Exhibitions

Upcoming: 2017 Wichita Arts Council Juried Exhibition

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Jurors Kristin Beal and Kate Van Steenhuyse selected my painting Perfect Form for inclusion in the 2017 Arts Council Juried Exhibition held in Wichita, KS.  They winnowed down over 100 applicants and nearly 500 images by selecting work from 44 artists.

The exhibition will open on Friday, October 20th, with a Final Friday reception on Friday, October 27th from 6 to 8pm, and will run through Thursday, November 9th.  The gallery is located at 334 N Mead St, Wichita, KS 67202.  The hours of operation are M-TH: 9am-9pm, F: 9 am-5pm, SA: 9am-3pm, SU: Closed.  If you'd like to contact CItyArts, their phone number is (316) 350-3245

Second Place in Water Media in the IAA's 16th National Animal Art Juried Competition

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My painting Perspective won second place in the Water Media category at the Irving Art Association's 2017 16th National Animal Art Juried Competition with juror Patsy Lindamood!  I wrote about being juried into the show here, and if you're near Irving, Texas, in the next few days you can still catch it - the exhibition will be up through September 29th.

Irving Art Association's 16th Annual National Animal Art Juried Competition

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Juror Patsy Lindamood accepted two of my pieces, Balancing Act and Perspective, into this year's exhibition!  101 artists had entered 238 pieces of artwork, out of which 65 pieces were selected.

The Irving Art Association's 16th Annual National Animal Art Juried Competition opened on August 27th and will be open through September 29th, 2017, with an awards ceremony and reception on Sunday, September 10th, from 2 – 4pm at the Jaycee Park Center for the Arts in Irving, Texas.  I was planning on making the long drive down when I mistakenly thought that it was the same weekend as Labor Day and thus would have given me a little more driving time, but unfortunately I won't be able to make it.  If you can go, though, please take photos as I'd enjoy seeing them!

The Advocate Article on My LASM Exhibition

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Remember the Polymers in Art Through The Centuries exhibition I'm participating in (thanks to my friend Dr. John Pojman) at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum (LASM)?  It opened March 4, 2017, and was slated to run until June 4 but was extended through September 3 due to the success of the exhibition.  The Advocate, Louisiana's largest daily newspaper, recently published an article on the show, "LASM's exhibit explores the mix of art and science," including a photo of my pieces in the slideshow imagery at the top as well as text about my work.

If you're in the Baton Rouge region and haven't stopped by the exhibition yet, you've still got almost a month!

Intercambiador ACART Residency Journal 13 - Exhibition Shots

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Here are a handful of exhibition shots of the interactive sculptures and artist statement/exhibition text from my Quinta del Sordo exhibition in Madrid.

Quinta del Sordo Exhibition!

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My exhibition, titled "In the Dark" (in Spanish), associated with my Intercambiador ACART residency is opening tomorrow evening!  I haven't been able to take a photo of the second sculpture I made yet for various reasons, but the show will have two interactive sculptures of mine as well as five paintings (two of which I just finished and also have yet to post online!).   The exhibition will be held in Quinta del Sordo here in Madrid, Spain, and will be up from July 20-28th.  Here's the exhibition card:

Cerdeira Village Residency Journal 6 Photos 1 - My Artwork

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Here are a handful of photos of my overall exhibition space in the Cerdeira Village Elementos à Solta festival.  I already published individual piece images in my earlier posts, but here you can see some combined installation shots.

Cerdeira Village Residency Journal 6

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Starting on Wednesday through Friday, artists piled into the shared house Julia and I were staying in so that they could set up for the festival (which officially began on Thursday but really truly started on Friday).  In the end, I think we housed more than 16 people in the house, and 7 in our room!  It was really packed and we had to take shifts in the kitchen.  The festival, called Elementos à Solta (Art Meets Nature), took place throughout the village from Thursday through Sunday and involved ceramics as well as fiber arts, wooden pieces, motion-sensing installations, and more.  There were additionally workshops for art novices in the mornings and scheduled theatre and music performances in the evening.  I really enjoyed a stage performance by eight ceramic artists; it was the first theatre piece I've seen that was really nevertheless as much a studio art performance piece.

Many of the displaying artists come to the festival every year (and this was the festival's twelfth year) so they all knew each other very well, but they were also extremely welcoming to Julia and me.  I found a mix of Spanish and English tends to be decently understood by most Portuguese speakers, which was helpful.  We were provided meals during the festival (usually on the residencies I attend you make your own food) and the cooks very kindly made vegetarian fare available each time, which I found very thoughtful.

The festival wound down on Sunday, and Julia left early that afternoon (her installation will remain up until nature has its way with it - perhaps through the winter!) after we finished our scheduled artist presentation.  I grew very close to Julia during our time there, and it was very sad to have her leave.  It also meant my own time to leave was drawing near; I had decided to take a bus from Coimbra to Madrid the following morning.  I had planned to try to use a sort-of legitimized hitchhiking (car-sharing) service, but no one was making the trip the day I needed to go.  I then considered flying, but within-Europe flights don't provide any free checked or carry-on luggage beyond a small bag, and I have two big suitcases with me so it would have been too costly.  The bus was only a few hours longer and was significantly cheaper.

Packing my sculptures took about two hours; I actually packed them about three times trying to get the packing materials to support and protect the pieces.  I have no idea if the sculptures' fragile branches will be in fragments by the time they reach the US; I tried my best, though!  I needed to mail them from Portugal because since I had two suitcases and a backpack already, I didn't have the hands to also carry a large box along.  On Monday morning, Nuno and I went to the post office and mailed my box out (fingers crossed!) before he dropped me off at the bus station.  The trip from Coimbra to Madrid was thankfully uneventful, and the bus driver of the second bus (we had to change buses very early into the trip to connect with the Spanish line) stopped several times such that we could avoid using the bus toilet - I was very appreciative of that!  We did stop at the Spanish border and police came aboard and checked passports; I was a little surprised about this because one of my international students said the borders are not really controlled for ground traffic between EU countries.

Cerdeira Village Residency Journal 5 - New Artwork!

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When I was shopping at the market across from the Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, I saw a few azulejos tiles of rabbits, and I bought myself one of them - it reminded me a little of Albrecht Dürer's work.

After I finished the turtle sculpture, I decided I would do a rabbit and a bird as a partner piece to the turtle and nest mostly due to that market experience.  When I started looking at various images of rabbits in order to find one to sculpt, I decided that proportionally and structurally, a hare would be more interesting than a rabbit.  And given that I had been thinking about rabbits and hares due to this azulejos tile that reminded me of Dürer, I decided to base my sculpture off of Young Hare.

It was really quite fun sculpting a watercolor painting, as it were, and one that I highly admire.  I started off again with a styrofoam and wire base and then added QCC and began to form the body and head.  

I added the feet in three separate parts, and finally the claws and ears.  After every part was added, I detailed the fur and added some jackalope-esque branches in front of the ears.  This all took several days to come together, and obviously there were parts I had to construct myself in attempting to realize a three-dimensional animal out of a two-dimensional painting of it.

I had planned on sculpting a bird with the hare, but I liked the hare so much alone that I reconsidered.  As I was trying to decide what to do, I thought about how I would progress with the painting of the hare.  In the beginning I had thought about painting the rabbit in azulejos-inspired colors as well, but I realized when doing the turtle that the style that the shell and eggs looked quite good with it because they were fairly smooth, but when I tried to paint the turtle head and legs with various tints of blue, it got too busy and weird due to their pebbled surfaces (so I reverted them back to the clean white).  The fur of the rabbit is quite heavily textured, so I decided to paint it in a fairly realistic coloration through referencing Dürer's piece again but turning the colors just a little bit cooler in a nod to the azulejos theme and my own practice of using blue as a dominant color in my own work.

In deciding to paint it in naturalistic colors, though, I thought the two pieces wouldn't seem very related, so I figured I should do a bird - but a detachable bird, in case I ended up displaying the pieces separately as well or in case the bird didn't turn out so well.

I knew I wanted the bird to be in the azulejos color scheme, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to approximate an actual species/patterning like I did in the slider turtle shell design.  In the end, I decided the bird should be even more clearly a reference to the azulejos tiles; then there would be this strong representation in the bird and the eggs, a referential-but-also-naturalistic one in the turtle, and then an almost entirely naturalistic representation in the hare.

So here it is!  I also haven't accurately measured or titled it (though Young Hare will show up in the title somehow), but it is a mixed media ceramic sculpture including QCC, acrylic, and found branches.  Some of the photos below are of it in bright sunlight, so the cast shadows on the bird can be a little hard to parse, and all are against a brown/gray background which can make the branches difficult to differentiate too, but I will take photos of it in a white gallery space as well.

Cerdeira Village Residency Journal 3 - New Artwork!

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When I woke up for my first morning in Cerdeira Village, I was still a little tired and quite sneezy - I thought I would escape from my Kansas allergies but there are apparently still plenty of plants I'm allergic to in Portugal!  I soon shook it off, though, and Julia and I made breakfast and started to get to know each other.  Next I went to set up my studio space; the atelier is downstairs and next door from the residency housing.  I took over two small pottery tables and a bigger workshop table and began working on my first piece.  

When I proposed my project for this very competitive residency, I took note of how ceramics-oriented the website was and my proposal was to make some fully 3D pieces out of QCC since of late I've been doing only relief work with QCC.  For my first sculpture, I decided I would create a slider turtle with branches growing atop its back supporting a nest.  I picked a turtle for a few reasons - 1) I'd sculpted two turtles a few years ago out of QCC but never felt I fully resolved their form and wanted to improve upon that work; 2) there is a multicultural myth that the world is supported on the back of a great turtle; 3) I hadn't seen very many animals in Portugal yet given that I'd only been there a couple days, but I had seen at least two different species of slider (red-eared and yellow-bellied) at the Estufa Fria in Lisbon.

I started the sculpture by carving a rough approximation of the shell out of styrofoam.  This was mostly to save on clay usage - I can only carry one bucket of it at a time due to the size and weight it occupies in my luggage, so I want to be smart in how I use it up - but also helps with the weight of the piece, which is important because I will have to ship my artworks back to the US and weight sharply increases the shipping costs.

Then I applied QCC in a relatively thin layer around the styrofoam and began to shape and detail it (hacking out bits of styrofoam as well if I needed to).  The shell took a lot longer than I thought it would to really shape properly; I did not finish it the first day.

I continued work the second and third days on the turtle.  After finally detailing the shell, I moved on to the head and feet.  I did them all separately so I could be very considered in my markmaking, and finally I assembled all the pieces and added a tail and other final detailing by the end of the third day.  I had planned to make the branches and nest out of the QCC as well, but I became enchanted by the local lichens that grow on the trees here and ended up pushing real branches into the turtle's back before curing the whole piece.

 Afterwards, I did add a nest and two eggs made out of QCC into the branches.

On the fourth and fifth days, I painted the turtle, nest, and eggs white.  I had got it into my head to reference the azulejos tiles so common to Portugal in the painting of the sculpture; the starting point was turning the natural light tan of the clay the bright white of the glazed tiles.  I had only brought one type of paint with me - my Golden OPEN Acrylics - which are great for normal painting needs but are really poor as a base coat due to their long dry time.  Here in Cerdeira Village, they seem to dry even slower - in fact, barely at all - and I ended up just going ahead and painting the turtle shell with an azulejos-inspired, painted-turtle-shell-based design on the sixth day here despite the shell still being faintly wet.  I also painted the eggs with a small decorative motif seen in the corners of some azulejos tiles.  The turtle and eggs took almost a week to dry, but aided by my eventual realization that I needed to put them outside in the sun to assist, they were handle-able by the time I needed to install them in their exhibition space the morning of June 2.

So here's the piece!  I haven't measured it yet, nor titled it (I've got some ideas mulling), but that will come.  It is a mixed media ceramic sculpture including 3P QuickCure Clay, acrylic, and found branches and lichens.

Newspaper Article in The Daily Reveille

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Here's some more press on the Polymers in Art Through the Centuries exhibition at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum (LASM) and my collaboration with Dr. John Pojman from Louisiana State University (LSU)!  The Daily Reveille even uses a photo of my artwork in the exhibition as the article image!  The show is up through September 3rd, if you will be in the region and want to stop by.

A Photo Gallery from My LASM Exhibition Trip

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I have a few more photos to share from my LASM exhibition and associated demos/events!  This was a fantastically fun trip, all thanks to the amazing Dr. John Pojman.

Video Clip of LASM QCC Demo

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I have a full schedule of demonstrations, lectures, and interviews for the next couple of days associated with the Polymers in Art Through the Centuries exhibition going on at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum (LASM) - the first took place earlier this evening!  An LASM public relations staff member posted livestream video to Facebook throughout the night - here's a snippet:

Animals in Art Exhibition at A Different Path Gallery

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And here's another exhibition I'm showing work in - it's the Animals in Art national exhibition juried by Lori Skoog and Katherine Weston at A Different Path Gallery in Brockport, New York.  Three of my pieces will be on display: Perfect Form, Echo, and Littoral Layers. 

The show opens with a reception this Friday (tomorrow!), March 10th, from 7-9pm and will be on exhibit through April 1, 2017.  The gallery is located at 27 Market Street, Brockport, NY 14420.

Polymers in Art Through the Centuries Exhibition at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum

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My collaboration with Dr. John Pojman and his company 3P (Pojman Polymer Products) has led to my exhibiting in this amazing show!  Polymers in Art Through the Centuries is a fantastically interesting exhibition held at the Louisiana Art & Science Museum (LASM) in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Polymers in Art Through the Centuries opened today!  Its show dates are March 4 - June 4, 2017, and it is held in the Soupçon Gallery in the LASM.  For information about the LASM hours of operation and cost of admission (though please note that there are a number of free admission days), please check this link out.

I will be demonstrating 3P QuickCure Clay and discussing my work with the sculptural and relief medium along with Dr. John Pojman onsite at the LASM during their Art After Hours: The Substance of Art event on Thursday, March 30, 2017 from 5:30 - 7:30pm.  Other artists including Monica Zeringue, violist and composer Christian Frederickson, and local dance company Of Moving Colors will be contributing to the evening as well, and A Work in Process: Paintings by Gustave Blache III and It’s Academic: A Hands-On Art Experience will also be open for viewing.  Complimentary wine and appetizers are included with admission, which is $7.50 for adults, $5.50 for college students with ID, and free for members.

Speaking of Student Work...

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One of my students, Ryan Hill, just sent me this video he made featuring a time lapse of our recent Goppert Gallery installation as well as a tour of the exhibition!  It's super cool:

Info] The art setup on 7 December 2016 at the University of Saint Mary in Leavenworth. Artwork displayed in the video by various members of the Saint Mary students.

Goppert Gallery Exhibition Photos!

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Here are some images of the show!  I got sidetracked by an alumna when I was walking around photographing so I haven't taken pictures of the whole of the show yet, but that just means there's more to experience if you want to stop by - the show's up through the 15th.

An image of my wall of artwork from the exhibition.

Looking at my wall from the other side.

Goppert Gallery Exhibition

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I'm exhibiting my series of botanical-garden-themed mixed media reliefs made on residency this summer at La Maison Verte in Marnay-sur-Seine, France, as well as the first three paintings in my ongoing puffin series inspired by my 2014 Icelandic residency in the University of Saint Mary's Goppert Gallery!  My work is in its own distinct space, but the Gallery has a number of rooms to it and is also simultaneously exhibiting student artwork from this past semester as well as our graduating senior Brandon Handy's senior thesis exhibition, "Nature from Afar and Close-Up." The gallery is free and open to the public, with exhibition dates and times as follows:

December 9-15, 2016, 10am-4pm with an opening reception today from 3-5pm - complimentary refreshments will be served.

If you'd like to join us, Goppert Gallery is on the ground floor of Xavier Hall on the University of Saint Mary's main campus found at 4100 S. 4th Street in Leavenworth, KS.  Here's the full press release if you're interested, though since we sent it out we've changed a few details so this post has the most current information.

I'll upload some photos shortly!