Yes, once again.....

it's been a while since posting here. I tend to hang out more on our studio Facebook page where I share info about our upcoming Painting Parties, pics of students doing their thing, projects I'm doing at the studio and just general artsy stuff.

What got me thinking about the blog this morning? Maybe I should say who got me thinking - Alyson Stanfield did a 2-part post recently on artists and galleries and I wanted to share it here. Part one is about the upside of artists working with galleries. How can galleries help you further your career? Part two is about the downside of artists working with galleries and the red flags you should be aware of before approaching a gallery. And.... the percentage they get from sales is WHAT? Be sure to check out both the links below.

Why Artists Should Embrace Galleries

Why Artists Should Avoid Gallery Representation

Sunrise

This is the project for the upcoming Friday Night Painting Party. We will be working in acrylic on a canvas that I'll prepare with a texture done with Super Heavy Body Gesso. We only have room for 12 party goers and 6 of those seats are taken already so if you're interested in joining us, let us know ASAP. The party starts at 7pm on July 26th. The cost is $50 and we provide absolutely everything you need to start and finish your painting that evening. Just bring yourself and whatever you want to drink - yes, you can bring wine.

Some happy faces from past parties.......

Now go to your studio and paint something.

Peace,

Carlynne

Art and Guerrillas

I am so happy that we finally have a place like the Florida Museum for Women Artists. I'm also ashamed to say that I had not heard of Dorothy Gillespie before this exhibit announcement. This is why we need more museums like this one. Why haven't I heard of her before? I haven't been living under a rock outside the art world. I've been to galleries and museums. I've read art magazines and spent many, many hours perusing the art sections of book stores. I've done my share of surfing. Yet.... I had no clue this artist has been out there producing art for most of her 90 years. Of course it could be that I just wasn't looking in the right places but why is it that the majority of art students in the colleges are female yet the majority of artists represented in the museums are male?

Well according to the Guerrilla Girls things have improved for women artists since the 80's but not so much at the higher levels of exhibition. Do you remember these feminist masked avengers in the art world? They're still around and doing their thing. Below is a segment from an early interview with the girls that I found on their website.

Q. How did the Guerrilla Girls start?

Kathe Kollwitz: In 1985, The Museum of Modern Art in New York opened an exhibition titled An International Survey of Painting and Sculpture. It was supposed to be an up-to-the minute summary of the most significant contemporary art in the world. Out of 169 artists, only 13 were women. All the artists were white, either from Europe or the US. That was bad enough, but the curator, Kynaston McShine, said any artist who wasn't in the show should rethink “his” career. And that really annoyed a lot of artists because obviously the guy was completely prejudiced. Women demonstrated in front of the museum with the usual placards and picket line. Some of us who attended were irritated that we didn't make any impression on passersby.

Meta Fuller: We began to ask ourselves some questions. Why did women and artists of color do better in the 1970's than in the 80's? Was there a backlash in the art world? Who was responsible? What could be done about it?

Q.What did you do?

Frida Kahlo: We decided to find out how bad it was. After about 5 minutes of research we found that it was worse than we thought: the most influential galleries and museums exhibited almost no women artists. When we showed the figures around, some said it was an issue of quality, not prejudice. Others admitted there was discrimination, but considered the situation hopeless. Everyone in positions of power curators, critics, collectors, the artists themselves passed the buck. The artists blamed the dealers, the dealers blamed the collectors, the collectors blamed the critics, and so on. We decided to embarrass each group by showing their records in public. Those were the first posters we put up in the streets of SoHo in New York .


Here's a piece of an interview that's more current.

So, are things ok for women in the art world now?

Things are better now than they ever have been for women and artists of color and we have helped effect that change. Right now there is decent representation of women and artists of color at the beginning and emerging levels of the art world. At the institutional level however, in museums, major collections and auctions sales, things are still pretty dismal for all but white guys. We believe that the economics of the art market is responsible for this. As long as art costs a lot of money and can be owned and controlled by individual collectors, it will represent the values of those people, not the larger art audience or the culture at large. We are still condemning the art world for its lack of ethics, tokenism and other bad behavior.


It's good to know that things are improving but apparently there's still a long way to go. For now we can keep on supporting not just FMWA but all museums that are including women in there line up of artists. I can't wait to see this show of Dorothy's work. Just the fact that she's 90 years old and still producing and exhibiting is amazingly inspirational. I want to be just like her when I grow up.

Peace, and go look at art somewhere...
Carlynne

Lucky Us

Guess where we will be hanging out this Friday? Bakers and Cooks in downtown Ocala, FL. This Friday, March 5 is the First Friday Art Walk from 6-8 and we have a fun place to spend our two hours. Above is the exterior view of the store.

This is an interior view of the store and just a few of the lovely items they sell. I don't know about you, but I love kitchen gadgets and they have the best selection in our area. And we have been promised some good things to eat, yum, yum.

We will be offering special prices on some of the work you have seen on our Etsy shop and on the blog. So, if you are anywhere near our area this Friday, stop in and say hi to us and to everyone at Bakers and Cooks.

Peace and Love,

Kelli

VAA Exhibition

Jane Troesch assessing arrangement of works in the VAA exhbition.

Cheryl Gates adjusting a painting in the VAA exhibition.

Hey All,

These are photos of the Villages Art Association (VAA) Exhibition that we were asked to judge yesterday at the Villages Annex. As always we were happy to have an opportunity to look at the artists work, but let me say, in case you have never juried or judged an art show, it really is work. It's always difficult to make a choices when you are comparing pieces of artwork by various artists, but this one caused us a little extra time in decision making as we changed our minds numerous times.

We were very pleased to have plenty of award worthy pieces to choose from. The first, second and third awards were fairly easy to pick. The problem came when we found 5 pieces that had to be reduced to 3 for merit awards. After much deliberation, it was down to 4 then we changed our minds many times as all 4 were meritorious in our opinions. Finally, with reluctance we narrowed it to 3 and moved on to choosing 5 pieces for Honorable Mention.

There may be some judges that take this job lightly, we never do. In Carlynne's words, "It matters a lot to the artist." Judging is not just choosing winning artwork. One must know why the work was chosen beyond just the personal taste of the judge. If a judge tells you his/her personal taste never enters into it, they are wrong. Much as we try to leave it out, it is always there. Our personal criteria generally allows for technique and technical skill, creativity and composition, and of course must fall within the parameters of the requirements of the exhibition.

Choices are made based on how well the artist used the picture plane compared to their fellow exhibiting artist. In this particular show, we were comparing all media as opposed to others that divide the awards into categories based on media. Experimental as Carlynne and I are as artists, we have used most all media and have a pretty good idea what is involved in each piece. This is extremely helpful when it comes to a exhibit that groups all media together.





Here is a list of the top award winners in the VAA Exhibition, located in the Villages Annex:


First Place: "C" Delight, by Rich Davis We loved this abstract piece in blue. The compositionwas flawless. We would not change a thing.


Second Place: "Independent Woman" by Barbara Wensel Severns A beautiful portrait in pastel. Lovely job.


Third Place: "Bugsy" by Donna Caputo A little colored pencil portrait of her dog in an interesting pose. Wonderful textures.


As you can see, all of these works are different media, subject matter and technique. We were happy it came out that way.


Cheryl Gates and Jane Troesch of the VAA hired us to judge and were wonderfully accommodating to our needs as we performed our job. The members of the VAA that we met on Sunday could not have been more gracious. We are grateful to them for making our job as easy as possible and yes, we will be back to do a demo or workshop for you any time.



Peace and happy painting,
Kelli

Music & Art

I've been meaning to get back to blogging for a while now. So, 2 months and 2 surgeries later, here I am. I'm fine now and as my energy level picks up I'm getting back into the swing. After being out of commission for a while all I really want to do is swing a paintbrush around in the studio. I'm working on some new stuff for our exhibit coming up in Sept '10 (I'll give you more details on that later) and until I have those photos ready to share I'll show you a little of my Nashville trip. Back in early October I flew up to Nashville to visit a friend of mine that I haven't seen in 32 years - I know - amazing! What's even more amazing is that we recognized each other at the airport. Once we got done giggling like a couple of high school kids Sue took me on a tour of the town. This was my first time there and I have to say - I love Nashville!

Ok..... this is what happens when you take photos with a little digital camera that has no viewfinder, you can't see anything on the screen in the daylight so you have no clue if you're actually getting your subject in the frame - just a little FYI.

There were a couple of others statues of Elvis around town but I didn't get shots of those, just about a million of this one - don't ask why.

Can't go to a new town and not souvenir shop, that shirt was for my daughter by the way.

some very cool boots!

A festival of scarecrows, what wonderful, wacky stuff!

The AT&T building AKA "Batman"

I think this is one of the things I loved about Nashville the most. You see some fun stuff riding around the side streets where the music studios are. We also did the art walk held on the first Sat. night of the month. I wish I had pics to show you of the crowds. I was amazed at the turn out for the art galleries. I'd never seen anything like it! Nashville's not only about music, the art world there is wonderful too. We saw many galleries, too many to mention but my favorites were the Tinney Contemporary and Gallery One. Check them out if you're in the area.

There was so much to see. Some day I'll go back for another visit - hopefully it won't be another 32 years before I see my friend again.

Back to painting,

Carlynne

Gallery East Reception

Hi All,

The photos are from the reception last Friday at Gallery East in Ocala, FL., where we are featured artists for the month of July.

It was well attended and we gave away a small piece of original work. The top photo shows one of our long-time students, Drena and her significant other. The second photo shows some of our work and the third photo is starring Carlynne on the right and our friend and fellow artist and OoHA member, Margaret Watts.

The food was good, the people were very nice and the exhibit runs all month. We strongly recommend you stop in at Gallery East in the Six-Gun Plaza on East Silver Springs Blvd. The Gallery is a co-op and has some very fine artists displaying wonderful work all the time. Our work will be there until July 31, 2008. Thank you Gallery East!!

Peace and love,

Kelli