My mixed media painting titled Crescent Moon with Venus and Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms is one of 75 artworks selected by juror Jonathon Glus, executive director of the San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, from 1,149 submissions for inclusion in the 2023/24 Artist Alliance Biennial at Oceanside Museum of Art. The exhibition will be on display November 18th, 2023 through March 31st, 2024. The reception is Saturday, November 18th from 5:00 to 7:00pm at the museum which is located at 704 Pier View Way in Oceanside, California.
StreetMorrisArt
Passage series
Passage XIII (San Diego to San Francisco) has been selected for inclusion in Maryland Federation of Art's American Landscapes: Scenes from the Americas exhibition.
My long-running Passage series is a reflection on trips through storms, over mountains, deserts and water. Once twilight falls, humanity is represented by points of light that emanate from our homes, headlights and other anthropogenic beacons.
San Diego Comic-Con 2023
San Diego Comic-Con 2023 is here and my display in the Art Show is up. This is my ninth year participating counting the online pandemic versions. Much of my favorite art hanging in my own studio and home was purchased there. Artists from all over can participate in person or by mailing their work in. Our inspirations extend far beyond superheroes and our personal styles are varied. This is a really good thing in my opinion as only we can make our own work. What I create is simultaneously a reflection of and a piece of myself.
92nd Annual Statewide California Landscape Exhibition
I'm pleased one of my mixed media paintings inspired by a place that's dear to me has been selected for inclusion in the 92nd Annual Statewide California Landscape Exhibition at the Santa Cruz Art League.
The exhibition runs July 12th through September 9th, 2023. The gallery's location is 526 Broadway, Santa Cruz, California 95060. The reception is Friday, August 4th from 5-8PM.
An Angraecum sesquipedale-inspired painting
This painting was inspired by one of my own orchids that blooms faithfully every winter. I'm a huge fan of Angraecoids for both their flowers' celestial appearances and their incredible evening fragrances.
Please send me a message if you’re interested in the original painting or tap on the image if you’d like to support a living artist through a print purchase, always much appreciated.
A trip northward
Recent memories of Agua Caliente County Park
Chaparral denizen
We may be off to a cold start in San Diego, but it's spring as far as I'm concerned. Patience was required to catch this shot of an Anna's hummingbird (Calypte anna) working a grove of mission manzanitas (Xylococcus bicolor) today. Look at how tight that range map is for the mission manzanita, the only member of its genus (the fancy word for that is "monotypic").
Surfing Madonna Oceans Project "Save the Ocean" Exhibition
A trio of board members of the Surfing Madonna Oceans Project selected a mixed media painting of mine for inclusion in the second annual “Save the Ocean” exhibition. This group show of California artists will be on display at the Escondido Municipal Gallery from October 7th through November 4th, 2022. The reception is October 8th from 4 - 7PM at 262 E. Grand Ave. in Escondido. Gallery hours are Tuesday 11:00 - 6:00PM and Thursday-Saturday 11:00AM - 4:00PM.
Nighthawks with Waxing Gibbous
This mixed media painting is loosely inspired by watching lesser nighthawks hunting for insects near an oasis in Twentynine Palms, California.
Please tap on the image of the painting above if you’re interested in a print or contact me directly if you’d like to inquire about the original art.
Comic-Con Art Show 2022
Here are the eight pieces of original art I framed with archival materials for the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con Art Show. It’s taking place July 21st through July 24th. I'll have two panels of work for sale in auction format. The Art Show is located in the lobby level of the Manchester Grand Hyatt in Grand Hall CD along with this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Doors will be open Thursday & Friday: 9:00 AM–9:00 PM, Saturday: 9:00 AM–6:00 PM and Sunday: 9:00 AM–7:00 PM. Silent auction final bidding closes Saturday at 6:00 PM. Winning bids are posted at 9:00 AM Sunday morning. All purchased art must be picked up Sunday by 6:30 PM. You don’t have to have a Comic-Con badge to visit the art show.
If you see a piece you’re interested in owning, please send me a message, as I have other work I can hang. Prints may be ordered by tapping on the images of the art below. Thanks for supporting living artists!
-Robin Street-Morris
Celebrant (Raven at Skull Rock)
This mixed media painting screams “every day is Halloween.” It’s loosely inspired by Skull Rock in Joshua Tree National Park. Truth be told, there was a much smaller scrub jay perched on said rock formation, the raven was near a campground and the sky didn’t suggest the 15 was on fire. Combining imagery, simplifying some elements and adding others where they are not is part of what makes art art in my opinion.
I'm planning on framing this piece for my display in the 2022 San Diego Comic-Con Art Show running July 21st-July 24th. I'll have two panels of my original work for sale in auction format. The Art Show is located in the lobby level of the Manchester Grand Hyatt in Grand Hall CD along with this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Doors will be open Thursday & Friday: 9:00 AM–9:00 PM, Saturday: 9:00 AM–6:00 PM and Sunday: 9:00 AM–7:00 PM. Silent auction final bidding closes Saturday at 6:00 PM. Winning bids are posted at 9:00 AM Sunday morning. All purchased art must be picked up Sunday by 6:30 PM.
Much of the diverse work in my own studio was purchased at this annual event. If you’re local or in town for the con, please consider dropping into the art show and supporting living artists. You don’t need a badge to enter the Manchester Grand Hyatt to check it out.
Please tap on the image of the art if you’d like to view print options. Select the Purchase Original Art tab in the navigation bar if you’re interested in owning the original.
Owl Moon VI (Barn Owl)
This is the latest in my Owl Moon series. As always, it was inspired by an actual owl encounter. This barn owl was perched in a palm and peeking around the corner at me, no doubt hoping I’d leave and stop scaring any nearby mice and rats away. Their eyesight is keen, but they hunt primarily by listening.
If you’d like to purchase a print, please tap on the image of the art. Contact me directly if you’re interested in owning the original painting. As always, thanks for supporting living artists.
Hummingbird flight
The Cedros Island bush snapdragon (Gambelia juncea) being worked by this Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna) in our backyard is native to nearby Baja, California, Mexico. Hummingbird flight is truly remarkable and you can read about it here if you’re interested.
Formations
I've been sluicing ore for a few years from a local mine here in San Diego County located along the way to Palomar Mountain State Park and I made a friend. She wants to see more of the gem etc.-inspired work I created back in the day and I made this blog post for her. The pink tourmaline piece was made in response to an image of "Pala pink" long before San Diego was on my radar when I was working at the Exhibit Museum of Natural History (now the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History) in Ann, Arbor Michigan. I could see revisiting this source of inspiration based upon specimens I've found myself, but I'm mostly personal landscape-driven these days. Who knows, though? I enjoy having an arsenal of overlapping interests that continues to inspire me. They are all rooted in natural history.
Please tap on the images of the art below if you’re interested in purchasing a print of one of these. Contact me via the “purchase original art” tab in the navigation bar above if you’d like to inquire about original art.
A March visit to San Diego's desert
On the other side of the mountains from coastal San Diego lies the Sonoran Desert, an ecoregion that spans multiple states in two countries. As Earth’s most biologically diverse desert, its intrinsic and aesthetic value is immeasurable.
As with many areas of the desert where human activity has disturbed the cryptobiotic crusts, invasive, highly flammable grasses and other weeds from overseas have set up shop in Galleta Meadows. It’s an impressive sculpture park that gets a lot of foot traffic—and car traffic despite the signs asking people to park along the road and walk a bit. There is, or was, a particularly grand desert lily I make a point of visiting there and it was nowhere to be found this spring. Its emergence may have been impacted by the mechanical method used to clear weeds from around the creosote shrubs; it shredded desert lily leaves and unearthed the bulbs of very young plants that were still close to the surface (they sink lower as the plants mature). I wish I'd documented the tiny, unearthed bulbs before frantically replanting them as best I could with my hands, but it didn’t cross my mind in the moment.
NightVisions 2022
My mixed media painting titled Oasis was selected by a panel of four jurors for inclusion in NightVisions 2022 at the Coconino Center for the Arts in Flagstaff, Arizona. The exhibition is being produced by Creative Flagstaff in collaboration with Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition. The exhibition dates are May 21st – August 27th, 2022. The opening reception is Saturday, May 21st with a members and special guests preview from 5-6 pm. There will be a keynote lecture at 6 pm by astronomer David Levy who co-discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in 1993. The public reception is from 6-8 pm.
My inspiration for this piece was spending a late evening looking up outside our tiny cabin at Twentynine Palms Inn near Joshua Tree National Park. We’d just gotten to see Saturn’s rings through a volunteer’s telescope at Sky’s the Limit Observatory and Nature Center.
The above is a companion piece to Oasis that I didn’t submit to the call for entry. I’m not intent on selling the original due to its sentimental value, but prints are available if you tap on the art.
Cypripedium montanum
I made this Cypripedium montanum-inspired painting in celebration of the two plants I found during my visit to Yosemite National Park. It was a dream of mine to see them growing in situ. When nature is in balance, the giant sequoias’ shaded understories can be full of incredible plant life which in turn supports diverse wildlife.
I will have this mixed media painting and a few others on display in the San Diego County Orchid Society’s spring show next week at the Scottish Rite Center. Details may be found here.
Sea dahlias
It’s sea dahlia time, both in our garden and what’s been preserved of San Diego’s coastal strand and coastal sage scrub. Once these perennials finish flowering for the year, they’ll enter summer dormancy and receive very little garden water. I trim the leaves once they’re brown and accept that having some “dead” sticks in the yard is worth it for the show they put on in the spring. They reseed easily if you let them—I’ve even got some popping up in my giant pot of spare coastal cholla pieces which is somehow a thing I have.
Great white sharks!
The water has been calm around here as of late and I knew the conditions were perfect for spotting sharks and other ocean life from the cliffs at Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. I was super excited to see three juvenile great white sharks as well as harbor seals and nearshore bottlenose dolphins.