January 31, 2012

Good things are happening...

I’ve been enjoying my studio time immensely and it has definitely been fruitful. I’ve managed to finally get a good start on my Boroughs Project with two pieces finished and two that are about half way and I’ve even been able to do a good many other pieces on the side. 


But next to all the productivity there are a lot of other things brewing on the horizon. In March I’ll be traveling to New York City for ‘Women in Art’ a group show at the Ward-Nasse Gallery in Soho and today I was very pleased to receive an email that stated that my work is being considered for the ‘Art and Architecture’ exhibition in downtown Montreal in March.


Last night I taught my first class at the Viva Vida Art Gallery, this class was part of a 5 class course I’m teaching on the creation of gel skins and how to use them in a composition. We have an awesome group of eight talented people and I’m very excited to see the results after we are finished. I’ve never taught a class before, it’s actually something I thought I’d never do, but I had a great time and I hope the people in my class did too. I’m already excited about next weeks class, when we’re really going to start building the compositions. 


It looks like I will be working on another piece in the ‘Journey’ series soon as well, I received information that my collaboration partner has scheduled the photo shoot for it so I’ll be getting material for that soon. I’m very happy that we are finally getting to the third piece, I really like the collaboration aspect and I think the resulting pieces look awesome. 


So good things are happening in the near future, which means that I have to keep up my productivity for now. Soon there will be things that will get in the way of spending time in the studio, good things. 

January 25, 2012

New Pieces





The side effect of being very productive in the studio is that I don’t spend as much time behind the computer to update my website. So this morning I’ve decided to show you some of the pieces I’ve been working on these past couple of weeks. The two pieces you can see here are ‘Petit Paris’, a piece I created for ‘Women in Art’ a group show that will be held at the Ward-Nasse Gallery in New York in March and ‘NYC Traffic’. I've also finished a small commission on Prague for a couple that is getting married. The piece will feature on their ‘Safe the Date’ card, which I created as well.


There are a couple of pieces that are almost finished amongst them is a small piece on ‘Burano’ that I created with a direct transfer technique instead of the gel skins I usually work with. I’ve been wanting to experiment with this new technique for a while now and finally found some time to do so. It’s a very interesting technique that has a lot of potential but also has some challenges that come with it. I will have to experiment with it some more before I’ll be able to fully implement it but it’s definitely worth exploring farther. 


I’m trying to work on my Boroughs Project at a steady pace, which is going well at the moment, I have one piece ready for transferring and one that needs to be copied and then gelled. I try to do other pieces in between to mix it up a bit. I discovered a whole bunch of awesome sized wood panels at a downtown art store last week which got me pretty excited! I’ve already got a sprawling city scape of Rome in mind for one of them :) 


It’s been really awesome to spend so much time just painting, I want to take advantage of it while I can because there are going to be other things that will get in the way of studio time in the near future. I’m going to teach a workshop on acrylic gel skin transfers at Viva Vida art gallery starting next week, for which some preparation is required and I have some preparations to do for the NY show and an artwork presentation/demonstration coming up in March. Lots of fun stuff coming up! But until then I’m going to enjoy being productive!

January 09, 2012

Artistic produtivity

I’m working on quite a few projects at the moment and although I seem to have found a bit of a groove I still have difficulty finding the right balance. My Boroughs Project, which should be one of my main projects, seems to be suffering from this the most. I’ve only managed to photograph about half of the boroughs in 2011 and the first piece is still waiting in my studio for it’s final few transfers, other stuff just gets in the way. I received a couple of commissions that off course have priority because they are paid for in advance and there are deadlines involved. And then I have my Journey project, which I’m doing together with another artist so naturally I have to keep those deadlines as well. I also want to be creating other pieces, work that is not related to either project and I’d like to have some time to experiment, do some other collages, try out new techniques, that sort of thing. 


On top of that, being a full time artist comes with a lot of secondary activities. I have to take the time to update my website, write this blog, go to meetings, be active in social media and so on. So there’s already that balance I need to find. 


Now I am in no way complaining! I love being an artists and a busy artist is a happy artist in my book! It’s just that my own personalty gets in the way sometimes. I’m a very organized person and when there’s something that needs doing I’d rather do it now, I like finishing stuff. The bad thing about that is that I can get so focussed on one thing that I kind of forget about everything else even if this one thing isn’t really the most important thing on the list. Luckily I’m aware of doing that most of the time and it’s usually best to just go with it anyways because I’ll be more productive afterwards. 


Productivity is a funny thing when you’re an artist. Most of the time you set your own deadlines so it’s hard to prove to the world outside that you’re being productive. I probably shouldn’t even want to prove that I’m productive but somehow that’s important to me. 


For now it’s just really important to me to be in my studio and create art, I’ve had so little time to do that in the last couple of months that I just feel the need to create. For now that’s my focus so if I’m ever a bit late in updating this blog, or I’m not as active on Facebook or Twitter, I’m probably in my studio painting. As I mentioned, I do seem to have found my groove. The first week of the new year has been very productive and if I can manage to keep this up this is going to be a great year!

January 04, 2012

Happy New Year!

First of all I’d like to wish you a very happy New Year! I hope your holidays were filled with joy and 2012 will be the best year ever!


For me 2012 has started out as a very productive year, which it is supposed to be with all the projects I’ve got going on right now! I’m actively working on 4 separate pieces right now and I’ve got another piece in the finishing stages in my studio.


I’ve got loads of plans for the new year! I need to work really hard to get somewhere with my boroughs project so that will be the next batch of pieces I’ll be working on. I’ll also have to start preparations for the workshop I’ll be teaching at Viva Vida Art Gallery later this January. In March I’ll give an artist presentation in Hudson for which I’ll have to do some prep work as well. 


I hope to be able to start work on the third piece of the Journey project soon as well and ideally I’ll be able to create some experimental collage pieces on the side. I still haven;t had time to experiment with the direct transfer technique I learned from Melanie Matthews last year. 


I have plans for a solo later this year and hope to be able to do a couple of group shows as well. I’m also going to start looking for a gallery in Toronto this year. 


So 2012 is shaping up to be a productive and creative year for me, let’s hope I can keep up ;-))