Sunday, December 29, 2013

A LOVE STORY IN 37 SECONDS


Rising Tide meets the kids from Variance/Invariance
Dearest Readers,

Meet the stars above of my new video,  (a love story).
 My unfinished painting, Rising Tide is on the left, and the group of paintings on the right are part of Judy Rushin's collaborative project, Variance/ Invariance. Judy used to live in Atlanta and is now teaching painting at Florida State in Tallahassee.
 
This love story is my contribution and interpretation of Judy's collaborative project.
She mailed kits of her interlocking, wood panel paintings, and asked that artists use them in a fresh, fun (my word) way in their lives. Here's my resulting video–a brief affair between two styles of painting. You can see them cavort below, or on YouTube at:

 


 Read more about the project in Judy’s own words at: http://varianceinvariance.com/

The resulting works will eventually be exhibited in galleries and museums according to the project website.

See some of the latest participating artist installations at Judy’s blog: http://judyrushin.blogspot.com/

Many thanks to my son Osman who laid a tarp on my studio floor and taped it down as a background for the love story. And thanks to my daughter Ayla visiting from Portland OR who positioned some of the panels within the painting as I shot the scenes.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

TWO SHOWS CLOSING

The Fullness of Being - 35" x 39" Acrylic on Paper, 2012

Dearest Readers,

Ta-Da! Allow me to re-introduce The Fullness of Being, aka Wings3 a painting on paper that first appeared in a blog of mine back on June 24, 2012

For a year I’ve been working on paintings of rising or surging shapes that have morphed from wing imagery into more genuine depictions of something essential that’s been bubbling inside…a flowing of contentment I think, within the ups and downs, fears and joys of my life.


This painting recently appeared in a group show entitled More at the Sellars Gallery, Brenau University in Gainesville, Georgia, September 17-December 15 2013, sponsored by the Women’s Caucus for Art-Georgia. The show title predisposed many of the visual works to be abstract or conceptual, and open to interpretation on many levels. Below are a few of my favorites in the exhibition.

Remnant 23-Maggie Davis, oil on canvas



Remnant 24-Maggie Davis, oil on canvas



Untitled 1,2, 3-Madeleine Soloway, ink on paper on board



More Work To Do In The Garden-Angie Dachs, oil on canvas



Enmeshed-Ann Rowles, mixed media crochet



Help- Sarah Landrum - Mixed Media on panel



A few words about this cool otherworldly venue…

Brenau is a small women’s liberal arts college founded in 1878 as a Georgia Baptist women’s seminary, originally an institution for the education of women to be teachers. The gallery is located inside the Simmons Visual Arts Building, in a line of stately turn-of-the-last-century buildings along Centennial Circle.  

Sellars Gallery located inside the Simmons Visual Arts Center

Centennial Circle with Simmons Visual Arts Center, near right


Dorothy Smith Hopkins, Class of 1932

I felt as if I had slipped through a wormhole back to the early 1900’s. A portrait of Dorothy Smith Hopkins, Class of 1932 hung at the side entrance to the gallery. Her significance to the college was not explained, but I love her bubbly, debutante-ish persona, captured in this oil painting by Charles Naegele. 

Dr. Thomas Simmons, & Lessie Southgate Simmons, oil on canvas- A. Edmonds

 Oil portraits of two early educators, Dr. Thomas Simmons, former president and teacher & Lessie Southgate Simmons former teacher and the building's namesake hang near the door. 
Pearce Auditorium lobby-Brenau University

  A passageway connects the visual arts building to the Pearce Auditorium, a space that seems suspended in time back to the turn of the last century. When I visited, the building was well lit but devoid of sound and people. Framed black and white photo-ghosts of women’s classes and team pictures lined the the far wall, probably 100 years old. 


Gainesville is known for its chicken processing plants, but walking around Brenau opened me up to the possibility of a rich historical layer to the city, population now at 34,000.


Kane in front of 60 portraits - Shambhala Center, Decatur GA


 My self-portrait series, “How Am I Feeling Today?” is finishing a two-week run at the Shambhala Meditation Center of Atlanta. December 7-December 21, 2013. Three rows of 60 portraits of my changing feelings are displayed in a variety of media and paper along a 23-foot wall in the main Community Room. The Center is tucked behind a bamboo-bordered entrance way at 1447 Church Street in Decatur, Georgia. Here are a few site shots from their website. 

Plaza-Shambhala Meditation Center of Atlanta

Main Building-Shambhala Meditation Center of Atlanta

Meditating in the Shrine Room-Shambhala Meditation Center of Atlanta