Fantastic Fall Line-up

So, I have a whole lot of great art stuff coming up this Fall. Here is a snap-shot of a few pieces, in process, that will be at Lisa Kurts Gallery this month. The opening is Sept 9th, 6-8pm.

Also in September I will be at the Houston Fine Art Fair working the Salar Galeria de Arte with my friend Keiko Gonzalez and Gaston Ugalde - both Bolivian artists.

On October 7th Keiko is opening "Everyone Knows this is Nowhere" here in Memphis at Lisa Kurts Gallery and in Atlanta on November 11th at Mason Murer Gallery. I manage his work here in the US so I will have lots of schlepping and hanging to do - I love it.

Also, in November on the 18th I am helping friend and fellow artist Carolyn Hope Clark open a show at The Eclectic Eye.

And I am curating a show entitled The Heidi Series: Shape and Form (check us out on facebook) at Harrington Brown Gallery opening December 2nd.

And finally - I just accepted a position as part-time Artist in Residence for Page Robbins Adult Day Care Center and am really looking forward to making art with these folks.

And if that is not enough hyper-links in one article for you - here is one to my own website. Phew! If you see me out and about you might bring me a nice hot chai - just for the caffeine - to keep me going....

Drawing at the Flying Saucer

A few photos and sketches from an outing with the Memphis Urban Sketchers at the Flying Saucer Restaurant in downtown, Memphis.

Art and my Cerebellum

I was in North Carolina last month. It was hot, but cool in most of the galleries – though I must say that there were quite a few spaces without AC.

The Ashville area just oozes with artwork. It is everywhere you turn, in large quantities. And galleries feel healthy. Most of the work is high craft. Labored, labored, labored – some of the woodwork made me tired just to look at it – mostly because I happen to hate sanding. Everything is beautiful, honed and you want to caress it all.

But, unless you count the use of pithy sayings, I saw very little work with content. The artwork is completely non-confrontational. The challenge, I guess, is in the craft: See how good I am? My skills are honed over generations. Pretty, pretty, pretty.

But where are the issues? I know the area has them because I saw guys in dresses, heard tourists complain about all the tattoos and the area professes to be very GLBT friendly, but also houses a whole lot of Christian religion. You know there must be issues. I was there for less than a week and perhaps I did not know where to look but these do not appear to be reflected in the art. Beauty is beautiful, but to really keep my interest I need a little more on the cerebral side.

A few things I saw that I especially enjoyed in Asheville:
Jack Tworvac, poor man’s Abstract Expressionist, at the Black Mount College Museum
Ceramic fortune cookies printed to look like dollars
A small watch repair shop with stuff piled high on every level surface (above)
The cobblestones and rock face at the Grove Park Inn (below)
My friend’s beautiful, peaceful, tidy home back in the woods with a lovely view of the mountains

Figure Drawing

Because Blogging and Figure Drawing go together in my mind.

A New Series

I am working on a new series. 8x10 two inch wide boxes. Transferring photo/line drawings and filling areas with seed beads and sometimes a bit of watercolor. Anxious to see what they look like on the wall. For now they pushed to the back of the table in my cluttered studio while I work on more.

From the Beginning

New blog, new beginnings. Aren't beginnings great? Really, I should have one every week.

So I will start with a little background info. I am an artist. I work primarily in a multi-media mosaic format with a good dose of drawing, painting and wire sculpture thrown in. I am coming at it from a my-kids-are-almost-raised-so-can-get-back-to-my-first-love perspective. Oldest, Max is 23 and a senior in college. Middle, Alex is 19 and a college freshman. Youngest, Rosy is 13 and homeschooling. I homeschooled the boys until high school and hope to be doing the same with Rosy who is in the 8th grade this year.

Alright, so kids have always come first. But now I find myself with time to pursue my own interests: Art. This summer has been especially interesting. For years and years I have been a truly busy person - raising children, homeschooling, volunteering, running the household, taking care of my mother and, working part-time. Well both boys are off to college, Mom passed away last summer and I quit my part-time catering job (which I enjoyed) to really focus on My Art.

But the truth is that My Art is not really only my own, because I have a strong need to nurture and help. This means that I teach (at Flicker Street Studio, currently) and volunteer. I volunteer to help friends put together and hang shows - which I love to do - and volunteer as an installer at Jones Alumni Gallery at the University of Memphis. And since I quit my job I coordinated and curated the art portion of a fund-raiser for Page Robbins Adult Day Care Center, a non-profit that services Alzheimer's clients. I also manage the work of Keiko Gonzalez, a Bolivian artist and good friend, when he shows in the US. I am always interested in new and different art opportunities and tend to have my toes in various things all the time.

But this summer has been slow. I have had very little responsibility - something I am not really used to - and lots and lots of down time. I have been bored. This is a new concept for me. I am trying to embrace it but it feels pretty foreign. I am trying to fill my time with making art but a lack of structure seems to be keeping me from embracing this emptiness whole-heartedly. So I have begun to think of this as a detoxing time. A time to sit, to contemplate, to get back to nothingness. An empty place where things can grow. Things that are me and mine. It is hard to listen to myself after so many years of putting the needs of others in the forefront of my doings. So I am grateful for this time and am trying to sit quietly and wait, listen. Dabble a little. I am excited about things to come.