UW-Madison Ag Hall Exhibit and Rountree Gallery Award

Wow! My piece, Gabrielle has received a quite a bit of recognition this year.

WRAP Show Awards
Gabrielle earned a State Award in the Madison Regional WRAP Show held last spring. The show was originally hung in the Pyle Center on the UW campus, but when the coronavirus hit the campus closed so the show moved online, as did most of the remaining 2020 regional WRAP as well as the WRAP State Show. View the State Exhibit here.

At the State Show, Gabrielle was given the Rountree Gallery Award sponsored by Friends of Our Gallery (FOG), a support organization for the Rountree Gallery in Platteville. As a long time member of FOG and a huge admirer of the Rountree Gallery, I was really pleased that my piece won this particular award. Many thanks to FOG for this award! 

Ag Hall Exhibit

Each year the UW-Madison College of Agriculture and Life Sciences selects a number of pieces from the annual WRAP State Show to hang in their AG Hall for the coming year. This year, due to COVID, the Ag Hall exhibit is going virtual. I am very flattered that my piece, Gabrielle, is among 14 pieces selected for their 2020 online exhibit. 

Click here to view the exhibit.

The UW Ag Department has a connection to the WRAP program going back to its inception. Here's the history of WRAP's connection to the AG program from the AWA website (AWA, formerly WRAA, is a volunteer support group for the WRAP program): 

"The association was founded mainly as a support group for the Rural Art Program (RAP), begun in 1940 by UW-Madison’s Dean Chris Christensen and Prof. John Barton. These visionary men believed the lives of rural families could and should be enriched with art. They recruited John Steuart Curry to UW to be an artist-in-residence who would spend time traveling about, encouraging citizen artists and crafts people. By 1945 the RAP had held its first exhibit in Madison of works by non-professional artists from around the state. The program became so popular that Prof. James Schwalbach was hired to coach rural artists and set up exhibits. He and Curry’s successor, Aaron Bohrod, attended a dozen shows per year, teaching and judging. The plan for a regional artists’ association was first proposed by a handful of artists who were excited by the early RAP and wanted to help UW Extension reach out to even more Wisconsin artists, stating this goal explicitly in their by-laws."

Thank you to the Ag Department for this honor!

Prairie du Sac WRAP Exhibit

Like many WRAP shows this year, the Prairie du Sac WRAP Exhibit is being held online.

Eighteen people registered for the show with a total of 45 pieces. Coordinator Terry Doeler reports that this is the number of people that generally enter the Prairie du Sac WRAP so he is pleased to be able to maintain that number of entrants even with the change to the online format. View the show here.

I entered two of my portrait collages - He Was Dubious (17 X 11) and February (8 X 10).

He Was Dubious

February

Cambridge Virtual WRAP Show

In response to the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting lock-downs, most of the 2020 spring and early summer WRAP shows have either canceled or moved online.

The 2020 Cambridge WRAP was the first to be held online. Each participating artist mailed or emailed images for up to 3 works to the Cambridge Show coordinator Jill Jensen. The images were then uploaded to the cloud with a link to the show on the UW WRAP website. 

The show judge was Diana Cavalerro. Diana received her Bachelor of Fine Art from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2006. In 2016 she received her Master of Fine Art degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Diana has exhibited in Chicago, New York, Madison and various places around Wisconsin. Her mediums include oil, ink and watercolor.

On May 2nd, Diana did a Portrait Demo for the Cambridge WRAP participants via Zoom. 15 artists attended the Zoom presentation. Then to follow up, there was a Critique Happy Hour via Zoom on the evening of May 7th during which Diana commented on pieces as requested by the artists. Both sessions went well and were well attended despite many participants being Zoom "newbies." Fun to see everyone even from afar.

I submitted two small mixed media portraits - Carl (5 X 7) and Lemonade (7 X 7). Carl received a State Award so can be entered into the State Show in September.

Carl - mixed media collage, 5 X 7

Lemonade - mixed media collage, 7 X 7

Art in the Time of Corona

Hope everyone is making a lot of art during this stay-at-home time. Here's a few things I've been playing around with.

Lately I've really been trying to use up some of those supplies that have been cluttering up the studio for way too long. These pieces are basically decoupaged 2 X 4 lumber scraps. Kind of a mystery why I had stashed these away but they were definitely begging to become part of an art project.

They started out as simple collages a la some collages like this one that I did a while back on a deep (1.5 inch) cradled panel -

But then I started coating the collages with layer after layer of acrylic medium in a technique meant to mimic the look of encaustic - something that takes oodles of time, which I've kind of had in abundance lately.

For some reason the results reminded me of apothecary jars...but then I couldn't resist throwing in some string and dried weeds so maybe ultimately they look a bit more like vases? Either way, kind of a fun project.

Trouble is now I want to make more and have run out of 2 X 4 scraps. I really should resist the temptation to add to my clutter by scrounging more scrap lumber and instead unearth some other mixed media fodder lurking in the studio stash...there's lots more. Stay tuned.

2020 Arts Mineral Point Member Show

Ben and I each have two pieces in the 2020 Arts Mineral Point (AMP) Member Art Show. This year it is in the Masonic Lodge and will be open weekends from February 1st through February 15th.

"Gabrielle"

"Ilsa"

"A Snowy Stroll"

"Milkweed" 

The piece, Gabrielle, was my sample for a demo at the Sun Prairie WRAP Show back in November. Here's how it started out: 

New Work at Last!

Whew. Busy summer and fall, first tending gardens, then helping with the Shake Rag Alley 2020 curriculum. Finally got back to making art. Finished a piece that I started as a demo for the Sun Prairie Wisconsin Regional Art Program (WRAP) workshop back in early November.

Here's the finished piece:

And here's the demo "before":

The demo piece was actually a copy of the background with the portrait taped in place and the body and hat outlined. In the finished piece, I've kept the placement of the portrait and the hat, but changed the body position for a more lively feel. Also found the background a bit gloomy and wanted to differentiate it from the figure, so went over it with white gesso. I had intended to add a wash of color over the gesso but decided I liked the cloudy look of the white gesso with the visual texture of the background peeking through. 

Sugar Row Gallery Group Show

My piece entitled "Sharon's Rhinoceros" is in the current group show at Sugar Row Gallery. Show runs through the end of the month and features artwork by twelve Mineral Point artists:

Sun Prairie WRAP Show Demo

Portrait drawing has been collaged onto the background.
The next step will be to develop the hat and bodice, 
and blend the figure with the background.

Wisconsin Regional Art Program (WRAP) exhibits always culminate with a Workshop Day consisting of a morning workshop and an afternoon critique by the show judge of the artwork that was given awards - 1/3 of the entries receive "State Awards" and move on to an annual State exhibit in Madison in September.

I was given the opportunity to be the morning workshop presenter at the Sun Prairie WRAP Workshop Day on Nov 2nd. Many workshop leaders present a retrospective of their work, but I was asked to do a demo of my mixed media collage techniques, specifically how I create the backgrounds for my figurative collage pieces.

The Sun Prairie WRAP show is large with about 45-50 participants, mostly painters. What a great group they were! Lots of interest in what I was doing, even though it was quite different from what they do. Lots of questions and dialog. A truly enjoyable morning.

I showed how to do a mixed media background with layers of collage materials and paint, using stamps and stencils for pattern. I then talked about how I "find" an image in the chaos of the background and add one of my portrait drawings (well actually, a scanned copy of a drawing).

In the sample at the top above, the figure has been added but not yet enhanced or incorporated into the background. There is a clear suggestion of a hat and a bodice in the background pattern. These will be enhanced and the figure will be blended into the background.

Below is a sample layered mixed media background. There is just a slight hint of where a portrait could go with a top hat and a bodice. The next image shows the same background with the portrait in place and the hat and bodice outlined.

2019 WRAA State Day

The State Day conference was held September 20–21 at the Pyle Center on the UW campus in Madison.

Michael Velliquette served as the conference presenter and judge of the show. He is a paper sculptor whose "intricate works combine exuberant abundance with an inventive formalism." Throughout his career, he has shown in over 150 museums and galleries. His position as Faculty Associate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison presents the opportunity to lecture and teach on his work and the paper arts. 

One of Michael's amazing paper sculptures - 

Michael Velliquette spoke about his work and then guided participants in creating a miniature exhibition a la the Lovey Town Exhibition Program that he founded in 2013. State Day participants created miniature 2 X 3 inch colored pencil drawings which were "hung" in the miniature "gallery" space provided by Michael. Then small paper doll cutouts of the artists were created from photographs taken on the spot and placed in the gallery spaces. What fun!

Shake Rag Alley Instructor Showcase

As part of their 15th anniversary celebrations, Shake Rag Alley is exhibiting work created by some of their instructors in the Art Cafe adjacent to the red Coach House building. The showcase will be open and artwork for sale during Shake Rag Alley office hours (8 am-4:30 pm, Thursday-Saturday and 8 am-5 pm Sunday).

I have submitted a couple of my figurative collages, a small textual collage and an altered paprika tin assemblage figure.