Snows & Shows

Kelly

2011

conte crayon

12x9

Drew this last week in the life drawing group that meets at the Sprinkler Factory, Thursday nights.

Since then, our neck of the woods have been "blessed" with nearly two feet of heavy wet snow, unheard of in October, and causing a mess, to say the least. No power, phone, internet, but still, not nearly as bad as the ice storm December, 2008.

Nevertheless, the show, or shows in this case, must go on!

This weekend in Gardner, MA is the GALA Fall show. Art and Live Music Friday - Sunday

visit http://www.galagardner.org/ for details.

Also opening this Thursday 5:30-8 p.m. at the Post Road Art Center, Marlborough, MA is the Abstract Show, 2011, juried by Bob Collins of the Danforth Museum. Two of my paintings are among the 42 pieces on view until November 30, 2011.

Please visit http://postroadartcenter.com/ for full details.

The Nature of Identity

Shadow

2011

oil

20x16

This was done this past summer with Randy LeSage at the Worcester Art Museum. The class was called the Nature of Identity, and the assignment was (loosely) a self portrait.

I didn't want to get bogged down by features and likeness; I wanted to address a deeper identity than appearance. I decided that the way I paint is the best expression of my identity.

So as not to be distracted by facial details, I took a photo of my shadow, and worked from that (see above).

The shadow seemed like a perfect vehicle for the slippery topic of identity: always shifting, without substance, distorting, but also unapologetically honest.

We dance back and forth between revealing and hiding, imitating and projecting, and then are prone to despair when we feel no one truly knows us.

I am disappointed how this photographed. Maybe I will try again, later.

Anyhow, I just wanted to post a reminder that tomorrow, Saturday Oct 22, 2011, at 7 p.m. is the reception for the Blanche Ames National Juried Art Exhibit at the Ames Mansion, Borderland State Park, North Easton, MA.

There will be live music, food, and champagne, art will be for sale, as well as color catalogs.

If a nighttime soiree isn't your thing, the park is a really lovely place with acres to explore and the mansion is a gorgeous stone structure filled with the original, sumptuous furnishings.

The woman for whom this competition is named, Blanche Ames, had an incredible, full life and a mind I wish I had a fraction of. She was an artist, and inventor, an engineer, a pioneer of woman's rights, a mother, a philanthropist.

Show runs until November 5th.

Another View

New Braintree Farm Land

2010

oil

19x25

Look familiar? This is the same view as The Fields at Utley Road. Still stylized, but more literal. Whimsical, but more subdued.

Princeton Portrait Group

Every so often I get to the Princeton Portrait Group and give a shot at painting a portrait. It is not really my passion, but it is a good exercise, and for me, plenty challenging. Here is a work in process from this summer.

Landscape show at Post Road Art Center

The Fields at Utley Road

2011

oil

36x36

I know you've seen this painting here before, but it was just accepted into the landscape show at the Post Road Art Center, Marlborough, MA

The juror was Elizabeth Geller, Head of the Corporate Program at the DeCordova Museum.

Here's a snap shot of Utley Road. I did not work from photo, but thought it might be interesting for you to see how the painting connects to "reality" and where it becomes abstracted with the hopes of conveying something about the sense of the place, beyond a mere visual record.

There are 27 pieces in many different media in this show through October 26, 2011.

Opening reception will be October 6th, 5:30-8 p.m.

Post Road Art Center

1 Boston Post Road, Marlborough, MA

508-485-2580

http://postroadartcenter.com/