Art is among the experiences I rely on to alter what I am.
—James Elkins, The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing, p. 41.

Annie Sessler fishes for art . . .

One of the most intriguing aspects about art is the multitude of ways artists find to be creative. Every once in awhile someone will look at something they’ve seen every day for years and it will become shimmeringly beautiful, never to be viewed as mundane again. For Annie Sessler, inspiration struck about two years ago and, as after a lightning strike, she’s never seen sealife the same since.

While the tradition of fish printing is not entirely new, having begun in the 1800s in Japan when fishermen there began using ink and paper to record their catch, Sessle brings refined techniques to the process. Her prints are filled with a combination of the wonder of nature’s complex designs and the unique individuality each fish reveals. While the results are somewhat variable, due to the species, each subject has a light patina of ink applied with a small rubber roller and several brushes and then a “rubbing” is carefully obtained with a sheet of white satin. Each delicate anatomical detail is slowly revealed, until its complex, one-of-a-kind pattern is complete.

Ms. Sessler’s unusual art can be seen in her online gallery at http://eastendfishprints.com/gallery/index.html and in a slide show on the New York Times website at http://tinyurl.com/youoh6.

ERIN ROBBINS, an artist who survives and thrives . . .

MEETING ERIN ROBBINS IS SUCH A PLEASURE—not only is she a warm and beautiful woman, but within a few minutes you also know that she is a beautiful soul. Her life is a testament to the survival of a human being’s inner drive to create, to draw from all that surrounds her, condensing and synthesizing it into textured visual art composed from the deepest, jewel-like colors of the palette.

From the time she was a little girl growing up in Los Angeles, Erin has been possessed with the drive to bring images to life on paper and canvas. She attended UC Santa Cruz, graduating with honors in 1975 with a degree in Arts, Crafts, and Their History, and went on to get a masters degree in Expressive Arts Therapies from Lesley College in Cambridge, MA. Studies in meditation and Eastern spirituality as she traveled to and lived in India inform her work even today. Her life’s path seemed set as she spent the next fifteen years teaching people how to access and live creative lives.

Then, tragedy struck as, in 1997, Erin experienced severe head injuries in a head-on automobile collision. During a period in which she could no longer rely on logic and linear thinking, she began to experience the world in a new, more immediate way. As she expresses it, “If paintings are windows, mine peer into a world where the line between archetype and ordinary reality is blurred, where the ancient rubs shoulders with the present. Through these windows, stories come to life, stories that can only be told in the potent and mysterious language of art.”

When you are in Erin’s presence, in her lovely home surrounded by brilliant colors, tapestries, and iconic images, a wonderful feeling of peace enfolds you. She works in oils, acrylics, and mixed media and often focuses on a variety of ethnic female images to portray the poetry of her work and her heart. Classes and workshops are also available. Erin makes her home now in Nevada City, California, and examples of her paintings can be seen at http://www.erinrobbinsstudio.com.

© Photograph of Erin Robbins by Suzanne Hall, Grass Valley, California.