My first juried acceptance brings honorable mention

The Model - watercolor and pencil

Last year I entered a piece for consideration in a juried show and it wasn't selected.  No problem. I basically did it for the experience, having never gone through the process before. I didn't expect to get selected.

Recently, I submitted three pieces to the New River Art Biennial Juried Exhibition which opened last night..  Two of the three pieces I really thought had a strong chance and I added "The Model" to complete my allowed three entries.  Much to my surprize, "The Model" made the cut and then, last night, I was surprized again when the piece was presented an Honorable Mention!  Entries totalled 150 pieces by 53 artists.  The juror selected 39 pieces for exhibit and presented 11 awards.  I feel truly honored to be among those 11.

After having also won a third place in July, I'm hoping this jump starts my creativity which has been in more than a little slump lately.  Time to go clean up my studio, get the cobwebs out of my head, ignore the laundry and dusting and get back to acting like an artist.  There is just never enough time for all the things I should be doing.

A tribute to 9/11

In remembrance of 9/11, I am posting the following which I wrote for the first anniversary of the tragedy.  I delivered it to my fellow employees of the Defense Commissary Agency, Europe, region headquarters, located on Kapaun Air Station, in Kaiserslautern, Germany.  Following completion of these comments, we held one minute of silence.
 
++++++
 
I am an American.

It is sometimes easy for Americans to think 9-11 only happened to them. It was our buildings, our planes, our cities, our country, our people.

Who are our people?

Our people are of many colors, many races, many countries and many religions…or no religion at all. We are William and Gerlinde and Mohammed and Nejat and Nolasco. We are Maria and Riccardo. We lead our lives in many different ways and yet we are the same. We work, play, love, laugh, cry, live and die.

In the days following 9-11, I felt as though I moved through life watching a bad movie. I expected it to end so I could walk out of the theater into the sun and know everything was normal again. I did not want to believe nothing would ever be truly normal again.

I looked into the eyes of German friends and saw they shared my tears. I heard the emotion in the voice of an elderly man in my village who told me he was sorry…as though he personally had done something to make me sad.

I saw the many flowers adorning walls, fences and gates presented to us by Europeans who shared our pain. I saw strangers in the early days after the attack that looked at me as an American and did not know what to say to make it better. Somehow just their look of understanding soothed the heartbreak.

In an Egyptian restaurant in Baden Baden I talked with the owner as he looked at his near empty restaurant on a Saturday night and told me he did not do this awful thing. I wanted to make him feel better so I told him of my warm reception in his country. Tears came to his eyes as he thanked me and said “you have made my heart sing.”

I came to Europe an American, hungry to see the world. Today I am a different American…I am British, Dutch and Belgian. I am Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and Turkish, Saudi and Egyptian. Mostly, I am German, taught by my many German friends who have opened their hearts and homes to me. I am international and I am glad.

9-11 happened to all of me. It happened to all of us.


Written by Gerri Young
September 9, 2002
For 9-11 tribute ceremony

Long time, no blog

Yes, I've been busy but I've also been uninspired!  Looked at my blog several times over the last month but my fingers wouldn't move.  So here's a little update or two.

My painting called "Shadow Woman" shown in my Jan 28, 2011, blog post won a third place in the Blacksburg Regional Art Association's "Expressions" exhibit in VTLS on 1701 Kraft Drive in Blacksburg (inside the Corporate Research Center area).  It was one of 52 pieces.  I was amazed and pleased!  Made all the work necessary for that watercolor batik seem very worthwhile.

I've been painting iris notecards for the St. Pierre Gallery in Floyd and every one of them sells.  Decided I needed to make some printed cards because it is difficult to always produce enough originals.  I took my two newest with me to add some finishing touches while working the gallery last Friday and, just as I finished, a lady bought both of them!  Maybe it pays to be working on art while working the gallery, but sometimes it is just too busy to do that.

On a funny and un-art-centric note--Bill and I walked a couple blocks of Blacksburg last night after attending a movie at the Lyric.  It was a lovely evening for a stroll.  Apparently the wildlife thought so, too.  As we turned a corner on Draper Road to head to our car, there was a bushy skunk on the lawn across from the Farmer's Market.  He paid no attention to us as he involved himself in digging holes in the grass, aided by the glow from the streetlights.  We paid close attention to him as we gave him a very wide berth and made it to the car without incident.

Our friendly, but hungry deer

A couple weeks ago a very friendly deer starting coming around our house. She seems to have very little fear of humans.  One morning she walked right up on our front porch and proceeded to eat every potted plant arranged there as though it were her private buffet.  As much as I enjoy opportunities to see wildlife up close, I must admit I was quite upset at the ruination of all my work.  No deer had been brazen enough to walk on the porch before so I considered it a "safe" bet to garden.

This deer loves the clover by our front door and will graze for 15-20 minutes with us just standing outside and watching from no more than 30 feet away.  In the video, she is about six feet from the house.  I truly don't care if she munches the clover.  There is plenty of it, but when she crosses the edging and starts feasting on my flower bed it is another story entirely!  She seems to start early in the morning so I have started checking all the windows from the moment I get up and sometimes race outside with arms and pink, fuzzy bathrobe flapping wildly.  She trots away about 50 feet, stops to look back at me and I can almost hear her say, "I'll be back!" as she twitches her white tail and flutters her wonderful eyelashes in my direction.  Is that an impatiens branch hanging down below her glistening black nose?

Life in the forest

There seems to always be something going on with wildlife in the forest surrounding us. Sometimes those goings on have a direct impact on me.

I planted several dozen impatiens in an effort to have a garden behind a fence of deer screening.  The deer have ignored them completely so far.  Is there such a thing as racoon screening? Trying to be a good little green person I used organic fertilizer to plant my new annuals.  That night something dug up in between every plant and ate the fertilizer.  I filled the holes back in.  The next morning, the next set of plants were not only dug up (inside the deer screening area), but the plants were seemingly laid carefully aside and the fertilizer eaten again.  I'm assuming a racoon did this, considering their very capable little paws.  It's hard enough for me to plant these days without having to plant the same plants twice!

We have been providing suet blocks for the birds and especially enjoy watching the woodpeckers they attract.  Suddenly, the blocks were disappearing at an unusually fast pace.  We couldn't help but wonder what was causing this because our bird population in May has been dramatically lower than in April.  Not lower is the number of huge black crows visiting our feeder area. Too big for the feeders, they normally just enjoy the seeds tossed to the ground by the smaller finches and titmice and others.  One day this week we discovered the mystery of the suet blocks as we watched a crow jump high off the ground and hover beside the block.  It took several attempts, but the crow was successful at knocking off a chunk or two and falling back to ground to enjoy it.  Always trying to win the battle, we attached a shiney aluminum disposable pan to the bottom of the suet feeder today in an attempt to make the crow's efforts more complicated.  Still waiting to see whether or not that is successful.

My favorite forest story is the most personal for me.  A few days ago I was watering a potted plant on the back patio.  Suddenly, I hear the sound of bird wings fluttering and getting very close to my head.  Just as I started to raise up to see what kind of bird was so close to me the bird stopped its flapping and landed square on my head!  I froze in place as the still unidentified bird hopped around my head yanking my shortish blond hair as hard as it could.  I wanted someone else to see this amazing thing so I slowly walked toward the workshop window to alert Bill to the happening.  The bird continued its yanking until I raised my arm to knock on the window. It then flew up a few feet, made another attempt at landing and flew off.  Only then did I see the bird was a titmouse.  My Virginia bird book was quickly thumbed through to find this bird has a reputation for yanking fur out of sleeping dogs and squirrels to use in nest building.  I never thought I looked like either of those things, but one friend said the bird thought my hair looked like a haystack.  She might be right.

Luxembourg Twilight

Luxembourg Twilight by Gerri Young, 2011

In the last year before we left Europe, Bill and I went to the beautiful city of Luxembourg which was just a couple of hours from where we lived in Germany.  I liked the place so much I wish I had explored it earlier and been able to go back numerous times.

As we strolled the old city near twilight, we turned the corner to this enchanted scene where a street light had come on and bathed the narrow way with golden light.  The photos we took stayed on my list of things I wanted to paint for quite some time before I met Robin Poteet, a wonderful watercolor artist in Roanoke, who gave me the courage and guidance to capture this beautiful atmosphere.  I showed the finished painting to a nice Luxembourger lady in Blacksburg who said she felt "transported" by it.  So do I.  Every time I look at the painting now, I get to go to the city again.

A walk in the woods



I know she named this one, but in my concentration to get
 a picture and not fall off the rock at the same time, it
totally escaped me. I now know it is a Canadian Columbine.

 It's one thing to stroll through the woods by yourself. It is quite another to do it with Holly Scoggins, Associate Professor, Department of Horticulture, and Director of the Hahn Horticulture Garden at Virginia Tech.  First she scouts a location for the walk a couple days ahead of time and remembers the location of assorted lovely flowers and plants.  Then she leads a group of early risers through the morning chill and damp and points out treasures like May apples (flashback to my childhood, carefree days in forests), Jack in the Pulpits (familiar, but rarely seen by me), walking ferns (obviously more gifted at walking in the forest) and horsetail reeds, a bundle of which I once had in my possession.  Of note is that she doesn't just say "horsetail reed," she says "Equisetaceae," or things like "Aristolochiaceae" and she somehow wraps her tongue around them before 9 a.m.

In addition to the many interesting flowers and plants Holly pointed us to, she also led us to the Falls Ridge Waterfall which squirmed its way over the rocks, left and right and left again for a total of 80 feet, delivering the always satisfying sound of water in motion and the vision of sunlight dancing on the ripples.  It was not a bad way to start the day.

St. Pierre Gallery sets grand opening--with my work included!

The St. Pierre Gallery on the main street of Floyd, Va., has announced its grand opening date for May 6, from 6-8 p.m.  This is especially exciting for me because the gallery is now carrying my work!  This is a first for me and it has happened just one year after I moved to the area.  It has been such fun to meet so many talented artists like Carly Burke and Bill St. Pierre who have made the gallery possible.  Their beautiful work is, of course, included in the gallery.  Bill's gorgeous woodwork is all over the two-room space and Carly's Mountain Light Jewelry graces the shelves and tables.  Becca Imbur's incredible handmade books are a delight to see; Eric's pottery sits near Wendy's and they are all gorgeous.  Photos by Rob Jones.  Paintings by Starroot.  Many more whose names I don't know are also there. All of these talented folks have been in the area and the business a long time.  My watercolors, prints and ink drawings are new to the mix and I'll let someone else describe them!

At any rate, we are all excited to be a part of this locally owned and operated venture and hope you can make your way to the lovely town of Floyd to see it.  If you come during the grand opening you get a big bang for your buck because it is on a Friday when the town is full of blue grass music, flatfootin' and people from all over the place!  Mark your calendar!

Bird feeders and prayer flags

A bright spot of color in a brown and green world.

It seems every bird watcher/feeder who lives near or in a forest must go through the battle of squirrel versus bird, and it hasn't been any different at our house. Lately, squirrels and some unidentified other furry creature were winning the battle and cleaning out all but the finch feeder overnight. Bill thinks about things a good while and then pursues his plan.  This one meant putting a ladder up against a tree, attaching a heavy, plastic-coated cable and repeating the same process on another nearby large tree. A pulley was threaded on to the cable and the filled feeder attached, then raised high up in the air.  Worked like a charm and no trees were damaged in the doing. 

Guess who suggested the prayer flags? Me, the artist, of course. A nice, bright spot in a brown and green world.  Bill, always the analytical thinker, inquired as to whether or not birds would be frightened by them. The next morning I sat by the window a long time to find out.  Two titmice could have cared less and flew straight to the tray.  Nuthatches, normally very adventurous acrobats, flew at it, under it and beyond it numerous times, landing on a tree and looking back to inspect the new arrangement. Finally, they landed on the roof of the feeder and did one of their upside down flips on to the tray.

Nearby, a flying bright spot landed on a branch to soak up the sun--a bluebird with a worm in his mouth!  I just love this splendid creature and am hopeful he will become a regular visitor even if he never uses the feeders.  To encourage his presence, we cleaned out all the bird houses and I'll start putting out some fruit for him. I read about how to raise my own mealworms for feeding the bluebirds, but decided the rather slimy, smelly and laborious process was not my thing...even for a bluebird who already has proven he is quite capable of getting his own worms!

At the front of the house, our house not the bird house, my hopes for the phoebe's return has been answered as I watch him flit around outside the kitchen window wondering what happened to the nest he and his mate left on the downspout last year.  I'm sorry, dear phoebe, but we really needed that new guttering and the new downspout is even bigger than the old one. Your sturdier perch awaits you as I await the return of the hummingbirds to provide aerial entertainment for us both from just a few feet away. 

All this just in time for the first day of Spring.

Earth, wind and fire

All the pieces finished in Jennifer Mulligan's raku glazing and firing session. My pieces are all the front row slab work and the tall slab piece with circles in the back.

Dirt fire pits lined with paper and ready.

Playing with fire should have been warmer, but it wasn't.  The raku shelter at potter Jennifer Mulligan's place was on a cold and windy bluff above a small river.  The wind blew and the rain fell on and off the whole day.  Cozying up to the gas kiln during the first stage of the firing provided some solace.  In spite of the wind, the other two elements of earth and fire provided a high degree of activity and excitement to the handful of students hellbent on having a raku experience on this day in March.

Raku is a thing of mystery.  The glaze buckets were labelled things like "yellow rose" and "purple haze." My tall moonscape came out blue and pale turquoise and lovely anyway.  "Copper penny" glaze and "yellow rose"  produced a nearly black interior with hints of metallic and a pale greenish exterior on my coiled piece reminiscent of a burst-open pea pod.  You paint on the glaze with adventure and bravery in your heart and then turn the piece over to the raku gods.  Wind, dampness, coldness, temperature, too much paper, not enough paper, too much sawdust, not enough sawdust, too much oxygen, not enough oxygen--all these factors toy with your glaze and create a piece you are in awe of but cannot duplicate. Sometimes they blow your piece up and give you bits you learn from. 

It's all good, creative fun.  A day in the country, nice people to meet and the opportunity to say things like "apple crackle" as you vow to put that glaze on a bigger piece next time because it is so special.  Thanks, Jennifer. The earth, wind and fire day was terrific.

Going in circles with clay

I learned several things during a two-day wheel pottery workshop at Jacksonville Center for the Arts this past weekend.  First, I have a greatly renewed respect for potters who make all sorts of round things on that spinning wheel made rather famous in the sexy scene from the movie "Ghost." Second, making wheel pottery is far more difficult than it is sexy. Third, not sure I have the strength in my left hand to ever become a full-time potter.  Despite that, I had a great time in Sarah McCarthy's class and am pretty pleased with all the pieces I created--even the very first little bowl with a definite angle to it.  Sarah has thrown thousands of bowls and has such a positive attitude that she makes you believe even your funkiest bowls were good efforts in your first time at the wheel.

After spending most of the day trying to center lumps of wet clay on the wheel and being successful only part of the time, I switched to some slab work to give my throbbing hands a break.  Slab has been successful for me the vast majority of the time and this day Sarah taught me how to use wooden molds to quickly create very lovely pieces.  I can hardly wait to see all my pieces glazed and ready for prime time. I'll be proud of them all, even that slightly lopsided first bowl.

Aside from the creative process, the very best part of this workshop was meeting new people, working with friends and getting to know Sarah better.  Make that two Sarahs and their incredible gifts of contagious laughter.

Determination of a squirrel

I think we could all learn something from squirrels.  Even though these little creatures at my house are surrounded by abundant forest, they love to "eat out" and try new and exciting things.  Their appetite for this kind of diet knows no bounds.  "No squirrels allowed" signs mean nothing to them. "Shoes, shirts and ties required" doesn't slow them down a bit.  At even the best buffet of mixed seeds, cracked corn and that favored supply of sunflower seeds, they'll cut in line and "cherry pick" at every opportunity.  They have the determination of an Army tank on full speed.  When the easy-picking sunflower seeds were gone from the feeding platform, this furry critter went straight to the source by lifting the lid, hanging on with his back feet and repeatedly dropping into the feed tube to feast on the sunflower seeds before the birds even had a chance at them.

Determination is a good thing in life and, more often than not, it pays off.  Just don't forget that sometimes too much of a good thing is a bad thing!

Art with friends

I spent a good portion of yesterday doing art, chatting about art, and eating surrounded by art in the lovely and interesting home of an incredible artist in Blacksburg, Darcy Meeker.  She works in stone carving and copper and abstract paper on canvas and ink and clay and jewelry and notecards. She inspires me to keep on experimenting in many different mediums until I am smitten with the two or three that I can concentrate on.

Around the table, Darcy and Charlotte, normally a watercolor painter of enormous flowers and such, worked on copper. I sketched and then began to ink an amazing clump white birch tree.  Bookmaking Becca Imbur came buy to show her best creation, beautiful little daughter named River.

It was a lovely time. Creative sharing and supporting of the best kind.

http://www.darcymeeker.com/ -- be sure to watch the video
http://www.bimburbooks.com/

How much wax is too much?

I pour over art books looking for inspiration, ideas and new techniques. A pile of books holds a permanent position beside my bed and, even though I've seen every page a dozen times, I still keep looking at them until I find a new book to absorb. Sometimes a piece of art sticks in my head and keeps me awake for hours as I plan my own version .

This 18" x 24" painting is one of those. Took me a long time to decide on a name to replace the boring set of letters and numbers assigned by my camera. Last night she became Shadow Woman. The process goes way beyond just normal watercolor, my preferred medium, and involves rice paper, ink, watercolor and lots of wax. It involves giving up control (hard for me) and seeing what happens. It involves a bunch of guessing as I experiment my way through the process.

How much wax is too much?  Two coats. Two hours, scrape, crunch, scrape, crunch, iron, iron, iron.  At last I decide she is beautiful and mysterious and translucent. Held to a sunlit window, she looks like stained glass and smells like honey.

'Round the clock art

Two pieces I created during art class.



This past weekend was a bit of an art marathon. First I made a trip to Floyd for the fun of having lunch with friends, picking up a piece of jewelry being adjusted, and stopping by my favorite art center.  An unexpected benefit came about with the lovely Carly Burke, owner and designer of Mountain Light Jewelry. She and a furniture maker have joined forces to open a wonderful new gallery shop in The Station on the main street and in minutes our conversation came around to the possibility of my artwork being carried in her inventory.  How exciting for us both!

On Saturday and Sunday I took part in a watercolor workshop put on by the Blacksburg Regional Art Association and taught by local artist Carole Davis. At the end of the workshop, I stayed on for an art lecture on decorative arts in Virginia and Tennessee, then went to dinner and by 6 p.m. was in the live model drawing group at Mish Mish, Blacksburg's very nice art supply store. For two hours I sketched the figure of the extremely professional model and by the end of class wondered if my own figure would be able to move well enough to go home.  Exhausted from three such busy days, I expected to be sound asleep minutes after arriving home.

As has become my habit, I picked up an art book from beside my bed and read about watercolor batik over and over, imaging one of my sketches rendered in this manner. Hours later, covers pulled up, lights out, eyes closed, I was still painting in my head.

My art weekend finally ended around 3:30 in the morning.





So long away from the blog

The holidays are over, the decorations are down and packed, the duldrums of January are upon us. What have I done while not blogging for a couple of weeks? The whole Christmas thing which was quiet but nice. A rip-roarin' New Year's Eve on the couch waiting for the ball to fall in Times Square and then falling myself just for a moment or two into slumber just long enough to miss the once-a-year, seconds-long dropping of the ball. Huddled indoors with not one, but two of the three Stieg Larsson trilogy books--The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  I'm holding off on the third book because the first two were so captivating, I hardly moved from start to finish except to turn the pages with great anticipation, to go the potty or, finally forced by starvation, to the kitchen to fix a peanut butter sandwich one hand on the book, elbow on the bread, knife in my teeth.

Through all the days we watched the snow, fed the birds, made new recipes (apple strudel from scratch!) and ventured out reluctantly when cabin fever encroached upon us. A few trips to the swimming pool to work off Christmas calories. A trip to the grocery store to stock up on more of same. Through it all my mind keeps bouncing back to art...what will I paint next? What art book to look at? When's the next drawing session at Mish Mish? Can I do one more re-draw on part of Adrian's face without destroying her forever? Anything to put off the boring other things that nag at me on my desk, in the kitchen, the laundry room, the vacuum cleaner.

A new piece of watercolor paper went down yesterday. It sits with wet background colors wrapping around the frisket and masking applied over my sister's face, my unsuspecting victim for a bit of a funky portrait. I approach the next step with trepidation, but at least it is a step forward into the new year.

P.S. Sunday, Jan. 16, 6-8 p.m., Mish Mish in Blacksburg, live model drawing session, $10 steve.miller@mishmish.com for more info.