Once again, I participated in the Annual Artisan's Show and Sale in downtown Leavenworth this past weekend! The Show and Sale was held on November 9th and 10th at First City Photo. The artist reception was held on Friday from 5 to 8 p.m. and the show continued on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Here is a photo of my reproductions sale table!
This is really awful - the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program is just starting to come of age, and it is rejecting over 99% of applicants. From this Slate article: “Of the 28,913 applications reviewed, just 289 were approved. And only 96 people actually finished the process of having their loans scrubbed.”
I know a number of people who have made employment and then domino-effect life decisions based on getting PSLF; I myself strongly considered it as an option. In the end, due to paying off my undergraduate student loan debt by working in business and then how much I incurred in graduate school, ten years of payment were enough to fully pay off my debt anyway so it was a moot option - but I really feel for those who trusted the government on this. Given what’s currently happening, I would recommend you make your decisions without taking PSLF into consideration, but still file for it if you do happen to qualify, and then if it happens to proc you get a lottery-style bonus.
If I have the time, I try to do a face paint for Halloween every year. I am in the very top search results for “pixelated face paint” and other related phrases on Google Images because of my Halloween makeup! This year, I did the sliced face makeup. I was running out of time in the morning by the time I got to the mouth area so I feel I could have done a little better on that with less haste, but hey, I think it still got the idea across!
Invasive species are a massive ecological problem, and they are primarily caused by humanity - either intentionally or unintentionally. In the case of the Bradford Pear, it was 100% intentional. This article by Adrian Higgins in The Washington Post Magazine details each stage of human decision-making that led to the Bradford Pear menace.
When I began to paint Camelflage, I actually had envisioned a “white on white” concept. However, that painting rapidly began to change direction and I liked where it was going so I let it ride and am happy with how it turned out. I still wanted to paint my original idea, though, so I ordered the same panel size again for continuity and mirrored the camel for a little variation.
This is Dreamedary, acrylic on basswood panel, 12x12x1.5”.
My friend Noemí Arrocha from my residency La Pedrada de Noemí kindly let me know about this exhibition opportunity!
I am exhibiting in the Quotidiana Bellezza traveling exhibition set up by XIV Giornata del Contemporaneo AMACI. The first of the exhibition sites is in the Museo Civico Archeologico Genna Maria in Villanovaforru, Italy, with further sites to be announced.
This was a nice surprise - my sculpture Albrechare won an Honorable Mention award (and cash prize) at the State of the Arts 2018 exhibition juried by Marissa Starke!
If you’d like to go see the show and the full cast of award winners, the exhibition is in the R. G. Endres Gallery located in the municipal building at 7700 Mission Road, Prairie Village, KS. The exhibition runs annually during the month of October. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.
I’ve shared before how climate scientists have a very hard time getting the public to accept and understand the reality of our present and future situation.
Now here’s another recent look at the current and projected scale of global warming and how it compares to the agreements and actual international practices regarding emissions.
My friend Dr. John Pojman is teaching a super cool honors course this semester at LSU on the materials of art - check the press release out!
I love pretty much everything about this video from the E/V Nautilus and its ROV Hercules, but the simultaneous moment of realization the scientists all have is really top notch.
I’m happy with how this turned out! Camelflage is acrylic on basswood panel, 12x12x1.5”.
I am honored to share that my former graduate school professor Kelli Scott Kelley is exhibiting in USM’s Goppert Gallery, with an opening reception this afternoon! Here’s the press release for more details. Come join us if you’re in or around Leavenworth today, or stop in over the next couple weeks!
This is an interesting article about learning styles and how they may not be as important as some believe. I do think the conclusions for this specific study may not be as broadly applicable as the researchers claim, though; I took the VARK out of curiosity after reading the article and here are my results:
Visual 4
Aural 9
Read/Write 7
Kinesthetic 6
You have a multimodal learning preference.
What would that mean for the study? Does the VARK actually assess preferred learning styles particularly well? Is learning style equivalent to studying style, particularly if the test isn’t in a format that corresponds to the favored learning style? Does this study on a group of Indiana University anatomy students apply to other, possibly more diverse student populations?
I think the reality is more complex than this article suggests - people can learn from most modalities, but different levels of experience can benefit more from different modalities and a mixture is almost always more beneficial than solely offering one.
My sculpture Albrechare has been accepted into Prairie Village Arts Council’s State of the Arts 2018 annual exhibition juried by Marissa Starke.
It is held in the R. G. Endres Gallery located in the municipal building 7700 Mission Road, Prairie Village, KS. The exhibition runs annually during the month of October with a Gala Reception on the second Friday of October (this year that’s October 12th, 2018) at 6:00pm. The normal gallery hours are Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.
Spanish as a language doesn't have a real equivalent to the word "moth." In fact, the most commonly used option is "mariposa nocturna," which means nocturnal butterfly. I kind of think that's a little unfair to both moths and butterflies, though, as I believe there are many that are so visually distinct - not to mention behaviorally - as to merit a different category, not just a subcategory. So yay, English, for giving us both!
I've been seeing a much wider variety of insects (and, really, of animal life in general) on my porch this summer, and the moths have been one of my favorite parts! Here are a few I'd like to share with you. In order from first to last in the slideshow, they are: the honey locust moth (or the bisected honey locust moth) Syssphinx bicolor or Sphingicampa bicolor, a looper moth (inconclusive regarding the exact species given the closed wing position), a looper or a common oak moth Phoberia atomaris, a white-dotted prominent moth Nadata gibbosa, a common gray moth Anavitrinella pampinaria, and a fall webworm Hyphantria cunea.
I haven't actually added paint to this piece in a couple months, but I also hadn't decided it was done either. I'm finally willing to call it and say it's officially finished!
This piece is acrylic on birch panel, 20x10", and is titled Puffinry.
Exciting news - my painting Reconnaissance has been selected for inclusion in this competitive juried exhibition from the International Society of Acrylic Painters! The juror for this years' show is Jan Martin McGuire. Check it out!
It's that time of year - this morning USM held its annual matriculation ceremony, and tomorrow classes start! I will be teaching Sculpture, Painting I, Typography, and Art Career Internship. I'm looking forward to meeting new students and hearing how returning students have spent their summers!
I was selected to take part in this competitive juried exhibition, Landscapes and Seascapes, at 311 Gallery in Raleigh, NC. The jurors elected to include my painting Reconnaissance. The show runs from Thursday, September 6th through Saturday, September 29th, 2018. If you're in the area, the opening reception will be held on Friday, September 7th, 2018 from 6 to 9pm.
The address, normal gallery hours, and contact info:
311 West Martin Street
Raleigh, NC 27601
Email: info@311gallery.com
Gallery hours: Thurs - Sat noon-4 pm
First Friday: until 9:30pm
or by Appointment (919) 594-1944
Here's a new painting I just finished; I started it during my La Pedrada de Noemi residency, but I didn't get a chance to finish it there so I've been working on it since arriving back home. It's actually the first painting I began while on residency, so given that you might wonder why it took so long to complete - the answer is that the support is an aluminum panel, and I've never worked on aluminum before. What I wanted to do on the aluminum kind of clashed with what the aluminum wanted me to do with it, so we had a prolonged battle. I didn't want to prime or even sand the aluminum, because I feel like the whole point of painting on aluminum is the luminosity of the material. But not priming it meant that the paint wouldn't evenly stick. I feel like I eventually came out the victor, though!
The painting is acrylic on aluminum panel, 18x14", and is titled Convergence. It features a luna moth (Actias luna) atop a barrel jellyfish (Rhizostoma pulmo).
