Artist of the Week

I am Artist of the Week on the Twitter 140 Art Show blog.
Sheree Rensel has done a great job!

#MailArt2

At this stage of making the postcard paintings I have painted the fourth layer of acrylic paint, still wet.

This is 3 of the 10 postcards sent from the series Leaves From My Street.


The #MailArt2 mailart project was organised on Twitter. In September and October 2009, the 29 participants in my group, from the USA, UK, Ireland, Australia and Canada, mailed each other art.

Each artist made 28 unique postcard-sized artworks and posted them (without an envelope, so they would show the signs of the mail system and wear and tear).

I made two series:

Leaves From My Street is a series of 10 unique pieces.
The postcards, made from 300lb smooth watercolour board, are painted with layers of transparent acrylic paint and acrylic resin gel, built up over a few weeks. This creates a depth that gives a three-dimensional aspect to the paintings. The lower layers create a green landscape with blue sky. The top layer has the branch of a tree painted in the foreground. There is also a small autumn leaf embedded in the top layer of clear gel, floating above the scene. A poem about blue skies and trees is handwritten on the back. They are each signed and numbered.

The Whole Picture is a painting cut into 18 pieces.
I cut the 22x30 inch painting, made by pouring and layering transparent acrylic paints and resin gels onto gessoed 300lb smooth watercolour board, into 18 pieces. Each was given an identifying code as to its place in the picture. Each postcard is an individual painting, but it is also part of a greater whole. The pieces were posted to 18 different cities in four countries. Perhaps one day they will be re-united and the recipients can see the whole picture.


This is the original image intact, 22x30 inches. Acrylic on gessoed 300lb paper.

This is the painting cut in to 18 parts for the series The Whole Picture.

A detail shot, some of the 18 small paintings / postcards.

CREATE at Lake Garda!

I will be in Italy next week for the next CREATE training conference: Training Course 5: Colour Heritage and Conservation, hosted by the Università Degli Studi Di Milano. A whole week at Lake Garda (think: backdrop for the last 007) learning and sharing ideas about colour! Heaven!

4 year blogiversary

It doesn't seem possible but I have been writing this blog for four years now. Wow.

Not working builds up pressure

"When an artist is not working, there is mounting pressure that nothing can relieve but work." -Julia Cameron

This quote was tweeted on Twitter last week. The sentiment is true for me. I get more and more difficult to live with (or so I am told) if I go through a patch, for some reason, where I cannot go to the studio and work. I think it might be this: I use a part of my brain when making work that I do not use in regular life. When this part is used it keeps a balance in my brain. When it is not used I become "unbalanced". (Mostly irritable and snappish).
That's my thinking on it for today anyway.

Tiny Touring Print Show

I have a 5cm square print, Autumn Leaf, in the Tiny Touring Print Show in Bristol. It is a group of tiny prints exhibited in a travelling trunk. Its first stop will be the IMPACT print conference in September. Then it's off to see the world!

The Collective Egg

The Giant Egg Event: Artists, Writers, Architects, Photographers, Poets, Working together to help Save the Rainforests of Madagascar has been organised to draw attention to the now extinct Elephant Bird.

Tim Grosvenor has also started up the Collective Egg, a group of artists organised through Twitter, who have given him art and words to include on one of the giant decorated eggs commemorating the Elephant Bird.

I have an egg-themed piece on his website.
Eggsistential Crisis by Julie Caves 2009

Twitter 140 mentioned

The Twitter 140 art show was mentioned on Moshe Mikanovsky's Art Blog in an article on using social networking tools.

Twitter Art Show Opening Night Pictures

I have a painting in the Twitter 140 art exhibition in Arizona.
This picture is from ZephyrusNYC's photostream on Flikr. More on the group's website!
(Mine is the white framed square with the coloured overlapping circles.)

IMPACT print conference in Bristol

My panel discussion went very well yesterday.
I wasn't sure if people would find my talk interesting but I had so many people come up to me afterward to tell me how much they enjoyed it, that it seems it was! Turns out that an artist telling people how they do things and why, giving insight into the thought process, how the work is approached and how decisions are made, is fascinating to people! Who knew.

I had to miss the rest of the print conference to come back to London. They are doing some interesting workshops today including colour management (which I need), so I am sad to miss it. Because the topics are relevant and it is such a lovely bunch of people, I do plan on attending the whole thing next time!

I will start saving for the airfare now...

IMPACT

Blackhorse Lane Studios Open Studios

The 3-day weekend of open studios has been great! Lots of good conversations and I have met some great people. Today is the last day, I am going there in a few minutes.

Someone has bid on one of my paintings in the Silent Auction! Very exciting!

The image is of the display I have up in my space, this is the left wall looking through my door.

E17 Art Trail Blog

I have been interviewed for the E17 Art Trail Blog. It is a good blog, a commissioned project for the trail. Thanks Valerie!

Open Studios, so soon!

This weekend I hung half of the paintings for the Open Studios that begins next Friday at noon!
The rest I will hang this week. As well as doing the signs, labels, copies of cv and the table of my book works. Hope I get a chance to mop the floor...

Open Studios at Blackhorse Lane Studios

E17 Art Trail

Our studios at Blackhorse Lane will be having our annual open studios event for 3 days (Sept 11th-13th) during the E17 Art Trail. The Art Trail website has just listed the loads of other art exhibitions that will be going on for the full 9 days of the trail.
You can also download the Trail Guide.
It's a really good website that lets you download all the events, check for events by date, check by a map (not quite finished yet), shows accessible events, and more.

Silent Auction at the Blackhorse Lane Studios Open Studios

Today I chose the 5 paintings for the Silent Auction and got them over to the designated area for photographs to be taken. Soon they will go up on a website with other work in preparation for the Open Studios Sept 11th-13th.

Cafe Gallery Open Exhibition 2009

I had a small oil and acrylic on canvas painting "Twilight No.2" in Southwark Park at Cafe Gallery Projects. This is at the end of the exhibition, just as things were being taken down.

New studio!

Moved into the new studio at Blackhorse Lane Studios yesterday!

I will post pictures when I have unpacked a bit.

Waltham Forest Arts Club

Today I joined the Waltham Forest Arts Club.

It sounds like they have a good membership and are active in exhibiting. I can't wait to meet everyone!

E17 Art Trail

The E17 Art Trail launched in 2004 as a one day event. The annual event now covers nine days with over 150 exhibitions and events already listed for September 2009. The art trail exhibitions feature professional artists, cultural industries, community projects and local residents work.
The fold out map is no longer sufficient and this year the guide will be an A4 magazine. There is a loose theme of At Home in Walthamstow.

Blackhorse Lane Studios will be having our annual Open Studios as part of the E17 Art Trail 11-13 Sept.
32 artists will all have their studios open for the weekend. There will also be a silent auction, starting at just £80 for work by the resident artists. A huge selection of work will be lining the corridors. It sounds like fun and auctions always get exciting at the end - I am sure I will find something I cannot live without!



X marks the spot of the Blackhorse Lane Studios in North East London. (Walthamstow)

Twitter 140 Art Show

In Sept. I will have two small paintings about the Twitter experience in a group show called Twitter 140 at
The Grandon Art Gallery
20 N. Leroux
Flagstaff, AZ 86001

Then it will travel to the next, as yet unknown, destination. Like Twitter, the show will make friends along the way, connections and communication.