Map Show at the UW Art Museum

Monday night I hopped over to Laramie with the in-laws to check out all the wonderful map art of the UWyo creative writing grad students. The title of the show is Laramie: A Gem City Atlas and you can read about it at UWyo Art Museum's Blog. It was a great show and there were a lot of amazing maps. Most of the other artists worked directly on the maps so everything was nicely framed and two dimensional. I must have missed the memo, but it was worth it to see Preston in a show. Concierge of an artist becomes the art it's self. 

There were about thirty people packed into the gallery circling the art. You could barely get up close to look at things there were so many people. It didn't help that I was circling in the wrong direction and taking phone pictures. Which looked rude but I'm the artist. I got a couple really nice comments. I didn't get to sneak up on people and hear their opinions too much. It was probably a mixed bag as is always the case when using dead animals in art. 

The presentation was really interesting. I took notes on some of the ideas about mapping and how to map unusual things. I've been thinking of ways to map out our move to Japan. There are some interesting things a brewing! It was also great to look at some more traditional art forms (Kabuki prints, Moran etchings, brilliant string installation) and catch up with friends.


The evening wound down with a wonderful dinner at Sweet Melissa's. It's still so bloody cold in Wyoming, we didn't really get to walk around much before our ears froze. Someday it'll be spring here.

Show in Fort Collins at CoCOA gallery

Disregard the lighting, I hadn't placed the lights before I shot the photos. The show is called "4 Artists , 1 Family" and all my immediate in laws are in it. We had a good crowd opening night, it could have been bigger if the weather hadn't been so cold. I've done a couple of embroidery demos though not many people showed up. Here's more photos from setting up.

"Hold Me"

My show at Clay Paper Scissors that opens November 11th. Babies!

Loveland Sculpture

I woke up with Natalie Portman's Shaved Head playing in my head this morning. Sigh, back to work.

It was quite the Colorado whirlwind this weekend, between relatives, friends leaving for grad school, and a Celestial Seasonings tour, there was so much great inspiration. The boy and I did manage to meet some friends at the Loveland Sculpture in the Park Show. I went last year and really loved it. There are so many great things there and established artists to talk to about form and color. It always seems that 60% of the show is realistic bronzes of Indians, Horses, and Buffalo. Which is a little depressing, but that's what sells out here with the cowboy wannabes. The show is definitely worth seeing, even if you have to do a little imagery sifting.

This year, I had the forethought to bring a little sketch book to record compositions and designs. I consider cameras to be rude at art events because then you really have a chance to rip the artist off. With a sketch book you really can't copy to the extreme. So I'm sketching a couple of this woman's bronze sculptures because I liked the abstract fullness and movement in her pieces and her assistant comes over and tells me that they don't let people draw their work. I was outraged but I calmly moved down the line. The boy and I have been having this conversation over the last couple of days about intellectual property and copyrights and this got me thinking about that. All the great masters have had people copy them - that's how people learned to do art. Some of the other people were pleased that I was drawing their stuff because I would tell them that I'm an emerging artist and that I really loved their compositions and colors. Isn't emulation the highest form of respect? It wasn't like I was camped out in front of this ladies tent for hours copying everything that she made, and I would never recreate what she was doing because they were Navajo women statues. It's a big debate in my mind about how much an artist "owns" their work, because a lot of artists pull from lots of other sources. It seems like there are two camps on this one, the pro copyright and those that give their ideas out freely. I should have questioned this lady about her ideas. Too bad.

Anyways, here are some of the artists that inspired me:
Carolyn Sato
Ed Hart
Sean & Anne Gillespie

Works of Wyoming

After a few weeks of car and computer craziness, art stuff is finally starting to happen.

I got into a show over at Works of Wyoming in Laramie by the skin of my teeth. I had actually forgotten what the submission date was and ended up emailing them in a bit of a panic. I really really wanted to be in this show...it's "Fabulous Women" - basically, all art from, about, or by women in Wyoming. Luckily, they really like what I am doing and they had space for my bodices (they didn't have many 3-D submissions) Just when I think that I dried up, rain starts to fall again, or snow - since it's spring in Wyoming and won't stop snowing till mid June. ;)

On another note, my friend Dolores Jablonski is doing a post about my work on her blog. I'm grateful to her for getting my name out there and maybe some more opportunities will come of it.

Right now, I'm in the throws of a new idea. Cutting up Starbucks and attaching patterns and maps to them and then embroidering and piecing them together. I'll let you know how it turns out. I'm really stoked for it, but it's hard to find time to make anything sometimes.

Artful Hand Gallery

The art walk at Artful Hand Gallery went really well last week. I'm so grateful for all my friends that showed up to see my work and say hi!I wanted to show you some pics of my works hanging in the gallery.

Very Busy Weekend

My goodness this weekend was so busy, like everything imploded at once, including my sinuses. I went to Denver for a conference the last half of the week for work and the day that I got back I had a performance for Shake in ChyWy's Macbeth and an icebreaker for the Spirit of the West show.

Luckily, everything went swimmingly. The snacks were a little strange (chicken liver and water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, which I couldn't bring myself to finish) but they spurred lovely conversations with some of the other artists. We talked a lot about websites and social networking for artists I think mostly because I was still on a digi-high from the conference. It was unfortunate that Georgia and I had to leave so early (she had to prep for the Cheyenne's first art walk, and I had to go perform) we didn't get to see the presentation.

Then the next night I got to go see the show, itself. It was must more realistic western work then I was expecting but over all there were some quality pieces. I picked up a few western artists that I'm going to start following, like Clifford Bailey, Ezra Tucker, and Jon Madsen. Georgia and I didn't win anything, but I got a lot of great questions about the meaning of my piece. It was disappointing that stories about the works weren't provided along with the pieces. I got to listen to a group of people look at and talk about my bust. One guy said "do you think you would wear it?" and the other replied "maybe after a few drinks". The great thing was that people were really taking the time to stop and look at my work and also talk about it. One of the sellers approached me and I told her the story behind the piece. She said that she was getting a lot of questions about it and they hadn't provided her any back story. I also had a really great conversation with a sponsor about my piece and it's back story and how I'm going to turn it into a series. It was a good experience, the food was good, I loved all the contemporary western wear - especially this western shirt with roses and skulls the sponsor was wearing. Everything turned out really well.

Artful Hand Gallery and Studio Open House!

Also, coolness this Friday is going down at Artful Hand - Gallery/Studio! They are having an open house, and I'm really excited to see all of Georgia and Dave Rowswell's work up (and the food!) I'm hoping to meet some new people and talk some art talk.

I've been running around today trying to get myself up on the Wyoming Arts Council's Artist Imagery Registry (AIR). It's beginning to feel like most of my time spent as an artist is filling out forms for shows. Everyone wants something different. The AIR application is interesting because it's a group of your current work in which you can put everything. I included the baby dolls, the dress, my book cover collages and some of my mixed media work. I didn't add my meat embroidery photos, that just needs a bit more explaining. I should have gotten on AIR a long time ago, but what I'm really doing it for is so that I can enter the Governor's Capitol Art Exhibit at the Wyoming State Museum.

I Made It!

I made it into Cheyenne Frontier Day Old West Museum's "Western Spirit Art Show" with the arial photo bust. You should have seen the happy dance! Now, I have to think of something for the miniture show - maybe one of my babies - hehehe.

I also have a couple of new shows to enter and to take a piece over to Laramie for UW's traveling show. fun, fun.

Abecedarian Gallery Entry

I finally got my Abecedarian Gallery entry for their Re: (rebound,recycled,repurposed, reused) show. Essentially, it's a juried show for altered bookworks. I wanted to enter a piece from the series that I made in college from all those old book covers. The piece that I really wanted to enter was already in another show and the dates just wouldn't work. So, I was really bummed, thinking that I shouldn't have given so many of them away (though I love that the friend that took most of them really loves them) and I only have two left and neither of them I felt was up to snuff.

I kept this one because I really liked the poetic words and the simple geometry. Plus it is the only piece of mine that has won a prize in a juried show (not for lack of trying!).



I figured that there is no rule against reworking a work...so I thought that I could spice it up with a little imagery. So, while watching the last two episodes of Torchwood "Children of Earth" I poured through all my Smithsonian Institutes's Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. 'Cause a girl just has to have multiple volumes of these hanging around the house! I found some really good Eskimo imagery that I wanted to use and I cut out a few images. Originally, I had the idea in mind that I wanted to have the body of a Native American (preferably dead) wrapped in white thread, like a cocoon and in an L shape in the right bottom corner. No dice, image wise - but I think that this little guy works really well. Plus red thread has all kinds of potent meanings.




I think it's absolutely beautiful - and I can't stop looking at it. Which, I think means it's good...dunno. But at least it was a good use for the evening. Let's hope it gets in.