Nice interview of me!

End of year production

Despite the increased social activity of the holidays, I did find time to make art for some holiday shows, new gallery inventory, and some 5x7 woven pieces for my Art Sistas. Looking forward to a new year with travel and more explorations in art.

Commissions

I've completed a number of commissions in the last couple of months. People gave me good photos of places that were meaningful to them and I gave them additional meaning and interest by embedding things into the art.

They include a sunflower watercolor artwork transformed by my art technique to make reproductions on metal for the woman's children and granddaughters... a field of sunflowers with names in the sky to memorialize three high school students killed in a car crash.... a dramatic cowboy and horse... a Colorado scene for a woman to give to her boyfriend... a NC beach scene at sunrise for a couple to think about their second home.

First Friday Gallery Talk

I really enjoyed giving a gallery talk at the Contemporary Art Center on Friday. I gave a brief history of my art making and showed a work in progress. It's always a good exercise to evaluate what it is you do and how to convey the thought process as well as the physical process. I shared some of the details of my work... like writing the word JOY! on every panel before I start the art... showed embedded stamps and ledger paper in the pieces in the show... told the fun story about being handed 3 bags of shredded money by a gentleman staffing the Chicago Federal Reserve booth at a bank conference...lots of good questions and comments. 

My two-person show is up!

My work is being exhibited along with the sculptural ceramics of Chris Dokolasa at The Contemporary Art Center in downtown Peoria through October 15. I'm very pleased with how the show looks.

New work for my upcoming show

I have a two-person show opening at the end of August at the Contemporary Art Center in downtown Peoria, Illinois. Since one of my galleries just requested my three largest works and sold a small piece via their website, I'm working to make "replacements" to fill the walls! 

Two of the pieces below originated with photos I took recently in Northwestern Michigan and one is from my daily walk. "On the Point" shows the lighthouse at Point Betsie along Lake Michigan. It was completed in 1858, so I added some vintage postage stamps and ledger paper from 1865. The beach scene shows a misty morning at water's edge. I've added 1865 ledger paper and shredded U.S. currency into this one.

The scene with the trees is along Grand View Drive in Peoria. Teddy Roosevelt rode in an open car along this 2.5 mile drive above the Illinois River that is lined with stately homes and pronounced it "the world's most beautiful drive." I've added handmade papers and vintage postage stamps from Teddy's era into the scene.

Creatures

My "Art Sistas" workshopping group will be presenting work at our next meeting using "creatures" as our reference point. When we were all on a retreat together in Michigan last month, I saw an art piece that had botanical drawings in it. I decided to start there. On the first one, I printed the illustration of a hickory tree leaf onto brown paper, laid real hickory leaves on the paper and photographed that for my composition. I digitally added a lady bug "creature" to a leaf and ran filters on the photo. The artwork is made up of three sets of images cut into strips, vintage ledger paper and postage stamps. On the second one, I combined the photo of a monarch butterfly on a zinnia with an illustration of zinnias. The artwork is formed of three sets of images cut into strips, vintage ledger paper with shredded U.S. currency added to the zinnia illustration. Each is 10" x 10" x 1"

Nesting

There's a group show coming up with the title of Feathers and Fur. I plan to exhibit my recent cardinal piece and made this artwork from a photo of robin's eggs as my second entry. I did a bit of paper weaving along the left side to break up the solid leaf areas and added in text cut from a 1920's agricultural newspaper to the nest.

Commission

My college "bestie" asked me to make an art piece from a photo of her late husband in Hawaii. She photographed a few cards he'd written to her and notes he'd placed in their gratitude jar. I overlaid a light image of the stones over his handwriting and placed the words among the rocks in the foreground. It was a joy to work on this for her and also so sad to contemplate her loss (and be reminded of my own loss of my husband of 30+ years). Art Therapy.

Experiments and Other Projects

A local gallery had a Clipboard Show with art hanging from clipboards (that could be framed by the gallery when purchased). This caused me to think of a way to make flat art that isn't glued down on a panel. I made three woven pieces for the show, all 10"H x 8" wide. I think I'll make more of these and float them in a shadow box kind of frame!

I was asked to make a grizzly bear collage for a friend. I embedded words in the foreground that she requested and also put some blue ledger paper in the sky.

The rock cairn is from a photo I took in Door County, WI. I embedded ledger paper, magazine text and handmade papers in the scene.

Two April Artworks

These were two pieces I made at the end of April. The cardinal piece is called "Checking out the Neighborhood" and is a 12" x 12" piece that includes additions of ledger paper and pieces of paperbark birch. The lake artwork is called "Early Morning Flight" and includes additions of blue ledger paper, vintage US postage stamps and a grassy handmade paper. (I heard geese that morning but they were too far away to photograph. In this artwork, I digitally moved a squadron of geese into the scene from another photo.)

Water Lily Series

I took a lot of photos of water lilies when we were in Florida, so I decided to make a series of art pieces. These are called Dragonfly Dream #1 - 3. All have handmade green papers in the lily pads, blue ledger paper from 1858 in the water, and shredded U.S. currency "floating" among the pads. (available for purchase on my website lorireedart.com)

Art is flying off to new homes!

I sent three pieces of art off today! 

One was an enlargement on canvas, going to someone's new winter home in Florida. Another was a commission for a wife to give her husband of him on his sailboat, they live in Omaha, Nebraska. The third was a sale made this morning to a regular customer of Xanadu Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ. I'd purchased a page in their bi-monthly catalog of art, and a man in New Jersey bought it upon receiving his catalog in the mail.

Good art day!

Three more for Door County

I'll be taking 15-16 pieces of art up to the Plum Bottom Gallery in Door County in early spring. These three will be added to the group. Vintage postage stamps, newspaper text and handmade papers join the filtered photos to make the mixed media work.