New week, new show

Yes, 2010 is ending with a lot of fanfare. My Women's Art Workshop group is having an opening this Friday for our group show! We've had fun over the last two years: pulling a topic out of our jar of ideas, all making something in response to the word or phrase, and meeting 4 to 6 weeks later to workshop the resulting pieces. We picked 6 words to showcase the work that was brought to the initial meeting and subsequent work that was inspired by the project.

"New Business" relating to Rob's and my "Plains and Planes" exhibit...
- We're being interviewed tomorrow by the NPR station in Rock Island to air Dec 12 on their Sunday afternoon "Art Talks" program; they post the show on their website, too, if you want to listen to it at another time.
WVIK Program Listings
- We're going to do a gallery talk at the Galesburg Civic Art Center on December 9th at 7pm.
- Rob has added a section on our website showing photos from the gallery and the opening, and he is in the process of adding individual shots of everything in the show. So, if you aren't able to come to the gallery in person, you can still see the show!
Reed Studios - Plains and Planes Show 2010

Fabulous Opening

We had a wonderful opening reception for our "Plains and Planes" show on the 19th. The gallery director said we broke the attendance record with 200+ people during the 2-hour reception! We both received lots of great feedback on our new art and felt energized by the experience. I sold seven pieces during the opening, so that was icing on the cake.

Ready for the Show!

This weekend, Rob and I are taking care of details for our upcoming exhibit. A couple of my pieces still were needing frames, and I'm checking to make sure all have wires and tags. Then I'll start wrapping them up for transport downtown to the gallery on Tuesday. Rob is finishing a few bases for his sculptures and doing the final sanding on a limestone piece he's hoping to get finished by the opening on Friday night! We're looking forward to seeing all of the art in a nice gallery setting with proper lighting. I have 47 works; 11 are from 2009 and the rest from 2010. Rob has 6 stone sculptures and 10 metal sculptures. I'll try to get some good shots in the gallery after we've hung the show and the lighting is done.

Storm Cell

My friend, Julie, snapped a photo with her cell phone on her drive into work of a dramatic stormy sky and sent it to me since I like sky photos. I kept the photo open on my computer screen and, after several days of looking at it, decided to transform it into a piece of art. It's a small piece (12" x 6") but commands attention with its strong horizontal lines and colors.

New Plains Landscapes

I made a few landscapes last month that were all rectangles and decided to do another. I digitally moved some MT horses into this pasture, made three sets of prints – all with different digital effects – and then cut rectangles out of the prints to piece together the landscape. I like how some of the rectangles appear to recede or advance due to their value and how the differing digital treatments have altered the trees and shrubs. (This is a 30" x 10" canvas.)

I decided to take the leftover pieces and make a new landscape where nothing quite lines up so that the scene is more abstracted. I had done this once before with a scene that had a lake in it and wanted to see if it would work without the water reflection aspect. (This is a 12" x 12" cradled panel.)

Back in the Studio at Last!

I was able to take a couple afternoons this week to work in the studio, plus Friday and Saturday - yahoo! I wanted to get another large piece done for the November show and decided to revisit the Hoodoos of Yellowstone. I'd done small 6"x6" works from this photo last year and thought it would be fun to go big with it so the topo maps applied to the rock surfaces would really show up. I laid down the image in torn segments and then layered up sections of 1904 topographical survey maps of Yellowstone Park, grassy papers and pine needles. It is on a 30"x24" cradled panel so it has a real presence in the room – kinda like how the hoodoos have along the road in the northern part of the park. (When you click on the detail image, you can see the maps much better.) Then...

Additionally, I worked on two 11"x14" canvases using photos I'd taken of a prairie remnant in Palatine, Illinois. I altered them to look more painterly, added in some vintage grass illustrations, text about prairie in one of them, and art papers to add more blossoms to the plants. I like how the color is so intense in these. They'll go in the show as well as "plants of the plains."

Time

I haven't posted anything for awhile as I've been gone the last two weekends and haven't been able to fit in any time for art making. I'm getting a little "twitchy" with all the art ideas jamming up in my brain!!
The first weekend in October, we drove up to Palatine to deliver an alabaster sculpture of my husband's to its new owners... this past weekend, I took the train up to Chicago and spent time with my cousin, Suzanne,  and my MT friend, Karen... this coming weekend is a big fundraiser for the Galesburg Civic Art Center and I'm on the committee, so the whole weekend will be spent on the event. When I get caught up on my social life and graphics work load, I'm going to take off a few days and work on fine art, as I want to get a few more pieces done for our November show!

The photo above is of me with a Dick Tracy bronze that is along the river walk in downtown Naperville, IL. Dick Tracy is talking into his wrist radio, but I'm looking at my watch wondering how many more days until I have to deliver my art for our "Plains and Planes" show....