using palette knives which I have not used a lot before. In addition to the knives, I used squeeze bottles, texture, thick paint, and some glitter. I had so much fun! I’m going to do more in 2020. For Christmas, my mom gave me some nontraditional palette knives from Italy, and I just got some wood panels to try them out. I had wanted to do more with palette knives, but I didn’t know how much I would enjoy it.

What do you like about using palette knives?

Kathleen: They work great for florals. It causes you to work a lot looser and less detailed. Brushes have more control, with palette knives you’re creating the detail by pressing, pulling, or lifting.

Where are you showing your art this year?

Kathleen: I have a show coming in March in Fresno. The owner is a teacher of young children and connects with home schooling movement in her studio. I get to fill one and a half walls and plan to feature three abstract pieces. I’ll use them for inspiration pairing the paintings with new creations in fabric and calling the show “Re-Energized Through Improv.”

I’ve been sewing and quilting—so I have everything from pillows and table runners to coiled fiber and fabric bowls which all coordinate with the paintings. The great thing about fabric is that you can incorporate so much color and texture. I’m currently looking for far-out and non-traditional ways to hang the fabric pieces with the paintings.

What are your goals 2020?

Kathleen: In addition to everything else, one of my fun goals is to improve my artistic wardrobe. I like to look like an artist, so when I can add a piece or two that looks artsy I get excited. That’s one of the things your (Melanie’s) jewelry helps me do. What you’ve made for me is really me, colors and style.

My husband and I also train and show our Havanese dogs. It’s a breed that’s smart enough to make us think they’re really stupid. They’re sometimes a little bit ahead of us.

Overall, my goal is to keep learning, researching, and exploring. That kind of mindset is what keeps people young.

Dozens of art glass animal pendants

November 1, 2017 Leave a Comment

Every artist needs her muses

Kathleen Mattox and Laura Fraedrich are local artists and friends of mine who met years ago in a class and continue to encourage each other’s art-making. This fall, they got an inspired idea to do a themed show called Baker’s Dozen at Kathleen’s gallery, Mixed Messages in Sanger, CA. Each each of them showed thirteen different original artworks featuring animals.

I got so excited about their idea!

Lampwork art glass animals are some of my favorite beads of all. I went through my mental list, thinking, “I bet I have…” As luck would have it, I did! Although the goal of thirteen pieces seemed like a stretch, I thought it would be fun to try to achieve it. I was even more excited when Kathleen agreed to let me participate and show off these art glass animal pendants.

Creativity under a deadline

A lot of artists work well under a deadline, and it’s definitely the case for me. I got together twelve pendants and necklaces–and one sculpture–at the last minute. Yes, I literally ran in the last few the morning the show started. It was a great challenge. My menagerie of glass animal pendants includes more-or-less exotic creatures including a unicorn, dragon, hippopotamus, otter, mouse, two owls, chicken, four cats, and a dog.

Laura’s paintings and Kathleen’s collage paintings are beautiful and creative. They did an incredible job with the show, two events, and included animal-themed cards, bookmarks, tote bags, and other accessories for sale. Kathleen also participated in Inktober and drew a different dog breed every day. It is so fun to be connected with such prolific, talented, and collaborative artists.

The bakers’ dozen of art glass animal pendants I created

Here’s a glimpse of the show and all the glass animal pendants and necklaces (plus a sculpture) that they inspired me to create!

My pendants and necklaces in the center island of the gallery.

One of the four baker’s dozen kitties.

The other three hilarious cats.

The otter sculpture.

The whippet pendant… or is it a greyhound?

Who are you calling a chicken?

I’m pretty sure this is the cutest baby hippo ever.

Of course, I had to add a tiara, but Kathleen’s dog painting is incredible!

And finally, the glass unicorn!

Many of these pendants will be available for purchase when the show ends on October 31. Please feel free to let me know if one grabs your fancy. It was a great project, and I’m glad to have art friends who inspire and challenge me!

A flowing year for my art

December 24, 2016 Leave a Comment

Celebrating a year

In some respects, this month is the most productive of the year as I prepared for holiday shows and created new art for them. In other ways, it’s a time when I reflect on the year’s accomplishments.

2016 was probably my most art-filled year in recent memory—a fact I’d love to celebrate with you. I haven’t had a year with this much artwork in a long time.

Here are my four big successes from 2016….

One: A more satisfying process for producing art

This year has been about flow and new energy. Instead of being surprised by deadlines, I planned ahead and got the dates down on my calendar. This allowed me to focus on meeting one deadline and then look ahead to what I wanted to participate in next.

What was really different is how I planned in enough time for the creative unfolding process. You can’t execute big art pieces in a day, but it sometimes still surprises me how long things take. Every project has at least one “OMG this is never going to come together” moment. With better planning, I could work on it, step away, and keep coming back until it starts to come together.

Spaciousness and time make better art and a happier, saner artist.

Two: More art pieces than in recent years

This spring, something just clicked for me when I started working on the piece below, a free-form sterling wire necklace with a lampwork blossom bead.

Then I created Breastplate for Ninsun using this same free-form style. I loved it so much, I even decided to submit it to Bead and Button.

BreastPlate for Ninson wire art necklace (c) Melanie Schow

It’s common for artists to focus on a particular color or medium for a while, creating a series of pieces that use a similar style. Once I got rolling, this new, bigger style kept flowing through the subsequent pieces of jewelry and wire embroidery.

All of the designs revolved around the theme of precipitation and water. Talk about flow!

Organized Precipitation Little Sister necklace

Organized Precipitation’s Little Sister necklace

Three: Recognition for my art

I entered Organized Precipitation (below) into Madera County Art Council’s Celebrate Agriculture with the Arts 2016 23rd Annual competition and exhibition. It won second place for the category “Water… Agriculture’s Lifeblood.” I received a Certificate of Recognition for the award from California Legislature assembly and senate with my name and title of piece and stamped with a silver emblem.

The Alliance of California Artists Open Show’s theme was Falling into Winter. I submitted The Sky is Falling, a wire embroidery piece depicting rain turning to snow. For the rain, I used glass beads, crystals, bugle beads, and wire. The snow is wire with sparkly Lucite beads in stars and shapes. I won Honorable Mention in the category of Three-Dimensional Drawing and Non-Traditional Artwork.

Four: New venues for my art

The Art Shop at Vintage Market at 601: This year, Paul Parichan created an art shop dedicated to local artists. All of the participating artists make diverse and high-quality art in a variety of media—including mixed media, ceramics, fabric pillows, wire work, paintings jewelry. I’m really honored that he invited me into this prestigious group and featured three of my artworks (Monarch Duet, Breastplate for Ninsun, the “baby sister” of Organized Precipitation).

New online shop: People have always asked if they could purchase my work online, and this year, it’s finally possible! Although, it’s on vacation mode during the holidays, my online shop will be active again in January. Here’s the link to see what’s new in my online store.

If you’re in or visiting the San Joaquin Valley, I’m also showing my work at:

Mixed Messages in Sanger, CA
The Art Shop at Vintage Market at 601 in Fresno, CA
Circle Gallery in Madera, CA

My hope is to ride the energy and success of this year into the new one. In the meantime, I’m wishing you a fruitful and flowing new year!