Prickly Pear Paintings

Here are my latest two oil paintings. The above red cactus is a scene from Big Bend National Park in Texas. For some unknown reason I've found myself fascinated with cactus and it all began when I took a trip to New Braunfels, Texas. I saw fields & fields of cactus while driving down the back roads in the Texas countryside....you don't see that around central Oklahoma. However, I found the below Prickly Pear cactus patch just a couple of miles from my home in the middle of Oklahoma City. It was growing in front of a car repair shop surrounded by a sea of concrete.

Crowded

"Crowded" is my latest felted mixed media piece. It was machine needled and wet felted then embroidered and beaded. I'll sew it to a painted canvas in the next few days and it will be finished. This was inspired by the theme, Crowd, on the Abstract Challenge group. I painted an 8"x10" oil painting instead of a quilt and liked it so well that I decided to make a fiber piece using the design.

Price Tower Arts Center

Ron and I attended the opening reception for the UK/OK: Exploring Traditions in Contemporary Design last night in Bartlesville, OK at the Price Tower Arts Center. "Scribbles in Time" (pictured above) and "Pieces of Time" (pictured below) are in this exhibit.

I made these pieces in 2005 and they have been exhibited in numerous shows. I enter them separately in exhibits and they have always been accepted together and hung side by side. When they were in the VisionMakers exhibit the juror referred to them as "two journal pages". They are a couple of my favorite pieces so I was thrilled that Scott Perkins, the curator, chose them for this wonderful exhibit.

My friends, Marie and Earl Miller at the opening reception. Marie has one of her exquisite embroidery pieces in the show.

I walked up to the second floor and took these pictures looking down to the gallery space below. I had fallen in love with this piece when I saw it at the IAO Gallery in 2008 because it is absolutely beautiful. This photo doesn't do it justice but you can see it on Whitney Forsyth's (the artist) website.

Another shot of the gallery below.

You can see my two pieces in the show on the back wall. Marie's piece is the first one on the right. "Sunrise, Sunset" is pictured on Marie's page in the Virtual Gallery on OVAC's website.

Scott Perkins said he worked on curating this exhibit for 1 1/2 years! I'm thrilled beyond words to have my work in this show!

UK/OK exhibit

I'll be attending the UK/OK opening reception this Friday night in Bartlesville, OK at the Price Tower Arts Center. I have two pieces in the exhibit, "Scribbles In Time" and "Pieces of Time" that Scott Perkins, the curator, requested for the show. Their website states: "This exhibit celebrates the work of nearly seventy artists and designers working in areas of handmade design and “high craft” across Oklahoma and in the countries of England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Emanating from a curiosity of cross-cultural comparisons, UK/OK examines contemporary British and Oklahoman designers through the lens of “traditions” – in technique, materials, and influences. The focus of the exhibition is the recent resurgence in handcrafted design and those working within the fields of metals, book making, ceramics, stone, glass, embroidery, quilting, apparel, woodworking, basketry, woodblock printing, and jewelry." This should be an great exhibit and I'm excited about having my work included!

OAG Members Show

Carla and I joined the Oklahoma Art Guild this month since we have been oil painting so we were eligible to enter their members show. We both have two paintings in the exhibit that is mentioned above. It's named Small Works because the paintings had to be no larger than 12" x 12" including the frame.

FAD Group Exhibit

The FAD Group installed our 4th annual exhibit at the Midwest City Library on Sunday afternoon. The exhibit will be on display until August 29th so if you are in the area I hope you will have the opportunity to see it in person. Charlotte, Lynn, and Carla (pictured above) helped me install the artwork on the wall behind them and the three display cases on the opposite wall.

The gallery wall photos were taken before the spotlights were turned on. Above are two pieces by Marie Miller on the left which are hand embroidered on silk painted fabric. The two on the right were made by Charlotte Hickman and are hand painted and quilted.

This is "Just Jugs" made by Marilu Benton Schwetz. It's made from appliqued cotton fabric and machine quilted.

This quilt is "Dogwood Flowers 2" made by Charlotte Hickman.

"Sunflower" a quilt made by Charlotte Hickman.

"Another Place In Time" and "Ancient Sanctuary" felted pieces made by me.

These pieces, "In Kandinsky Time" and "Storytime" are two more of my felted pieces at the end of the gallery wall.

We had three lighted display cases to showcase our work. Above is a close up of Jean Ann Fausser's Temptress in a Teapot series. "Tina" and "Cher" are shown above with one of the posters Jean Ann provided. She has wonderful photos and explainations on her website.

This is a full view of Jean Ann's teapots. From left to right and top to bottom are "Josephine" (Josephine Baker), "Tina" (Tina Turner), "Cher", "Madonna", and "Janis" (Janis Joplin).

The center display case holds oil paintings by Carla Houston. She is our renegade member because she hasn't been working with fiber. That's OK we love her anyway and enjoy her paintings. I need to get a close up shot of Carla and Stephanie's display case so you can see them better.

These felted and knotted pieces are made by Stephanie Grubbs. Of course, these photos don't do them justice so that's another good reason to see the exhibit in person!

You can see more artwork by Carla Houston, Stephanie Grubbs, Jean Ann Fausser, Marie Miller and myself on OVAC's website in the artists virtual gallery pages.