New Template for New Year

I liked the template I did for the yellow springs arts council so I thought I would give it a try for my blog.

Recap of 2006

After a dismal showing at the bones and stones show in 05 despite the 500 postcards, ads,press releases and an art critics favourable review in a city paper I decided 2006 was to be the year of my grand experiment with publicity. If I couldn't get people to come to see my work I would take my work to them. I joined the Saatchi website gallery, created three websites, 2 blogs, and got my name (chamberpot gallery story ) in the news nationally and internationally (new york times, npr, china daily, kuwait times, etc etc). While it was all fun, and nancy and I were taken aback at how far and wide the chamberpot story spread, I wonder what all this work on publicity has actually done for me professionally speaking. Well here it is, not much! Not that I regret it or had any major expectations. I wanted to see if I could do it and I did it.
So the publicity experiment is over.

2007 will be about a new direction with my art, doing my blog, doing found art (which I have found to be personally very rewarding) art fun with friends and special art projects.

Happy New Year

sketchbook: window of the soul

A sketchbook where everything gets dumped into it, images of things, words, poems, etc. Maybe a window to the authors soul? I suppose that depends on the owner of the sketcbook and the perception of others.

I thought it hilarious when my neighbour from glasgow told me she had never heard the Geordie version of tell tale tit (it isn't like we live thousands of miles from each other and come from completely different cultures) and I hadn't heard her version either.

Geordie: tellie tale tit, yer tongue'll get bit, aal the little dickie birds will come an have a bit.

Glasgow:Tell tale tit. Yer mammy cannae knit, yer daddy cannae go tae bed Withoot a dummy tit

Here is one version I heard in America: Tattletale, tattletale : Hanging on a bull's tail : When the bull has to pee : You will get a cup of tea.

How was it said where you are from?

Oh I was tagged by Lyn. so here goes.

6 weird things about myself

1. I like boiled sea snails called winkles dipped in vinegar

2. I like to decorate rubber cockroaches

3. I like my hair to look like bed hair (daughter says I am beginning to rememble my dog-oh that means I must look cute huh!)

4. I think nothing of using porcelain teeth in a peice of art

5. I once bought fake eyeballs off ebay

6. I like dipping french fries in mayonnaise

A Jafabrit Xmas

ugh can't post youtube videos on beta

So here is a link for family and friends that are interested in a xmas at jafabrit's house video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYFt7k-oHM8

Dr.John, you might recognize the little globe on the video I won from your blog :)

Painting pictures from photographs

I thought this interesting after a couple of blogs had talked about it, including myself. There is an article in Art News magazine about Marc Quinn in which he discusses arranging flowers, photographing them and then painting pictures from the photographs. Here is a link showing his beautiful large flower paintings.

Clifton Mill & Queen Vic gig

This is Clifton Mill in Ohio and it's a gorgeous feast of lights this time of year. I had to try several ways of taking the pictures and it seemed the candlelight feature on my camera (kodak) was the best.

Here is a pic from Ohio Traveler Magazine, so I guess mine aren't too bad.

Here is some info about Clifton Mill and the legendary lights from their website for those interested.

Queen Vic gig at the Emporium

If you go to the chamber of commerce website there is a pic of lady muck and queen vic on the bottom right slideshow. I hope people enjoyed it as much as Nancy and I did doing it. Now here I was talking about being invisible since reaching a certain age in life and what do you know, if you sit in a window dressed as a prosperous looking dour queen you can be sure to get at least one fella asking you for a date (lady muck was NOT amused and protected my interests immediately, thankyou lady muck).

Art News

Not much going on in my studio due to parties, shopping, christmas related activities. Will be attending the Winter Solstice Reception, info about that for those living nearby will be posted on the yellow springs arts blog.

I'm so sexy it kills me! & Xmas Tree Art

Don't you ever watch the VS angel ads and say to yourself, "oh yea, I always walk around the castle grounds in winter or come down the grand staircase in me bra and knickers all the time." Ah those seasonal ads!

Sketchbook doodles : the art of a tree

Remember the fad last year for hanging xmas trees upside down. It isn't exactly a new fad, goes back to 600 Ad thanks to a brit monk!

switched over to beta

and this is how I feel! I have lost many of my links, arg!!! so bear with me fellow bloggers, I will be slowly re-doing my blog and adding my links again.

Not today though, as I am off to see the Rembrandt Exhibit at the Dayton Art Institute.

Lessons in Life and other stuff

Lessons in Life

one should not keep their desitin and toothpaste in the same drawer unless one wants a minty fresh bottom.

Other Stuff

My painting of a puppy sold before the Winter Solstice show opened at the Shirley Jones Gallery in Yellow Springs :) They are still going to hang it though.

I had fun doing this little piece on a little canvas of a little dog. I am thinking I will attempt another little painting (not a dog) and calling the blog entry: "not so daily paintings"

PS. forgot to mention that I launched a new blog for the yellow springs arts council called Yellow Springs Arts. Hope you will visit and let me know what you think.

/shirley+jones+gallery winter+solstice+show

/painting

YES! That Elusive Art Muse

came to me last night just as I drifted off to sleep. I thought, "wow what a good idea". Then I spent the last few seconds desperately telling myself I must remember what my muse said, must remember! must remember! This morning I remembered and I wrote it down in my sketch book that was on my nightstand. I have no idea what it means or relates to, but heck I am going to work on it.
Meanwhile here is a photograph of a painting I did in my second class with Marie Linnekin at Ann Arundel Community College in 1996. It is called "Doomed Pair" and originally it was just the still life pairs on the cloth at the left. I couldn't stand it, just seemed so boring to me. I was staring at it one day and thinking, oh whoop de do, two nice looking pairs sitting there all beautiful forever, so what! What really happened to the pairs. One rotted before I finished the paintings and the other got chopped up. So I ripped the painting out of the stretchers and glued it to another canvas showing what really happened to the pairs. The artist Lorenzo Dow Benedict who juried it into a my first show said it was like Courbet gets revenge on Francis Bacon. I got a real kick out of that. It was the first time I had entered a juried show and the first time I realized that I really had it in me to paint and the first painting I was really proud of.

We don't often get to hear much about our paintings after they are purchased, but I did find out something about this one.

A couple bought this painting quite a few years ago and several years later it ended up being part of a minor custody battle in their divorce (the husband got to keep it in the end.) The wife did buy another one of my paintings.

paintingreverse paintingart muse

Quicky Painting

Okay, I can't claim to have my muse back yet, but I rose to nancy's challenge to do a bulldog painting. It isn't supposed to be a serious painting, just a quick study to get my hands moving with a paint brush.

So what goes tick tock woof? answer is at the bottom of the post.

My neighbor has two dogs. One of them says to the other, "Woof!" The other replies, "Moo!" The dog is perplexed. "Moo? Why did you say, "Moo'?" The other dog says, "I'm trying to learn a foreign language."- Morey Amsterdam

A watchdog.

I know it's a groaner, but what do you expect out of a Christmas Cracker eh! Here is an old list from the bbc of the top ten cracker jokes.

Using Photographs in Art

Someone said to me about this painting, “it looks like a photograph” and I responded, “oh, no it’s an oil painting.” At the time I thought she meant it looked like a collage or something, but later I realized she was perhaps questioning whether I had done it from a photograph.
There have a number of discussions on various blogs and art sites discussing the use of photographs by painters lately. I know there are purists and elitists out there that will dismiss an artist or their work if they think you use a photograph.

Yes, I did it, eek!! I used a photograph, I sometimes do. It depends on the effect and statement I am trying to make with a particular piece of work. For this painting I set the scene up and asked my daughter to pose with a specific image in mind.
For me photographs are just one more tool in my arsenal/repertoire of tools for me to use. It isn’t because I can’t draw.
As you can see from this study of a plaster cast used in a classical drawing class I took with Karen Warshal at Ann Arundel Community College I can draw quite well I believe. It isn’t because I am lazy either. No, it is because this painting isn’t about a girl in a chair, it isn’t about the personality of the sitter (had I wanted to do that I would have done a more classical method of painting). This painting is about three beautiful things: a chair, a kimono and a girl, all captured in a moment and making all three part of a beautiful inanimate object (a painting).

This I suppose is the crux of what type of artist I am in that I am not subjugated to art, to one technique or method. Art is MY tool, MY means to communicate something that has moved me.

Hey, I am a Jafa, and I do what I want ;)

I just dicovered this blog in which the author talks about famous artists who used photographs and thought it would be interesting to share.

Using photographs in art