It's Raining ART at Wood Icing!

This Friday, April 19 we are having an art reception from 6-8pm. Most of the artists who exhibit at Wood Icing will be there showing off new work and enjoying catching up with our collectors and each other. We will be having arty giveaways and a raffle for Art Bucks valued at $200. In addition to that we will have live painting and free art demos. This is always a lot of work for my mom and I, but our hopes are that it will result in some art sales for the artists at Wood Icing. Maybe I will even sell something! It is at Wood Icing at the Chesterfield Mall in Missouri. Would love to see you, if you are local!

What is fun is that it gave me an excuse to play with my Christmas presents; pan pastels and Dr. PH Martin Inks. So fun! First I dripped and washed in some shades of blue inks, then I ran some pan pastels over that for some more arty fun. I collaged gessoed book pages with stamped ART into them. I outlined the raindrops black and then penciled in the rest of the text to be outlined with black Pitt Pens. Quincy (my 5th grader gave me the idea of putting a little splash under the raindrop. I know it is simple and most people could create something like this with a computer, but I just wanted to feel the media in my hands and the computer doesn't do that for me. Maybe next time I will try a computer one with my tablet.

Oh! I almost forgot, I will be exhibiting around 5 new paintings from my William Woods exhibit. Can't wait to break them out. My biggest one will be in the window at Wood icing. It is called Wide Open Field - perfect for a Spring exhibit. I will be writing about that in my next blog entry.

Cox Gallery Exhibit at William Woods University



It feels really phenomenal to attain one of  your goals. Saturday, the show was hung and looked great. It was then, that I felt finished. Art receptions make me a nervous wreck, so after completing the paintings and hanging them, I felt I had accomplished my goal. The reception was so very nice and I received lots of complements which always embarrasses me into a hand wringing mess, but I persevered. My family was there with me and that was very comforting. Sunday, once the reception and demo/talk was over, I had to leave my paintings there and that might have been the hardest part. I have definitely become attached to them, but they look great where they are and we will be picking them up in a month. This has been an amazing, creative experience for me and I wouldn't have traded it for the world. I would like to do another exhibit like this, but I think I will aim for 2015 for the next one.

 

In future posts I will talk about the paintings I made, but for now, I will let my pictures tell the rest of the story....

 

This is the sign outside the main entrance to the Cox Gallery.





Doorway into the gallery with our poster!

 

This is the main view of the gallery with mine and Chris's glass work. I thought our work looked beautiful together.



Here is another view with just the spot lights on.

Me and Chris McCarthy - he owns Park Avenue Glass in St. Louis

Chris's beautiful glass.

The two people responsible for me getting to have this exhibit.
My mother in law, Cathy, who gave Jennifer Sain, the gallery director, my card!



Four generations of creatives! My mom, Rose Wilde, my grandma and my daughter.

 

Talking about my process with close family friend, Herman.



Cool gallery photo by my hubby Ben. I think that is my brother and my mom in the middle.

"The Inside Scoop" Artist Talk/Demo - My hands were shaking like crazy!

The little painting I was demonstrating on.

Chris and I just received an e-mail from Jennifer (the gallery director) and she gave me goosebumps. She said, "The show is commanding rave reviews from faculty, staff and students.  Thank you for sharing your work with us!  Showing your work together creates depth of perspective…  I call it a vibrant calm like sitting in the sun with eyes closed, resting the soul." Thank you Jennifer.