Opening Tonight in Portsmouth, NH ~ be there!!! :)

Tonight is the opening of the Enormous Tiny Art show @ Nahcotta Gallery in Portsmouth, NH. And yours truly is planning to attend ( unless Hurricane Earl has something to say about it). I am so excited to be part of the show!! It is a spectacular idea ~ 'for the months of September and February, Nahcotta is entirely devoted to the incredible creation that is tiny art, each piece measuring ten by ten square inches or smaller and completely original.' As I may have mentioned before they have 14 pieces of mine ~ some 3d and some 2d.

So today I am excited (opening party..), however I am also a little nervous because for this show I am debuting a different style of small dress which i really love. These dresses are part of a series of smaller papier-mâché dresses that I paint like the walls of 'this comes from within'!!! (worlds colliding) I love so much about these dresses ~ i love building the forms and then covering them with papier-mâché ~ the smoothness of the paste. I love how these dresses sit on the surface ~ solid, grounded, sturdy. And finally I love, LOVE to paint these pieces ~ to follow the lines and the thickness created by the paint ~ i just get lost in the process. Additionally I love how I use different papers (maps, letter, spread sheets, horoscopes...) for the final surface of the papier-mâché and how some of the paper shows through the painting. I also love how the strength and meaning behind each piece exposes itself as I paint ~ as I work a 'theme' appears on the dress.

So we will see how these pieces are received!!! But no matter what the opening should be awesome and I hope to see you all there!!!
peace!

The girls are on the move again....

This weekend my family & I delivered some of my girls to the Nahcotta Gallery in Portsmouth, NH for their Enormous Tiny Art show 8. Fourteen dresses joined the many mini masterpieces gathering at this great gallery!! It was wonderful to wander around and look at all the work. We all became so enchanted by a painting by Melissa Moss that we bought it. You see, I believe in a kind of support your fellow artists karma ~ if financially possible, I like to buy some art before a show that i am in. So now we own a charming painting!!

The gallery has set up a super website for the show ~ displaying each artist's work on their own page. Click here to see my page. The collection that I gave them consists of 6 of my 3d dress on hangers, 6 of my small dresses on canvases (shown in this post) & 2 3d papier~mache sculptural dresses which are making their debut (more about these in another post) . I really enjoyed thinking in this small scale. I have always loved creating these smaller dresses ~ it is a format in which I can make a statement about an idea a little quicker then with the full scale dresses &/or I can be a bit clever ~ tongue & cheek-ish, if you will.

The dresses shown in this post are Strength (upper left) Black & blue (lower left), Home Improvement (upper right) and Number please (lower right). They are all on a 4 x 6in canvas.

The show will run from September 1 - October 3 with the opening on Friday, September 3rd, 5-8pm. I am hoping to go - I do love Portsmouth!!

peace!

take a number ....

The creation of this dress was , as it usually is, a journey for me ~ starting off with one idea but the dress taking me in an entirely different direction. I have used these deli tickets before & I love them~ their color, the graphics and what they stand for .... waiting to be served. I have used these tickets for a 'thank you for waiting' theme, but this time the phrase 'take a number' echoed loudly in my head. For me, this dress is a little commentary about how I have been feeling in the last weeks of summer vacation. Now don't get me wrong - there are many, MANY things I love about summer vacation. I especially love having long days with my girls to explore, play, veg out!! However ~ there are times that being mom, artist, daughter, wife, cook, waitress, taxi driver, referee, cleaner, dog walker,... for 24/7 can take its toll ~ I feel frayed, at my wits end. This dress came from that place.

I created the top with pink tissue as a base that I would cover with some bright patterned paper. But as it was drying I saw the translucence of the tissue & I decided to leave it ~ it created a feeling of softness and vulnerability. Then i felt that this dress needed to have a heart, an anatomically correct heart, as I have been feeling that my heart is on the outside for all to see. From this heart I sewed onto the paper top many lines, in reds and pinks, creating a pattern but also suggesting veins. I am VERY interested in the anatomy of the body lately, especially the heart. Many pieces that I am working on now have a heart in or on them. However once the lines were sewn onto the bodice my anatomically correct heart got lost in the fray....so I placed the gem over the heart. Now the heart is quietly peaking out from behind the gem, maybe the gem is protecting it, keeping it safe.

I am always amazed at how my work unfolds before me .... I can struggle with it and fight my internal critics, but if I quiet my mind, and really listen & follow that still quiet voice without doubt, amazing results happen. And sometimes I don't even recognize it until I sit here and blog about the process. After writing this post I feel that this dress is not only about feeling pulled in many directions, waiting on many people ~ it is about heartstrings! It is how it can feel when you put your heart out there and love and care for people ... it can being scary, tiring, painful but also wonderful!!!

peace

the end of a crazy, but great, week!!!

This week I spent dotting my i's and crossing my t's ~ getting many pieces ready for either submissions or for shows!!! It has been at least 4 solid days of dawn to dusk(midnight) working and I wonder how I get myself into these situations ... i had known about these deadlines and have been working on the pieces. But then I realized that the looming, larger than life due dates give me boundaries. A reason to tell my family and friends no, I am sorry, I REALLY have to work! I could honestly work in my studio 24/7 ~ well I think I could, that theory has never been tested. When my husband takes the girls for an overnight or weekend away - when I am not sleeping I am in the studio! but those are short periods ~ only a few days. Maybe i would get tired of 'work' but i think not ~ there is just too many wonderful things out there to do, to make, to construct, to read about, to learn, to photograph, to collage, to blog :) ~ I could go on & on. So due dates do help me to focus, to finish a project and for that i am thankful. I need the boundaries - it is a hard line to walk yet a tremendous blessing~ how much time can i work, how much time to spend with my girls, friends and family. I believe I am extremely fortunate to want my days to be at least 48 hours long!! or that i didn't need as much sleep :).


So I am coming off an intense few studio days and I know i will (most likely) hit a wall, but for now I am still buzzing!! I hope to post most of the work that I finished this week, in the coming few days. Above is a personal favorite of mine ~ called 'all is well' . It is part of a collection of small dresses that i created for the eta8 show at Nachotta Gallery in Portsmouth NH. The Enormous Tiny Art Show 8 opens on Friday, September 3rd, 5-8pm & features only original art that is 10' x 10" or smaller ~ so enter Virginia's small sculptural dress and wall dresses.

This one is a particular favorite of mine ~ it's skirt consists of many fortune cookie fortunes and one in the front reads "The stars appear every night in the sky. All is well." So this dress is called 'all is well' ~ I love that sentiment!! And i am very happy with the way the dress turned out. It is an interesting experience making these little guys - never an easy task!!! but what fun would that be?!? :)

Hope to post more but I have kind of lost my 'boundaries'. In fact at this moment their is a dog continually knocking my elbow saying 'time for my walk!!!!'. So time for my walk!! Much love to all & peace!!!