the last six months have been busy...

Houston ArtCrawl 2009 has come and gone. As has my attempt at the Hunting Art Prize and Box Show 5 at Bering and James Gallery. I have not been in the studio since November. That's too darn long and it feels really lousy. I have five or six panels to pick up from Bill and can't even get down to Dickinson to pick them up. Obviously, it's time to reflect on priorities.

Even so, I did manage to get a bowl painted for Houston Food Bank's Empty Bowls Project:

remix...the aftermath

I'm still waiting for the show in Dallas to come down so I can get my hands on that piece for a good overhaul. In the meantime, here're the results of the first two do-overs.

I salvaged what I liked from the old work and added some new bits. The third one will be longer in process because I sanded it down until I hit the original surface and started completely over.

remix

What do you get when you drive home from Dallas with no children or good friends in the car to distract you from your navel-gazing self?

A road hazard.
(and I have the sketchbook pages to prove it)

Not being completely happy with the piece I just put up in the 'Lost and Found' show led me to contemplating 3 or 4 other pieces that I've never been completely happy with as finished work. One was an experiement that I was mostly happy with, except for a part that I tacked on at the end in an effort to disguise a mistake I'd made. Another was a piece I made with someone else's taste in mind...never a good idea. And so on.

Long story short, mad sketching and note-making (while driving...don't tell my husband or my mother) ensued.

For the last few days, I've been happily tearing apart those old pieces and reassembling them in various ways. So far, so good. I hope to post photos of the new pieces in a day or two.

lost and found

This weekend I ventured into the place where I have always imagined I might live, but don't. It's called Southside on Lamar in Dallas, and I was instantly enamored of it. Whoever thought to take the old Sears and Roebuck catalogue facility and rennovate it into condos and shops...wow. It's been done well, antique merged with modern in just the right proportion. And the gallery space is everything a gallery space should be: antique wood floors; cement pillars; rough old brick walls; whitewashed sheetrocked walls, rectangular plywood pedestals and moveable walls; and a maintenance man who kindly replaces burnt-out halogen bulbs in the numerous adjustable light fixtures.

I was fortunate to meet Lisa Qualls at the Hunting Art Prize reception and more fortunate yet to have her think of me when she needed some extra pieces for her group's current show called Lost and Found. Melianie and I hauled up some of the work and helped hang the show on Tuesday. Valerie Yaklin-Brown had gone up to help hang the show, too. She, Mel and I made short work of hanging the 2-D work. It was great to see Valerie again (we showed together at Eastman) and I still covet her work.

outside the lines 8

On Friday, I head up to Dallas with Ave Maris Stella (see Feb. 6 post) in hand. I submitted it to the Bath House Cultural Center for jury consideration a little over a week ago, then on Saturday found out it is one of 44 pieces selected for the exhibit.

This is a lot of firsts for me, including first show outside of Harris county so I don't know much about it. I'll post again afer Mel and I make the trek northward.

art car parade 2008

The girls and I made an art date for Mother's Day weekend, heading out to Houston's annual Art Car Parade last Saturday. If you've never been, you've gotta go (even if it's nearly 100 degrees). So many of the cars were fantastic. The 4 year old liked any car that sprayed us with water or threw out beads. The 7 year old's favorite was the ginormous dragon at the end. And of course they both loved Stumper because they've been to ViSKER's studio and seen the amazing creature up close and personal.

We hit Sonic for ice cream on the way home and landed in the neighborhood pool within minutes of pulling into the driveway. It was a fun day.

We were very sorry to hear about the accident involving Tom Jones the next morning. Our family, like so many others, will always be grateful for his involvement with the art cars and the happy memories created for us.

life post-Hunting

Other than it's the last three and half (never-ending) weeks of school, life post-Hunting Art Prize has been relatively normal. Nutty, but normal. Bring on the summer, please.

To satisfy a few curious friends, suffice it to say that I didn't win or sell anything at the gala. That aside, it was a fun evening to visit with the other artists and eat really good and ubiquitous food (maccaroni and cheese made with truffles, anyone?). Those of us whose pieces weren't large enough to warrant our own easel-space were hung together on what we affectionately named 'the kindergarten wall.' This wall with its pieces mounted 3 and 4 rows high and separated by few inches was the night's definite low point. Lower still was the fact that my piece was hung at the bottom right corner of this wall, barely a foot off the floor. However, on the bright side, it was hung near pieces by friendly talented people so the conversation was great. I met Lisa Qualls, Joe Pena, Gail Siptak, Chris Miley and Katie Maratta to name a few from the wall. I also met Jayne Lawrence heading for chocolate, coffee or creme brulee (all of which were located conveniently near the kindergarten wall) and had a some more enjoyable conversation. I also accosted Howard Sherman in the process of trying to find out where the registration table for the artists was located because Eddie and I showed up a tad late. He was gracious enough to come over and visit in a more normal manner later in the evening. I'm looking forward to his show in Beaumont. Wendy Wagner won the evening. Look at hers and the rest of the 100-something pieces at the gallery. I think this is a new feature at the Hunting Art Prize site and it's cool to browse through.

Eddie says I'm not allowed to enter anything smaller than 7 x 7 next year.

inspector 7

I'm donating a piece of artwork to my 1st grade daughter's school's spring fund-raising auction again this year. I finished it Monday and showed it to her yesterday before taking it over to the PTO President:

Is that it?

Yes, what do you think, Sweets? Will it work?

I don't think it's appropriate.

Appropriate? I'm not sure what you mean?

Mom, the little kid is naked.

Oh right. That.