Upcoming exhibition at the Phipps Center for the Arts...

I am excited to share that I have an upcoming solo exhibition in Gallery 2 at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wisconsin, opening February 26. Artists Susan Gangsei, Fawzia Khan, Susan Solomon and Christopher Palbicki will also be exhibiting in the Center’s other galleries. I hope you will have a chance to attend!

I created a new series of drawings for “Den Mother” this last fall on the most beautiful gesso you can spread on a board. It is like butter. I will never go back to anything else. The boards are 10x10” and the drawings made in ball point pen. I love me a ball point pen. I think I am ready to explore this series in graphite with powdered graphite so I can get larger, softer areas of tone.

These images will soon be available as prints in the shop!

MAEP Exhibition at Minneapolis Institute of Arts!

So about six months ago, I posted about a proposal I was putting together for the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. I was rejected a year ago…which was disappointing as I thought it was my best proposal to the program to date, but not a surprise as it was my sixth or seventh rejection. MAEP is a program with three deadlines a year, and only one exhibition awarded per deadline. With every rejection, I would call the program administrator/curator to get the details on the panels response to my program. And with the panels comments about my proposal, I would make adjustments and wait for the next deadline. With this last rejection, I did find out that I was a finalist, so I was getting closer. And I did feel like I had made the best proposal possible, but when the curator offered that some images for scale on the felt sculpture would help, I figured I would give it one last go. My art buddy, Chris Rackley, was kind enough to bring his photo kit to my studio and model with my sculpture for images! I also had images of work installed in a recent exhibition and I had some newer work related to the things I wanted to explore with the exhibition, so I swapped out nearly all of the images for those, and included sketches of the proposed sculptures, my video of the work in the space and the floor plan. And then I waited. There were about five weeks in between the proposal deadline and notification, so I couple of days out from the notification deadline, I started checking my emails a little too frequently. There were no emails. But I was at my friend Chris’ house with two other artist friends helping him with an upcoming project deadline, and when they all went upstairs to eat lunch, I thought I would just check quick. And there was an email that I would be having the July 2020 MAEP exhibition at the MiA. This is big. And I was able to share the first news of it with my most favorite artists in the world. They have been there editing my proposals since the very beginning two years ago when I started applying. We hugged, ate chocolate, and then I basically shook with fear and smiled the rest of the day. If you would like to see my name on the MiA website, the link is here.

Morris Graves Museum of Art Exhibition

So happy to have had Nicole Jean Hill photograph my exhibit at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Humboldt county last week. I got images just in time to apply for a mid-career fellowship. I didn’t install the work for this exhibition, and was a little uncertain about the configuration of the “Spread” masses on the wall. When I last installed this piece, there was no space between shapes and far less of the guts spilling out from them, but I have come around. I still want to make ten times the amount there currently are for an installation. I want them oozing off the wall!

And here is one of the new dolls. It was funny to see it up with some of the original ones and how the color palette has changed. I just love this measuring tape.

Still waiting to here on one of my proposals, and that will probably determine what I decide to focus on this next year. Four more days. Fingers crossed.

so much to share...how can it be March?

I don't know where the time goes.  Seriously.  I was asking everyone I knew to vote for my work everyday at the Bombay Artisan Series for six weeks this fall, and now it is March!  Many fabulous professional things have happened in that time as well as some not so fun family health issues we had to work through.  But everyone is healthy, my son has a paper route and I am in five exhibitions currently!

I am actually headed off to New Orleans to see my work in the group exhibition Between Stitches at NOCCA tomorrow.  I have never been to NOLA, and am so excited to meet a friend there from San Francisco for a girls trip.  She knows New Orleans, so all I have to do is follow her around and enjoy.  

I am super excited to have brand new work at Nahcotta Gallery's Enormous Tiny Art Exhibition #23 in Portsmouth, Maine with some of my favorite contemporary artists.  I have been joking that Nahcotta is where all my favorite online cool kid artists show work, and now I am among them!  I even had a piece sell before the opening reception.  I just popped online to look at my page and saw a sold button.  It was a thrill.  

I also have work at Woman Made Gallery in their Woman Made Juried Regional Exhibition in Chicago, Illinois.  And then two weeks ago, last minute, I got an email from a gallery owner in Dallas who was interested in working with me.  Turns out she had an exhibition going up in the next week featuring the women artists of her gallery and asked me to participate.  So another big box went to Fedex.  I am so happy to be included in Women of RO2. at RO2 Art in Dallas, Texas.  

Finally, I have work back in Miami with Casa Mondo Gallery, after having met the owner at Superfine! during Miami Art Week two years ago.  It is absolutely crazy.  Working your ass off works!  Now I just have to get more organized.  Turns out I should have a spreadsheet inventory of all my work and where it is.  And then I need to start my 2018 tax expenses spreadsheet.  And then I desperately need to make some new work.  I have a group exhibition with my favorite local art besties in June, and some things coming up in the fall.  So I am shutting this down and pulling out my thread.  I will be back soon though.  Hope you all are well!

Donkey and a Deer....

are all done!  Except for tails and all the little bits of touch up I still need to do...so, really, not done, but I am getting close.  I have to install my exhibition on June 4, and I think I can see the end.  This little donkey showed up in an earlier post, but has got limbs now.  This happens to be my mom's favorite (she has two donkeys of her own.)

And then this deer is one of my favorites.  I have had the body in my work closet for at least a year, waiting for a time to get finished.  I also am making her a little mirrored vanity and stool...she needs a place to do her makeup.  

Friends. 

Coming exhibition at 287 Bleeker Street, NYC....

So excited to be included in a group show next month in Manhattan!  I was lucky enough to meet Cami Ledy in Miami, and I am privileged to have a chance to work with her.  If you are in Manhattan, please check "M.O. Layered" out!

I wish I had a donkey like this when I was growing up....

I had a pony named "Hot Shot" that was nearly the same color.  Then I graduated to a spiteful Appaloosa, and finally to a Quarter horse.  My mom now has a mother/daughter donkey duo that I have yet to meet.  They just have the greatest ears and kindest eyes.  

Skeleton hand drawing finished just in time....

So I have work going up in this beautiful local, Rochester, Minnesota restaurant called Forager this weekend.  I finished the text on the drawing yesterday and got it cleaned up in photoshop just now.  I will be selling this image as a framed print, along with prints of the rest of this anatomical series.  I can't wait to see them in the space.

The reception for the exhibition will be 10/23/16 from 4-6 pm.  Hope to see you there!