Paper Exhibit At SECCA

If you are in or near NC, make it a point to visit SECCA, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, in Winston-Salem.  "Paperless" is the name of their current exhibit of art made of paper - not paper as a surface for painting and drawing, but the material for concept.  On opening night they allow the audience to take photos, which I did, though my camera wasn't up to the low light challenge.  A few are in the slide show on the right - hopefully enough to tempt you to visit this very interesting facility.  There is also an accompanying exhibit of large sculptural cast glass work done by Stanislav Libensky and Jaroslava Brychtova in the 70's - 90's I believe.  In addition, on the way from the paper exhibit to the glass upstairs, one passes through an experience which I will leave for you to find by yourselves.

This piece of cut paper was in many ways, the most beautiful and the most thought provoking for me.  I am always struggling with the question of what beauty is and what makes it so.  The artist has created a seemingly simple cut paper work, but asks the question, "what draws us more? The image/absence (in other words, the living position of the colorless negative shape) or the presence/specter (the living color of the dead positioning of the poppies)?" (Italics are my words.)  I kept returning to this piece, aware each time that the upright position felt more alive to me, though somehow sad.  I liked that what appears to be simple and beautiful was not just so.

Beginners - A Review & Comparison

Last post was about our experience seeing A Tree of Life.  Tonight we saw Ewan McGregor and Melanie Laurent in Beginners.  Touching, melancholy, sweet with wonderful expressive actors.  It was, as an experience, exactly the opposite of A Tree of Life.  By that I mean to say that I was always the observer in Beginners - appreciative, sympathetic, engaged - but never did I actually experience the emotions as my own.  A fine film.  I recommend it.  But not a film to experience, to be in.  And not a film that will stay with my conscious or unconscious mind.

Now, as we wend our way to Colorado for this coming weekend in Edmonds at the Vail Valley Art On The Rockies show, we take our art critic hats off and become our artist selves again.  Fun to live another life for a while.  Whitney and Syed and Roger Ebert.

Here is the flyer for a week of great workshops and events we are offering in McCall, ID at the new and very beautiful McCall Art + Commerce Complex (MACC) this summer the week of July 18-25.  The idea for this began at the Celebration of Fine Art this past winter.  A group of us, the NW Salon, who have been working cooperatively for a few years to enhance our audience's art experience, generated CreAtive sparx when Donna and Dave Armstrong told us about MACC.  Since all of us either live in or have lived in the northwest, we loved the idea of spending a week bringing our ideas, our work, and our energy to beautiful ID.  We are equally excited to join with McCall artists in the development of what may become the Art Event of many summers to come.  So, join us!  Besides the classes/workshops here, there are other curiously delightful events for you to attend....I will post more about these soon, so keep in touch!

And check this link out for other classes held on the campus all summer long - www.mccallarts.org

As for our road trip on the way to McCall - it's going to be a busy summer.  We start out in Chicago where Syed has a show over the July 4th weekend.  I'm taking a few days to visit family in Iowa City and a trip to the University art galleries and the wonderful  Chait Galleries Downtown where Syed has his work.  Then it's back in the van to Vail for the Art On the Rockies show, July 9-10.  We haven't been to Vail in several years, so this trip to the Pacific NW provided a timely opportunity to spend a couple of days in the Rockies again.  Then we go all the way to Salem, OR for the Salem Art Festival, a show we did many years ago - I love this festival!  They have great music and it's the annual fund raiser for their Art Association - so if you're in the area (and who wouldn't want to be in Oregon in the summer?), join us.

And finally we get to McCall July 18 for a meet-up with a bunch of great, inventive artists for a week of fun - teaching, sharing, sipping, tasting!

Celebration of Fine Art - Winner - 2010 Sterling Awards - Micro Business

We are so proud to be a part of this wonderful group. Susan and Jake Potje work all year long to make this event world class and really unique in the world of art shows. If you're in the Scottsdale, AZ area this winter, come visit us - I guarantee you won't be disappointed!

A Small Vacation

Replenishing oneself, when what you do for a living is make art, market art, sell art, ship art, move art, is something which must usually be accomplished in a short period of time - substantially less time than the two or three week vacation from a straight job.  Last weekend we combined a bit of art biz with a bit of stress relief by meandering around rural southern VA and northern NC, followed by a "side" trip to St. Augustine, FL.  Riding through a sea of cotton playing against the firery reds of autumn forests in NC where we had no bars (those would be cell phone bars) to distract us, was taking a deep breath of sweet relaxation.

We delivered some paintings to Hilton Head - extensions of the season into the home - 

followed by a walk in the woods near Blufton, GA.....

 

and on to visit my brother who was on a hunt for great cigars (ugh!) in St. Augustine - and we found them - hand made by the family, using tools of the trade that looked like they should be in a great antique display somewhere.  Just a moment in the day, but one in which I learned something I knew nothing about!

   

And then, back to Salisbury, to work in the studio - Piedmont Craftsmen is coming up soon!  And Celebration of Fine Art, Scottsdale, is already gearing up for their 2011 show - gotta be ready!

            

                  

                                                                                 

The Zen of the Now

94 degrees today in NC and the first day of fall.  Can you hear me  pounding my head on the dashboard of my van, as I wait in the drive through line at Starbucks waiting, waiting, WAITING to get to the window, with van windows open?  We are fully loaded with artwork, show tent, walls, chairs, bags, tent weights, computers, chilly weather clothes (and WHEN WOULD THEY BE NEEDED, I scream in my head), couple of totes of misc. show gear.  It’s 9:45 am and THIS LINE IS NOTNOTNOT MOVING – the man with the cool, golden, smooth skin smiles at me from the driver’s seat which is in the #%^)0**^-!* SHADE and says (something like) “Patience, Whitney”, or was it why are you so irritable honey, or, no, I think it was more like what’s the matter? Too warm?  TOO WARM??? It’s been in the &$%#@@@** 90s for three $%@*#$^$ months – I can’t STAND this for one moRE DAY (read with escalating volume) – and yes, of course I GET (and that guy I just mentioned pointed OUT to me) that such escalation simply causes my body temperature to rise another several degrees which, now that we are three hours down the road and the air con is ON, segues into my thoughts about the zen-ness of being in the Now. 

I read the occasional personal growth book.  I have friends who meditate.  I breath in and out several times a day.  I know what a moment is and that I am supposed to be in it.  Riding along through the rounded green and gold and russet mountains of Virginia, just the hum of the road and lightly cracking sound of that guy (mentioned above) opening sunflower seeds (little rustlings of the cellophane bag as he reaches in for a few more), van gearing down as we start another incline, swishing sounds as cars pass us slower traffic keeping right – riding along in this way, it is simple to be in the moment, attuned to the slightest variation in timbre or temp….change in temp? Change in temp?  Why are you turning the air OFF?  Climbing, he answers, between seeds.  I look up.  I see cerulean sky filled with cumulus pillows in shades of white tinged with varying degrees of palest blue echoing into the vastness of VA skies.  Quickly we have ascended, are skimming the ridge and turn the air on again.  My brief relapse over.  VA. WV.  I gaze out as the cumulus sky becomes forest mounds. The radio tunes in again.  Amazing Grace.  I kid you not.  We must hear Amazing Grace at least six times each way whenever we make this trip from NC to The North (draw a line anywhere above Washington, DC to central IN).  A bit of Alizarine showing.  Dark Cadmium Yellow.  Heavy blood red-brown Sumac heads. (Are they poinsonous?  Some interior voice raises the red flag of warning whenever I see Sumac. I don’t think I would hear the red flag if I were’nt in the moment.)

But what I really wanted to discuss is this thing with the Now.  The whole thing of Being in the Now.  It’s not that I can’t see the value of this Way of Being – my friend Leah seems to float in the Moment most of the time.  Pretty unflappable, not given to fits of  anxiety or rage.  Now, I’m not saying that she doesn’t experience these, just that it appears to me that she is able to dilute them, to extinguish them, probably during the act of mediation, which, to my amazement, she does daily.  I’m just saying that for those of us who are not so far along the road to that more highly evolved state, there should be more discussion of the value of understanding that sometimes the value of being in the Now is knowing that if you stay in the Now you will explode, possible doing bodily harm to oneself or others, and that the more prudent, some might even say more evolved, choice, while still being IN the Now and making choices from that place, would be to rapidly, expeditiously, and without passing Go, EXIT the Now NOW.  And, blissful in the lower regions, deny that particular Now of 90 something degrees for three long running months, buy a ticket to good movie in a large and very cold Cineplex, sit in the dark and be in a different Now.  Just till Fall really shows up.