I loves my aminals

Only 4 more days to go! Boogie on over to Bernie's place and pleasepleaseplease make a donation to help her out. Bernie is one bizzy gal and devotes amazing endless energy to help our furry buddies. Just look at the pictures. But be careful (ha) because every time I look I want to run down there and adopt a bunch of the critters. Then I remind myself, oh yeah, I have 3 of my own. But donations help and all she needs is a $10 for it to "count" in the contest. You can read all the details at the link. I am soooo hopeful she's going to win.
I tried to put the donation badge here on my blog, but I'm apparently too technologically impaired. So click here and you will get where you need to be.
Woof woof, meow, meow.....

And, oh yeah.
I popped into the library book sale yesterday and got an entire BOX of maps. Not just any maps, these are geological/topography maps.
swoon.......be still my heart......this little collage girly loves her maps....

It's all about poultry

When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done.

Lou Holtz

What a great quote.

And exactly the one I needed to hear today because I have spent this last week working "internally", pondering my future - trying to count my chickens, get my ducks in a row, re-organizing my biz (just a wee bit) without putting all my eggs in one basket.

With the woes of the economy, gas prices, recession discussion (blahblahblah), I want to spend more time around home, not on the road doing shows. At the same time, I obviously can't afford to sacrifice my income. Duh. So this is the year of more Custom artworks. Of all types - my custom collage paintings with family photos , the custom abstracts, and custom word collages like the ones shown that I made for my grandsons (don't tell them yet, ok?).

It feels good to have a direction. I've been off to a slow start this year and floundering around a bit, ruh-roh, sorry about the fish image in this all poultry post.

Ok, 'nuff about that. In other news, we saw a really good movie this week The Lives of Others (on dvd). It is just excellent, one that stays with you, like Juno (still at the theatre). Two must-sees in my book.

Celebrate!

This is for a Charity event called 13 Squared. It's a fund raiser for Viva Vox, an organization which offers arts mentoring to at risk teens. I am part of a large group of artists who were all asked to create an 8x8 piece around the theme "Celebrate."

I named the piece Font Dance. It is more trash - dirty and paint stained paper towels primarily. Plus some map scraps and ledger pages. I am kind of obsessed now. But you knew that. It's fun and challenging to make trash look interesting. I loved the way this turned out.

Hope it earns lots of dough for Viva Vox. I am not quite sure when the show opens, but keep checking here for details. It will be at RAC.

Gallery hoppin'

Last weekend was full of Gallery fun. On Friday night, we went to the opening of Iain Fraser: Protoplaces at the Millstone Gallery at COCA. Check out this link to see a virtual tour of the show and you can learn more about Iain at his website. If you are in St. Louis, you should really find time to see this show. The forms and spaces Iain has created are fascinating, from the physical construction of each piece to it's stature within the gallery to the shadows created. I just loved it. I think I have some architectural longings in my head.......this coming from a person who actually drew floor plans as a child (ha, it's true!).

And, I was thrilled to find that COCA has St. Louis' very first ArtOMat. I had never seen one "live" before, have only heard about this for years and years. Woo hoo was I excited, so naturally I had to buy a piece (since Iain's faboo work wasn't exactly in my budget) and this is what I got, a gorgeous little abstract by Hulin Pascale. I lovelovelove the piece; it is tiny (size of a cigarette box) but it sure packs a punch. Very lovely, raw and loose, looks to be acrylic and collage on wood. It is absolutely perfect! Thank you so much wherever you are!

Ok, then on Saturday night I headed to Columbia (about 90 miles?) with Rhonda and a friend for her opening at PS Gallery. The opening was a real scene, absolutely jammed with people and outstanding work - a real feast for the eyes. Rhonda's work was great as usual and I love the new evocative work by Joel Sager the uber talented associate curator of the gallery. He is so young and so talented and so energetic with a continual flow of fabulous work. And Jo Stealey, fiber artist extraordinaire. She has constructed these amazing standing books out of hand made paper - woven, painted, with sculptural niches containing paper fruit. My description is an embarrassment because they are truly so amazing I stood in front of them with my mouth hanging open. Just divine.

And so that is that. A lovely inspiring artsy weekend. We are sort of doing it all over this weekend, with a different show of course, one at Art Saint Louis. My piece wasn't accepted at the show but I am excited to see the juror's picks as the shows are always outstanding.

Trashtrashtrashtrashtrash

Lately I am obsessed with trash - I find myself thinking about it; picking it up(I've always done that); making art with it; even talking about it with passion. Which can be just a wee bit embarrassing as some people think I am freakish.

You may recall that last year I made my first piece of art with the contents of my studio garbage pail. The piece was donated to The Missouri Coalition for the Environment and was auctioned off at their fund raiser. I loved the experience and challenge of making something beautiful out of trash.

And I am back at it. Dumped my garbage a couple weeks ago and foraged around like an art-making raccoon, to find the perfect ingredients for my latest painting. It's about recycling. Duh. About caps through the ages and why our local recycling company doesn't accept caps or lids. Weird, huh? The things that inspire me I mean.

The piece is 10" x 30" on claybord. It was collaged with paper towels that were retrieved from my garbage. None of these were painted for the purpose of this piece. I did a bit of touch up painting on top, but the piece is largely collage.

Board Game Class

Between Christmas and New Years, I taught a board game class at Chesterfield Arts to a group of children, ages 1st-4th grade. I swear my presence wasn't needed in the classroom; kids that age are so darn creative. I simply showed them the supplies, let them look at my sample, and poof! they were off and running. Within about 90 minutes, they all had playable games and were fighting as to which one to start first.

And this is one of the reasons I love teaching kids. They are so uninhibited with their art. Their brains have not yet been infiltrated with the so called "rules." They remember how to Play with abandon and the big ole fear issue is never an issue (yes, I got the lesson). With adults, it's always - how are we supposed to do this - am I doing it the right way - what do I do next - etc, etc, etc. Don't get me wrong, I do believe in step by step guidance when appropriate, but I just totally dig it when students (of any age) bust out and do their own thing.

I am teaching another version of this class for older teens and adults. It starts on Feb 14th (I'll bring some candy!) and runs for 4 weeks from 6-8:30. The extra sessions will allow us to explore more in depth collage techniques plus we will have time to paint sections and develop the concept further. Should be a lot of fun. See the link at the side of my blog for more information.

News and Classes

It's a new month and you know what that means, or perhaps you have forgotten since this is only the 2nd month. BUT........it means I posted another free background paper at
ArtPub Studios. So click on over there and steal it for your own use. And while you're there, I am artist of the month if you care to read more about me plus see some new art that hasn't been posted here or on my website.

And in other news, I will teach my Abstracts on Claybord class at Jacoby Art Center on March 29th from 10-4. The cost is $120 and any level of painter would enjoy the class. We will explore creation of a body of work with specific focus on Claybord as a substrate. I will demo all the glorious options for mixed media on this absolutely forgiving surface (you can erase this stuff, it is that cool!!!). Plus I will bring tons of media for everyone to play with, like inks, airbrush paints, oil pastels and pigment powders.

Email me if you think you might be interested and I will get some more info for you cause I don't know how they are going to handle enrollment. They have a hee-yuge space though and this will be a great class - the same one I am teaching at Artfest incidentally, but it will be fun to do it close to home for the local crowd.

And lest any of you St. Louisans worry about the drive to Alton, they finally completed that road (367) and you can just buzz right over there with no issues whatsoever.

Beautiful Memories

I finished this commission right before Christmas. Don't you love the picture of the couple on the boat dock? I had to do a little altering/drawing to make the composition work. The five boys are the children of this couple, all grown up now with children of their own. Dad is gone and the boys commissioned me to make this piece for their Mom. I had a lot of photos to choose from. I sometimes feel like I can glean the "essence" of people by reviewing their life in photos. Lots of love here, that's for sure.