#art365 : January's burnt prairie

I know, it's not January. But I've been diligently working on this #art365 project and I haven't missed a day yet. Even when I was sick, I still managed to do something. I am tweeting these and pinning these and I started posting them on my website and to google+ (which by the way, I really like. I did not jump on the g+ bandwagon when it started, but I'm there now and it is full of artists! I am a little bit in heaven there.) You'll notice facebook is missing, I've been divvying up what posts where. 

But I have been ignoring my blog, even though I was supposed to be posting  regularly here. oops. So I thought I would share a couple of my favorite #art365 pieces from January. There is a prairie preserve not far from my house which gets alternately mowed and burnt at the end of the season, in order to keep it prairie. 

1.12.13 prairie edge (kennedy and main) acrylic on paper, 4.75" x 6.25"

1.11.13 burnt prairie (kennedy avenue) acrylic on paper 6.25" x 4.75"

1.20.13 burnt prairie (main street, highland) acrylic on paper 4.75" x 6.25"

1.21.13 a dusting, acrylic on paper 4.75" x 6.25"

America at The Edge

Sounds ominous, doesn't it? But, it's true! America is at The Edge. How many crazy political extremists are totally disappointed that I mean my America paintings are at the Edge Coffee House? If I haven't lost you, stick around to hear to the controversy at the end.

I first heard about The Edge from my friend and fellow-artist/photographer Lora Mercado. It's a cool coffee shop in Crete, IL. She had a show of her photographs there last year. She'd been referred by someone else we both know. When she was installing her show, she showed the gallerist my facebook page on her phone, and just like that, a potential show.

This is why you need to know other artists. You need to support them and they will support you. And that's how things happen.

Yesterday and today I delivered and installed. I have twelve paintings form the America series up all month. A portion of all sales (20%!) is going to the Crete Food Pantry, so purchases are not just helping a starving artist, they're helping local people who are in need. Compliments were coming in as I was hanging, so I was very pleased.

Today, when I went in to wrap up the final details, one of the employees said a customer wanted to speak to me about the artwork. He said he saw human figures in the artwork and asked if he was correct. I confirmed this for him. It's in my artist statement, hanging next to my work. I don't know if he read it before or after he looked at it, or even if he bothered. He was very nice and enthusiastic about my work being there. Later, the employee came back and said he had complained that my work was "too explicit" for the coffee shop. That's right: My landscapes were too explicit. 

So, what do you think? Are they too explicit? This is my first art controversy. It's kind of exciting!

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.  

this is how it felt that day

This painting came together quickly. Sort of. It started with a quick sketch for my #art365 project. I know it's nearly impossible to see, but that's what happens when you use a sepia 005 pen. And I don't normally sketch and then turn it into a painting, so this is unusual. I knew almost immediately that the lower portion would be a painting. 

I actually played around with this on a small canvas and learned about skins, but that will have to wait for another blog post. Skins are potentially cool. 

Here is a quick glimpse of me working for the first 2 days.


 

The third day I turned on the camera and started working. I spent at least 2 hours doing lots of little tweaking, during which I thought, this is going to be so boring to watch, even when it's sped up! So I finished up the third day and turned the camera off, which flashed the message: no memory card. oops. So you are all spared the boring details. But they are kind of awesome so here are a few close ups.

and the final piece:
and this is how it felt that day
ink and acrylic on canvas
48" x 96"

kindness, part 2

I lived with kindness for several days. 

(Ah, that line is almost as good as when I tweeted almost done with kindness.) And so I lived with kindness for several days. And it is done. And somewhere about halfway through the painting the name stuck, too. So here it is, the first of four large scale pieces, funded through the IAC grant: 
kindness 
acrylic and ink on canvas
48" x 96"

And I put all of those youtube clips into one movie, which was not as easy as I thought it would be because the camera program only allows for 300 images and I had over 700. Oh, well, I'm learning new things.

goals

I've read a couple of other artists' blog posts in the last couple of days listing all the things they accomplished in the past year. This is not one of those posts.  While I think it's good to reflect on what's happened, I think having a goal (or goals) is really important. My goals for last year were have a solo show and apply for the IAC grant. And I did those things.

So what's next?

I still have to finish completing the grantwork for the show in the spring. As March gets closer and closer, I am starting to feel the pressure of this task. There's a lot of work to get done.

I really want a big studio. This is a long term goal, not one that I expect to accomplish in 2013. Part of this is needing more room to move around in. An 8ft canvas is big. Part of this means more room to store artwork, but I will only accomplish this dream if I sell more artwork (which sort of takes care of the storage issue!) so I can pay for a studio rental. I sold more work last year than ever before, but not enough for a new studio. So sales, sales, sales is the short term part of this goal.

I am thinking over the idea of #art365: drawing or completing some artwork everyday. Seriously this will be a challenge. I've done 2 daily challenges for a month each and that was tricky. I will be tweeting these with a #art365. And here's day 1, a quick sketch of a lamp top while I was waiting for the coffee to brew. Hoping to get some painting in today, but now I'm covered just in case.

kindness, part 1

Wow, I've been a really lousy blogger. Things really have been happening, and I will try for the New Year to get back on track with at least one post  each week.

I've gotten started on my large scale paintings, the first of which is kindness. I've been putting the time lapse camera to good use, and here are the first 2 days work.