The Art Studio space is coming along well! We've moved into our permanent spot, where I've been able to spend time matting and framing my recent photos. A number of them are hanging in the Spectrum Gallery on the Lake! To the right is a picture of the old DeKoven Center where Spectrum is located in Racine. We have a small co-op of about 12 lovely artists, many photographers, a few sculptors, a bead artist or two, and some mixed media artists. If you're in town, I can open it and give you a personalized tour. Otherwise, we're open on the weekends. Check us out at http://www.spectrumschoolandgallery.org/. Denise is a wonderful owner and manager of the Art School and has given our group the space for the Gallery and coop. My children actually took art classes there when they were youngsters. We were all young then! Ha!
Last evening we had an interesting meeting on Black and White Photography, with good participation from members and the public. My beloved Canon S200 camera broke two days ago, so I was interested in what the photographers had to say about kinds, qualities, and pricing of decent cameras for a person truly interested in furthering an interest in the field. I'll be shopping soon, using their input and will be looking at Nikon and Canon (my favorite) options.
Here are a few of the photographs I have hanging in at Spectrum and also at our Studio!
A Florist putting out his morning flowers drew me in, with my friend Stephen, as we walked near the Castro section of San Francisco on an early March morning. The florist was eager to talk about his beauties! First, I saw a large collection of fresh daisies, and enjoyed the way the daisies were arranged: a light-colored row followed by a darker row, which highlighted both very well. There were many more colors and rows in the grouping, but I chose this close-up photo, and love the colors! I took many more photos of the flowers he pointed out!
The next one is a Black and White I took last year in Germany at the Marien Platz in Munich, when Al and I took a group of high school students on a week's tour of German speaking countries. I'm enjoying the black / white photography of architecture, trying to get a good balance of light and dark that highlight the lines so well.
This last picture is one of my favorites, and started out as a really poor photographic image. I had a long session of Photoshop Painting, and ended up with a beautiful "digital painting". There is actually nothing left of the original photo. I was engrossed and "driven" to complete the process of filling the image with my vision and my own energy! THAT was enjoyable!
My next big feat is to get my http://www.wildbloomarts.com/ site operational. Again, I've tried working on it in the wee hours of the night. Now, I'm going to dig in and get my art onto my web page within the next few weeks I hope.
It's Memorial Day weekend, and aside from visiting my mother, spending time with my family, and taking a day trip to the Chicago Botanical Gardens, my mind will be on sending some good energy to our young men and women in the Middle East, and wanting them back here as soon as possible, with medical and school benefits that show we cared about them! Enjoy your weekend, love the ones you're with! Mary
TODAY'S PHOTO, a womanly naughty/nice image, is hanging in one of our newer city restaurants in the downtown area. I asked one of the gals who was working about the tarp and if it was vintage. She said yes, that it was a tarp or advertising canvas for one of the several circus companies that used to tour from city to city. The artist who signed the large canvas was P Barnett, with whom I am not familiar; another late night search! M.
