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!

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!!!

Dresses at the Danforth

I am happy to announce that the Danforth Museum's gift shop, the Shop at the Danforth, is now selling a selection of my smaller dresses ~ my 'mini' dresses and my small dress canvases.

I was also featured in the museum's June news letter ~ see the write~up below!

Celebrate Summer with an Elegant Dress

At center stage of June's special occasions and rites of passage is often a memorable dress. For artist, Virginia Fitzgerald, the dress form represents an integration of the complex identities of wife, mother, artist and woman in today's society. However, it was the carefree act of drawing a dress shape in the sand during a beach vacation and filling in the outline with rocks and beach debris that inspired The Dress Project, a collection now numbering in the hundreds. Virginia's captivating dresses have graced many solo and group exhibitions including the Danforth Museum of Art. Her interpretations are often paradoxical; proposing an ideal female form yet calling into question stereotypes, even in the dress's composition, which consists of recycled material. The artist addresses this subject matter adeptly with tongue-in-cheek titles of her creations. Virginia's miniature 3-dimensional and mixed media collage dresses are now available for purchase at The Shop at the Danforth.

Happy Fourth, all!!! & PEACE!!!

Images: HomeImprovement~Honeycomb & Precious

two milestones for the Dress Project

Yesterday my friends and I made a road trip to Providence, Rhode Island to drop off 5 dresses at Gallery Z to be part of their show,"Functional Objects of Desire". I am especially excited about this show, besides being an exciting show in a great space, it represent two milestones for the Dress Project! The first being that this show is the 12th juried group show for the Dress Project in 2009 (besides my two installations ~ it has been a wonderfully full year!!)!!! And secondly ~ the Dress Project has crossed state lines!!!!

The dresses that left the state are two big sculptures ~ the 'Red Alert Cocktail dress' and 'In Memory of....' and 3 mini dresses fresh of the work table. Pictured here is 'tuck under thumb and hold firmly' or chopstick dress (it is made from chopstick wrapper that have the instruction on how to use chopsticks properly). I hope to post pictures of the other two later - one is another crossword puzzle dress and the other was inspired by 'this comes from within'. I called it 'precious', made out of rice paper, feather, eggshells and glitter ~ it makes my heart soar.

The show will run from December 9th ~ December 23rd with the opening reception on December 17th 5-9pm. The Gallery is wonderful and located in an Italian neighborhood full of yummy smells. After dropping off the work we had a delicious salad and pizza just down the street from the gallery so make a plan to come by the show then grabbing a tasty bite!!!

Another fun show that is featuring a dress is Icon and Altars at the New Art Center which is ending this Sunday. There will be a closing reception Sunday, December 13th, 3-5pm with the ticket drawing @ 4pm ~ i have heard it is lots of fun to be there for the drawing.

A wonderful ending to an fantastic year!! and i send many thanks out to the universe for offering me all these amazing opportunities and giving me the support systems to be able to seize the moments!!! I am truly, TRULY grateful and hunger for more ~ wonder what 2010 will hold?!!!! thx & peace!!!