Art Wall

Our friend in Montana had three pieces of my art on her dining room wall, but realized it wasn't "holding the wall" and asked if a 24" x 24" collage of mine was still available. We arranged for her to pick it up when in Illinois this October... and then I emailed her several panoramas I'd taken while visiting her in Montana this summer. She asked if I could make a 70" wide panorama to hang above the other four pieces of art! It certainly was the largest piece I've ever made, so I was very happy that she was able to drive both pieces home with her. She sent a photo today of the end of her dining room; my  5 pieces hang on the wall and my husband's metal mountains and Italian alabaster sculpture grace the cabinet below. Love it!

Studio Time

I've been spending as much time in my studio as I can. I started the above piece last weekend and then worked on it during the week whenever possible. It is another 24"W x 18"H piece to submit to the Cincinnati "Art Comes Alive" exhibition. In addition to the three digital variations of the photo of the Hoodoos in Yellowstone, I've added sections of topographical maps of the park and photos I took of animals in Yellowstone. There are tiny images of: 1 bear, 1 coyote, 4 bison and 6 antelope (you can actually see some of them if you click on the image to show it larger). I'm calling this piece "Hidden Life" due to those hidden images and also referencing all the other hidden life within the park.

I needed to get the Yellowstone piece finished and off my drawing board as I now have two commission pieces to complete by the end of the month! A woman in Chicago purchased two of my desert collages she'd seen at Xanadu Gallery and asked me to make two more for a grouping of art. The images above are the two photos of mine she chose for me to work with. I started the cactus grouping today....

Upcoming shows

There is a national juried show in Cincinnati with an April deadline and one in Monmouth with a June deadline. I want to have some new, larger work to submit to those, so this is my first completion toward that goal. This is called "Listen - the grass is singing" and it is 24"W x 18"H. I used some colored pencil lines on yellowed book text and put fragments of that in the grass for some up-close surprises.

I spoke to an area church's Daughter Banquet last week and have two more speaking engagements lined up for women's groups. It's been fun to put together a 20-minute talk summarizing how I got into collage and then moved from traditional collage to what I'm doing with photographs. It was also surprising to look back and realize how many achievements I've made in seven years; good motivation to keep pushing ahead!