Studio Lone Mountain

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Studio Lone Mountain

Art studio, gallery, and zendo of Debra Jan Bibel Eventually retirement dictated a change of direction. research in microbiology. Patterns of form make existence.

Studio Lone Mountain is the abode and workplace of Debra Jan Bibel, painter and photographer, retired medical scientist and editor, sometime poet, and constant Zen practitioner. The early studio space was once a library dedicated to the history of medical microbiology and immunology, known as the Elie Metchnikoff Memorial Library, housing some 1,200 books, numerous articles, and objects related to the fields. Bibel was a working scientist at the time, and besides research, she wrote articles and two books on the history of these sciences. The library contents were sold to a rare books dealer in southern California. As she was always an artist, as her father and uncle, the one time hobby transitioned to a serious, professional endeavor. Bibel’s more formal art studies began with the works and writings of Piet Mondrian, pioneer geometric abstractionist, a hard-edge painter. Her rubric became morphology, the science of shape and form as it relates to function, which was her Ph.D. Squares, rectangles, stripes, circles, and lines were the initial building blocks and focus. They in turn were the components of a city synthesis, using actual locations as models. Mondrian was a Theosophist in Paris, and his grid paintings of line and bold primary colors had spiritual and architectural purposes toward clarity of mind. Bibel, a Zen Buddhist, similarly developed her art to depict, by analogy, altered perception of structures after intense meditation. The rigidity of line and ruler has a counterpoint of bush and ink on rice paper, with the flowing curves of Chinese calligraphy and the controlled accident of sumi-e drawing. The seemingly opposite yet maintains balance and harmony and also introspective, perceptive qualities. Recent paintings merge the two sides by encompassing these approaches with acrylic on canvas. The latest series of paintings emphasizes the abstract quality of the actual, when reduced to elementals by shape and altered by hue. We are conditioned via culture and biology to define relationships and construct categories. Drummers are keen to rhythms in daily life; meditators are alert to the passing parades of sound and color; scientists examine the ideals of mathematics in behavior of objects and the paradoxical emptiness of matter. As the title of her website [www.lonemountain-art.com] expresses, Bibel’s experimental morphological art evolves. What will develop with this new direction is unknown, especially to herself. Debra Jan Bibel has a personal page on Facebook as well and that features her Amazon reviews of musical albums.

10/04/2025

My painting Iguazu will be exhibited at the Sausalito Center for the Arts Center Open. [their first]
It is a juried show. Sausalito, CA, is an art town, and it is an honor.

Exhibit from October 17 to November 16, 2025

09/12/2025

A new painting. My style, but real-real, not like abstract-real as my last work, Lizard. I find this almost surrealistic. Title is "The Circle of Still Life." Note East-West blend.

08/11/2025

A new painting. It may seem abstract but it is essentially real. Check my comment below for title. Click on image for enlargement.

07/08/2025

New painting. It seems abstract but it is entirely representational and in scale. Title is "Ironside Mountain Lookout". 40 × 30 in. [Visit my art website www.lonemountain-art.com for all my works.]

05/13/2025

A new painting, "Thought Bubbles". [Metaphor akin to air bubbles that arise in boiling water.] It is in reference to mindfulness-of-mind meditation during which you are aware of arising thoughts and emotions that quickly dissolve or fade ONLY if you do not attach them with more thoughts, associations, feelings, worries, plans ("monkey-mind"). They arise from subconsciousness processing and neuro noise (c.f., quantum fluctuations). With practice, fewer thought bubbles arise and the mind is more concentrated and focused on the here, now. For more information: see www.lonemountain-art.com/fresh.html

04/29/2025

The biography of my artist uncle is now available from Rutgers University Press and in a week at Amazon. Full of illustrations.

Leon Bibel (1913–1995) was a prolific modern American artist who painted, printed, stamped, etched, sketched, and carved. He produced pieces that ranged fr...

04/01/2025

A new painting: "Christmas". The brain processes circles and angular, multilinear forms differentily. Circles beget positive emotions, the other shapes are viewed negatively, as hazards — a child's balloon versus a centipede, spider, or cactus spikes. The combination, while in conflict, has rounded forms dominating, hence the pleasure of a Christmas tree beyond religion and presents. See www.lonemountain-art.com/fresh.html

02/28/2025

My latest painting, Cycle Circle. Depicted is, of course, Stonehendge, which is an observatory for the solstice and keeper of the eclipse cycles, but the rain, clouds, and snow also relate to another cycle, the water cycle. 20 × 40 inches.

02/02/2025

The second painting of my diptych is complete: Al-Andalus [Córdoba mosque]. You can see the two paintings side by side on my website www.lonemountain-art.com/fresh.html
which also has more information about the new painting.

01/09/2025

Part 1 of a diptych [Islamic Circle] is completed. It is "Blue Mosque", derived from my photograph inside the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Instanbul. For further information, please visit my website, www.lonemountain-art.com/fresh.html
I have begun Part 2, which should be finished by mid February.

12/23/2024

My painting "Zen" appears on the cover of digital EP album of protest songs. Free to listen, free to download.

8 track album

12/11/2024

New painting. "Iguazu Mergings". 24 × 36 inches. 16,500 circles. Feel the flow, hear the roar.

Address

Oakland, CA

Telephone

+15104443435

Website

http://www.lonemountain-art.com/

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Chapter 5

Bibel’s more formal art studies began with the works and writings of Piet Mondrian, pioneer geometric abstractionist, a hard-edge painter. Her rubric became morphology, the science of shape and form as it relates to function, which was her Ph.D. research in microbiology. Squares, rectangles, stripes, circles, and lines were the initial building blocks and focus. They in turn were the components of a city synthesis, using actual locations as models. Mondrian was a Theosophist in Paris, and his grid paintings of line and bold primary colors had spiritual and architectural purposes toward clarity of mind. Bibel, a Zen Buddhist, similarly developed her art to depict, by analogy, altered perception of structures after intense meditation.

The rigidity of line and ruler has a counterpoint of bush and ink on rice paper, with the flowing curves of Chinese calligraphy and the controlled accident of sumi-e drawing. The seemingly opposite yet maintains balance and harmony and also introspective, perceptive qualities. Recent paintings merge the two sides by encompassing these approaches with acrylic on canvas.

The latest series of paintings emphasizes the abstract quality of the actual, when reduced to elementals by shape and altered by hue. Patterns of form make existence. We are conditioned via culture and biology to define relationships and construct categories. Drummers are keen to rhythms in daily life; meditators are alert to the passing parades of sound and color; scientists examine the ideals of mathematics in behavior of objects and the paradoxical emptiness of matter.