Summer again

Boy, does the time every fly! It’s already almost the middle of July! Just hung a new show at the Riverfront Art Gallery, www.riverfrontartgallery.com. Some of my favorite vacations. Reception is this Saturday, at 5 pm…Also have work at Pelican Art “Hope and Optimism” show, and at Plaza Arts in Healdsburg. Viva Chocolat has 12 pieces in their wonderful little chocolate shop down the street from the gallery. All in all, I have about 30 pieces hanging right now.

I’m in a wierd place with my painting again. I’m happy with what I’m doing…will post some updates tomorrow…but am vaguely dissatisfied with the landscape genre. Perhaps it’s all tied in with a desire to have more spirit in my life.

There is so much mediocre art out there…I don’t want to be just another mediocre artist. Have I really found my “voice?” Or am I just rendering what I see around me? Or is that my “voice?” Is there anything unique about what I’m doing at all?

As always, I am asking myself if my paintings are just nice decorations, or is there something else there. Sometimes I think “it” art has to be undecipherable to be legitimate. If you can’t understand what the artist is saying, it must be profound, right?

And then there’s art that IS just decoration…big flowers, big flower parts, I reallly mean really big…and this is exciting? Maybe it’s big, but what is it?

WASCO’s Aqua Areas Show is coming up…last year I sold one of my favorite ever paintings there…”Grace”. This year, I wonder if I have anything worthy to enter. Maybe I’m show fatigued. Maybe I’m “painting just for shows” fatigued.

Mid-September I will be featured artist at Riverfront Art Gallery…that means 12-14 “new” pieces…OH VEY! Gotta get painting. Pray for inspiration!

Spring has Sprung!

Awesome Dawning Day, every day a new beginning!

I can’t believe May is gone and June is on it’s way! My month at the Plumas Arts Gallery went well…sold a print of “Spanish Creek” and some cards. Now I have 12 pieces hanging at Viva Cocolat in downtown Petaluma, a fabulous little chololate shop. Some of the work formerly shown in Cucina Paradiso moved next door to the sweets shop! Here’s their website: [www.vivacololat.com] Next week, I’ll hang two pieces at another local art gallery Pelican Art…their website: [www.pelicanart.com] The name of the show is “Hope and Optimism”. Awesome Dawning Day is one of these pieces. At the end of the month, I will start a month at the Plaza Arts Galley in Healdsburg, just off the square…more later.

I’ve added links to my friend Karen’s blogs…Daily Dialect, which is a heartwarming blog about being with a one-year old…if you’ve had small children or grandchidren, you’ll relate. The other blog, Local Dialect, is a commentary on current events in Petaluma!

Quincy Art Walk on Friday

Here is the link announding the reception in the Plumas Arts Gallery on Friday, May 1. The art will be exhibited in a cozy little galley with wonderful old brick walls…you know, the ones that have lines of seasoned bricks waving across the wall…Hope to see you there!

http://plumasarts.org/prelease/walk.html

Off to Quincy

I’m off to Quincy to prepare for the show to be hung next week at Plumas Arts Gallery in downtown Quincy. It will hang for about a month. Two days after that show goes up, we change the show at the Riverfront Art Gallery…the challenge will be having two cohesive shows at the same time. Check out my friend Susan Cornelius blog on the blog roll…really interesting work.

Thank you to everyone for all of the positive feedback on my new website. It’s been a long time coming and thanks to katgrafix, it’s just what I wanted.

It’s Here!!

Announcing my webpage www.marileeford.com. As of this afternoon, we have finally tweaked and tweaked and have gone live! I hope you’ll enjoy it! And offer any suggestions for improvement that you care to share!

Coming Up

Look across the American Valley towards Quincy

The Blackheaded Brosbeak visits our bird feeders in Summer droves. They have an incredible song!

Ode to Georgia, Watercolor

Ghost Ranch II

Glory Be, a Watercolor on hand-made paper, which will be at the Plumas Arts Gallery Show in May

From May 1 through May 29, my watercolor paintings and oils will be featured at the Plumas County Arts Commission Gallery in downtown Quincy.  May 1 is their monthly Art Walk…locals enjoy the evening and visit all of the galleries in town.   The first two piece above will be in this show. They are some of the new paintings that I’ve completed for this show, as I want to feature the incredible scenes of Plumas County. 

There is also a new exhibit at Riverfront Art Gallery in downtown Petaluma.  I am saddened by the loss of my gallery partner, JoAnn Naylor, who passed away a few weeks ago.  We were all shocked and upset because she left very quickly.  Her work recently came down, so I have expanded to fill out our space until the next change-over.

My website is nearing completion.  www.marileeford.com Katrina Small of www.Katgrafix.com is working on it for me.  These websites look easy, but they are not!  Takes HOURS of compiling, cross-checking and then sending to get them into place.  I’m working on the Naturlich website update, and it seems to drag on forever.  The issue is partly just not having big blocks of time to work on it…But is all gets done eventually!

In an earlier post, I showed a spray painted piece. “Ode to Georgia”, above is what it looked like finished. “Ghost Ranch II” and “Glory Be” are also from my sojourn into New Mexico in September.

New paintings

My latest paintings were done at our house in Quincy.  I thought I had brought my paints along, but had not.  I did have a set of sample colors from Auro Paints.  Auro is a natural paint used, normally, to paint residential walls!  These paints are from Germany and are made only from natural raw materials like linseed oil, and REAL mineral pigments.  Because the pigments are so close to the earth, they are perfect for a landscape painting!  The quality of these paintings are quite different…soothing even.  You can see one at Riverfront Art Gallery and the other at Gallery One, both in downtown Petaluma.

This series of watercolor paintings were done at a Jeanne Carbonnetti workshop.  They represent my interpretation of each of the seven chakras.

Where it all begins…the light

Seventh Chakra

Sixth Chakra

Fifth Chakra

Fourth Chakra

Third Chakra

Second Chakra

First Chakra

Upcoming Website

Katie, sweet Katie

My website is in production, finally and will be up within a few weeks!! I’ll post the link when it’s ready. This blog entry is dedicated to Katie…sweet Katie, our terrier-x pup died a week ago. It has been a time of loss for us…our companion is now bouncing around, happily in dog-heaven.

Blessings for Herman

In the picture from End of July, an earlier posting, you will see Herman posing in front of my painting…dear Herman passed onto cat heaven last night, from liver disease.  He slowly stopped breathing, as he snuggled in my lap with my daughter Tesia by our side.  He was a friendly, dignified, big male cat, who stayed very close in his last days of life and we will miss him every day.

WASCO Aqua Areas

Another art event this last month happened at Coddingtown Mall in Santa Rosa…the annual WASCO Aqua Areas juried watercolor show.  I submitted three paintings.  This one sold before the show was even juried.

Unfurling Beauty, sold at the PVH show last month.

 

The second, Grace, sold during the show (it’s in a earlier blog…the swan in the sunrise picture).  The third entry has sold since the show.

Yummy, watercolor painting

Needless to say, I am one very grateful artist. 

Rob and I are off to New York next week.  There’s an exhibit of Van Gogh’s “light” paintings, like Starry Night, at the MOMA.  Can’t wait to see them.  I just finished “The Yellow House” about the six weeks that Gauguin and Van Gogh lived together, and I’m in the middle of one about Manet, Morisot, Degas and Cassatt…I’m ready to look at, not just read about, art and to be inspired even more!

all images copyright Marilee Ford (c)2008