Sunset Tree 3 Finished and Ready to Ship

This is a re-interpretation of Sunset Tree for a client in North Carolina. It's smaller than the original, and this one has lots of acrylic paint and stitching. The original had Golden's GAC 900 Fabric Painting Medium mixed with the paint which leaves the textile soft. This one is painted on linen and as you can see, there's a ton of paint texture. The painted edges are for a 2 inch deep gallery wrap, which the client's framer will do on their end. You can see a postcard of the original on the right side of the painting.

I'm ready to ship, but will have to play it by ear and see how the roads are. They've already closed school for tomorrow!

Brrrrrrrrr

Happy Holidays!

I took this shot last week when I was in Provincetown. If you can't figure it out, the "tree" is constructed of lobster pots and the crown at the top is made of buoys.

Here at the New Jersey Shore we're in the middle of a blizzard right now. We're supposed to get at least 14 inches of snow, but there's almost that out there already and they're saying snow will continue until tomorrow afternoon. Glad I got back home before we got socked in. Sauce has been simmering all afternoon, a good night for pasta. Not venturing out again today, even though I still have a ton of stuff to do before we get inundated with company this week.

Also hope to ship out the new version of Sunset Tree on Monday. It needs varnish, will do in the morning so it's ready to go after we dig ourselves out! I'll get pics of it before it goes and post.

Wishing you a Happy-Whatever-You-Celebrate! Looks like it's going to be another crazy week around here.

Inspiration for New Product

I don't usually talk about products here, but had to share this. Andrew Darlow, who is a printing expert (he printed the photos for one of my recent projects) and wrote the book 301 Ink Jet Tips and Techniques has a new product that he developed in conjunction with Frame Destination. It's called Gallery Pouch, and it's a heavy duty double-sided bubble wrap envelope, has velcro closing, comes in lots of sizes and it's perfect for delivering or shipping work. Be sure to watch the video, Andrew talks about how difficult it was to bubble wrap my 40x40 stretched photographs on canvas and load them into my SUV. Happy to be an inspiration and lucky to get a sample to test.

I used it while picking up work yesterday in the rain, worked great!

New Jersey Arts Annual

Here's a shot of part of NJ Arts Annual: Crafts which opened at the Noyes Museum of Art on Friday evening. The exhibit rotates through all the NJ museums, it just happens to be at the Noyes this year. My most recent Catacombs piece is at the right, Catacombs XXII : Casperia which was inspired by the doors of the village where I stayed last year for a painting/photo workshop. The opening was very well attended, I took photos at the very end after people left. The exhibit runs until the end of February 2010.

Developments of the Week

Image: Obsolete, Toms River, NJ dumpster (see more of my Abandoned Series photos here)

It's amazing how quickly things become obsolete, isn't it? That's how I feel about the blog that I created for pFAn.

Reporting in about the new professional Fine Art network site. Tricia McKellar is helping me set things up, some of the new features are a little too complicated for my website skills. Getting a lot of buzz from artists and consultants who are excited about the future of the group. Pretty amazing that there are almost 2000 members and to think that I created the group only about 17 months ago!

In other news, Renee Phillips of Manhattan Arts International wrote an article in this month's Art Calendar magazine (page 22) about social networking. She mentions the group and one of my triptychs is featured in the article. Renee also asked me to be a juror for her upcoming sixth annual exhibit of the Healing Power of Art.

I've also been working on the first of 4 paintings for my NC client!

Last but not least, I have two exhibits opening this week. The first is at the Pierro Gallery in So Orange, NJ. The preview night is 12/2/09 and the show/sale continues through 12/7/09. The second is the opening of the NJ Arts Annual at the Noyes Museum of Art. It's a coincidence that it's at the Noyes, it moves around every year from one NJ museum to the other. That opening is Friday, the 4th. Click on the links for each venue for details and times.

Thankful

Some of the things I'm thankful for....

-family

-friends

-people who believe in my professional Fine Art network project enough to part with their hard-earned money in order to help fund the new website

(can't forget them, they've been great!)

-good food

-jobs

We just delivered meals to senior citizen shut-ins. Amazing to me that 2 told me they have family about an hour's drive away, yet they said that they wouldn't see them today because it was "too far". Sad.

My family is scattered too, Thanksgiving is just the 3 of us, but Christmas is usually a zoo around here with upwards of 17 to cook for. Today made me think. I always complain that it's so much work, but I would gladly have more people here if it meant that they didn't have to spend the holiday alone.

Wishing you and your families a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'd better go check the turkey.

New Projects

I picked up two projects yesterday. The first is to do another version of Sunset Tree #2. The original one is paint (with textile medium added), photography and hand stitching on cotton sateen and stretched. This one will be a different size, have lots of acrylic paint, photo and hand stitching on linen. The result will be lots of texture, where in contrast the original is flat and smooth because of added textile medium.

The other project is also based on existing work. This time I'll be doing 3 paintings based on my Marshlands Triptych. Again different size, and somewhat different.

Here's how I use existing work as inspiration. When consultants/arts administrators look at my website, they see what's been done before. Most often it's difficult for them to come up with a idea out of thin air, so they use those images and we work together to come up with a concept that will work for the space. Each painting becomes different with its own nuances in color and surface.

Art Networking, Collectives and More

I've been really busy this week with the early planning stages and PR for the new professional Fine Art network website that I've been raising funds for through Kickstarter. I was really excited yesterday when we made the $1000.00 goal of pledges. That means the project will definitely get funded, but contributions are still coming in, which is great. More funding = more features on the new site! I really believe in this project, and it's validating to see that other people agree!

I also participated in the @Platea Arts Collective's Project V called Following Piece 2.0 which was a cover of artist Vito Acconci's 1969 performance and just wrote a post about my take here. An acquaintance pushed me in the direction I followed and I want thank her for that. It made me really think both about the power of social media and my ancestry too.

It's a good thing I'm in between commission projects (although I'm in negotiations with a few) because I've also been updating my photography page on my website. I still have more photos to upload, but I'm getting there.

What else is new? I'm never bored!

Kickstarter Funding Project for pFAn!

Some of you know about pFAn, professional Fine Art network, I started last year. With almost 2000 members, we’ve outgrown our free blog and I want to develop a “real” website so I just launched a Kickstarter project to help. pFAn is a directory of artists and consultants who are interested in site-specific commissions for public spaces.

Here’s the URL http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/joanie/be-a-sell-out

Forest Floor #2

Almost finished with Forest Floor #2, it just needs two coats of varnish. The stitching on the red/orange plants is 3 dimensional (as I did on Cluster). With all the added paint, the thread is quite stiff and adds interesting texture.

I featured it on my newly redesigned website front page. It's 34"h x 48"w x 1.5"and the materials are paint, photograph and hand stitching on linen.