Jurying tomorrow at Newburyport Art Association

 

One of the local art associations that I belong to is Newburyport Art Association. We’re in the middle of the Winter Members Juried Shows. Part I, which included sculpture, watercolor, digital art, drawing, oil and printmaking, just finished up. Part II, which includes acrylic, fine crafts, mixed media, pastel, and photography, will be open to the public on Friday, February 12th.

I’m hoping that you will see two of my social media pieces in the exhibit. For this exhibit, the work is actually brought to the gallery and the juror will choose which pieces to include by looking at the actual artwork. Then the pieces not selected will be stored for a few days until the artists can pick them up.

Although this can be a cumbersome process, there are some distinct advantages over selecting from digital images. First of all, the juror sees the real work, in particular the real colors and textures, and can even compare pieces side by side. Secondly, it is easier to judge scale when you’re seeing the real thing. A third minor issue is the framing. And good or bad framing can really change the overall look of the artwork.

Tomorrow is jury day and I get to help. YAY!! One advantage of working on jury day is that you can see what is selected and what is declined. (Because my job is to store the declined pieces.) I get to see at least some of the pieces that don’t make it, but rarely know why they were declined. It’s still fun. And it’s great exercise. The storage area is on the second floor, so it’s a lot of up and down stairs.

It also means that I can pick up my pieces tomorrow if they don’t make it. Hopefully, they will get in. Keep your fingers crossed!

Here are the two pieces I submitted –

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Time to Play, Search & Experiment

OK. This is really embarrassing. It has once again been a long time of silence on my blog. I’m not sure that I can explain why I go through these phases where I want to share everything I create and other times when I’m not nearly as comfortable sharing. I do find it harder to share when the work isn’t going smoothly or when I’m in a transition period.

I have been working on more of the social media series, but felt like this series is ending, at least temporarily. The pieces were interesting, but not nearly as fun as I thought they’d be. I’ve been feeling that it was time to back off for a while now, but I still had several in process. I hesitated to abandon work that is already started, but it just didn’t feel right. For the time being, I’m abandoning the series and the few pieces that remain incomplete. I’ll go back to finish them up when I feel like it’s time. Trying to force these pieces to be done just hasn’t worked.

So for my next experiment, I’m back in play, search, and experiment mode. My plan, such as it is, is to take the next few weeks, maybe a month, and just play around the studio without expectations – without worrying about consistency, or completion, or product, or even permanency.

In some sense, it’s very difficult to totally let go of results. In another sense, it’s very freeing. It will be interesting to see how this experiment goes.

Yesterday, I did some small sketches, just to get back to playing with paint & line.

Today, I just kind of noodled around, prepped some panels, experimented with some ideas, and painted some scraps of paper to use at a later time. Again, there is nothing profound or even particularly interesting about any of this, but it does seem to be part of my process. I’ll keep on painting and playing until I figure out where I’m headed next.

Here are some shots from my studio:

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Next phase of Social Media Series – 6 x 6 panels complete

I must admit that I’ve skipped some steps. I showed you the first couple of days of developing these paintings. Now I’m skipping to the end. (I do have images of the in-between stages, but haven’t downloaded and processed those photos yet.)

These paintings went through lots of different stages, but I believe they are finally resolved.

What do you think?

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These will be going into the WCA-NH Annual 6 x 6 Exhibition.

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Next phase of Social Media – 6 x 6 panels – Day 2

The different framework of these pieces is causing me to rethink how I’ll structure these paintings. What I was doing on the earlier pieces doesn’t seem like it will work on these, so I’m looking for other ideas. For this reason, the process is going a bit slower than I would like.

I miss the rhythm from those other pieces, but I like the more focused and colorful look of these. I’m hoping this will all work out. Time will tell.

2015 6×6#1 – Work-In-Progress- Day#2

2015 6×6#2 – Work-In-Progress- Day#2

2015 6×6#3 – Work-In-Progress- Day#2

2015 6×6#4 – Work-In-Progress- Day#2

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Next phase of the Social Media Series – working on my 6 x 6 panels

It’s time to get my 6 x 6 panels ready for our annual 6 x 6 exhibition and sale. The exhibit starts the first of November, but the work needs to be delivered shortly.

I thought you might like a sneak peek at the process. We all use the same panels – 6″ x 6″ MDF with a key-hole slot on the back. After prepping the surface, I painted the panels with a couple of coats of white acrylic paint.

And then I start to glue on pieces of paper – newspaper, phone book pages, pieces torn from damaged books, along with my normal selection of bits & pieces of discarded painting pieces.

To continue with the social media idea and to keep in mind the shape of the panel, I started with cutouts shaped like a generic icon (of a woman’s head) similar to what you sometimes see displayed when a user hasn’t provided a profile picture. These were glued onto a rectangular shaped colored background.

The initial pieces look like this –

2015 6×6#1 – Work-In-Progress- Day#1

2015 6×6#2 – Work-In-Progress- Day#1

2015 6×6#3 – Work-In-Progress- Day#1

2015 6×6#4 – Work-In-Progress- Day#1

I’ll be adding more Work-In-Progress shots as these paintings develop.

 

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Update on Abstractions.2015

Just heard back from ALL, Arts League of Lowell. All three of my pieces were accepted into this show. YAY!!

It will open tomorrow and run through November 15th.

The reception is Saturday, October 17, 4 – 6 pm.

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Abstractions 2015 at Arts League of Lowell

Abstractions 2015 is the next exhibit at the Arts League of Lowell, ALL. This is an open juried show.

I have a soft spot for this exhibit, because this is how I came to know ALL. I think I’ve been in this exhibit 2 or maybe even 3 times in the past. Hopefully, at least one of my pieces will make the cut. (I wish I had 3 of the new series to submit, but I didn’t get them completed in time to be framed. )

These are the pieces. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Ethel Hills – Social Media Series #1 “food to last the trip” – Mixed Media Collage on Paper – 7 1/2″ x 5 1/2

Ethel Hills – Social Media Series #3 – “Beginners” – Mixed Media Collage on Paper – 5 1/2″ x 7 1/2″

Ethel Hills – Under the Influence of Vivaldi #1 – Acrylic on Canvas

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