Hanging out with art and artists.


What could be better than two days of fun friends and family, great art and tasty food?

I feel honored to be chosen as one of over 100 Oregon artists for the 28th Annual Visual Arts Showcase. What made it even better was celebrating with so many artist friends. I love Joni and Cynthia’s sculptures. Brenda’s pastels are always so beautiful. And Christy, Christine, Tupper, Gretha and Sunny’s paintings were treasures for the eyes and the soul.

The food on Friday was absolutely delicious. Catered by Ava in Beaverton, there was a dazzling selection of cheeses, fruit, focaccia sandwiches, salads and little bite size desserts. Saturday, I enjoyed chocolate covered strawberries, dessert bars and cheeses. Yum!

The exhibit included a wide range of fine art and craft including paintings, pastels, mixed media, photography and sculpture. I enjoyed seeing all the pieces and meeting many new artists.

I had two pieces accepted this year. My ‘Ocean Elements’ triptych and ‘Reflection’ are two very different and yet, very similar pieces. Both are ‘bas’ relief pieces out of metal.

The ‘Reflection’ piece is copper sheeting sculpted using my version of the age old technique of copper repoussé.

I sculpted the ‘Ocean Elements’ piece using my fingers, hands and arms, then painted the aluminum mesh with many, many layers of acrylic paints. It’s the biggest piece I’ve ever attempted in aluminum mesh. After it was done, it hung on my studio walls for quite a while. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, actually. I knew I wanted to frame or mount it somehow, but, the question was…how? I know I didn’t want the edges tucked or matted. My husband made the frames and we figured out a way to ‘float’ the mesh pieces inside the frame.

It’s always a little nerve-racking wondering how your art will be displayed. The triptych was hung at the entrance to the show on the brick wall and it really worked against the red brick.

I was so happy to see it there in the show and to spend the weekend hanging out with friends, family and art…well, life doesn’t get much better than that.