Events-

I have 2 big events rapidly approaching:

Chester County Studio Tour
May 18th  10am-6pm
May 19th  11am-5pm

This event includes 53 Chester County based artists at 23 artist studio locations.
my studio is one of these locations:

28 North New Street
West Chester, PA 19380
(on new street between gay and market streets)

I would LOVE to see you there!

I will be doing encaustic paintings demonstrations through out both days of the event.
stop by to see my latest work and where I create it- with wine and food to be enjoyed.

I highly recommend stopping at other locations as well.
there are 3 other artists a stones throw away from my studio.

please contact me with any questions.
for more information about the event go to- http://chestercountystudiotour.com/



82nd Annual Rittenhouse Square Fine Art Show
June 7th-9th
Friday 11am-7pm
Saturday 11am-7pm
Sunday 11am-5pm

I will have my work one display and be present during the entire show.
though this event has its own large draw, I would absolutely love to see some familiar faces.
if you look on the map provided on the event site, I will be in booth #35.

http://www.rittenhousesquareart.com/


Lastly, the center of emerging visual artists has invited me to display 3 of my pieces in a year long exhibition at the Cira Center in Philadelphia.
If you happen to be going there, I can tell you where to find it :)

http://ciracenter.com/

Beautiful mess

As so much of life tends to be...

Confess

Today I woke up with the painting/commission/ obsession that I'm currently working on in the studio at the for front of my mind. More so than usual.

this would be expected, because I usually paint late into the night until the point of exhaustion, but when I wake up, I am supposed to be no longer that musing artist, but instead mommy.

This tug of war on my consciousness led me to muse about my endeavor to compartmentalize my modes of being.

During the day I am supposed to purely have my amazing daughter as my focus. And housework, etc.
On many evenings I am engaging with my wonderful clientele at my bar and late at night I am alone, but still at work aiming for creative abandon and production in the studio.
Let alone time for my wonderful Joel...

I found this quote tonight but I have not had time to research its context...

"A guilty conscience needs to confess. A work of art is a confession."
~Camus

I don't know about the guilt part in this context, and I am Protestant not catholic, but this quotes resonates in me. There is that alone time- just God, me and that artwork that is necessary. I can identify it as a sort of confession.

It needs to be solitary. It needs to be fully involved- in whole hearted abandon. I need to process over my heartaches and cares as I create.

But when this is achieved well, it can make it hard to progress into the next priority.
(I guess this is actually where that "guilt" part comes in...)

I wake up to the greatest joy of my life and the biggest responsibility. She says "momma" and I say truthfully, "that's me! It's the best thing that I've ever been!"

And this is the most true statement I could say but it is slightly diss heartened by the lack of energy to fully back it up.
though I try very very hard to overcome the effects of sleep deprivation for her.

It's a battle that she has to win, ideally my art to survive and some solitude found in the process... Please.

The sparrow

Often things are tight financially- recently especially so.
(A bunch of random bills came up - all at the same time...)

There are about 12 sparrows that live in my very small, urban yard. Often I'm taking a breather outside with financial burdens on my mind and their communications back and forth finally distract me.
Thank you lord for the reminder- somehow and often in a very humbling turn of events- it will be provided.
( mind you- I would starve,etc. before any want touched my daughter. )

Then when only faith (or borrowing money from loved ones) is left to make the bills, a stranger in Michigan (who stumbled upon my work online) wants to buy a painting. And suddenly I am able to make my bills and buy the needed supplies to complete my work for the next event.

Whew...
Thank you!

Is it too cliche to say to a random
buyer that they just saved my bottom from choosing diapers over paying the electric bill? I held my tongue.

To those that want to relish in the tragedy of the starving artist- I've lived that (literally) but luckily for the most part things have progressed positively for me.

To those who say to me that they're glad I have such a nice "hobby"- arg.
Please refer to all of the above.

Mural at Burlap & Bean Coffee

I apologize for not posting this sooner.

I did this mural at Burlap & Bean Coffee last summer.

If you would like to see it in person, feel free to stop by and have a cup of their delicious coffee.

http://www.burlapandbean.com/

Thank you to Gabe Cariola for taking such wonderful photographs.

 

 

 

Current

In the studio I currently have 3 different on going projects...

A (large) planter that I am doing for a donation and trying desperately to wrap up before the open studio tour in May
(Because it is indeed large and takes up much needed space).
...
A commission piece based on a dear friend/ performer done freely in an abstract style but influenced by Leroy Neiman's "Satchmo"...
...
And my new paintings for my events in the spring / summer, which I'm excited about right now and aching to attend to...

(Not to mention a new series that I'm chomping at the bit to get started on, but will probably not be able to start until late summer )

Whew! Juggling all of that with a very active- hitting the terrible two's early-wonderful 17 month old and an almost full time job bar tending- I am tired!
But thank God, I'm not uninspired.

I'm ashamed to say that I had not heard of Leroy Neiman before I was approached by this client. His work challenges me in my color theory and looking at his work again and again on line, I've become a fan.

Here is "Satchmo" (for those that don't recognize the name, it was Louis Armstrong's nickname.)

http://www.doubletakeart.com/cgi-bin/dtg/dtg.sla?ca=&hc=2&cc=dtg&al=&zm=x&ac=&alc=&pg=&ai=00400*482

Abstraction

I took this photograph on my birthday at The MOMA. It is above the entrance of the awesome "Inventing Abstraction" exhibition that I highly recommend seeing.