Hot off the Presses ~ i got my first grant!!!

This weekend I learned that I was one of the lucky artists to receive The Artist's Valentine Grant!!! This is my first grant and I am very excited!! Thank you Ben Aronson who was the juror this year, and everyone who is involved in this great program. I love the concept ~ artists supporting artists ~ below is a list of the recipients & a little information about the whole idea.
2009 Grant Recipients, juried by Ben Aronson
David Lang - Kinetic Sculpture

Virginia Fitzgerald - Sculpture
A. Laan - Photography
Laraine Armenti - Oil Painting
Judith Jaffe - Mixed Mediums
Carolyn Stock - Stained Glass
Margot Stage- Fiber

Since 1996 over $47,000 has been awarded to visual artists of every discipline: painters, fiber artists, printmakers, installation artists — the gamut. Every penny of these grants has come from the sale of artist-made valentines. All labor is volunteer, and all valentines are donated.

Proceeds from the annual Valentine sales (which have been held every Feb. for the past 13 years) are used to fund a juried grant competition for artists. Artists who have donated work to the Artist's Valentine are eligible to apply for an unrestricted grant to further their art. The awards are made through the jurying of slides or digital images (of their professional work).

Ten nationally known museum curators, gallerists, professors, working artists, and critics have served as jurors to the Artist’s Valentine, including Barbara Krakow, Nick Capasso, Pamela Clark Cochrane, Bernard Toale, Joseph Carroll and Ben Aronson, among others.

thank u 4 waiting!!

this dress will be part of the Icons & Alters Show at Newton's Nen Art Center. I am very excited to be part of this event. I have listed all the informattion about the show below. The opening is this Friday - it is a beautiful space and should be a fun party!!! peace



icons + altars
The New Art Center's
16th Annual Benefit Exhibition
November 13 - December 13, 2009

Opening Reception:
Friday, November 13, 6-8pm

icons + altars features work by 107 regional artists who have created work specially for this exhibition + sale to benefit the New Art Center. Artists respond to the themes of "icons" + "altars" in many media including painting, drawing, photography, mixed media, ceramics, + sculpture.

Visiting the gallery is always FREE!

107 tickets for artwork are available for the 107 pieces in the show. Buy a $250 ticket to select an original work of art and support the New Art Center. Each ticket enters you in the drawing at the closing reception, where you are guaranteed to take home an engaging piece of art. Due to the diversity of work and tastes, the majority of ticket holders get one of their top choices!

Purchase your ticket by 7:30pm on opening night for a chance to receive an additional ticket!

Purchase your ticket by November 10 and receive a $15 Gift Certificate to Limited Editions located at 1176 Walnut Street, Newton Highlands

To purchase tickets for art please call (617) 964-3424, visit the gallery, or send in a Mail-in order form.

Gallery Information ~ all of our exhibitions are free and open to the public.

Gallery Hours:
Monday -Friday 9am-5pm
Sat & Sun 1-5pm
Closed November 26-28; Open Sunday, November 29.

a poem a week keeps.....

As I am still trying to come down from my many extremely creative months working on 'this comes from within', I am waking up to all the possibilities of inspiration around me. I have joined a group where we share a photograph a day ~ this activity has sent my creative brain in to over drive. Suddenly I am seeing the world in a new light. It has made the past weeks wildly intense ~ I am acutely aware of the changing colors of Autumn. This state of mind has reminded me of the time when i was painting still-life's ~ I would be walking around seeing possible paintings and now I am seeing wonderful photos ~ unique compositions, interesting lighting, wondrous textures & surprising reflections. And while on this creative buzz I decided to make sure i keep other art forms in my life , especially poetry. So I am going to try to post a poem a week ~ because 'assignments', like a photo a day or a poem a week seem to work well for me. So in honor of my 'new' way of viewing the world I am going to share this poem which I found in my current studio when I moved in.

'This much I do Remember' by Billy Collins

It was after dinner.
You were talking to me across the table
about something or other,
a greyhound you had seen that day
or a song you liked,
and I was looking past you
over your bare shoulder
at the three oranges lying
on the kitchen counter
next to the small electric bean grinder,
which was also orange,
and the orange and white cruets for vinegar and oil.
All of which converged
into a random still life,
so fastened together by the hasp of color,
and so fixed behind the animated
foreground of your
talking and smiling,
gesturing and pouring wine,
and the camber of you shoulders
that I could feel it being painted within me,
brushed on the wall of my skull,
while the tone of your voice
lifted and fell in its flight,
and the three oranges
remained fixed on the counter
the way that stars are said
to be fixed in the universe.
Then all of the moments of the past
began to line up behind that moment
and all of the moments to come
assembled in front of it in a long row,
giving me reason to believe
that this was a moment I had rescued
from millions that rush out of sight
into a darkness behind the eyes.
Even after I have forgotten what year it is,
my middle name,
and the meaning of money,
I will still carry in my pocket
the small coin of that moment,
minted in the kingdom
that we pace through every day.

- Billy Collins"

Nothing is Safe!!!

As I mentioned in my last post I am seeing dresses EVERYWHERE!!! so here is one out of an interesting material .... any guesses????

peace!!

the calm after the storm

so 'this comes from within' is gone!!! dress taken apart, curtains down, walls painted over, eggshells swept up. It is amazing ~ when the time came I was ready to move on!!! But it has been interesting, this post-installation period. The past 4 months it have been crazy, I NEVER felt like I had enough time, balancing between the demands of creating an installation (something i had never done before) and the needs of a family that was used to having me around more. It was an intense time, and now I have some breathing room. I can go to my daughter's soccer game and not need to race off down to Boston ~ nice. But it is also weird!! I LOVED working on the installation, I LOVED the intensity of the work ~ the envisioning of the space, the problem solving, the physical work and especially painting the walls!!! I loved my walls. I guess what i am 'struggling' with now is trying to figure out the normal pace of things again!!! I have many ideas and projects that i can do, call for work to submit, dresses to finish, in fact my hands are itching to get to work. I really want to dive head first into another big challenge. However i just might need to remember a more balanced and possibly more health approach to work and life! That said ~ I am seeing wonderful materials EVERYWHERE and I am champing on the bit to make dresses ~ many, many dresses. But i usually don't because I am needed some where else. However, finally i couldn't resist the spectacular yellow leaves!! Fall is my favorite season, one reason is the wild explosion of colors around me. Everyday I am stunned by the beauty!!!

this year is so amazing I have started lugging my camera everywhere to take photos of these autumnal treasures. One day while walking the hound I came across some yellow leaves that stopped me in my tracks ~ I liked their shape and weight & they spoke to me in dress speak - i saw a skirt. So much to Scruffy's chagrin I stopped and collected the leaves to bring home. I soon found some others that moved me and before they all dried out I made this dress ~

by the time to took the photo the light from the setting sun was super intense. So with that intensity and with the inspiration for the dress coming from the yellow leaves I call this dress ~ SunBurst! It is always good to be outside creating a dress ~ I am glad I have a little more breathing room to do that!!! peace & happy fall!

Natick Artists' Open Studios!!!!!

Sunday October 18th, 12-5 pm ~ Natick Artists' Open Studios .... many wonderful artists!!! I will be at my new studio ~ Winchell Building, 25 Washington Ave - corner of Washington and Cochituate st . I am on the second floor. I am sharing my space with the wonderful artist Jeanne Williamson!! Come by and say HI!!!! peace

tomorrow 'this comes from within' comes down!!

...and in honor of the dismantling I wish to post a piece that the writer/poet Tariq Zayid wrote about the installation. For me he captures the spirit and essense of 'this comes from within'.

Thank you Tariq!!!

Virginia Fitzgerald: Poetic Dresses, Magical Spaces

Ritual space is place transformed. What is around you is inside you and what is
inside you is around you. Mind and place have become what in Gaelic is beautifully called fighte fuaighte - woven into and through each other. What you make of it is your own, but moments like this don’t happen often and should be experienced when they come along.

In South Boston, at Medicine Wheel Productions, 110 K Street #9, the artist Virginia Fitzgerald has created a rare magical environment called ‘this comes from within’. Entering the room is part of the performance itself. Sheer black cloth falls in front of you, bearing forth a view of the room, shadowed, hazy, morphing to the touch. A subtle physical event that sets a mood of displacement and simultaneous discovery.

You enter. In the center of the room, lit from the inside - the main light available in the room - is an oversized dress with gorgeous folds and shapes,sensuous in its own power as objet d’art. As the eyes adjust to the low light, details emerge. What was a powerful dress now has other connotations. It is made of papier-mâché and eggshells. Hundreds of eggshells flowing downwards, thin cracks visible. Delicate yet maintaining a strong dignity of purpose. The interior light continues to create dimensions from every angle. The metamorphosis is elastic, absorbing.

Emerging as the eyes adjust further - figures, ivy, flowers, machines, contours of image and shadow. The walls, once unseen, are now alive. As if from within the dress the light emanates and creates right in front of you. Mutating forms appear in the naturalizing measure of eye adjustment, as film developed from Polaroid cameras. The dress seems to posses an extraordinary power.It is created and it is creator. Origin Goddess of experience and form casting its spell into the darkness and creating light, image, meaning, mystery, life as experience itself.

Toward the back of the room another mystery awaits. Through long cords of bead and cloth, a shape is cut into the back wall that glows red. Like Duchamp’s Étant donnés, though the viewing plane is wide open, another world is revealed within the wall opening. Lit in red, and draped with red velvet, the opening manifests all sorts of memories and antique incarnations. Rather than contextualize this exquisite redentity, I will leave you to create your own associations, as the space demands.

This is an installment that surrounds you with an open poetic space rather than pummel you with meaning. It is passive in its influence, but grips you with its intensity. It is ritualistic in that it takes you out of ‘ordinary’ space and puts you in touch with the imaginal realm. The possibility of travel is yours, the artist has provided the portal. How far you wish to travel is your point of entry and departure, physically and mentally.

Virginia Fitzgerald has created something special. A space to enter and become. Hers is a transcendent art, one of those phenomena many people have only been able to experience in dreams. This is the artist as sorceress of apparition. 'this comes from within' will be up until October 16th @
Medicine Wheel Productions,
110 K St # 9
Boston, MA 02127-1619
(617) 268-6700
gallery hours: m-f 10-4
Closing party : October 14th, 5:00- 8:00 pm