Explorations in Mixed Media at Good Hope

Lest you think that all I do is attend the many festivities around the island, I have been spending a fair amount of time in the studio continuing my adventures in mixed media.

For the 25^th Annual Caribbean Fine Art Exhibit at Good Hope School this year I composed a visual Lullaby to the Sea.  A love poem with sunrises

Stormy seas

Brilliant Sunsets

And mysterious moons.

The artist reception is tonight, Friday, February 17, 2012 at 7 p.m. in The Good Hope School’s Campus Center.  The exhibit is open Saturday and Sunday, February 18-19, 2012 from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. and Monday, February 20 from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.  Admission is complimentary throughout the weekend. 

Fish Portraits at Good Hope

I love fish faces in their colorful diversity and breadth of expression. For a few years now I’ve wanted to explore those faces, handpick a few unforgettable ones from the multitudes and see where my creativity might take me. I spent the past few months doing just that, and my creativity took me on a detour from my usual art quilts into the world of mixed media.

I began my subjects sewing a fabric collage and embellishing with free-motion stitching, as in quilting. Then I fastened the collage onto a canvas.  I looked around my studio and threw at the canvas all manner of beads, sequins, dried flowers, plastic ferns and any other embellishment that wanted to come along and become part of a three-dimensional coral reef for my fabric fish to call home. Acrylic paints, gesso, gel media and glitter found their way onto the canvas too.   The result?
(You can click on each photo for a larger view)

Big Eyes

 Tasty Bites

Curious Faces

 Coral Gardens

I’ll be exhibiting my Fish Portrait Series this weekend at the 24th Annual Caribbean Fine Art Exhibit at The Good Hope School here on St. Croix. Friday, February 18th is the Opening Reception ($30/ticket at the door) with free-flowing Veuve Cliquot champagne. Entrance is free the rest of the weekend.
Here's a link for more info:http://www.ghsvi.org/cfae.htm.
If you’re on island, please come by and check it out!



Good Hope Art Exhibit

Last month I showed five pieces at the Twenty-Third Annual Caribbean Fine Art Exhibit at The Good Hope School here on St. Croix. Here is the result of many hours contemplating fabric, color, texture, form, and overall feel. These pieces represent to me a tribute to the inspired life, where it isn't so much about the final product, but about those hours surrendering to the creative spirit.

Marlena (41"x55"). She's the big version of the little quilt I made last summer.

Detail:

Coral Confetti (27"x27"). This guy took me a year to figure out. I'm happy with the results, and so is the patron who bought it.
Detail:

Slow Tide at Sunset (17"x37"). This one also sold at the Exhibit.

Detail:

Fantastic Fish 3 (22"x16.5"). Part of the Fantastic Fish series begun last year.
Detail:

Fantastic Fish 4 (20"X17"). Ditto.

Detail:

A Creative Winter

It's Winter season here on St. Croix--yes, we do have "winter" in the tropics! Day time temperatures drop to the lower F80's, evenings get down to the F70's and we complain of "chills" and wear long pants and long sleeves and avoid the water when we go to the beach. In fact, the weather is perfect to be ensconced in the studio, which is what I've been doing the past couple of months.

So Winter has kept me quite busy in a wonderfully creative way. Here's a recap of my doings so far:

In early December I was a vendor at Starving Artists Day at the Whim Museum, a great place to sell and shop for Christmas gifts.

Some of my creations were totes:

Satchels
Purses
Journal Covers
Bookmarks


And now my art is permanently available at the Whim Museum Store.

I also participated in the Botanical Garden's Christmas Spoken Here festival in Mid December.

After Christmas I switched gears and began preparations for the Good Hope Fine Art Exhibit, which took place this past weekend.

Here's a close-up of the pieces that I exhibited:

Seahorse Under the Moon

Turtle Magic

Whale Rain

Poseidon's Reef

Whale Across the Water

Fantastic Fish 1


Fantastic Fish 2

The first sale and crowd favorite at Good Hope was Whale Rain, corroborating my desire to create a whole series of whale quilts. Fantastic Fish 2 was also quite popular and also sold. The other pieces will now go on sale through my website, which is about to undergo a much-needed update.

Overall, it's been a great creative season and I'm energized to continue this level of creativity throughout the year.

Public Reaction at Good Hope Exhibit

The Good Hope Caribbean Fine Arts Exhibit ran this past weekend. I was happy to be an exhibiting artist, and even happier when I sold four of my six pieces on display. During the opening reception on Friday evening I had the pleasure to see the public's reaction to my work. Laboring alone in the studio, it's hard to guess what will be liked, and to my surprise, the crowd favorite was Tile Fish, a piece that was a pure play thing for me. I should know by now: play brings joy, and joy brings radiance to what we do.

My favorite part of the exhibit was the educational program on Friday morning. Over 250 public school students of all ages took guided tours. I was one of the artists in attendance, ready to answer questions and discuss our art. The kids were shown the many ways artists see and interpret the world, the many media available for expression, the many subjects that inspire art.

The high-schoolers postured with expressions of boredom and apathy. But usually a kid would hang back and ask privately one or two questions out of hearing range of the others. At the other end of the spectrum, the second graders were full of interest and fascination. One over-excited group responded with gasps and wow's worthy of a circus performance. One boy said to me, "I have three dollars. Can I buy something here?" Upon hearing this, a second kid said, "I have five dollars!" At that moment I really wished I had something tangible to gift these wonderful boys because their awe at seeing my work was simply priceless.

Two Shows and Three Fish

I've been sequestered this whole month in my home studio preparing for two shows in February. The Twenty-First Annual Caribbean Fine Art Exhibit at the Good Hope School will take place February 15-18, 2008, and I'll be one of about 60 artists showing our stuff at this, the largest art show on St. Croix.

Beginning on February 9 and for the rest of the month, I'll have a solo exhibit at Cultural Creations of the Virgin Islands, a new gallery that opened in Frederiksted a few months ago.

I'm almost ready for both shows. And yesterday I completed a quilt that sat on my design wall for about a month. I created the three fish, and then waited weeks until I knew what to do with them. I'm happy with the results. Here's a preview of the full quilt:


And here's a close up of the stitch work involved: