Will Paint for Food! Small format show

The co-op gallery in Breckenridge that I have my work in is doing a small format show this holiday season to benefit our local food bank. We are calling the show "Will Paint for Food" and we have asked the artists to use the food theme for their artwork. It doesn't have to be a bowl of food as I have above (onions) but it could be cows in a field, a cafe scene, a sign; anything that relates to the food theme somehow. We will have prizes and also a "people's choice" award. Our visitors always like being a part of the show, and we are asking them for a can a food or $1 for each vote. They can vote as often as they like for their favorite! In fact, we would love it if they stuff the ballot box. Anyone can enter, and if you are interested, you will find the info on our website at www.summitarts.org/events. Just go to the Small Format show section and click on the "application" link for information.

Breckenridge Poster contest finalist, that's me!

In November, I posted that I had entered two oil paintings in a competition for the 24th year of the Bach, Beethoven and Breckenridge poster. In the past, the posters have sold well as a fundraiser for the Breckenridge Music Festival. I often see them in homes here in Summit County, Colorado. My two submissions brough the total of entries to 22, and I found out recently that one was selected as a finalist! The photos above were the two I submitted, both 18x24, and the lower landscape is the one that made the finals.

There are no specific requirements about whether the poster should feature music or just be representative of the beautiful area in which we live. Mine was a local landscape with fall color, and the other finalist is a watercolor by Linda Dice of a woman leaning against a tree, playing a flute. Linda is a fellow New Zealander who also hangs her work in Arts Alive Gallery. Needless to say, I am thrilled, but I wonder if the poster will even get printed this year. Apparently, with the economy affecting many aspects of the art world, money for this project is in short supply. If it doesn't happen this year, it may not happen ever again! That would be unfortunate. Wish us luck!

Remodeling the gallery

Most of my time this week will be spent at the gallery. I am part of the Arts Alive co-op gallery in Breckenridge. It is run by volunteers who are the artists in the gallery. We decided it was time to add interior walls rather than the temporary pipe and mesh walls on loan by one of our members. Today we brought in and attached the walls made of metal studs that my husband put together in our garage ahead of time. We added sheetrock to one side of them, and after the building inspector takes a look at it tomorrow we can put sheetrock on the other side.

We will be closed for about a week and a half while we do the walls, replace the tile in the entry and do some general painting and sprucing up. All this for $1,000 and lots of volunteer labor! When you are a non profit corporation, as the gallery is, we do everything very inexpensively if we can.

I am currently working on an 18x24 painting that will be my submission for the Bach, Beethoven and Breckenridge poster for next year. It is due by November 15th, and if all goes well I will have at least two to submit. I still have some tweaking to do to this, the first one, but I will post it here later in the week. I will have trouble finding the time to paint this week!

What Is this blog about?

It is about the frustrating, yet rewarding, goal of being able to call myself an artist. When my artist sister introduces me to her friends as another artist, I often say something like, "well, I try", or "I paint". I want to get good enough at painting to be able to be comfortable being called an "artist".

For now, it is a hobby that seems to be turning into a small business. A third career, if you will. I am 61 and looking at the opportunity to retire from my job as a Realtor in a few years. I will turn my clients over to my daughter who works with me, and paint full time. Currently, I hang my work in the Arts Alive Gallery in Breckenridge and in the Art Gallery at Keystone Mountain in Keystone, Colorado. Arts Alive is a co-op gallery and I am very active in it.

When I first started painting I had no clue that I would ever be able to sell any of my work. After a while, I was wondering where I was going to put all the paintings! Why keep painting and stick them in a drawer? I found out about the gallery, applied to it and was accepted, and now I have a way to keep painting. The gallery has done well selling for me this year and I am learning lots of things about galleries, framing and how to present my work. Also, where to buy frames and supplies. I often take workshops and classes and will be sharing all that information in the hopes of helping other beginning artists as we go along. Tonight I will be doing a workshop for the Summit County Arts Council members on setting up your own website, so there will be more on that too. Keep coming back and I will keep writing!