flow

Yesterday was the opening reception for my latest show, "Flow". It is a two-woman show, featuring my paintings and photographs by Anna Low (http://www.alowphotography.com/). "Flow" is on exhibit at Thornton Oaks in Brunswick until the end of April (please see my website, http://www.brushstrokesbymaria.com/, for details). The opening was great and the overall experience has been fantastic. Anna is talented and kind and I am grateful to be sharing a space with her; she even helped me at the last minute when I realized I had hung one of my pieces sideways...OOPS! I put the hook on the back in the wrong spot...I guess I was rushing during the hanging process and didn't notice. Oh well! The people at Thornton Oaks have been wonderful as well. I would like to give a big "thank you" to Fred Carr for selecting me to be in this show, and a big "thank you" to Marlise Swartz for all her hard work and patience. The crowd at the opening reception was attentive and welcoming, and they really seemed to enjoy our work. I am honored to have my paintings on display there and I hope they will have me back sometime in the future.

fun with the brunswick art collaborative

What a great time we had tonight! Amanda led the group once again. A few months ago she did a papermaking session; tonight she showed us a resist technique using rubber cement and colored ink, then she taught us how to emboss. Amanda and Trish were kind enough to bring a bunch of supplies to share (including their heat guns). I think it's safe to say that all of us really enjoyed embossing and would like to try it again! There is a collage that I am currently working on that I think could benefit from a little embossing...if only I'd thought of it earlier in the evening. There's always next time!

with a little help from my friends

I am so grateful for the many wonderful and generous people in my life, and I wanted to use this blog entry as an opportunity to thank a few of them, two of whom I'd bet would never in a million years expect it. Those two people are Steve and Gennadiy, the guys I work with at Closet Factory. They work in the shop, cutting wood and installing the closets and storage spaces that I design. I have a couple of art shows coming up and frames are expensive (and I've got a lot of work to display), so I asked the guys if they could come up with any ideas or solutions for me. They went right to it and quickly whipped up some great looking temporary frames using scrap wood that was left over in the shop. The only trick was trying to figure out how to get the paintings to stay inside the frames from the front in a non-labor intensive way (after all, they were doing this in their spare time). They used turn buttons in the front, which worked but partially obstructed the paintings and, to me, became distracting and made the frames not look as good as they really were. That's when Jeremy the Art Guru came in. I brought the frames over to Jeremy's shop on Main Street in Gorham (www.theartguru.com) and he came up with the perfect fix in no time at all. He had little flat L-shaped brackets and instructed me to screw part of them into the back of the frame itself and the other part into the stretcher bar. It worked like a charm and the paintings are now inside the frames in a sturdy and simple manner, without any obstructions. This solution allows the frames to look really nice and, as a result, the paintings look good too. Plus, if someone buys a painting but they want to change the frame, it will be easy for that person to do just that. So, a very big "THANK YOU" to everyone for helping me out! Your efforts are greatly appreciated.

poochie-coochie

I went to Pecha Kucha night at Frontier Gallery in Brunswick yesterday and it was a lot of fun. The event was completely sold out (as usual) and I was fortunate to have gotten in. I managed to snag the last reservation that morning, and the ladies I attended with were able to get in on standby...whew! The presenters all had really interesting and diverse work to show, and the stories were equally fascinating (check out www.pechakuchamaine.org to get an idea). I left feeling very inspired, and I know the women I was with felt the same way.

Even though Pecha Kucha has been very successful, no one seems to know how to properly pronounce "Pecha Kucha". According to the website, the correct way is to say "peh-chak-cha", but most people just pronounce it phonetically...and some even say "poochie-coochie", as the MC did last night (with a big smile on his face).

more than just cookies

Terry and I had dinner with our friends Heather and Matt last night. We always have a great time when we get together: good food, good wine, lots of laughs and animated conversation. After we ate, Heather showed me a recent find from the local flea market - a 1959 copy of "The Girl Scout Handbook". I was never a Girl Scout, but I found it fascinating to be leafing through a book filled with rules and guidelines for the proper conduct of young ladies who were. There was a section on famous American women, there were tips about how to handle gossip-y situations, there was even a chapter on arts and crafts. I liked the paragraph entitled "Drawing and Painting" so much that I wrote it down (and now here it is, straight from page 118):

"Through drawing and painting you can talk to people all over the world and be understood. You paint a picture to say something about the way you feel. It is like writing a letter or telling a story, but you do it with color, form and line."

The simplicity and accuracy of these words really struck me. I wonder how many Girl Scouts over the years have gotten inspiration from those sentences...

putting-it-all-together

I had so much fun in New York! The "Putting-It-All-Together" show at climate/gallery was amazing and I'm so happy that I was involved. The opening reception was totally packed and there was a lot of really incredible artwork on display; plus, the thrill of having my work hanging in a place with a view of the New York City skyline was something I will always remember. Thank you, Julia, for sharing it with me, and thank you, Alley and Bill, for surprising me at the gallery with your smiling faces. My only regret is that I didn't take more pictures!

i want to be a part of it...

I am in a show that opens this week and I am very excited about it. The show is entitled "Putting-It-All-Together: Collage, Montage, and Assemblage", and it's at climate/gallery in Long Island City, New York. This is the first all-collage show I've been in, so that will be a new experience for me; additionally, it's in New York and that's where I'm originally from, so that makes it exciting too. (If you're reading this and you'd like further details, please check the "shows" page on my website: www.brushstrokesbymaria.com.) I just hope the weather is clear for my trip there and back!