New Work Wednesday: Rift 02/22/2012
My new painting this week is entitled Rift. 
This painting layers little bits of Hawaiian maps, mica, metallic tape, acrylic media and paint on a small stretched canvas. I really enjoyed working with a grid again on this small surface. I remain fascinated and inspired by the idea that geological shifts and transformations take place constantly – even if ever-so-slowly – and that landscapes are continually changing. Even the rifts that form cracks and breaks result in shifting and developing, too. Thanks so much for visiting my blog! Hope you're having a wonderful week! Mary^ 8 Comments 29 ways to stay CREATIVE! 02/20/2012
I’m a huge fan of the first and second ways to stay creative!! I do both daily!! What would you add as #30? Have a great beginning to a creative week! Mary^ Friday Favorite: Alicia Merrett 02/17/2012
This Friday's Feature artist is Alicia Merrett and her Contemporary Art Quilts! I especially enjoy her latest work on maps and cities and would love to own one of her Map Fragments! From her artist statement: I have always been interested in towns and cities, and their imprint on our earth, but with my move to Somerset, the landscape, the weather, the seasons, the time of day and night, have acquired a different significance. Rivers have an unexpected relevance, and views from above have become a fascination. Man’s imprint on the landscape is still everywhere, but life develops differently. I observe the world around me with fresh eyes and map it, record it, and imagine it, in my new work. 
To find out more about Alicia Merrett, visit her website here! TGIF! Mary^ New Work, Interview, Atlas & Show! 02/15/2012
 Map to Happy by Jill K. Berry It’s been a busy, eventful week! First, I want to thank Jill Berry from the bottom of my heart for featuring me on her Personal Geographies blog Friday! What an honor it was to be interviewed by this talented, inspiring artist/author who shares my intense passion for maps and layers! Click here to check out my Guest Cartophile interview on Jill’s blog! Also, I want to thank Naomi Silver, who invited me to her home and studio Saturday to give me a wonderful 1970s atlas she had grown up with! Can’t wait to incorporate these great images into new mixed-media paintings! It’s always such a delight to meet and connect with other artists like Naomi, and her paintings are exceptional. I love the uniqueness and richness of the surfaces she creates! You can check out Naomi’s paintings on her website by clicking here. 
Pictures of the atlas Naomi gave me. Thank you, Naomi!
My new work this week was inspired by artist Jenny Doh, her book Art Saves, and ephemera I collected during my most recent visit to Red Lead. It is entitled Plant Small Seeds. I painted river rocks with gesso, then pasted words from an old science book onto these. With a graphite pencil, I drew designs near the words, then collaged the vintage ephemera and rocks onto the hard cover of the same science book. Lastly, I tied airmail red, white, and blue bakers twine around the side and bottom of the piece. 
Below are some details of this piece: 
Was also very excited to have 2 paintings accepted into Edwardsville Arts Center's 2nd All Media Competition! Dropped off both paintings Saturday. I've pasted the postcard announcement for this new show below! 
Thanks so much for visiting my blog! Hope you're having a wonderful week! Mary^ Shop Around...Red Lead! 02/13/2012
I love Red Lead PaperWorks and wanted to share this gem of a store with you! Located in the historic Webster Groves neighborhood of St. Louis, Chris Schwartz and her sister (and best friend) Sharon Wisely are the co-owners of Red Lead. They have everything your mixed-media heart desires: from papers to stamps, trinkets, brads, buttons, and charms, fabric, ribbons and art supplies! During my most recent visit, Chris was in the studio teaching visitors to create vintage-style Valentine cards! There was freshly brewed Starbucks, and Sharon's famous homemade banana-walnut-chocolate cookies! Yum! The store itself is a visual delight...like a lovely collage in itself! It was a challenge to narrow down my photos below! 
Besides all these visual delights, Chris and Sharon frequently offer creative workshops, too. My favorite was Chris' Metal Stamping Workshop where I learned a ton! If you are ever in or near the St. Louis area, you should definitely stop by this store! Even if you don't live in St. Louis, you can shop Red Lead 24/7 at their website by clicking here. I enjoy following their creative blog here, too! Thank you Chris and Sharon for owning such a unique and inspiring store! Hope everyone has a great beginning to their week! Mary^ Friday Favorite: Sabine Réthoré 02/10/2012
This Friday’s Feature artist is Sabine Réthoré! I especially enjoy her Lovely Place series of work and the way she compared drawing maps to calligraphy! (Have I mentioned that I teach calligraphy, too?) From her artist statement: I love drawing lines on maps, in the same way that a calligrapher loves drawing letters: the quality of the line must reflect the meaning of the text and where maps are concerned, reflect a significant representation of the world. My cartography is precise. It’s just my point of view that's different. 
To find out more about Sabine Réthoré, visit her website here! TGIF! Mary^ Your Rainbow Panorama 02/06/2012
May 27, 2011 was the official opening of Your rainbow panorama, a new work by Olafur Eliasson on the roof of the Danish art museum ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum. I was fortunate enough to visit Aarhus, Denmark, and this amazing work and museum in July. 
In 2007, Olafur Eliasson won the competition for his work to stand on the roof of this museum. The jury was unanimous in their decision, selecting Your rainbow panorama, saying: The project is an elegant solution to the objective of the competition, which was to convert the roof surface of ARoS into a unique, artistic and architectonic feature of international standing. The project creates a very beautiful, poetical space that combines the panoramic view from the roof with a unique artistic and architectonic dimension that helps develop a new understanding of the borderline between architecture and visual art. At the same time, a powerful symbol of identity is created and established for ARoS and the city of Aarhus. Olafur Eliasson describes his work: Your rainbow panorama establishes a dialogue with the existing architecture and reinforces what was already there, that is to say the view across the city. I have created a space that can almost be said to erase the boundary between inside and outside – a place where you become a little uncertain as to whether you have stepped into a work of art or into part of the museum. This uncertainty is important to me, as it encourages people to think and sense beyond the limits within which they are accustomed to function. INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT Your rainbow panorama • The steel used in Your rainbow panorama weighs 200 tons. • The glass used in Your rainbow panorama weighs 60 tons. • The steps leading up from the terrace level to Your rainbow panorama weigh 15 tons. • The steel for the load-distributing steel construction beneath the terrace floor weighs 100 tons. • There is space for altogether 290 visitors at a time on the roof terrace and 150 in Your rainbow panorama. Before leaving Aarhus, I also stopped by Aarhus Cathedral...to see the largest stained glass art in Denmark, created by Emanuel Vigelund, brother of none other than Gustav Vigelund! See my previous post on artist Gustav Vigelund by clicking here. Thank you all so much, too, for commenting on my blog for a chance to win 4 sketchbooks! There were 166 comments made by the midnight CST February 5th deadline! Wow! Comments were numbered from 1 to 166, with number 1 being the first comment made. Then I used random.org to generate the winner. Drum roll please… And the winner is… 
Congratulations to Claire Hyman! I will contact you to get your pertinent information to send you your new sketchbooks! I hope you have a creative and colorful week! Mary^ Friday Favorite: Val Britton 02/03/2012
This Friday’s Feature artist is Val Britton! I love the intricacy of her worldscape series and admire her deeply personal motivation for her work. From her artist statement: I make immersive, collaged works on paper that draw on the language of maps. The impetus for this body of work was my longing to connect to my father, a truck driver who drove eighteen-wheelers across the country; he died when I was a teenager. Based on road maps of the United States, routes my father often traveled, and an invented conglomeration, mutation, and fragmentation of those passageways, my works on paper help me piece together the past and make up the parts I cannot know. My mixed media abstractions map not only physical locations but also psychological and emotional spaces. Painting through staining, seepage, and absorption becomes a metaphor for the fluidity of remembering, mimicking the geologic layers that constitute memories. Traveling, navigating routes, mapping our experiences, making choices at a crossroads, viewing purpose as a destination: these common metaphors link experiencing life with the notion of a journey. In my work I often think about how the retelling of our stories, the reconstruction of our journeys, helps us make sense of the now, and how the retelling is its own journey. Mapping serves as a metaphor for searching, an implication of the unknown in wide, open spaces, and a trace of how we see where we've been. 
worldscape I, 2010, paper construction with ink and tape, approximately 43 x 43 inches
worldscape II, 2010, paper construction with ink and tape, approximately 4.5 x 5 feet
worldscape III, 2010, paper construction with ink and tape, approximately 9 x 9 feet
worldscape VI, 2011, paper construction with ink and tape, approximately 38 x 30 inches
To find out more about Val Britton and her work, visit her website! TGIF! Mary^ A Creative Road Map & Art of the Heart! 02/01/2012
My new painting this week is actually a creative road map! On Sunday, I was fortunate enough to attend Kristen Power's Vision Board and Wishing Stones workshop at Wood Icing. During this workshop, we made our goals and vision for 2012 into art! 
We painted and collaged our hopes and dreams! Besides being a good friend, Kristen is an amazing artist and teacher. She's one of those rare people who always brings out the very best in people, and I'm so grateful to have her as a friend. Below are some details of my mixed-media painting. After hand-stamping words and phrases onto decorative paper and painting the paper edges, I adhered the pieces onto my painted the canvas board I had painted. Lastly, I looked at an atlas as a reference and painted the blue roads connecting my dreams. 
In 2012, I am trying to plant small seed every day.
Another goal for 2012 is to visit Chicago more to spend time my sister and my favorite niece and nephew!
Had to incorporate my word for 2012, too!
If you are in or near the St. Louis area this weekend, please stop by Art of the Heart! Nine local artists and I will be having a Valentine's exhibit and sale at Rung with a portion of all sales proceeds being donated to the Women's Foundation of Greater Saint Louis! 
Thanks so much for visiting my blog! Hope you're having a wonderful week! Mary^ Giving it away! 01/30/2012
 To celebrate my completion of The Sketchbook Project 2012, I'm giving away 4 sketchbooks to one lucky reader! Use these colorful, blank books for sketching, list-making, or doodling! These bright 5.5" x 8.5" notebooks were created by Prince Chicago Designs on Etsy! 
To enter the drawing, just leave a comment below! The giveaway will run for one week; through midnight CST next Sunday, February 5th. Winner will be chosen using Random.org. I'll announce the winner on Monday, February 6th! Good luck! Have a great beginning to your week! Mary^ | About Me
I am a painter and art educator living in the Greater St. Louis Area. I love creating mixed-media paintings layered with maps and geologic drawings. This blog is a place for me to share my work and what inspires me. Read more here.  Follow me? Interested in buying my art?
You will always see my most recent paintings here on my blog, so you are in the right place. If you are ever interested in a piece, feel free to contact me. You can also find my work at Wood Icing, The Little Gallery at Art Saint Louis, Artlandish Gallery, and Etsy!    Grab my button ArchivesFebruary 2012 CategoriesAll |
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