Sticks, Stones, and Paper Stew Blog

Background:

Back in July 2004, I was  in France attending a sketching/journaling workshop along the Brittany coastline. At the end of the class, Carol and I headed to Paris for several days of sight-seeing and museum hopping. On departure day, Carol had an early flight and I had an early afternoon train ride back to London.  After checking into my hotel, I decided to check emails and discovered an interview request from Corvallis Fall Festival. Cynthia and I had met previously at WOU. She exhibited while I was the student gallery director for then Campbell Hall Gallery (now the Dan & Gail Cannon Gallery) and was also part of the jury for my senior oral presentation.  I had an interview after returning home and I’ve been an integral part of staging a local arts festival.

CFF is a not for profit arts & crafts festival featuring 170 artist booths and over 200 artists participating in the 2 day event. This years event takes place on Sept 26 & 27th.  Our jury process opens at the beginning of February and ends May 1. The jury day  was on the 13th this year. There were over 300 applicants for 100 booths. 8 jurors spent 2 hrs going through each application. We are one of the last remaining shows in the PNW using actual photos ( I think Edmonds is still using photos and not gone to ZAP). We request 3 images that fit on the front of one single piece of paper.  The paper is then inserted into clear plastic sheet covers and grouped by media.  Some artists give us 3 pages of images. Not the wisest choice because jurors don’t always pull out the other pages to view. I try to place the strongest image on the front and another on the back. We encourage our jurors to not decrease the points due to photo problems. Go for quality of the item produced. Our jurors are anonymous. Many have been a part of the art fair world for many years or are artists in the community. Some are great purchasers of artwork. This was an especially strong group. Now the fun of sorting and sending back the non-accepted packets, data entry of those accepted and placing others on a wait-list (if they accept).

Here is my phrase

“She sank into the depths….”

Squid and the deep blue sea is coming to mind… we’ll see what happens!

Is it that time already? Yep, we are sitting on the eve of this year’s project. What is the She Project?  Tomorrow afternoon I will receive a “she phrase” via email and I will spend only 2 hrs working an 8″x10″  2D project. Saturday morning I turn the project in with a frame and it is hung with 100+ entries at the Corvallis Public Library. Some women gather in groups to create, others just work on it by themselves.  There are no rules to how one creates from the phrase. Just get inspired and go for it! Don’t think (that’s my major problem). The She project was conceived by my friend and4E housemate Lauren Ohlgren, the photogenic one in the Gyotaku entry and Lambs of Spring. Her website is http://sheproject.com

While looking at my friends site, I jumped into her “Retro” section. I find in very interesting to see the progression of artists through time. A great example is the  Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam which displays his work in a winding time line through the beautiful building. So why not put up a piece of my history on the blog?

There is  a batik hanging in my studio I created 24 yrs ago. Whew! 24 yrs?! That’s crazy sounding.  This was the third batik  showed outside high school walls thanks to the art teacher Sue Markley. It traveled to Osaka Japan with a grouping of other high school work. Unfortunately, I have no idea where it hung while there for 3+ months but it did return home safely.

The image was based on a oil painting by artist …..humm, can’t remember…… I have no idea of why I chose that particular image  but it probably had something to do with the colors of the setting sun on the mountains. Atmospheric distortion was a concept I was working with along with color contrast. Foreground  caribou & wolf standoff, foothills behind wolf and mountains behind that. A tad too much pink for my liking these days but what can you expect out of a 16 yr old playing in color and wax. It is what it is and a look back in time.  Maybe this is why I’m still drawn to the fiber world, the art experience in high school.