Ecological Ethics in our Global Society

Well the big day is almost here.  Our Paper packet project ( inspired by Seth Apter and Laura Lein-Svencner) will culminate in a themed show entitled above.  This Friday is the artist reception and it is hard to believe we are really doing this.  We (meaning 13 artists from The Studio) started this project back in late October.  And now all the altering is done, collages created, works matted and framed, details for the show worked out, and works are starting to arrive for hanging.  I am so proud of the ladies who committed to this project.  Anyway below is a write up that we will display as guests walk in.  And I would be remiss if I did not post my third work, Sedge Meadow III, in the continuing series- Claiming Sanctuary.  Finally, if you want to win that 50.00 gift certificate, you need to comment on the entry below this one.  I select a winner tonigh (at random). 

K

Sedge Meadow II from the series: Claiming Sancturay



Sedge Meadow II

 I finished another sedge meadow piece and finally got it scanned and entered in my art database.  This is the same size as the previous work, 8 by 8 inches, and was done on 300 lb water color paper.  The nature altered papers were further enhanced with acrylics, water soluble oil pastels, and graphite.  I have one more sedge meadow up my sleeve and then I am thinking I will move onto coastal waters.  In between my art I really need to start focusing on the details for the upcoming gallery show.  While I find this process rewarding, details drive me crazy!

K

Sedge Meadow: From the series, Claiming Sanctuary



Sedge Meadow I (from the series: Claiming Sanctuary)

 I don't think I have been this excited about my art in quite sometime.  There is something about working with talented people, all focused on a similar goal, that just gets those creative juices flowing.  This piece, Sedge Meadow I,  is the first in a small series of works focusing on the theme "Ecological Ethics in our Global Society."  The series is entitled, Claiming Sanctuary, and it is a play on words (think about it and you will get it). The piece is 8 by 8 inches and was done on 3oo lb Arches rough watercolor paper.  In addition, I just finished my second piece in this series entiled Sedge Meadow II (not a very creative title but oh well).  And I will probably do a third sedge meadow.  I am totally rocking on these beautiful places that face such an uncertain future (unless we do something now).  

Last Thursday, the Paper Packets group met to unwrap their packets and look at their papers (unfortunately I did not get any pictures even though I had my camera with me).  What a great evening.  We all brainstormed what the the theme of our soon to be gallery show really means. Ideas poured out of everyone and I could barely keep up writing down suggestions on the dry erase board.    I do hope this will ease peoples feeling about having a theme.  Actually, I was so hoping that this would focus our artistic efforts as well as unify the show.  I think those that view our works will have some semblance of understanding why these works are so meaningful and just how truly unique they are.   After all, it is not everyday that mother Nature has such a huge hand in the process.  Once these papers are gone...that is it.  They are one of a kind...as will be the art that is produced from them.  I am so excited for all of you ladies.  I know your work will be amazing.  Our gallery show will begin April 15th (with a meet the artist opening) and then run about 4 weeks.  Still a lot of work to do but it is the kind of thing I thrive on.  This subject matter is so near and dear to my hear.  I just wish former Vice President Al Gore could make an appearance (hey why not dream big, I mean really big LOL). 

This will be the first gallery show for many of the artists participating in this project.  I want to thank Lucy at The Studio for lending us her space.  I know that your walls will be adorned with incredible work.  I hope this experience will be fun and not so scary.  You are all amazing artists!  Your work and voice should be seen and heard.  Remember, we are all in this together and I could not be more proud of you!

I have some other things cooking too.  I really have to get cracking on a collage gallery show that I was invited to participate in (once my jpegs have been looked at).  And this morning I received a lovely comment on my last blog post that I though was really exciting.  I need to look into this a bit further though and then I'll post about it. And finally, I need to do a piece for my the Pink Ribbon Angels breast cancer fund raiser.  I'm smiling now...life could not get much better than this.

More pictures will follow soon of my papers (as I work on them) and of course, my finished piece.
Happy and peaceful Sunday to you all!
k

Art of The Land Recap, My Perspective: 9/26/10

It was one of those never ending weekends...So much to do, running in circles, barely catching my breath... I don't think I could even regurgitate all here without burning out!  Suffice to say I do have comments on The Art of The Land Benefit for The Land Conservancy of Mchenry Country.  KUDOS to the TLC for a beautiful gallery show.  I have to say it was "the" event to be at this weekend if you lived around here.  Friday night was a pre sale of the art followed by story telling music and poems inspired by the land.  I brought my Claire to see the exhibit as she had extra credit points she could earn for her high school art class.  Yep, she had a good time.  She got all dressed up, very Soho if I do say, and she knocked em all dead.  Wouldn't you know that I don't have a picture of her.  I am so bad at that.  Then on Saturday evening was the one night gala.  Since the new space opened up in the Starline Gallery, there was great room to move around.  I took a few pics as you can see. And as I was basking in all that beautiful art, I started thinking about next years show.  I want the papers that are in my paper packets to play a significant role in my body of work next year.  Ecological Ethics in our Global Society will be the theme I will be working from (hopefully this class will be a go at The Studio School of Art). I think that this theme will fit nicely with land inspired art.

The rest of the weekend was taken up with an all day festival in Crystal Lake that my Colin and Claire were involved in.  They spent time at the dance studio leading mini classes for walk ins, handing out literature, and performing.  Long, long day.  I also ran to the Opera House to get my tickets for this years Nutcracker, yes I said the Nutcracker.  Tickets go fast around here!  My Colin is the Nutcracker Prince again along with Spanish Chocolate and Chinese soloist.  While Claire is Colin's partner in the Chinese dance.  Sunday I picked up art from the Art of the Land Show, did 4 other errands and then cooked dinner. I don't think I sat down till 9 PM (after throwing in 4 loads of wash).  Monday was a blessing!

El Valle de Paz





Gallery Show, Cafe Luna, Crystal Lake Illinois

This weekend was as usual, packed to the max with running around.  I did finally get to my gallery show and I snapped a few pictures.  I always get a thrill when I see my work hanging on a wall other than mine!  The curator, Lynn, did a wonderful job of hanging the show.  There will be a little artist reception in June.


So here are a few pictures from the show.  The lights were really interfering with my photography and I could not seem to correct my camera but at least I have some documentation.  I hope to get back to the show this weekend to shoot some better photos with my personal camera. 


In other news...my class last week at the Studio in McHenry went well. I will share pics soon.  I set some concrete dates for summer classes, and I signed up for an eclass with Kelly Rae Roberts.  I am soooo excited about her class.  I often feel like a little lost clown fish in a pool of sharks when trying to emerge fully as a mixed media and collage artist.  Her class, I hope, will help me answer questions that revolve around my art as a business.  After all, I do want my work hanging somewhere other than my wall.  I have found it really hard to price work and to establish an internet presence.  Her course will help me along those lines.   Although I do not see myself nor my art going in Kelly's direction of licensing etc...I think the info she imparts will be interesting.  So bring it on Kelly...I am ready and willing to learn!

Day 24: 28 Day challenge

Here is "Water" all done!  I am pleased with this piece.  Today I will seal it (first coat of varnish).  I used Neocolors II for some highlights throughout this work.  Water completes my 4 Elements series.  Healing Woman (AKA Cheryl Dolby: http://healingwoman.blogspot.com/) asked about the wording in this piece.  The text, I should have explained, is from Seneca, in Latin, and I carried over the essay in each of the works.  The Greeks, Aristotle in the 4th century b.c.e, identified the 4 fundamental elements as being fire, water, earth, and air.  I thought that an essay from Seneca would be appropriate as one of the constant elements in this series.  I found some very old text (1915) of essays from Virgil, Seneca, and one other philosopher, whose name escapes me.  Anyway, there are two other papers that carried over into each work as well and those have no significant meaning other than I liked them and they help tie all the works together.  The concept for this series came about as a class I was going to teach at The Studio.  We were going to create an abstract based around ONE of the 4 elements.  I completed "Fire" first as an example.  Well the class did not go, being 2 days before spring break  imagine was at least part of the reason, and so I decided to complete the series before this gallery show on April 19th.  Its done!  I can now move onto more mundane things.  I really can't wait to get those things out of the way.  I really am itching to get back to the breast cancer donation I am working on and I have another abstract brewing in my brain, something that has been back there since New Years Eve!  OK so 4 more days in this challenge...until tomorrow.

k

Day 18: 28 Day Challenge.

Zipping right along, I thought today that I was going to "fall of the wagon."  I came home with a colossal headache and tummy ache.  From about 1-3:30 PM I laid on the sofa.  I just hate when I get these headaches because all productivity flies out the window.  Regardless of the headache, I went down to my studio at about 3:30 and was able to work about hour.  I managed to finished sealing/varnishing "Air," so officially it is finished.  I moved onto the "Water" piece and laid down the dress pattern tissue and coated with polymer medium.  I also coated a few more papers for this piece.  Now I just have to decide what images I want to transfer and how many.  By deciding this I will then have a feeling for a basic layout of papers.  In between coating of materials, I then worked on my breast cancer donation.  Here she is so far and indeed in the ugly stage.  Geesh, as I finish this post, I still have a headache but realize that there are only 10 days left to this challenge and how perfect is that because on the 19th, my gallery show opens!  Time has flown and there is still much to do!  I would love to finish this breast cancer donation so that I could help Michelle's Pink Ribbon Angels sell raffle tickets for it!

K

Day 15: 28 Day Challenge

OMG, I am more than half way through this challenge.  Never believing I could stick to it, I am so glad I decided to hop on board.  I have moved further ahead on my to do list than I ever dreamed!  Again, no pictures, but I promise I will have some tomorrow.  I was in the studio for about 2 hours today (not continuous) and accomplished a good deal.  I finished the secont coat of varnish on the landscape below and now all I have to do is sign it.  It is officially done.  I work more on third in my elements series, Air.  I managed to "fix" that third transfer to my liking and I put one or two more glazes on it along with some artist crayon work.  It is drying and so I did not want to risk scanning it just yet.  I think the work is through that "ugly" stage but I want to let it sit for a day.  I am thinking I want to actually take away some paint to brighten it in a few areas.  Moving right along, I put down a patch work background on a 8 by 10 inch canvas board.  This is in preparation for the sketch I completed the other day.  For tomorrow I am hoping to start the process of making/altering some papers for my final piece in the element series, Water.  The show is looming ever closer and pretty soon I will have to totally do the paper work to ready the labels /tags that describe the work with the title/cost/medium/etc... 

Pulling my hair out here in Illinois

k

Final Thoughts on the Art of the Land Gallery Show (9-26-09)

Since the Art of the Land show, I have been so busy. During the week after the show, we had Grandpa over (the children's grandpa that is) for the entire week, my husband caught some kind of crud, and then this entire week I have been laid low with evidently the same crud. No art time, no class prep (for next week), no life. I am not feeling sorry for myself although it sure sounds like it :) I have used this down time somewhat productively, art productively that is, in giving some thought to this gallery show/fundraiser. So, I realized that I really enjoyed the entire gallery experience. It was shortly after doing an outdoor fine art show that I knew this type of venue was not for me. The gallery opportunities in McHenry County are few and far between and when I was invited to participate in this fundraiser, well I went for it and I am so glad I did. Although I have had several gallery shows, including one with the Raue Center for the Performing Arts, none compared to the dazzling evening at the Starline.

The Land Conservancy of McHenry County had a connection with the Starline Gallery and so that was the beginning of this collaboration. For one night, about 20 artists were treated to a beautiful show, glamorous people, great appetizers and wine, and fabulous music. The Land Conservancy made about $3000.00 which for the first time doing this kind of event, was great. Artists contributed a portion of all their proceeds to help. I have to say that my personal "Meet the Artist," openings have not even come close to this extravaganza. I was sort of like a doe caught in a headlights glare and I must have really looked like that because I was told to close my mouth on several occasions. It was almost overwhelming. My husband and I had an exciting "date" night, I got to meet some very talented artists, and learn a little about the good work the Land Conservancy is doing. There was a considerable amount of work to view and unfortunately, I could not get close enough to all the pieces to really "dissect" them. The gallery is really fabulous but there were so many people that there were often more than 5 people deep at any given work. And that is a really good thing because we know a lot of folks viewed the work. The "bad" thing is that it is often hard to make a decision on purchasing a piece in just one viewing. So, I am told via email that the Land Conservancy group loved this evening, the idea, the art and want to make this an annual event. YIPEE. To be a part of this, is not only very gratifying but it gets my creative muse off her duff! I have a head full of ideas that are competing right now with my head full of crud! Can't wait to start creating again. I want to do another abstract landscape of my Santa Fe vistas that never seem to leave my spirit. The colors, the patterns, the smells, Santa Fe will be in my blood forever. Hopefully I will have a small body of work prepared for next years show and I hope it will grow into something as beautiful as what the Land Conservancy is trying to preserve.

k

The Studio hosts a Chamber Mixer on Sept. 1st

The Studio Art School in McHenry, IL held a lovely mixer for all the Chamber business members this past Tuesday. Lucy called and invited me and also asked me if I wanted to hang some of my art on her lovely walls. Right after dealing with my first day of pre-K, I went and hung art with Lucy. The mixer was lovely and I received plenty of nice comments on my work including that it was nicely priced. Nothing sold, but it was nicely priced :) My latest work, the three little abstracts also received plenty of good comments. I arranged them in a pre-cut mat and framed them and they looked wonderful. What was really wonderful though was that Cheryl Perrone from the Land Conservancy of McHenry County, came over and introduced herself. She asked if I wanted to be part of a multi artist show at the Starline Gallery in Harvard Illinois. The show is called, ART OF THE LAND and is a benefit for the Conservancy. OMG, I have wanted to find an excuse to get up to Harvard to see this new gallery. It is in an old factory and is supposed to be really cool. Here is the link to the gallery and blog although neither site is that up to date.

http://www.gabrielshorn.org/gallery_frameset.html http://starlinestudiogallery.blogspot.com/

As for the conservancy, Here is a link to their site and the announcement of the show at the Star line: https://www.conservemc.org/

https://www.conservemc.org/htdocs/artoftheland.html

The good work that this group does is largely behind the scenes. I would wager that the average resident living in McHenry County does not even know that there is a very active group fighting to preserve our prairie areas, fens, bogs, oak and Hickory grove (what little is left of them) and so much more. I do hope this fund raiser brings much needed dollars to continue their good work. I am so thrilled to be able to take part in this (just have to fill out the paper work). I am going to donate a print of my Fairy of the Woodland Gables for their silent auction and probably submit three-4 pieces. One is below, the abstract landscape, and that piece I still need to seal and mat. The benefit is slated for September 26, starting at 7. I think tickets are 15.00 pre -purchased. The details can be found at the announcement link above. If you are free and live in the area, do stop by for a really worthy cause.

k

der Weihnachtstraum 1-109

Happy New Year I say as I pat myself on the back! It just feels good to have come through the Holidays. We are on the cliff looking down as we wait for the axe to fall. My husbands job maybe no more thanks to Bank of America's many acquisitions and mismanagement. OOH there are times when I just boil thinking about how the banking industry has run itself to the ground. But I digress. I finished Clara from my ballet series (forever an a day ongoing). I titled the work der Weihnachtstraum (The Christmas Dream). Since the Nutcracker takes place in a German household, the German title seemed to fit. I just really enjoyed working on this one. There was a point on the work when I had no idea where I was going and then I took a long hiatus in December. I picked up the piece again last Tuesday and just knew what to do. I love when that happens. So my little Clara was sketched from a foto of my Claire when she was about 9. The dress she is wearing is very similar to the actual costume worn in our local Nutcracker production. She will be hung along side the other Nutcracker works this Thursday.

And on another note, this Thursday begins my show at the Conscious Cup Cafe in Crystal Lake IL. http://www.consciouscup.com/joomla/. I have about 18 works to hang, 6 of which are new but continue my series work. I hope my work brightens peoples mornings. Everyone seems so depressed and very quiet. At least though, our coffee shops are still getting customers. Coffee is a hard one to give up, even with the poor economic outlook. My show will be there from 1-15 through mid February. I hope to be more diligent in keeping my blog more current (at least till the next ballet).

k

Raue Show at a glance 5-31-08

Here are most of the works that are in my gallery show. There are about 5 more that I have not uploaded to the photobucket album but you get the idea. Just pass your cursor over a thumbnail for a closer look. I had a blast creating this little slide show... Enjoy!

k

Odilon Redon

Thank you all for giving it the old college try (so to speak). Here is the drawing by Odilon Redon that I was trying to "feel" in my own painting. I rediscovered Redon about two years ago at a big show in The Art Institute of Chicago. I had forgotten how wonderful and really weird his work is. Anyway..I was trying to capture his emotions as I did my Faith painting. I did not think anyone would guess him. My painting only slightly captures the mood. I am not so sure I would have guessed Redon either :) Thank you new and old followers. And Amy, your comments made me blush. You know I am a huge Rosa fan and I am blessed that she has "recommended" my blog on hers. I think as one of my paintings expressed."We are all in this together." A community of artists finding their way, reaching out, encouraging, and appreciating what we share.

K

Series Finished: 5-8-08

It has been about three month but my 4 virtues are finally finished. I had this idea to write a 4 line poem dealing with 4 virtues. Each line became a mixed media and collage work. The virtues I choose were Peace, Hope, Goodwill, and Faith. The works will look lovely together and of course it would be nice if they went to the same home. My poem is as follows :

With peace in her heart
Hope in her soul,
Goodwill doth impart

Faith sown to grow.

This is the faith work. I have been practicing drawing faces from the works of great artists. This is one of those drawings. And although I don't think it looks like the artist's woman, I am wondering if anyone out there has a guess as to the artist that I was trying to emulate. A hint, the original work was in graphite and the artist lived into the early 1900s. If you guess the artist, I will send you a print of the work "Faith Sown to Grow." That will give me an excuse to figure out how to have prints made :) Anyway the work was done using found papers, acrylics, oil pastels ( I love using those), and graphite. Oh and Rosa, I used all Golden products on this one :) The "glue" that I used was the soft gel matte medium. The work is about 4 by 6 and will be framed in an 8 by 10 frame.

Right now I am working on The Snow Queen from the Nutcracker. I wanted to get back to my children's ballets and the Nutcracker has been a part of our family for about 8 years. After completing three fairies from Sleeping Beauty, I wanted to give time to the Nutcracker. I am about a third of the way done and I hope to have it complete by the 15th of this month. Then that will be it before the show. I still have some administrative things to get done before the 29th and have to get myself in gear now.

K

Update: I have had two comments from friends who don't know who the artist is. Anyone else willing to venture a guess?

Found Art Tuesday 4-22-08: Kindness

I thought that I would make a high quality print of this newly finished work for the found art theme of kindness. This is the thrid in the Virtue in Rhyme Series: Goodwill Doth Impart. As I was getting close to finishing it on Tuesday, I thought this woudl do the trick for kindness. I plan on printing the image, signing it (my name will be barely legible) and then include a bit of an explanation of how the work evolved. That is quite a bit more than I do for most found art projects, but I could not resist making a nice print of it.

The work needs to be varnished and then it will be framed, final size is 8 by 10. This will be in my gallery show starting May 29th. I have one more work in this series and then my little poem will be completed. The Virtues I chose to represent were peace, hope, goodwill, and faith. Meanwhile, I hve started another ballet fairy, the Snow Queen from the Nutcracker. I hope to have her finished before mid May. It would be nice to have a few more works done. That gallery has three rather large walls!

K

Carabosse 7-16-07

In-between working on the little collage project for my daughter's art class, I finally finished a work for the Gallery in the Garden show, July 28th. I was so inspired by the Sleeping Beauty performance that my children were in in June, that I decided to create a couple of the characters from the ballet. Mind you, these are my interpretations. The dancers did not look like this :)

Carabosse is a mixture of excitement and danger. She can be beautiful and ugly and very wicked. This mixed media and collage is 11 by 14. I used acrylics, inks, found papers and objects, oil pastels, and markers. I actually drew the image of Carabosse on some old leather looking scrapbook paper, cut her out and then collaged her to the work. I added color to her face using my pastels and acrylic paints (the oil pastels are water soluble and mix nicely with the paint). I gave her some serious eye make-up (just like the dancer who became Carabosse on stage) and added a spider to her crown. Since Sleeping Beauty is a French fairy tale, I drew her dress on the page of a French text book. The birds were found images. The window was hand drawn, again on scrapbook paper and collaged to the work. The vines were either hand drawn or I used a rubber stamp for some of them. In the background I have a portion of the Sleeping Beauty program and a ticket from the performance. My kids fell in love with her. I told them if they had a 100 bucks that she was theirs. I am such a mean Mom!

Next work is a depiction of the song bird fairy or Fairy of the Song Birds. She is in progress and I hope to complete her by this weekend.

k

Uninspired and Tired 7-10-07

Well today is found art day and I have just been so uninspired! I think the taxi driving is getting to me. I have a show coming up July 28th and I wanted to get at least 3-4 more paintings done. Guess what..I am still on the first! I just can't seem to finish it. It is all laid out and the work is progressing nicely...it is just that I feel drained. Maybe part of it is that I have been setting up a database for my artwork, sales, customers/patrons. I am using Access and so far most of my work has been coming up to speed on the software. I am not a relational database whiz but I can appreciate how useful it will be once I have it set up properly. I have also been playing around in Microsoft's Publisher. Cool program. This is the flyer I made for my upcoming show. I have finally arrived in the new century with this software!

Maybe next week for found art...

k

Solo exhibit wrap-up

Well my first solo exhibit is over. I took down the art on the 10th of this month. I was totally humbled by the entire process. But I did get through it. I sold 5 pieces (one was a commissioned piece) and was able to donate 20% of those sales to Greyhounds Only http://www.greyhoundsonly.com/. I did make a few contacts and I am going to participate in Gallery in the Garden..which is an annual art show in the beautiful gardens of the an artist residing in Woodstock IL http://www.galleryinthegarden.org/. This even takes place in July. Unfortunately or fortunately depending upon how you look at it, my children have a ballet recital on the same day but the artist who hosts the show, Deb Glaubke, said it would be no problem if I left early. How cool is that! I decided I would complete at least 4 new works for this show. I will include maybe 6 of the works from the Conscious Cup solo exhibit.

I will leave you with a work from my first solo exhibit. It did not sell but it is one of my favorites. I created the work after seeing the film "An Inconvenient Truth." Whatever you might think of former Vice-Presidents Gores politics, you have got to admire his persistence. I was so moved by this film and the powerful message behind it, that I created a work based upon my emotions. As a scientist I have no problem with his data. I even did a little research myself because I thought that the way the data was presented was primarily for a non-scientific public. The work is dedicated to his efforts to educate the public and it sells for $95.00 framed. The final size of the work is 16 by 20 and it is a mixed media and collage piece on watercolor paper. The title of this piece is: She Weeps for Us. Take a close look at the Earth, I think Mother Earth would nod in agreement.

k

Artist Recption 4-7-07

Today was my day, my very first artist reception. The owners of Conscious Cup were waiting for me when I arrived. I was somewhat overwhelmed by their "accolades." Mike really likes my work and is already talking about another show later in the year! My art has only been hanging for a day and a half! Anyway, it was rather quiet for the first hour and then my friends began to arrive. I so enjoyed explaining how each piece was "born." My 14 year old, Kaitie, told her teacher about this and I was so pleased to see Mrs. Gavula at my reception. She bought two pieces! I almost died. She purchased the ones you see here called "Heralds of Spring" and the smaller piece that I did in Dec. of 2005 called "Innocence Prevails." The store owner is considering purchasing a piece as well. Gosh I really was flabbergasted. I did not know what to say or how to react. My husband was there with my three children and the look on their faces was priceless. What I have decided to do for each piece sold is to write up a little explanation of my thought process behind the work and describe the materials used. I will sign and date that as a sort of certificate of authenticity.

For the Heralds of Spring, I was practicing drawing these fantastical faces and it was late in February, rather cold and dreary. I was wishing it was Spring and about 30 degrees warmer. The piece just sort of came together. This is a mixed media and collage piece after of the style of Misty Mawn. I love her whimsical works. Mine definitely pale in comparison. But at least I am attempting to draw again! Acrylics, oil pastels, inks, rubber stamps found papers and objects were used to create the work on 300 lb watercolor paper. The work is 11 by 14 framed.

The Innocence Prevails piece was actually one in a series of 4. The other three were sold through Ebay in the Art Squared listings. This work is 6 by 6 in size and is primarily watercolor and inks done on watercolor paper. This piece was done right before Christmas in 2005 and came into being because I was thinking of my religious roots. Through so much adversitiy, Mary still managed to give birth to Jesus, a true miracle.

K

Conscious Cup Gallery Show. 4-5-07

Last night I hung my 13 works at the Conscious Cup Roastery and Cafe in Crystal Lake, IL. I am nervous, the excited kind of nervous. I have to say this has been quite a learning curve and I definitely learned some of my limitations! Rosa Murillo was kind enough to answer some of my numerous questions about how to go about a gallery show. She also supplied me with an excellent resource: http://artistemerging.blogspot.com/ , chocked full of info for the emerging artist. I am so grateful for such a site. But after immersing myself in the information there, I felt quite overwhelmed. I guess that is normal for being a newbie at all this. So I decided to wing it, at least for this gallery show.

When I was contacted by the owner of the cafe, I knew I had to seize this opportunity. It has been my experience that in my little corner of the world, mixed media and collage is a bit of an oddity. I think it is time for the public to get a taste of this art form. The galleries here are chocked full of very traditional works, quite nice, but traditional none the less. You will also see some abstract paintings, some assemblage, a little collage, and some outrageous oils (which I am totally not a fan of). I wanted to create some new work but where to begin..... I thought long and hard about what would sell in our area, trying to figure out the market so to speak. Well, that was a waste of brain cells! When it comes down to it...I do not have to feed my family from the income of art sales. Thank God I can create art that means something to me. You can drive yourself crazy if you try to approach creating new pieces from a good marketing perspective. I thought about how I buy art. The pieces that I just had to bring home either reminded me of a special area of the country or invoked strong emotions in me. Art is so individual... My new pieces are for the most part, issues that really touch me both on an conscious and unconscious level. Some of the pieces are very light, as you will see.

My husband helped me hang the pieces. I was pleased with the outcome. Let me say one word about framing though...this is NOT my forte. I simply do not have the tools. I discovered that I can't cut a straight line even with a t ruler and square. I don't have a matte cutter so I had to purchase pre-cut mattes. Then the frames I purchased had to be standard size and so with coupons and 50% sales, I purchased black frames from Michael's. The work I created had to fit the frames so there were those limitations even before I began to work. Even with premade frames it took a long time to set the work in them because I can't cut a straight line! I do have a "chopper" paper cutter but that is totally inadequate for large sheets of paper not to mention is is just for paper. It would be nice to sell a few pieces so I could pay for the frames...and while I am dreaming, how about an extra $3-400 for a matte cutter! Anyway we did get them on the wall and while not perfectly at eye level, they looked fine up there.

While we were hanging the works, I noticed a group of folks in the back of the cafe. There were maybe 10 people all huddled around a computer screen. Well it turned out that they were some kind of art group meeting to discuss current work. Talk about intimidation. I did not have the nerve to talk to them.

The work seen here is 7 by 7 and entitled "John." It is a lighter piece, mixed media and collage on watercolor paper. I had this terrific old photo of an Italian relative. The picture is circa 1940s. I can't remember his name, but he was related to my Father. So I wanted to build a simple work around him. Sure enough I found this headline from a vintage magazine and then the work just came together. John has one of those looks that is really hard to read. Is he smirking because he knows something that we don't, is he just happy, or is this a more sinister look (mafioso). Now mind you, I don't think my family was tied to that organization but I can imagine!

More work will follow.

k