November 30, 2011

It's almost time for Paris!

The Salon de SNBA is fast approaching, this Sunday (December 4th) I will be getting on a plane that will take me and my painting to Paris. I am super excited! Right now I’m super busy with all the final preparations, The crate that will protect my painting during the flight is almost finished, it just lacks a couple of wheels and a handle. A new set of business cards is in and as I type this my printer is working overtime printing out material for my mini press kitts. For now I think I have things under control although I’m a bit apprehensive about the weight of my luggage, I can only bring 25kg with me as checked luggage and that includes my painting so I’ll have to be careful when I start packing.


While the preparations are keeping me busy for now I still hope to be able to at least make a start with a new piece, I’m thinking Halifax but I might change my mind. I did finish my large Montreal piece, just in time for the opening of ‘Small for W’all’, a group show at Viva Vida Art Gallery. When I get back from Paris I’m going to have to work really hard, I’m hugely behind on my boroughs project, I’ve another commission piece that needs to be finished in January and I really have to create some new art as well. I also want to do some experiments with the fast image transfer technique to see where and how I can implement it in my work.


This week an extensive interview about me, my artwork and my artistic background was published online at www.whyfey.com, the interview at this location is in Dutch, I’ve created an English translation which can be found here. I’m very grateful to Kees Hoogervorst for this amazing piece of press coverage, I had a great time answering his profound questions, he really made me think and I hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed the interview itself.


I won’t be able to write a post next week since I’ll be in Paris but I will tweet and update my Facebook page while I’m there and I’ll write all about it in this blog after I get back. 



November 21, 2011

Staying as productive as possible

The past couple of months have been a bit unorganized when it comes to artwork creation. First there was my trip to Italy and then I spent a week in Florida with my family to celebrate my birthday. In the meantime there were a couple of commission and donation pieces that I needed to finish and a piece for my collaboration project. Needless to say there hasn’t been much time to work on my boroughs project or any other pieces I had planned. And the unorganizedness is not quite finished yet, come December I will be flying to Paris for the Salon de SNBA at the Carousel du Louvre and the holidays usually aren’t the most productive time of the year either. 


That being said I haven’t been completely unproductive. Next to finishing two commission pieces and a piece for the ‘Journey’ project I’m currently working on a large 36x48 piece on Montreal which I hope to have finished by the end of the week. It’s a nice bold, black and white piece with very large buildings. And I hope to be able to start at least one more piece before I leave for Paris. 


On Saturday I attended a great charity event for the Le Nichoir wild bird rehabilitation center. I had donated three 5x7 pieces to their Wildcard art sale and was very pleased to see that all three pieces sold at the event. I am very happy that my contributions were able to generate some money for this great cause. 





November 06, 2011

10 days and 2395 photographs later.... part 4

The last part of our trip would take us back to Rome. Leaving Venice we stopped in Sirmione, a little village on the Lago di Garda. Our hotel had an absolutely amazing lake view and a lovely terrace where we could have breakfast and enjoy the sunset. 


The next day we drove to Vinci, a tiny village in Tuscany about 30 minutes from Firenze and the place where Leonardo da Vinci was born. walking through this little village you could really imagine how it must have looked back in the day. There was a little museum with all kinds of replica’s of Leonardo’s inventions, really cool!


After visiting the museum we drove back to Firenze where we would spend the night and spend the next day exploring the city. We didn’t get to go to any of the museums because there simply wasn’t enough time but we did climb the Duomo for some amazing views of the city.


In the afternoon we started our drive back to Rome where we would arrive just in time for rush hour, yay. Some navigating and very brave driving by my amazing husband was required to get us safely back to the rental company to return our car. 


We spend our last day exploring the Vatican museum and visiting Saint Peters Cathedral. The Vatican museum in particular was a very overwhelming experience. There’s just so much art and I’m not just talking about the paintings and the frescoes. Every inch of the ceilings, floors and walls is covered in artwork. You have to go there with the idea of seeing something in particular otherwise you just get overwhelmed. We saw the Sistine Chapel, naturally but for me one of the highlights was seeing Raphaels La Scuola d’Atene (The School of Athens). Having taken philosophy in school as well as history in the arts and culture this piece was very meaningful to me and seeing it in person was just amazing. 


Saint Peters Cathedral never fails to impress either, especially the beams of light coming in from the windows. You can imagine why people might start believing in God when entering this church. 


So that was our trip to Italy, the next day we would fly back to Montreal with a lot of amazing new memories and a whole lot of pictures. 


I’ve been back for a couple of weeks now and you’re probably wondering what I’ve been doing art wise, since these last couple of weeks I’ve only been blogging about my trip. Well I’ll give you a quick update:


I’ve finished the second piece in the ‘Journey’ series, its a piece on New York and it’s called ‘the Big Apple’. I’ve also finished my second ever commission piece, a second piece on Mont Tremblant called ‘the Four Seasons’. Currently I’m working on a large piece on Montreal and the first piece of the boroughs project s almost finished as well. Next I’ll be working mainly on the boroughs project because I’ve got some catching up to do. But I’ll probably do some things on the side as well. My trip to Italy has been very inspiring so something along those lines will probably come around soon as well. I will keep you all posted on all that, now I have to get back to my studio to apply another layer of gel.