Our CANNashville Reception at the Mad Platter Restaurant in Nashville went swimmingly. Despite the hot weather and fact that is was a Sunday afternoon, there was a good-sized crowd. What’s more, they were inclined to purchase and a number of our works flew out the doors in no time! That’s me on the far right, by the way, in the red and white.
More pics here http://ow.ly/5CBLZ . It was a great day for us and for @Thistlefarms thanks to @TheMadPlatter
First off, if you’ve been reading my updates you will notice they are now at WordPress, moved over from Blogger. Not sure how it’ll go but thinking it will make things run more smoothly. We’ll see.
In the meantime, last time I wrote, I was going to the ENT specialist for my “wonky eye syndrome.” The muscles in one eye would move independently, refuse to cooperate and never want to focus in the binocular manner eyes are supposed to. The ENT specialist ruled out any sinus implications and, perhaps because I’ve been swearing off using the IPhone at night to read tweats and stuff, the situation seems to have resolved itself for the most part. I have the name of a neuro-opthalmologist and will make an appointment if it flares up again but for now, things are going okay.
Next up, Vacation. We drove down for a week to lovely Gulf County Florida where dogs have equal rights, more or less, and can meander on the beaches any time as long as they’re leashed. It was wonderful there, we rented a great home for the week a block from the sand, and had our fill of fresh seafood. And never saw any evidence of the BP oil spill whatsoever while we were there, thankfully. Retiring there is a good possibility if we can hang on that long.
While on vacation, I got some wonderful news: I submitted two abstract paintings into the “FLOW: The Essence of Paint” show and one was accepted! Looking forward to the exhibit although I don’t think I’ll be able to make it to the opening as we’re supposed to head to the Northeast at that time. Still, quite an honor and it’s San Francisco location broadens my horizons.
After that great news, we returned home somewhat reluctantly. Even the dog was moping miserably, looking at us like “I want to go to the beach!” Still, I had a group show to prepare for with my fellow CANN artists so that kept me too busy to miss anything.   We delivered our paintings – I had 17 to hang – and tomorrow night is the reception at the Venue – a converted elementary school with a very long main hallway where the paintings are hanging, outside a community theater where Thursday through Sunday nights, plays are performed. Since I haven’t added many pics lately, I’m dropping a couple in here … enjoy!
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I gotta say, this was an excellent year for me personally and professionally!
I dove headfirst into art this year, reorganized and formalized my studio, and by chance scored my first solo show at an upscale restaurant in Nashville for six weeks from late June to Father’s Day. Great timing except Nashville’s millenial flood took place the weekend of my scheduled reception. Most I knew were fortunate and suffered no or minimal losses but many areas were devastated. My reception ended up closing the show, more or less, but still a nice crowd and healthy sales meant I could claim professional artist status!  At year end, my art is
hanging in several venues in Middle Tennessee and a few more people are puzzled by the name “Moesse.”
A mid-year turning point meant transitioning from Hazel King’s tutelage to more independent study, and the formation of Collaborative Artists Network (Nashville) – http://www.thecann.org – with fellow painters and dear, dear friends. A more personal turning point came when I took a stand against a loved one, ending a pattern of enabling. By year end, I’m glad to say, it was proven to be a good decision for all involved and things are looking up on that front.
A wedding in October was special partly because I got to talk to Canadian superstar Bryan Adams and tell him David and I were married to one of his songs (which I’m sure he hears ALL the time). What made it stellarly special (my phrase in case ya couldn’t tell), was that my dear, great and wonderful brother Barry married the love of his lifetime(s), Gretchen. I used the plural because, yeah, their spirits have been dancing this love tune for centuries.
Another wedding in November, this time in England, meant a stellar trip across the pond, celebrating the union of two young people, spending great time with David’s family, touring the southwest region, and freezing our butts off. All before jetting back home just in time to beat the U.K. version of Snowpocalypse! While there, I discovered snoods, Primark’s cheap but cozy for a season offerings, and an Indian import store offering huge zippered bags on the cheap to lug home our dirty laundry.
December was a blur with unpacking, preparing and mailing out more than a dozen Christmas parcels to friends and family from afar, a few parties, and yes, prepping for and pulling off a New Year’s Day open house. I did little painting, but put at the top of the blog two abstracts that I did that I’m very pleased with.
In closing, know that I’m eagerly anticipating great things for 2011, for two reasons. First, I have this weird thing for prime numbers (I think because I was born on the 13th in 1959) and 2011 is about as prime as you can get, baby! Second, my dark-haired brother was the first newcomer to step foot through the door that day, followed by his male black lab, Nigel. I’m told Scottish tradition says that if a dark-haired male is the first to cross the threshold New Year’s Day, it bodes well for the year. I’ll take all this as a good, hopeful sign for more good things to come.
Here’s hoping you experience all good things for 2011.
MWS
There’s something about porches, don’t you think? When you are able to let go of the critical “I should be elsewhere” mindset and just hang on a porch doing whatever. If you’re like me, you find it liberating and reinvigorating. To me it’s the ultimate “Hominid’s revenge” where we who stand on two feet and have opposible thumbs and think and plan and scheme, can come in close contact with the great outdoors without … you know … really being out there! Where mother nature can rain down in all her splendor but we stay dry. Where mosquitos and other bugs of all kinds swarm around hoping to feast on our fleshy skin and red blood.
God bless Lucilla! That’s all I can say… Despite her cosmopolitan ways she had the foresight to add on a splendid and expansive porch to her Sylvan Park home, complete with screening, high-end ceiling fans and a bug-proof flooring barrier too. So outside on the porch we of the Collaborative Artists Network (Nashville) who were in town painted. Judi has commenced her journey back to Geneve, Switzerland where we are hoping she’ll establish a CAN Chapter. Margot is in the xenophobic state of Arizona babysitting children this week and recuperating from what sounds like a huge cold and laryngitis. Lynne was recuperating closer to home after two exhausting weeks of setting up and arranging her show at the Gas Lamp in Nashville.
And so it was that Barbara, Lucilla and I found ourselves enjoying the splendor of her porch, some great food she prepared (but wasn’t supposed to), and one another’s company. We didn’t so much paint as talk and learn and plan for the future of our group and more. In the end, I set about playing. One of my paintings took on a “Georgia O’Keefe-ish” style, according to Lucilla and Lynne who showed up late to grace us with her presence. They claim it was because I had today’s afternoon gynecological appointment on my mind. I put dots to represent cave dwellings on the hillside, but it definitely needs more work before I post it here.
I’m exhausted now, having gone to the doctor (just an annual checkup and all is well, in case you’re wondering) and gotten stuck in commuter traffic. My BFF from New Jersey claims we could never live there, given the amount of commuter traffic they endure daily. Even though it took me a full hour to get home from downtown, Nashville’s nowhere among the worst cities for traffic. Well, the microwave’s buzzing and my chicken chili’s done. The dog’s pouting and hoping for a walk too, so signing off.
Coming from a background as a photographer, I recognize so many principles that relate to both photographic and painterly images. Lightstalking Magazine, for professional photographers, has some great content that applies to those using a brush as well, such as this one, on The Golden Triangle in composition.
Busy day, heading out to paint with the C.A.N. girls today and then errands before heading up north for the holiday weekend. I sure hope Earl doesn’t mess with our plans too much. I’m looking forward to plein air painting from my sis’ cabin in the mountains.
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| Based on a Tom Jones painting and workshop |
Never having been to a workshop before, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought it would be a great learning experience but had no idea just how great it would be!
Tom Jones is a fabulous nature landscape artist who represents and is representative of some of the finest producers of art supplies in the art world – Arches paper, Rembrandt paints, and Jerrys Artarama. So when I heard he was coming to our local Jerry’s to put on this workshop, of course, I signed up and put down the names of my fellow C.A.N.* girls. The only one who was unable to join us was Barbara, but since we’ve got miles to go to catch up to her caliber of painting, we figured it was only right.
Tom was a great and inspiring teacher. He had a gentle, matter of fact style that didn’t pull punches but showed me (on more than one occasion) how to fix some major goofs in my work. The painting he chose to have us do was challenging and really pushed us out of our comfort zones, but I watched with relief and joy as Lynne, Lucilla and Margot moved from frustration to anxiety to pleasure at learning the new process. Safe to say we all got a lot out of it. My painting (I brought it home and doctored it up slightly after all the gaffs), is above.
We also got to meet Tom’s lovely wife Bonnie, a strong watercolor artist herself, and she showed us some batik paintings she has done recently that are beyond exquisite. We are hoping to encourage either Jerry’s or our Centennial Arts Center to enlist her to teach a batik class in the future. And of course, we want Tom back. Again and again.
I learned so much in the class I came home, spent and exhausted but dying to try more. But I’m willing to share a few of my strongest impressions here: Arches 300# paper kicks a$$ when it comes to durability, workability, presentation quality, etc. You know when you are working on it that it is just.well.golden! And at $10 and change, it wasn’t nearly as expensive as I thought it would be for a full sheet since you can split it into smaller sheets. Lush.
Several lessons I got from the workshop:
There were loads more things to learn and I filled a couple of pages of notes, but you’ll just have to take a class yourself!
I loved the rockwork! It is much like painting large flower petals. Lay color at one edge, use a clean (water only) brush and sweep that color across the remainder of the area to be covered, ensuring one edge has strong definition. Tom noted that I had too many rocks and it made the painting look too busy. He suggested I merge a couple here and there into larger boulders and I may well do that later, but honestly, I’m kinda proud of the rockwork, I kept them as they were this time to show my hubby and show off on my blog.
On the waterfall, I am ashamed to say I cheated. It was a mess to begin with but he used a new product offered at Jerry’s called “Aqua Cover” that did a great job on leveling off the water, creating a better spill area below and such. But with 20 students and limited time, he could only do so much, and I wanted to wow my husband when he got home later last night so, after resting when I got home, I got out my (dare I say it) acrylic white paint to complete the fix. I rationalize that now I can effectively call it a mixed media work and honestly, it looks pretty good, I think. The Aqua Cover is a great, amazing product though and would have done the job but I didn’t purchase it and figured the acrylic application was next best thing. So sue me for cheating!
Final note on the painting: Tom’s painting did not include, but I did, a tree stump sticking through the edge of the waterfall and another area where water spills over a giant rock. I am kinda proud of that improvisation and the overall work, even if the rocks are too busy. I will be making a few minor changes to this work sometime when I get a chance, and thankfully, because of the great paper, I can. But I wanted to get the near-finished painting up here with the workshop review while it was all fresh in my mind.
Tom, if you ever grace my blog with a visit to read this, know that I got a tremendous out of you workshop and really appreciate your painting style, teaching style and the generous, genuine and decent person you appear to be. Keep up the great work and hopefully, we Nashvillians’ll catch another of your workshops before too long. Bonnie, we’ll be working on yours too, OK?
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| Barbara with a painting from more than 20 years ago! |
The Collaborative Artists Network (C.A.N.) is getting geared up! We painted at Barbara Rembert’s studio in her home yesterday inspired by some glorious instrumental music, great, great food, and the artistic and creative energy that flowed like a bubbling stream. Barbara has a tremendous learning library of books to borrow, and we were treated to a private show of her collection of works. She has some brilliant work over the years, and happily, we got the up close and personal tour, including explanations behind some of the loveliest of paintings. Her methods are so varied, and yet all convey so beautifully what message or meaning she is trying to illustrate. Pure wonderment!
Another surprise treat was a painting Margot pulled out that she had done back more than three decades ago! And to our joy and amazement, it was done using the same strokes, colors, and style she uses today.
We didn’t talk much about our organization today, preferring just to paint, but the idea behind it is to organize as a non-profit, obtain grands or other funding to provide a safe, comfortable place to paint, the resources to do so, the opportunity to teach others less fortunate, and to sell our works to self-fund our endeavor moving forward. It will surely be a long road, but with we five, I think we C.A.N., no pun intended. We recognize women typically give up so much to raise children, care for family, or meet other challenges that typically come from lacking that second X Gene, particularly economic ones. And each of us has faced tremendous emotional, physical, or monetary challenges, or a combination of all three, to get to this point in our lives, and we feel it is time to put our experience to good use, identify a forum, and ultimately, give back. Down the road, I hope to write more about our organization’s progress.
