Monday, October 26, 2015

 Long before I became a visual artist, I was a crafter, showing my wares in a number of local craft shows.  For this year's Roswell Fine Arts Alliance's BIZARRE BAZAAR, I decided to revive those old skills and become one of the 18 vendors in this show.  This is it's third year and each year it gets better and better.  Some of the artisans this year include a potter, a maker of garden glass totems, knitters, painters, handmade soap crafter, etc.  There will also be gourmet food available provided by Chef Wendy's Kitchen "Cafe".  There will also be a beautiful show of two dimensional art in the Gallery.
 Joys of the Season is the name of the show and all of the original pieces are smaller works at very reasonable prices.  What you see here are the myriad of items I've created out of DUCT TAPE!  Yes, you read correctly -- duct tape.  I had no idea when I started how many things I could make -- most of which make great gifts for kids, teachers, pets -- just about anyone on your list.  There are journals, "Buddie Bags" -- for storing legos, little cars, any small pieces that kids collect, wallets and
cell phone holders.  You'll also find pony tail holders with bows plus bracelets and necklaces for your "princesses". There are gifts for you wonderful dog, and your wonderful husband.   I've even got holiday decor! 
Please save the dates -- December 5th and 6th and stop by the Gallery at 9100 Fouts Road, Roswell, GA 30076.  You'll be glad you did.

Friday, October 9, 2015



  Working in a Series
       Often when I'm working in mixed media I work on a series of paintings that all have the same original basis -- sometimes it's a color palette, sometimes a concept, sometimes a particular medium that I want to explore.  In this instance the initial basis was collage.  I attached very dark value pieces in three different compositional formats and then began to paint.  I knew that I would select one color from the palette to emphasize in each piece, and that I intended to work with a variety of media 
including pencil, pen, pastel and acrylic (as well as 
collage with which I began.  Since these were to be entirely non-representational, I worked with temperature and value to create interesting surfaces.  Eventually, I  began to feel as though I was moving toward Armageddon -- a feeling of violent storms, volcanoes, fire.  This feeling led me to title these works Destruction I, Destruction II and Destruction III.  
 When viewing the originals it is possible to see all of the underlying marks and patterns.  This enables the viewer to follow the process from first layer to final surface.