From The New York Times:
Since at least the 1970s, frog populations have been in decline. A new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports that at least 3.1 percent of frog species have gone extinct, and another 6.9 percent may disappear within the next century.
I just redesigned my business cards and ordered a new set from Moo. Since Moo allows printing of multiple back designs with a fixed front, I printed two different options. I was concerned that the one with the Balancing Act snails detail might be too much, as it can look it when you see both sides at once, but in person it works quite well. I'm liking both types enough that I may continue to order the mix... until I decide to redesign the card all over again, of course!
I've been walking around more than usual lately due to the beautiful fall weather, and I happened across this gorgeous Polygonia comma basking on some dead grass on the edge of my neighbor's lawn. Leavenworth is in the western part of their habitat, which covers most of central to eastern United States. Its coloration seems very seasonally appropriate.
The University of Saint Mary not only issued a press release a little over a month ago on my summer exhibitions and awards, but also just published an article about it in the Fall 2015 issue of Aspire Magazine.
If you were planning on taking in the Life in the Wild exhibition held by the Berkeley Art Works and which I've been juried into by Susan Fisher, this week is the last week to do so - the exhibition is located in Martinsburg, WV, and closes on October 4th.
A new hybrid store has opened up in downtown Leavenworth, KS - it's a composite vintage-inspired clothing retailer and antiques shop that also has a section devoted to gallery space and home decor. The clothing part is called Lavender Moon, and the rest of the business is run under the name Rusty Elegants. They will be selling my artwork and reproductions of my artwork (currently greeting cards and postcards but likely prints and other reproductions), so if you happen to be in Leavenworth you should stop by!
The address is 700 Cherokee Street, Leavenworth, KS 66048. Store hours are as follows:
Mon-Thurs: 9:30 am-6:00 pm
Fri: 9:30 am-8:00 pm (Sangria and snacks are provided on Friday evenings)
Sat: 6:00 am - 8:00 pm (during Farmer's Market season, otherwise 9:30 am-8:00 pm)
Sun: 12:00 pm-4:00 pm
Another exhibition is coming up! I have a couple pieces (Confident Lamb and Ring of Lambs) in the Fredonia Arts Council's Annual Area Artist Exhibit at Stone House Gallery.
Exhibit: October 1st - October 27th, 10:00am - 2:00pm M-F
Special Opening: Saturday, October 3rd
Location: Stone House Gallery, 320 N 7th St, Fredonia, KS 66736
Contact Number for Appointments: (620) 378-2052
I just recently completed a radio interview about my career thus far with host Loren Swenson on KNCK Radio 1390 AM / 94.9 FM for the CHS Alumni Moment series. (I attended Concordia High School from 2000-2004.)
I can't directly link to the piece, but if you're interested, visit KNCK Radio's website and then in the black header in the upper center of the page there's a button titled Alumni Moment. If you click on that, you can find my interview!
I've had a painting (Balancing Act) juried into the upcoming Artists of Northwest Arkansas’ 21st Annual Regional Art Exhibition. If you happen to be in or around Fayetteville, Arkansas, when the show is scheduled to be up, do stop by and let me know how it looks!
Exhibition Opens: October 1st
Reception & Awards Presentation: Saturday, October 17th from 5 – 8 PM, Presentation at 7:00 PM
Exhibition Closes: October 31st
Exhibition Location: The Fayetteville Underground - 101 W. Mountain Street, Fayetteville, AR72701
This is a fascinating article about the "internet of fungi." I first learned about this concept through the BBC's documentary How Plants Communicate and Think. It's a bit startling to consider that the "fiction" part of the science fiction blockbuster Avatar didn't extend to the networked plants.
"Ranch Refuge" is an older article, but for some reason I couldn't find a link to it online until recently (maybe Tribeza Magazine only publishes its archives online?) so I'm sharing it now. This piece is about the Madroño Ranch artist residency - I attended it twice and my series of bison paintings stems from those residencies. Here's my spotlight within the essay:
Many visitors find the bison inspiring. Artist Shelby Prindaville says, “The Madroño Ranch residency provided a wonderful opportunity for me to begin a body of work focused on bison, one of the quintessential American icons.”
Madroño Ranch isn't currently open to new residents anymore so I feel doubly lucky I learned about and was accepted into the residency when I did.
Cephalopods are very smart, and very cool, and I really hope we can keep this prehistoric member of the class alive. Here's some tentatively positive news on that front.
I'm so pleased 3P Quick Cure Clay has been getting so much press lately! This latest article titled "An LSU professor has invented a curious clay with a range of applications, from art to industry" from the Greater Baton Rouge Business Report highlights my work with the product here:
About two years before officially launching 3P QuickCure Clay, Pojman reached out to art students at LSU to get some insight on his products. Pojman started working with former LSU graduate student Shelby Prindaville to mold his mixture into something more useful to artists by perfecting the consistency. Then he began selling it online.
“He would send me test products, and I would tell him what needed to be tweaked,” Prindaville says. “At some point we reached the stage where I thought it was a really viable sculpting medium and I started making things with it. And he figured out how to make it cheaply enough that he launched the product out into the world.”
The final version of 3P QuickCure Clay allows artists to bypass much of the difficult and tricky parts of sculpting, eliminating the need for a kiln. Also, 3P Quick Cure Clay is strong enough to build sculptures without first creating wire and paper “skeletons” or armatures, Prindaville says.
Prindaville used the medium to create a series of small sculptures of lizards called Anoles. The whimsical figures depict the lizards in various positions, like one balancing straight up its thin tail, that are impossible to create using other types of clay without wire armatures.
Prindaville, now the art program director at the University of Saint Mary in Kansas, uses 3PQuickCure Clay in her classroom because students can cure their work with a heat gun before the class period ends. She says the college cancels classes for one week each spring and students work on projects outside the school’s curriculum.
“Last year, I invited John to come up; he shipped us a large amount of clay and sold us a large amount of the clay. The students did all sorts of stuff and they created a show at the end,” Prindaville says. Some of the student’s creations now mingle alongside the chemistry books and salamander tank in Pojman’s office at LSU.
And here's Dig Baton Rouge with their new article "Breaking the Mold" on 3P Quick Cure Clay including some discussion of my work with it:
Working together with former LSU graduate student Shelby Prindaville, Pojman developed the clay from its original houseware repair model to a final product fit as an artist aid.
“So that’s how it evolved into art,” said Pojman.
[...]
Pojman’s website contains examples of several art projects using QuickCure from the University of Saint Mary in Kansas where Prindaville serves as the art program director. “It was really exciting just to work with the students, get their feedback on features they liked, and also help them use it, and then see where their creativity went,” said Pojman.
Of the works the students created using QuickCure, Pojman notes his favorite are the lizards as they demonstrate the strength of the clay. “That’s not something you can do with regular ceramics,” said Pojman.
My university, the University of Saint Mary, recently issued this news release on several of my accomplishments this summer:
USM Art Program Director Honored for Her Impressive Work
8/17/2015 12:00:00 AM
(Leavenworth, Kan.)—The University of Saint Mary Art Program Director Shelby Prindaville was recently chosen by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to be one of only three featured tour artists within Art Works for Change’s new exhibition, “Footing the Bill: Art and Our Ecological Footprint,” for her extraordinary work capturing the beauty and frailty of the natural world. The subjects of both her painting and sculpture work encourage humanity to appreciate all creatures in nature—large and small—and reflect on our connection to them. The WWF is the world’s leading conservation organization, dedicated to conserving nature and addressing its most pressing threats.
Art Works for Change’s “Footing the Bill: Art and Our Ecological Footprint” exhibition highlights our urgent need to live sustainably—choosing wisely how and where to use Earth’s finite resources. Prindaville was one of only 28 artists selected for the curated international exhibition. The exhibit is accessible online at artworksforchange.org. Art Works for Change is a nonprofit organization creating contemporary art exhibitions that highlight critical social and environmental issues.
“I am beyond honored to have my works recognized by both the WWF and Art Works for Change,” said Prindaville. “I whole-heartedly support the mission of both charitable organizations, and these honors reinforce why I do what I do—to call on human reflection and influence change.”
On top of both of these impressive accomplishments, Prindaville also recently won the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri “Best in Show” for her bison painting “Confrontation.” The painting was selected by juror Ruth Ann Reese in the “Wild Things” national exhibition at the Council.
To see her work, visit shelbyprindaville.com.
From a Wikipedia research spiral:
Armadillos possess the unique reproductive trait of monozygotic polyembryony, meaning their offspring are genetically identical due to the division of a single fertilized egg into four matching embryos. This development of identical quadruplets has been utilized as a tool for genetic research. It is possible that the monozygotic polyembryony was an adaptation to accommodate for the female’s inability to carry more than one egg during this pre-implantation stage. Delaying the implantation further has no effect on the number of offspring produced.
Armadillos are also carriers of leprosy, as I learned in my Infectious Diseases course in undergrad. And they have the now unfortunate fear response of jumping, which means they often kill themselves on car bumpers when the vehicle would have otherwise safely passed over the animal. They are a fascinating creature.
My painting Wild Chick was selected for inclusion in this juried exhibit which will be on display at the Berkeley Art Works gallery (116 North Queen Street in Martinsburg, WV) from September 2 - October 4, 2015. The reception will be on Saturday, September 12 from 5-7pm.
Some very exciting news! I was selected to participate in Art Works for Change's Footing the Bill: Art and Our Ecological Footprint exhibition, which is itself an honor, but was also selected as a World Wildlife Fund featured tour artist within the exhibition! This is doubly exciting because I charitably support the WWF and am very happy to be professionally associated with such an estimable organization.
This online exhibition just went live today - check out both my artist page and the WWF featured tour page!
Somewhat belatedly, I thought I'd share two newspaper articles published in the Diari de Girona in Catalan about the artist presentation I took part in at the Bòlit Centre d'Art Contemporani in Girona, Spain.
Els quatre artistes becats pel Bòlit amb residència presenten els projectes
Un becat pel Bòlit «reviurà» cinc edificis desapareguts de Girona
Research coming out of Stanford University's Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources is unsurprisingly showing that:
A walk in the park may soothe the mind and, in the process, change the workings of our brains in ways that improve our mental health, according to an interesting new study of the physical effects on the brain of visiting nature.
