Cleveland Rocks

Another week has just flown by but before we get to anything else, I have to tell you about Ginny's Small Studio.

The lovely Ginny Carter Smallenburg and I
Michael and I were just there last weekend teaching and I knew from the moment I walked in that I was going love this place. If it weren't for stringent baggage restrictions with airlines these days I think I would have ended up taking half of the store home with me...but of course we weren't there to shop, we were there to run workshops and I just have to show you what we got up to.....

Day One for me was the class entitled Atypical Aphrodites...I love working big and that's just what we did, every canvas panel you see here is at least 4 feet in length!

Here is are few pictures of our day...


Everyone hard at work and very happy to have the whole table to themselves
Cindy, Norma, Jill, Dusty, Janet, Stacey, Camille, Patricia, Judi, Robin, Kip, Pamela, Bette
 Thank you to Cindy Kovack for taking pictures for us!

Day Two was Collaging the Translucent, where the class builds sculptural works of art using a combination of transparent and opaque collage materials combined with found objects. These are really hard to photograph well, I wish I could show them all to you, alas, terrible reflections meant that many of the photos didn't turn out all....here are a just a few samples of what was made in class....

Day Three - Dorian Gray Portraits. Inspired by Oscar Wilde's novel, in this class students were really asked to push their collages to include a whole lot of symbolism, and various hiding spots and nooks and crannies to conceal and reveal qualities of their chosen subject. It was absolutely wonderful to hear about everyone's journey through this process. Here's a peek of some of the results of our class.









Around town this weekend

My darling husband is returning from Missoula today, and little does he know it, but I've got us booked for a very, very busy weekend of Art Happenings around town...here's what we're up to, if you're a Vancouver local you may want to check these out for yourselves.

Thursday, May 3rd

Guess who's coming to town? Seth Apter will be in Vancouver, BC this evening for his artist talk and book signing. I had the opportunity to meet Seth briefly last year at Art Is...You in Connecticut and see his wonderful artwork up close. It will be great to try and catch up with him again and I'm so looking forward getting my signed copy of his book The Pulse of Mixed Media. Click here for all of the details.





Friday, May 4th

I love downtown Vancouver. I love Art. Put them together, sprinkle in some music, artworks, competitions and auctions from about 80 different artists and you get the 2012 Art Expo! Contact Monika Blichar for tickets and details.







Sunday, May 6th

Dr. Sketchy. What is Dr. Sketchy you ask? Well, it's life drawing with a twist....part art class, part cabaret. The models show up in themed costumes to The Wallflower on Main Street in Vancouver, and during the course of the evening perform a burlesque number of sorts while a group of artists with charcoal, pencils and sketchbooks at the ready begin madly getting their marks down on paper. I haven't done life drawing since my University days so it will be fun to dust off the old sketchbook and try my hand at it again. This month's theme is Beach Blanket Bingo featuring "Coco". Each month there's a new theme, they've had everything from Rio Carnivale to Star Wars to Krampus Kristmas...how could you not have fun? Click here for more details. ...well that's all for now, but I promise to post pics next week!


Man Trouble!

Some of you may have noticed that a substantial portion of my work has a somewhat shall we say feminine bias to it.

Now that's all well and good, but when you are designing a tarot deck, sooner or later you have to address some of the powerful male figures. So there I was in the studio, and I was on a bit of a roll, you know those rare times when the planets seem to be in proper alignment with your muses and the work just flows....well, anyway it was during one of these times that I decided it would be wise to start in a large canvas with a male central figure....and then....well, that's when my man troubles began. My muses had changed their allegiance, they abandoned me for greener pastures, fickle creatures that they are...As an aside you may have also noticed the simply stunning work that has been coming out my darling husband's studio these days...I think we all know where the muses went....just look here if you don't believe me!!

I started in on a piece that I was determined to transform into the Knight of Wands tarot card....and here's what happened:


But in the immortal words of Shakespeare, "All's well that end's well". More about the symbolism and meaning of the Knight of Wands next time....