Where is Cakeasaurus? Upcoming schedule.

Quick-and-dirty schedule update:

I'll be selling prints at Art on the Farm 10-4PM this Sunday, Oct.30th. Based on set-up, it's going to be coooooold in that barn! But most excellent. In addition to blown glass, photography, paintings, stained glass, vintage book journals, goat's milk soap (photo of their favorite goat on the wall!), there'll be live blue grass, hopefully hot cider, possibly blacksmithing...Good for a meander, a Sunday stroll, with or without intent...

I have a mixed media piece in a cool group exhibit at River's Edge in Wyandotte, MI (pay a visit to Sports Brew Pub, while you're at it, dang, their beers impressed me)

Upcoming solo show at the U of M hospital, December 12-February 6th, woohoo! Main building, second floor, just west of the cafeteria. Being a hospital, this venue doesn't allow for openings, etc. But hopefully, the prints will make passersby happy, or at least distract them from larger concerns...

I'll be selling at the Rust Belt Market in Ferndale, MI. on Saturday, Nov. 12th, Sunday Nov. 27th, Saturday Dec. 10th and Saturday, Dec 17th.

Friday evening and Sunday day, Nov. 18th and 20th spells the Art Open House at Jeanne Joesten's: a gorgeous home setting, enticing nibblies, the work of a dozen+ talented local artists.

That's that. A little and so much!

Reclaimed Count Down!...And Bunnies Shall Rule the Countryside

Perfect Laughter has been quite good at posting features about the fellow artists who will be in their curated "Reclaimed" exhibit. Initially, I just loved playing around with mixed media for it. Here are the other pieces I affixed to wood panels, but did not use for the show. I think I'll bring them to Art on the Farm at the end of October:

Now, I'm also super geeked to check out all the other artwork! Take, for example: 

• Stunning -- and hot -- woodblock by Taro Takizawa. It blows me away. See also. 
• Strong graphic design goodness from Jeremiah Britton
• Super-cool process shots on the great mixed media piece by Ryan Weiss, which Christina and Dennis put on the exhibit postcard. Check out a related piece here, one little house, one little inverted tree.
• There's a trippy, atmospheric collage of screenprints from Megan Frauenhoffer. Check out her body of work here.

Opening reception is on Friday Oct. 21st at the River's Edge Gallery in Wyandotte, MI.

It will be a busy night, as Valeria Mann's solo installation is also opening at the WSG Gallery in Ann Arbor. Her Fortunes installation at the same gallery is one of my favorite installations ever -- see some snaps here, but they don't adequately convey the feeling that exhibit did. As you walk through all the hanging rows of baby gowns, they brush your shoulders. The delicate old garments, holding such a variety of grim and hopeful messages embroidered in red thread, wonderfully called up all the lives around us -- and how the potential lives, even at their beginnings -- or especially at their beginnings -- are already so tied to class, adult outlooks and expectations...Her new exhibit is titled Evening Gowns for the Midwestern Woman. Attendees are encouraged to show up in evening gowns/prom dresses/etc.

Worse with chocolate almond milk/Better with stars

It's a good thing you're not near me. On my way to the computer, I managed to simultaneously toss my chocolate almond milk upward in its cup so that it splashed down in a sickening coating over my ipod (horror!), muddied my ice water and bubbled up the surface of my opened journal; with my right hand, I tossed my innocent little panasonic across the room, where thank god it landed without breaking on the kitchen floor. I am ambidextrously clumsy. Almost athletically clumsy. Oh, that's right, I *AM* athletically clumsy!--First time running on a wooded path, I tripped going downhill, shot the (already moribund) discman like a discus into the underbrush and then skidded downward on knees and hand palms. Ahh, the embedded gravel/wood chips, oh the silly little streams of blood, clouds of happy mosquitoes and the weeks of slowly healing scabs. Riiiight. Though that was several years ago. So, anyway, impressive that I manage to not get stains on everything.

Where was I? Oh, there was lots of spray paint in my unventilated basement. This could certainly be linked with general discombobulation (don't you LOVE that word?? LOVE it.)
 Do you remember the Reclaimed series? I added stars to the one with the Regret woman.

I may have gone a little overboard with the stars. but she definitely needed some lightness. The color is darker, deeper than the photos would have you believe. I have since affixed two other designs in the series to wooden panels. The bubbling came back, which is aggravating, but will perhaps bother myself more than anyone else. In any case, I'm pleased with what came out of this exercise. But as printmaker, I'm not used to these one-offs -- I think of the satisfaction of selling them, but I would also be sorry to see them go. Not to be precious or anything.

Oh dear, it's getting late. Many other things I'd like to make note of, they'll have to wait another day. Have a good week, Everyone.

Reclaimed, part two!

Surprisingly, listening to Soundgarden hasn't lightened my mood. Nor does the prospect of being cold for the next six months or so. But there we are: Happy Fall. On a happier note, I wound up making some good progress on the Reclaimed piece over the weekend and aside from some unfortunate bubbling issues, I'm pretty excited. So, let's take a gander, shall we?

So, we left off with a bunch of charcoally images, right. This continued along, but was joined by the demon/spirit figures, re-purposed from "The Demon You Feared Has Already Found You." 

There was liberal fixative spraying. I was aghast to run out on Saturday -- which means I blasted through an entire can on this project. Oi.  If the backyard raccoons are still hanging about, there could be three-eyed raccoons in the near future.

So I was initially geeked about the long demons and the nice dark red color pop, but this gave way to a frustrated sense that things were not hanging together and compositions were suffering a bit. That'd bring us up to the despondent post on Friday.

However! On the next day, it occurred to me to try out the old woman from Regret and the border from an ancient garden print and this got me going again.

 Of course, a lot of the border would be cut off when I fit it onto the wooden panel.

So! Back with the excitement and hands blackened with conte crayon.

Sunday was more colorful.

The woman came out entirely too dark. Am thinking of stencilling gold stars around the top of that one. 

After they were all hanging about, I was torn between five of them. I only had one wood panel to place it onto and they only want one piece from me. I kept wandering down to the basement, thinking that this time would settle it. No dice. Luckily, Maestra was about, refinishing her dining room table in her family's driveway. Any time I mention studio time, or talk about a printing press, it's her studio and her press. Aside from being a talented artist, a way cooler Mom than her adolescent and teen children realize, she's a spectacular high-energy blend of insight, nurturing, wicked humor, zen calm (hee! sometimes) and the ability to kick your ass (really. she has a black belt.) So, with that lead in, really all I want to say was that she helped me out. I laid them all around her studio and she walked from one to the other, pointing out merits and detractors. She thinks the gold stars would help the woman. She underscored my fear that a couple lacked focus and picked out which ones struck her as the strongest. Bolstering! I wound up opting for one of two with the garden border. 

So the exercise is, for all intents and purposes, done. If I can rectify the bubbling issues, I will probably go through a wood panel phase, in which I'll slap all manner of prints onto them before slapping myself on the back. Huzzah!