artist's talk, participatory dress project & awesome show...

Last Sunday was the opening reception for the show at Fountain Street Fine Art, Framingham, MA. I am part of a two person show with Lisa Barthelson, who is exhibiting her family debris series: a print installation. The way that the work compliments each other is incredible ~ both inspired by unique and often discarded material.

For the show, I exhibited three dress sculptures, one for the first time, as well as presented my first of a series (I hope) of a 'viewer~participation' dress : the carbon footprint dress. For this dress, i taped a piece of printing paper on to the floor and then with painter's tape I constructed a dress 'stencil'. During the opening, and for the duration of the show, I am encouraging people to walk on the dress. By walking on the dress with their shoes that have residual dirt from the day, the exposed paper will get blackened and when i remove the tape there will be a dress!!

I mentioned that i hope this is one of a series because I would love to have these at all of my gallery shows and see how the different locations and timing/seasons change how the dress turns out. I also hope to construct a carbon footprint dress when I am at the Vermont Studio Center. Wonder what that dress would look like after being trodden on by shoes coming in from Vermont country side in March!?!?

The opening was great fun and the carbon footprint dress has a good start. But there is still lot of room for more footprints. So come on by and add your print and see this wonderful show!!

Also this Saturday, March 12th, at 2:30 PM Lisa and I are going to have a gallery talk, come "hear the artists have a conversation about their process, materials and vision .... It's bound to be fascinating ~ and fun! " as the gallery website says!!! hope to see you there!!

peace

"all things are possible!!"

Wow, what a weekend, where to start....For those who have been keeping up, last week was a wonderful and wacky week; culminating with two magnificent openings this weekend. So not to make one crazy long blog post (that would never get finished until June) I am going to split up the events a bit.

First, let's start with Upon Further Consideration, David Lang and Virginia Fitzgerald at the South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, MA. Here are some photos taken after one of the long day/nights of installing the pieces (note the tired artist with the eggshells).

This is the first time that David Lang and I have exhibited together and we could not have asked for a more perfect space!!! The Bancroft Gallery, designed by architect Vcevold Strekalovsky with a 'trapezoidal floor plan and soaring ceiling (which) create intriguing visual planes and sight-lines' showcased our pieces beautifully. During the day the gallery is bathed with natural light!! Between David and I we had around 38 pieces in the gallery! The opening was a wonderful event. I, of course, in a exhausted daze, forgot my camera, but there were camera's clicking and I will get some of those pic. But besides this show turning out to be more than I could have imagined, I also debuted two new pieces ~ 'puzzle:red' and 'happily ever after'.

'Puzzle:red" (shown right) is an unique woodcut print made with over 30some pieces which I inked separately and reassembled on the printing press. I am printing this dress in a multitude of different colorways, and as a result, each has a different feeling or emotion depending on where the colors sit and relate to each other. This print is close to 5ft tall so it is a good deal of work to get one good print.

The other new piece is 'happily ever after' (shown left next to 'treacherous').I am so pleased with this sculpture. The top is from the eggshell dress in my installation, 'this comes from within'. It was one of the few elements of the installation that survived.

I have always love the form and feeling of this bodice so i hung it in my studio. Seeing it suspended by itself I realized that it had a presence of its own, but I wanted to push it further. Preparing for this show I knew what to do ~ the top would have pieces of eggshell dangling from the bottom and be floating over a circle of broken egg shells. Since i was not sure how pieces of eggshell dangling from a thread would travel, I attached some at my studio and then finished the piece at the gallery. I am very please with many aspects of this piece and it was well received at the opening. Eggshells bring so many levels of interpretation to a piece,

I love working with them.

On so many levels this show has been successful. The South Shore Art Center has been so lovely to work with. And the show has gotten some nice press. Here is a picture of 'in memory of....' in South Shore Living and the blurb that went with the picture ~

"The South Shore Art Center’s Bancroft Gallery will be showing a non-traditional exhibit “Upon Further Consideration,” featuring the work of two Massachusetts sculptors, David Lang and Virginia

Fitzgerald. Known for their provocative and serious under the arch of humor or whimsy work, their art often poses questions,

considerations and alternatives to the status quo. This exhibit will show their unique vision and ability to work with a broad range of non-traditional materials. Using everything

and anything to create such a unique view, they present the idea that all things are possible."

Love that last line ~ all things are possible!!

thank you & peace

Hot off the Presses

Click here to read the article about the Fountain Street show in the MetroWest Daily News!

Reception at Fountain Street FineArt Sunday, by Chris Bergeron.

busy, busy, busy & lovin' it

this is a busy & WONDERFUL month!! this week I am setting up TWO 2 person shows & I couldn't be more thrilled (just wish I could find more hours in the day!!!) So this is going to be a brief posting since i also need to submit 50+ comments and grades this week too!! :)

First, I have the honor of showing with David Lang @ the Shore Shore Art Center, Cohasset, MA. In this show, "Upon Further Consideration - What Tells a Story?" our work will raise questions for reconsideration, sometimes about perfectly ordinary events and points of view, and at other times about far more complicated issues.

March 4–April 10

Upon Further Consideration -

Bancroft Gallery

David Lang and Virginia Fitzgerald

Opening Reception: March 4, 6–8 pm

Upon Further Consideration is sponsored by Conway Insurance Agency

& I am so excited to announce that I will be showing with Lisa Barthelson at a wonderful new gallery in Framingham, Fountain Street Fine Art ~ the opening:

Sunday, March 6th from 4-6pm

Fountain Street Fine Art hosts a site-specific print install ation, 'family debris series', by Lisa Barthelson and sculptural pieces from 'the dress project' by Virginia Fitzgerald from March 4 through March 27, 2011. Fountain Street Fine Art 59 Fountain Street - Framingham MA 01702 508.879.4200 Gallery Hours: Fri-Sun, 11AM-5PM and by appointment. hope to see you during all these festivities. i may be the one asleep in the corner with a smile on my face :) peace

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

illustration friday ~ reverse

'slipping' in just under the wire ... my interpretation of reverse.

Many Calvin and Hobbes books are scattered around our house, a family favorite!! and i think some of Calvin and Hobbes' antics have soaked into my psyche as i look at how i illustrated this week's theme ~ reverse.

I did a simple pen and ink sketch, scanned it, then 'cleaned' it up in Photoshop. Wonder where that wagon will end up, looks like sock Monkey may have some plans....

peace

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

This post's for you, Mom!!! It is my way of standing on a mountain top screaming 'Happy Birthday'. It is a small way of making up for the many gifts that have not made it to her door recently; because of a pending gallery show, girl scout event or my new job!!! Both my parents have been so patient and understanding as birthdays and holidays come and go with me saying 'I love you' & your gifts will be coming late because i am swamped. They never complain and in fact are totally supportive. However as the time ticks by the well intended gifts never find their way to the post office and for this i am distressed!!!

With that i mind I am posting this for her, so she knows there is a special something crafted for her, waiting to fly across the country with some homemade peanut brittle!!! And this dress was made especially for my mom!! She is a lover of sweets and shares her passion with us (aren't we lucky). Recently a box of Fannie May Chocolate Pixies were sent to our house (thank u Mom) and were quickly devoured. As i stared at the empty box I saw the making for a perfect dress (how surprising) & the timing couldn't have been better. So to the studio and voila ~ 'Ode to the Pixie' !! and as one of my girls pointed out it is a dress my mother would wear.

I think this would also be a good time and place to thank my mom. She and my dad have been wonderfully supportive of my artistic endeavors, and as any artist can tell you, that is priceless!! But it is recently that I realized how much their personalities and zest for life has given me a freedom to follow my inspirations. This said, anyone who knows my upbringing can see 'a bit' of contradiction. In many ways I was raised with endless 'rules', 'should's and 'shouldn'ts' & obstacles to thinking out of the box. However I believe it is true that children learn more from their parent's actions than their words. Even though I was receiving many limiting messages I also saw my parents doing 'crazy and loving' things ~ wearing crazy hats in an antique store, swinging in a playground wearing a bow tie and shorts and my mom always donning wonderfully colorful hats decorated with numerous pins and buttons.

Since starting 'the Dress Project' many, many people ask me if I wanted to be a fashion designer. I answer honestly no, not really, BUT my mom wanted to!! boy did she want to!! She was always sketching dresses on envelopes & cocktail napkins. She haunted second-hand stores for fashion nuggets that she could alter to make something unique for the next cocktail party. We were constantly snipping, sewing and adding embellishments of some kind of another. This influenced the Dress Project in many ways. One is that I learned to look beyond the face value of any garment or item ... everything can be altered. Another way is that I witnessed the importance people put on clothing and appearance and I questioned that. Why would what a person wear reflect on who that person was or what they had to say and do?? I know that these rules and premises exist but I believe it is time to question them and knock them down. That being said, I wonder if we can free ourselves from such judgement. Talking with some friends we were looking at this endless need humans have to categorize ~ to place people in their personal assessing system. This conversation stemmed from having girls in middle school, a place where the hierarchy system thrives. We were wondering what makes 'popular' or 'unpopular'?? Is it really wearing Hollister jeans? (gag) What is this need of ours to makes ourselves feel superior over others?? While we pondered this conundrum my friend's dog walked into the room and we realized it is not only humans who create a peeking order. So I go back to my question : can we free ourselves from such evaluation? especially based on one's appearance?? It is a question I hope I address with my work.

But wait this is a birthday greeting, so back to the pomp and circumstance!!! (trumpets please)

Happy Birthday Mom ~

to that wonderfully creative spirit that you are, I LOVE U!!

&

thanks for giving me those unconventional genes!!

xxxooo & peace

p.s. New York is waiting for us!!!!!

& the dress is in the mail :)

and out of the snow rises.....

Not sure what the weather is like where you live, but here in the Boston area we are living in a winter wonderland ~ and by that i mean SNOW!!! loads of SNOW!! I am now teaching art at a local high school and I have not had a week without a snow day since returning from winter break!!! And 'they' say another monster storm is forecasted for tonight!! With more snow pending the question on many folks minds is where will all this snow go?? we already are surrounded by mini mountains of the stuff, making getting out of driveways a bit of a leap of faith.

In front of my house our friendly plow guy, Louie, has created quite a pile around one of our trees. Between the plow and the elements, snow had collected up on to the trunk of the tree. Yesterday while I was cautiously backing out of our drive, one of my girls pointed out how it looked like a dress!! and lo' and behold she was right!! (see upper left photo) I just felt that it needed few 'alterations' here and there!! SO out I went, into the elements, butter knife in hand to start carving away. A little scrape here and another there & voila ~ a wedding dress fit for the snow queen herself. I love how this dress works ~ just rising out of the snowbank, like a phoenix. I love how the dress is composed of both the clean white snow and the dingy street snow ~ giving a sense of toile. And lastly I love how the undulating snowbanks gives this dress the feeling of movement ~ I see this dress is sashaying down the street or through the royal gardens, and I can hear the swishing of all the luscious fabrics as she floats by. Even though my fingers were not so happy about the activity, I was really enjoying carving the snow and with another forecasted 20 inches on its way I was wondering if I could build and carve a free standing, life sized dress out of snow?? one never knows.....

So I look to the possible snowstorm with mixed emotions. The idea of having enough good snow to sculpt a large dress makes me giddy with anticipation, yet the snow could affect an opening reception that I am truly excited about ~ the coming~out of my piece 'insatiable' in the show 'Insatiable'. The opening reception is this Thursday, Feb. 3, 2011, 5-7:30 p.m. We will just have to see how it all works out!!! Click here to see all the wonderful artists that are included in this show and the other events that are related to the show. One of these events will be ME working on 'insatiable' in the gallery at certain times during the show. Also visitors will be able to bring in material for 'insatiable' that i then will work into the piece. This is all very exciting for me!!!

So we will see what mother nature brings us and how we deal with it. If you are in the neighborhood of Brandeis University on Thursday please stop by ~ it should be a compelling show. Just remember to throw some kitty litter and a shovel in your car!!

Stay warm and peace!!

Artist's Valentine!!!!

the time has come....

the time is now.....

It is time for the Artist's Valentine Party & Sale!!!! This year there will be two!!! one in Groton and one in Lowell. Hopefully you can make it to one of them!! This is an awesome organization/event!!! The Artist's Valentine is money for artists by artists. (*see more below) Here are some of the Valentines that i donated!!!

Party and Sale

The 2011 Artist's Valentine Groton Party and Sale will take place on Sunday, January 30th, 2011, 2-5 pm at Kalliroscope, 264 Main Street, Groton, Massachusetts, a deconsecrated Baptist church which is the home of Paul and Mimi Matisse.

A second 2011 Artist's Valentine Party and Sale will take place in Lowell on Saturday February 6, Noon - 3 pm at the Loading Dock, Western Avenue Studios, 122 Western Avenue, Lowell, MA 01851

peace & love

***Here is the official spiel:

Artists make Valentines and we offer them for sale.

Proceeds from the annual Valentine sales (which have been held every Feb. since 1996)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 digital images (of their professional work).

Since 1996 on average $4000 per year 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.

Happy Saturday!!!

just could not pass up this beautifully snow dusted 'canvas' on this beautiful sunny, snowy saturday morning!! peace

Now, on center stage... the Dress Project: origami style!!

this is a body of work that has been in the works for months!!!

And finally, it is ready for its 'close up!'

So here, on center stage, presented for your enjoyment... my origami dresses!!!

For many moons i have been folding anything that i get my hands on into a dress ~ parking stubs, museum maps, mailing labels, lollipop wrappers ~ truly ANYTHING!! I want to make a dress a day as a kind of diary of an event of the day, but alas, time.... I have really only been stock piling dresses with good intentions. But finally I got a series of dresses onto canvases and off to a gallery!!! Even with the mountains of snow that

have fallen on us up here in the Northeast, I got 7 pieces to

Nahcotta in Portsmouth, NH for their Enormous Tiny Art show 9 (ETA9). very exciting!

I am particularly delighted with this series because each piece was inspired by a 'fortune' that you can come across in your everyday life ~ from fortune cookies or tea bags. Each piece is titled after their particular 'fortune' and the original fortune is incorporated in the collage.

Click here to see the pieces and see their titles.

I had so much fun making these ~ finding the appropriate material to capture the essence of the fortune.

With The Only Way to Have a Friend is to Be One I used telephone pages for the base of the collage, then added pieces of maps and stamps. When i was making it I was thinking of some dear friends that now live far away but are always close in my heart.

(Particularly a certain live-in mom :)

I also made some origami dresses for the Artist's Valentine and will shows those in the next post. And I plan to make more and MORE!!! I've got the making for an awesome crossword puzzle inspired 'frock'. So stay tuned!! & peace!!

info. about the show~

ETA 9 February 3- February 28; opening reception: Friday February 4, 5-8pm

stop by the gallery - it is a beautiful space with truly wonderful art and other treasures

OR if you are not nearby... you can shop ON LINE :)

nahcotta

110 congress street

portsmouth, nh 03801

603.433.1705

Illustration friday ~ chicken

The Illustration Friday's theme this week is CHICKEN!! what a great theme ~ i couldn't let this one pass without posting something!! however I feel although i am cheating a wee bit because the chicken is not the center of this piece ~ but if i tried to paint a new chicken illustration....well lets just say i doubt there would be a chicken illustration friday from moi!!! So I am going with this favorite illustration from a many moons ago!! I love this piece because I LOVE to dance!!! and these guys seems to be having a rip~roaring, hum~dinger of a time!!!

So here is to my chicken and his buddies cutting the rug under the stars!!! Dance on!! & peace!!

To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. ~Agnes De Mille

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.
Voltaire

Dance as though no one is watching you.

Love as though you have never been hurt before.

Sing as though no one can hear you.

Live as though heaven is on Earth.

the countdown has begun!!!!!

This week in the mail I received the announcement for the upcoming show, Insatiable, in which i have a piece. And what a thrill it was ~ to see my name among all these other wonderful artists, and to know that this exciting show is just around the corner!! Not that I am not always excited about every show i am in (or most any art show in general :) It is just that I am truly gaga over the piece that is in this show ~ 'insatiable'.

I have been obsessed by this piece ever since its conception ~ gathering different yarns and twines, then moving into the more unique materials, such as old headphone, electrical wires, gardening twine and tattered plastic bags. As the time has passed i have gotten even more adventurous with what I can crochet into this beast ~ the ribbons from old balloons and the popped balloons themselves!! Also I was at a birthday

party with my girls where the girls at the party were taking off the plastic wrappers from their water bottles and pulling them into a long string!! I flipped when i saw this and asked the girls for all their wrappers and left the party with a roll of plastic 'yarn'. It is amazing how my eyes seemed trained to see more material ~ a bunch of gold streamers from a cheering pomp-pomp, cut rubber bands left over from creating a window-box, excess dental floss from an overly zealous pull. The mishmash of material that i am collecting is beguiling. As I scooping up the many pieces of flotsam and jetsam which is left behind by our everyday life, i feel that this piece is becoming a true illustration of our ever consuming appetite.

As 'insatiable' grows it seems to speak more and more to the subject of the show ~

Gluttony is the new status quo. Our appetite for food, power, wealth, sex, new experiences, and information is seemingly insatiable and poses increasingly greater risks to the welfare of our planet and its inhabitants. This juried exhibition will feat

ure work by 42 artists from the US and abroad that explores our ravenous craving for e

xcess and/or the consequences of indulging our endless desire for more.

I must confess that i am collecting more than i am crocheting. I keep hoping for that quiet moment where I can sit down and start 'spinning' this 'magic' into the piece. However another wonderful

element of this piece and the show, is that 'insatiable' was accepted as a performance piece!!! So it is going to grow during the show and i am going to have designated time that i need to be in the gallery crocheting. That alone is a gift - scheduled 'work' time!!! Especially since i have taken recently been given a teaching job I hardly see my studio ( But the teaching is wonderful (so far) great opportunity, great students and a regular income ~ WOW!!!) But for now the elation is with this coming show and my ever growing piece.

However also, for now there is also a great sadness. In the wake of the horrid news out of Arizona... may we resolve to open our minds and hearts to love and to embracing differences; to dynamic discussions of politics and ideas withOUT firearms and violence. My heart & prayers go out to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims and their families. Especially the family of the nearly 9 year old girl who was attending the event because she had just won a position in her school's student's government, and who is now dead ~ a victim of gunfire. In my busy day i had missed this event until I turned on my computer to finalize this post & once i saw the announcement my heart broke - on so many levels. so as i say every post ~

peace!!! peace !!! & peace i mean!!!!

wishing you the sweetest of new years!!!

happy 2011!!

wishing all an enchanting and 'sweet' new year ~ overflowing with creativity, joy, love, kindness, good health, good friends, strength & clarity, poetry, art, music, games, laughter, magic & peace! as well as a good cup of coffee now and then!!!

namaste & peace on earth!! ~ Virginia

illustration friday ~ winter

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show. ~

Andrew Wyeth

Not sure if it the heart-racing exhilaration that comes from being in the middle of a blizzard or the mile long list of things that I need to do (two grant proposals due by Dec. 31st), but whatever it is, sleep eludes me. So when the cold nose nudged me at the break of dawn I was happy to oblige, and Scruffy and I went out into the white wonderland which Mother Nature has so beautifully produced. And it is a blizzard ~ winter tundra comes to mind. This storm has a major wind element which has created magnificent drifts and valleys which the hound and I happily crashed through.

Upon returning I made myself a large mug of hot chocolate, turned on Yo-Yo Ma and planned to tackle my grant proposals. But, of course I need to check my emails and in my typical productive procrastination mode I saw that this week’s Friday Illustration was “winter” ~ how appropriate. So before I disappeared into my proposals I wanted to post this illustration. It was done as an assignment: illustrate one of your favorite childhood memories and mine was the Chicago Blizzard of 1967. I would have been 3 yrs old and my brother was 1. The city had shut down! My parents had an impromptu party for all my father’s colleagues who were stranded in the city. The spontaneity about everything was so magical to me ~ there was excitement in the air. And sometime during the evening my father decided to take my brother and me out for a sled ride!! This was more than exciting! We were all bundled up and the three of us took to the darkening streets. Everything was white and quiet, and what was most amazing to me was that my dad was pulling the sled down the middle of the STREET!! As a toddler who had been told numerous times about the perils of being in the street ~ this was cool!! So we three traveled around the neighborhood, my brother snug in my lap, my father in control, leading us past townhouses with their warm cozy light spilling out onto the snow in front of us. This is one of my fondest childhood memories and I think it works with this week’s IF theme as well as the current Boston weather.

Now, no more procrastination, off to the proposals (or at least until the girls wake up and want to go sledding). Thank you Daddy for that amazing ride!!! peace to you and peace to all!!! xxx