Saturday, October 27, 2007

Georgia O'Keeffe Skirts







Last spring I was privileged to be asked to help fabric artist, Susan Christensen, create skirts for our local dance troupe, the Steppin Out Dancers. The theme was Georgia O'Keeffe flowers so we used her palette to create skirts by painting dye on cotton. These are a couple of examples.

Lined goes to the Clausen Memorial Museum


I made some revisions of the painting "Lined" that I entered into the "Life Lines" show in 2006 and offered it to the Clausen Memorial Museum to be purchased with their Art Acquisition Fund provided by the Rasmuson Foundation. It was accepted and will be a part of the museum's permanent collection.
This is what I wrote in the application: I painted “Lined” soon after a tour of Italy that concentrated on Renaissance painting. I was moved by the Italian masters’ use of the human form to portray emotion and tell stories. This is a Petersburg story of hard work and harvest. While the weight of the fish may be heavy, it also represents prosperity. The painting crosses time lines because the subject is obviously a Madonna type in green overalls and orange rubber gloves. I tried to blur the edges of reality with the symbolic fish and hard lined areas. My design also left the negative space fairly simple to try and keep the viewer concentrated on the woman’s face.

Fish on Parade



Our local mental health not-for-profit asked 14 Petersburg artists to decorate fiber glass salmon casts so they could put them out for auction as a fund raiser. After having spent a few days in Las Vegas I was in an Elvis state of mind, so I thought that the King and a King salmon could be a combined concept. I created "The King" with a little paper mache, some metalic cloth and some rhine stones...and of couse a little paint.

He now resides at Lee's Clothing on Main Street...but will probably spend some time at the Beachcomber Inn during the summer.