Monday, August 24, 2015

Participation 2015: Dinner & Exhibit

Art & History Museums - Maitland's big artist dinner, Participation, came and went again this year, and I had the honor of hosting a table for the third time. I think this year was the best yet- housed in the newly renovated Germaine Marvel Building, food and art to die for, and amazing table guests! It was so much fun to spend the night with many of my favorite artists and friends, Nathalie Chikhi, Danielle DeGuglimo, Marla E, Kevin Haran, Martha Lent, Suzanne Oberholtzer, Dawn RosendahlDawn Schreiner, and Butch Charlan as well as meet some new ones such as Scott Donald and Maxwell Hartley.

My table design was a 3-D version of a woodcut featuring an aquatic creature swinging in a tangle of ropes. I was especially excited for this year's dinner, because I finally succeeded in creating take aways for all of my table quests. I created little "pillow" animals and provided a length of rope for each guest to add them into the tangle framed in the middle of the table. At the end of the night, everyone could untie them and take their animals home.





This year also included an alumni exhibit after the dinner event - Participation: Classes of 2013-2015. This is the first time I've had the privilege of showing at the Maitland Art Center. I had hoped to showcase a brand new print, but unfortunately it was just too small for the space, and the Curator, Rebecca Sexton-Larson, asked if she could substitute one of the prints I donated to the Participation dinner auction. I was a bit bummed that my piece was going to be a repeat appearance, but that did little to dull my enthusiasm for such an exiting opportunity. Besides, the new snake print I started at ARTLANDO 2014 will be making a debut soon- wink, wink, nudge, nudge.


EDIT: I completely forgot to mention that this year's Participation Dinner won Orlando Weekly's Best Dinner With an Artist! As if you needed more proof of what a dynamic and unique evening it really is!

Participation 2015 Artists
Most of the beautiful photos were taken by TipsoPhoto