A Sail of Glass

 

Over the weekend my mom and I attended the Glass Art Society Conference in Corning, New York at the Corning Museum of Glass. If you've never had the chance to go and you enjoy glass even a tiny bit, put it on your to-do list. If you think you'll be back, ask for an Admission Only membership. It doesn't cost any more and will let you in for free the rest of the year! This image is one I took of a piece that was part of a one-night art installation on the bridge between town and the museum.

6 x 6 x 2009

 

A local gallery has a fundraiser every year where local artists and those who want to be donate a 6" x 6" piece of art. They sell them for $20 each to keep the gallery afloat for the next year. It's an inclusive, fun, community event. Above is my piece: Quiet Like Bananas Are Quiet.

I thought about taking it into the computer - and may still - to make it all polished and flashy, but I wanted someone to buy a piece of art that was actually touched by the artist during creation. That's what makes paintings so much better than prints of course. Have you ever seen an actual van Gogh? The texture is amazing!

Eat, Sleep, Draw

This shoe is probably the best sketch I've done. I hadn't sat down to just draw in a long time and signed up for a class so I would have to. So conditioned am I as a graphic designer, I tend to crave that deadline. The teacher set up this still life with a spotlight and we drew in the dimness. Who wore it? Where did they go? How many public restrooms had the shoe hurried into? Did that shoe get to dance? I wondered these things, and I loved drawing this shoe.

Everyone learns to draw. Then most of us stop. I sometimes forget what a pleasure it is to look, really look, at a leaf, a person, a dream and transcribe it to paper. The process is as magical as a photograph appearing in a bath of darkroom chemicals - maybe more so because the subject is not captured by technology, but by a being.

Synapses fire off to make the finger hold the pencil, jog the line, darken a shadow, while the eyes record what they see to create an image filtered through thought. Click here to see the magic.

My Winning Smock

A few weeks ago our local alternative newspaper had an entry form in it to go to my city's oldest art festival and paint a smock. They supplied the canvas-like smocks and paint; entrants just had to bring their creativity. Winners were being called on Monday, but I hadn't heard anything, and as I was driving home I was contemplating what I would do with the smock (maybe sell it on Etsy?). When I got in the house the message light was blinking and low and behold I took first place! I have been honorable mention and in the top ten, but have never won an art contest outright so I was pretty tickled. Do you have an Art Contest story - successful or otherwise? Let's hear it!

Boy, is This Cool

A friend just e-mailed me pictures of a bunch of amazing sculptures created by Ron Mueck. Watch this! Then you'll be prepared for this. Maybe.