Art Fortune

Check out this website that was launched in October 2009 — ArtFortune.com
You'll recognize the current Featured Artist on the home page ... it's me!   :-)

Bridging the gap between Artists, Art collectors, Fine Art Galleries, Art Dealers, Buyers of Fine Art, Sellers, Enthusiasts and Art Students, ArtFortune.com has globally reached the art community with innovative marketing and online services.

Rich in content and covering all aspects of art internationally, ArtFortune.com is making it easier to buy, sell, communicate and research art online. The ArtFortune.com database includes an online library of artists’ biographies, examples of work, how-to tips, art news, a global art events calendar, a global marketplace to buy and sell art and more. ArtFortune.com provides the most cost effective way to promote art globally and communicate with the art world directly.

Two more abstract western spaces

I've done two more abstracted landscapes. So what do you think?
On the first one (posted Feb 6) I received this input:
- "I think the colors work well together. One thing that's interesting to me in it is that the 'rock' formations feel forboding to me, but that's countered by the calm blue sky." 
- "I think you did an amazing thing with this piece. Very interesting."
- "It's not one of my favorites - it looks too much like a building to me."
- "Love the dimension you got with this piece."
It's a different way of working for me, so I'd love to have more feedback.... Click on the images to see them bigger if you like.

Accepted into a nationally juried show!!!

Yep. I'm excited! My 24" x 8" piece "More than merely ourselves" has been accepted into the national juried show "GALEX 44" held at our Galesburg Civic Art Center. The exhibit will run March 13th through April 10th.

Abstraction

I recently read a book about Melissa Zink and her artwork. I was really taken by some wall pieces of hers that were 3-D collages that came out/went back/came out/went back. I decided to do a canvas with the illusion of that out/back movement in space and to depict a rock formation we'd hiked along in Utah several years ago. (We'd climbed up a trail through rocks and scrub brush and were astonished to find a meadow growing on this high plateau with a high rock formation jutting up all along the far side.) I like how my rock formation has a feeling of depth and also the feeling of a building, giving it a bit of mystery. The meadow and the rocks almost look like a quilt, too (probably showing my love of Gee's Bend quilts and my friend Penny Gold's art quilts). I think I'd like to try some more of these abstracted landscapes, and I'd love to hear some feedback on them. If you have trouble signing in to post a comment, just choose "anonymous" and then type your name after your comment so I know who made the post. Thanks!

Assignment: Audubon

Since I love to watch birds and have done a number of bird-oriented collages, I decided to make some pieces to submit to an international juried art show in Chicago entitled "Beyond Audubon" which is seeking work that "applauds, challenges or transcends the bird illustrations of John James Audubon."

I'm submitting one piece from 2008 entitled "Super Bird Sees All" and two new pieces "Corvus Corax" and "Pine Warbler Notes." (The imagery wraps around the 12" x 12" x 1.5" canvases.) I'll find out in early March whether any of my submissions have been chosen by the juror....

New art and NEWS

In thinking about places in the west that I've found to be stunning, Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona came to mind. This is a view from the creek of some of the beautiful rock formations and vegetation. I added the ledger paper with some sketches to evoke a feeling of the first European explorer coming upon this magical place and trying to capture it in his notes.

NEWS: we have designed and uploaded a new website for my art and my husband Rob's sculpture. Check it out at www.reedstudios.net

NEWS: Rob and I will have a two-person show at the Galesburg Civic Art Center, Nov 19 - Dec 31, 2010!! We think we'll call it "Plains and Planes" and will feature my high plains art and his metal and stone sculptures that are very geometric and planar.

A Colorado scene

Since a friend is offering to deliver a portfolio of my art to Scottsdale, I wanted to make some additional work to put on its pages that evoke more of the western states. I found a photo I'd taken on a pass in Colorado in spring, I scanned it in, and ran several filters on it to make the meadow more painterly. I applied numerous art papers to the meadow, increasing the color fields of flowers and lots of lush grasses in the foreground (click on the photo to enlarge it to see the very fun grass). I'd taken the clouds out of the original photograph and just made a blue sky so that I could add my own rendition of those clouds that form over mountain tops. (This is an 11x14 canvas.)