10% for autism

#art365 4.1.13 new life, acrylic on paper, 5" x 7"

I've been thinking recently that it was about time to do another good karma giveaway. I have a lot going on art-wise and I am very grateful for it, even if I do sometimes think I have too much going on. And then I had one of those rare (for me) really decisive moments. 

 I'm going to give 10% of all my sales for the month of April to NAA-NWI.

April is Autism Awareness month.  The Northwest Indiana chapter of the National Autism Association offers support and information to local families. You can donate directly to them here.

I have a soon to be teenager with pretty severe autism. Depending how you know me, this may not have come up in conversation before. I am really not ready to have a teenager. Probably a lot of parents feel this way. Probably not a lot of parents who feel this way are in the middle of potty training their teenager. I talked about how having a special needs child impacts my work last summer in this video.

Currently I have artwork in Crown Point, Dyer, Whiting and Hammond. And I certainly have tons more in my studio. 10% of any and all sales for the month of April will go to NAA.

How to find my work:

A selection of #art365 landscapes are at Candy Café.

Alternate Realities is at South Shore Arts.

Recent paintings at Paul Henry's Art Gallery.

I will be part of Live Art Show, April 5th, at Studio 659.

And there's more work on my website and facebook page.

the studio visit

Today Mary McClelland the gallery director from South Shore Arts came over to see what I had accomplished so far on the grant work for the Alternate Realities show in March. I had sent her this image of these things back in November for their quarterly magazine. 

I invited her over to check the paintings so far and to discuss having the paintings only in the show. The point of the grant was to unite my ink drawings and my paintings, and I think I have accomplished that in both the large scale paintings and the smaller mixed media work. But... I decided they shouldn't be hung in the same show. They sort of diverged into two different series, not just the difference in media but the difference in ideas. The mixed media focus more on domesticity and the paintings are more about the difference between expectations and realities. And while, they overlap, they really are two different shows. Thankfully, Mary was totally on board. I had a bunch of back up plans and didn't need any of them. 

She saw kindness and this is how it felt that day, both of which were set up in the living room, because my studio is too small for this project. I also showed her the most current, work in progress piece, tumult.  

grant work!

So, despite the lack of updates, I have been working on my grant project. I have been trying to set aside one day each week just for this project. It's mostly working. Last week I had two mornings instead of a full day, which is a little less ideal, but I just have to work when I can.

The mixed media pieces I'm working on are meant to be a bridge between my paintings and drawings. I think this is where my artwork is heading, in general. I am really enjoying it. I'm slated to do 4 of these pieces (and 4 large scale paintings.) One of the odd things about working this way is the show is already scheduled, before I made any work for it at all. And the 8 pieces were planned. So everything I make, I now have to consider how it will work within the show. How will it hang? How will it all work together? All the frames have been painted white. I originally planned to paint the frames black to make them look more cohesive, but the canvases will be unframed and so white on the edges. So white frames.

the ties that bind

I'm in the done-for-now stage with the ties that bind and this woman's work. I think the ties that bind is a bit to geometric in the bottom right corner, so that will need to be tweaked a bit. The spoons in this woman's work are going to be moved into a less dangle-y position and I think I'm going move the crochet work in the embroidery hoop to the right side.

this woman's work

And now I'm working on fairy tales...

line drawing and placement

ink writing under"painting"

acrylic

I've since put silver ink over the light pink section. The writing in the first layer there says "where is my silver lining?" The picture frames were going to get happy little individual landscapes in them, but then I went for blue skies, which had a kind of Magritte feel. I settled, for now anyway, on using them more as windows, in a rose colored glasses way. I still may work more on the background painting: more ink, more washes? maybe.

This is just set together right now. I am not sure exactly how I am going to attach the frames to the painting. I may cut it and insert them that way, but I'm fairly scared to cut this.

delivering history

Today is delivery day for History Repeats and the sun is shining. Yay! for good weather on delivery day!

I made this series in January 2011. You can see work in progress pics on my facebook page. There are 16 drawings in this series, most of which were shown in the Decompression show with Megan Green and Lee Ligocki. There are a few that haven't been shown before, just due to space restrictions in that show, including the two featured here.

History Repeats opens Friday May 18 at South Shore Arts Substation No. 9 and there will be an artist reception Saturday May 19 from 11-3, in conjunction with the Downtown Hammond Art Tour.

reminder: one week left to sign up for the good karma artwork giveaway!