Art Candy

Art Attack!!!

I can't believe how quickly October is passing me by! My next big studio event is right around the corner. Art Attack is a huge all building open studio event that the Northrup King holds once a year. This year I will be showing new work and hosting a couple of guest artists in my studio as well. I also plan on doing a few demonstrations of pastel painting and maybe some oil painting too. Last year we had a pretty good turn out and the crowd seems to get bigger every year. 

Art Attack Dates

Friday November 6- 5pm to 10pm

Saturday November 7- noon to 8pm

Sunday November 8- noon to 5pm

Studio #317 Located on the 3rd Floor of the Northrup King Building.

Recovering from an Art Attack

My building had its 12th annual all building three day open studio tour and it was a busy one! I had a couple of friends showing their work which added a little variety to my space and also the opportunity for the occasional restroom break. My friend Joel showed off his amazing wood sculpture and turnings and my friend Leann shared her photo realistic transparent watercolors. I showed off a few new paintings and shared some experimental monotype prints from a new series I am planning( more to come on that later)...

Mission Accomplished!

Its been a year in the making and I can't believe I am actually finished! I finally completed my 3 foot by five foot pastel painting for the Maple Grove Hospital. The Art consultant for the hospital came by the studio today and gave the final piece a thumbs up... hopefully the hospital selection committee will agree and won't have any changes. Personally, I am happy with the outcome of the project. This was my first large scale painting for a hospital and also the first time I had to get panel approval from the initial sketch  down to the full color pre final sketch(by the way I NEVER do full color sketches so it was a stretch for me). The picnic theme was chosen by the art consultant and the piece had to incorporate the color scheme of the room it is going into... but the composition is all me. It was a good experience overall and I am anxious to get the piece off my studio wall and to the framer. The hospital will be having an open house in December and at that time it will be up for all to see! 

Here is a picture of the final piece... it is still attached to my studio wall.

Funding my Bliss

As Gloria Gainer put it so aptly..."I will survive!" Artists are hard pressed in the current economy to make a living. I can only speak for myself when I say I've had to work harder this year than any other to make ends meet. I love working for myself, but to get paid I need to put myself out there more then ever before and have had to decide whether to create things that will sell or follow my bliss... which may or may not end up in a sale. I have decided to take the middle ground and do both. But to do that I have had look for extra funding to pay for my so called bliss. Lately my new obsession is grant funding and I have found a few promising grants- The Bush Grant, MCAD fellowship and the Jerome fellowships. I am new to grant writing so there is definitely a learning curve that I have had to deal with. I am an artist, not a writer so putting into words what I put on canvas is a little tough but I am slowly figuring out the process. I have learned fun new terms like narrative and my personal favorite budget. It really makes me think about what I need to get my idea off the ground and what my ultimate goal is for my current series of work.

On View Today... An Artist in Her Natural Habitat

The following is a segment from a video on artists in the Northrup King Building... or as I like to call my 5 minutes of fame running on cable channel 6.

Finally an end to Ground Hog Day!

Ground Hog Day is over! My art fair season has come to an end which means no more weekends of hauling and setting up art in all kinds of weather. I am back in the studio which means after an opening all I have to do is close the doors and go home... no tear down to deal with. There have been a few changes to my studio- for one my roomie decided to work from home, so she moved out this month. Alas...alone again. At any rate I have all of this extra space again which inspired me to move some things around... now I have a cool little office and some more wall space to hang work. I have also gotten around to finishing up some of my commissioned pieces- It's nice to actually have a good block of time to work now that the kids are back in school.

 

Floral and Floppy

A while ago I posted a few pictures from what I have dubbed the floppy hat series. It was originally inspired by a picture that a friend of mine posted on face book. She was in Egypt and was laying by a pool at her hotel wearing this gloriously oversized floppy hat... she looked like she belonged in a period movie from the 1940's. I loved how it obscured her face and all you were left with was the pose of her body. I have always been intrigued with body language and the story it tells. I ended up continuing on with the series and have added three more paintings.

I have also continued on with my floral fetish as well. Most of my images usually have some sort of chaos surrounding the figure, but I liked the florals because of the calming effect. I also started to add books, partly because I think they add to the escapism feeling of the paintings and also as an aid to further obscure the faces in the pieces. I have a few more ideas in mind for the series, but I am feeling the need to add more of the detritus of life surrounding the figures. I guess it is because life is getting a bit stressful with school starting and deadlines looming over my head. Maybe I should stick with the flowers they put me in my happy place!

Counting Blue Cars

I just returned from a trip to California and had the opportunity to travel up the coast to a small beach town called Cambria. It is a place where the forrest meets the sea and is quite beautiful. It doesn't have the same feel as a southern California beach town in that it is not crowded and on a good day reaches 75 degrees. The coast is rocky, the air filled with pelicans and the water with seals.

We stayed in a house walking distance from the beach and a few minutes drive from the small downtown. I took a quite a few pictures of things that caught my eye, one of which was a blue vintage car that was parked near the entrance to a ranch preserve. There were so many little treasures and so much to be inspired by. Cambria is definitely a place I will return to.

Vogue Inspiration

I have been working on a new series of what I am dubbing "the escapist paintings." I have been looking for vintage fashion inspiration which led me to look up old Vogue magazine covers.

I love the design simplicity which is ironic considering how much information I usually pack into my own work.

I also love the whimsical hats and patterns... especially the zig zag.

Art Fair Feng Shui

I just finished a fair in the Chicago area where my work survived the heat,wind and a thunder storm with a major down pour that basically shut down the fair on the final day... I was ready to be done anyway. The fair was well run with some amazing art and some questionable art but that has been the way most fairs are going this year. I think that a lot of artists are cutting back and it is trickling down to the promoters and their profits. I am also seeing art that would not generally end up in the higher end fairs which is hard to compete with. Let's just say that a guy mass producing wooden salt and pepper shakers is not my idea of fine art(sorry shaker guy). He also won an award... maybe it was for most functional.

I did okay at the fair but I had a lot of people ask if I would be in Port Clinton... which I will. I found it interesting that they would want to wait to buy there considering the tax is over 10%(yikes!).

I took a few booth shots at the fair. I seem to spend a lot of time figuring out how to arrange my art. I like rotating the work from one day to the next to keep it fresh looking. I have also tried to vary the sizes and prices of my work. It makes for quite the puzzle when hanging, but the different shapes and sizes definitely add interest!

Budding Artists

I have been teaching art camps this summer for the under 12 set and have had a blast. My children have had the option to jump in and make art all summer too. My first camp was called Mix it Up and was a mixed media camp where we tried everything from painting to sculpture. My current camp is a painting camp which we are currently at the half way mark. I love watching kids create. They never over think anything(unlike most adults, me included).