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 Rosendahl, Dawn 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

Twitter Art Exhibit: Orlando

The Twitter Art Exhibit comes to Orlando and the Grand Opening tonight, Thursday, March 20th, at 6:00pm at CityArts Factory. This international event was founded in 2010 by David Sandum in Norway and the proceeds from every year are given to a selected charity. This year the Twitter Art Exhibit is benefiting the Special Needs Classes at the Center for Contemporary Dance.

My entry will be hanging up there along with over 600 other postcard sized works of original art from around the world. All the artwork will be for sale at $35 a piece and that money is going straight into the hands of the charity because everyone who is making this event happen is volunteering- like me! Not only do I have art in the show, but I am also working like mad to create an exhibition catalog that will be available on blurb containing everyone's art. EVERYONE'S ART! That's over 600 images I'm plugging into InDesign! Another great philosophy behind this exhibit is that everyone is equal; no one is getting special treatment because they are famous, everyone's art is the same price, and brand new artists have a change to exhibit next to seasoned professionals.

I've been working with the fantastic Robin Maria Pedrero who is curating the exhibit, and I can't wait to see how she has handled the presentation of such a massive amount of art.

Coming Home at SFSC

Last Thursday (Oct 17th) was the artist program for Coming Home 2: SFSC Alumni Exhibit. My sincere condolences to anyone who missed it. It was great to see my former classmates and their newest work. Everyone's presentations and art work were so different it made for a very engaging afternoon. Crystal Martinez and Chase Smith were two of my fellow alumnus. Crystal is working on Roy Lichtenstein inspired recreations from comic books and Chase explained the programming magic behind his video DNA. I represented printmaking and bookbinding with the Swinging Diptych linocut and the book Old Friends. I love going back to SFSC- I took my first printmaking class there with Mollie Doctrow!

If you are interested in seeing the exhibit, it will be up until October 31st.

SFSC Alumni Exhibit

 

Coming Home 2: SFSC Alumni Exhibit is currently showing at the Museum of Florida Art and Culture. My book Old Friends as well as my Swinging Diptych prints are on display. I also have a selection of wrapped prints for sale in the museum store.

This year features a ton of fantastic artists that graduated from South Florida State College (formerly South Florida Community College). The exhibit will be up until October 31st and there will be an Artist Program on Thursday, October 17th from 1:00pm to 2:00pm. I will definitely be there and I'm hoping most of the other artists will as well- I'm really looking forward to catching up with some old classmates!

Artist in Action Studio at the Maitland Art Center

I've finally been able to move into the studio at Maitland! The window that has been repaired is awesome. I now have a growing wishlist for the studio including some storage drawers and a proper workbench.

My first piece of business in the new studio - working on the swinging diptych (seen left). I've been struggling for a while with how to handle the background, and I finally developed a plant motif that I feel walks the line between pattern and object. My current plan is a four color print (black, yellow, brown, blue) and chine collé in the body of the animals (light pink or some other flesh tone). I've got the animal image transferred onto the brown and yellow blocks and I've started carving on the brown blocks. I'm keeping my eye out for some dumpster wood to use for the blue.

My studio hours are Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 9am to 5pm (except holidays). Everyone should stop by! And a big thanks go out to Molly Chism, who helped me move in.

AffectArt Artists' Party at Taste

One of the patrons at my table was a drunk bee- the swinging bunny did not approve.

I had a table at AffectArt.org's Artitsts' Party at Taste in Winter Park on June 15th. I had a fantastic time and met a slew of wonderful artists and people. One of those people was Boone Fowler who set the whole thing up and did a great job of keeping all the artists happy and helping us set up.

Parker Sketch set up his booth beside mine, which meant I wouldn't have to be worried about boredom for the rest of the evening. That was a big relief. Thomas Thorspecken set up to sketch across the sidewalk from Parker and me, so I'm very excited to see that pop up on his blog since I didn't get a chance to peek at it the day of.

Richeson Baby Etching Press was there for print your own prints trying to drum up some interest in my next printmaking workshop. I had several people run prints and I'm hoping some of them caught the printmaking bug! Parker snapped a photo of some of the printing:

Boone is hoping to make this an every other month event, so keep your ear to the ground for the next one because I highly recommend going - whether as a patron or an artist with a table!

Swinging Partner

My sketch for an angsty swinging bunny has been sitting in Molly's studio for a couple months until this weekend when we had to move everything out. I finally drew the second part of the diptych tonight. It turned out to be a rat. It started out as a squirrel, went through ferret, and settled on rat. And as much as I hate feeding stereotypes, he did start looking a little mean so I went with it. What started out as eye droopies (a very sophisticated art term, I'll understand if you have to look it up) in the bunny that make him look tired and almost given up to his swinging fate, have turned into a hard maniacal edge to a soulless eye socket on the rat. I couldn't have planned it better. I wonder if the rat dared the bunny to a swinging match secretly knowing that he is to swinging as the Dread Pirate Roberts is to iocaine powder.