33 years continued

my talented friend kim presented me with one of her intricately cut photographs as a present for my birthday. she began with a series of photographed winter trees, which i was an admirer of and also got the pleasure of seeing up close. she'd print out the photo and then, many x-acto blades and calluses later, all of the negative space around the tree was cut away leaving only the skeleton of the bare tree remaining. she has since done a couple of leaves in this very same style. the leaf's skeletonized remains looks like it's seen a long cold winter. she float mounted it and throughout the day i get to see the varying play of light and shadow. i feel honored to have received such a lovely piece of work. she is part of my dekalb experience i miss and i'm grateful to have something around me that reminds me of her everyday.

Live Coverage

This was my 5th year I've participated in Live Coverage, UICA's annual fundraiser, where over 50 of West Michigan's premier artists all come to create work Live and offers guests the opportunity to watch artists create and then purchase one-of-a-kind works of art. This was by far, the best LC to date. The new layout and organization of the evening had a good flow and the crowd was thick. I injured my tail bone in Friday so by the end of the night Saturday I was one crabby Michele, but it was nice to see so many familiar faces and be social for a day. I created two pieces, one which is featured below. This is the first time I've tried figurative graphite/watercolor on paper and I was quite pleased with the results. I'm feeling a new series coming on...

Art #2 in progress
Detail of #2
Deb Rockman's drawing on Acrylic Medium. I'm her biggest fan.

L.A. Galleries - Part Two

The show at Kim Light Lightbox made my entire trip worthwhile. I would have been content seeing nothing else after Penelope Gottlieb's show No $ Down. Each of her drawings were beautifully executed with colored pencil and framed with refurbished vintage frames she refers to as a 'fixer-uppers' painted to match. These monochromatic works are are frontal views of Southern Californian architecture: the track home, the bungalow, the storybook house. Her real estate marketing theme examines the American dream of home ownership, the role of house as home, class identity, and status symbol. She seeks out her houses in the ads of the L.A. Times. The frontal, uniform photographs lend themselves as the perfect source material and with taglines like Charm Galore, Find Your Nest, No Place Like Home, Motivated Seller Wants Out, who could ask for better titles.

L.A. Galleries (part 1) - Culver City

I had scoped out some galleries prior to heading to L.A. When I make trips and check out galleries, I always do so with low expectations. Partially because my taste has narrowed tremendously over the past couple years and partially because the artist whose work I want to see is not being exhibited at the moment. The majority of galleries I visited had some really great art and I was thrilled to see so much drawing. First on my list is the work of Matthew Chambers at Angstrom Gallery. The walls were lined with his drawings and read in somewhat of a series, each one slightly informing the other, yet each stood on its own as well. I just wanted to touch them all over. The fingerprints, smudges, and erasures appealed to my tactile self, but I think their 'I look like I was drawn by a crazy person' was part of their appeal too. Yes, I know, very insightful considering all the schooling I've had.

more art and food

yesterday was culver city galleries which i will write a special post this weekend about...stay tuned. today though we hit up chinatown and then drove out to santa monica. Acuna-Hansen, Sam-Lee, and Sister were tops on my list, however the shows were less than stellar. we then turned toward the courtyard and had a great lunch outside at Via Cafe. they had a great fresh menu, but i wanted some comfort food so i stuck with pad thai. i don't think we could've made a bad choice with the food. it was nice to sit outside and eat in the sun, in a courtyard, with no phones ringing and no appointments to keep.

33 years

Last night we went to Shojin in Little Toyko and had an amazing dinner. I had an Iced Green Tea Latte, Crunchy Avocado Roll and a Bento Box that consisted of brown rice, vegetable dish, salad, Okara Cake with lemony vegan mayonnaise and Grilled Tempeh with a sweet barbeque sauce. Yum! Afterwards we went back to Patricia's house and a sweet surprise from my Deb awaited me, a lovely cake from Frances Bakery. Patricia had it displayed on an sweet vintage footed-cake plate. When you twisted the plate in a counter-clockwise motion it played a slow, sad rendition of Happy Birthday. Needless to say, this beautiful cake was devoured in no time...and yes, there is a typo in my name...never fails.

fortune

last night we decided to hit up one of the restaurants in the ginormous hotel where we're staying. it was pretty early for dinner, but still being on eastern time, we were starving. there were few people in the mandarin restaurant and those that were there, were alone. the overhead music was a radio station that had waves of static that cut in and out. looking around at the lone diners, bad lighting, and somber atmosphere was quite depressing...but leave it to michele to stick some chopsticks up her nostrils and then fun ensued.

melrose shopping

our first night on LA we walked a few blocks from our hotel and landed at the Daily Grill. lights were low, jazzy music, and my dinner of mahi mahi with fresh grilled vegetables really hit the spot.
the next day we decided to head down to Melrose for some shopping. we had all been up since at least 6 am, so when we arrived on Melrose the shops had yet to open. we caught some breakfast at Blu Jam Cafe, which has been voted best breakfast in LA by several city guides. it was deliciously fresh and our server was great and gave us some leads on good thrift stores to hit up. American Vintage was a fun spot, yet i didn't find quite what i was looking for there. many blocks and many shopping bags later we were happy with our finds (though i could have kept shopping for hours) and headed back downtown.

i have some work up at the 10 x 10: UNIFORM show in Seattle's Suite100 Gallery. the show is up through March 6th, so check it out if you are in the area. here is one piece i decided to keep in my studio....for sentimental reasons. i wasn't quite ready to part with it yet.

cottage by the lake

it's official, we are now cottage owners. we bought a property with close friends in Saugatuck. it's tiny and cute and on a little lake, just minutes from the big lake. i am looking forward to art week(ends) and having a close getaway