Wrapping Up This (Crap) Year!

I am happy to welcome a new year soon, and I'll have a bit more time next semester to make my art. I have a big exhibition scheduled in 2019, so I will be working on that, and checking on another artists' work to compliment mine in the show, over the holiday break. I have some fun "building" to do, some work with architectural details as well as getting back into drawings.

I know this is a rather anti-climactic send-off to the year, but honestly....up yours, 2017.

Exhibitiony Stuff

THE BEST PHOTO...

Photo by Rob Clatterbuck, from the opening night of the exhibition, "Come As You Are: The Spectrum of Vulnerability" at Creative Alliance at the Patterson, August 2017. Incidentally, I had just gotten done crying a little. It was an emotional night. I was actually watching my friend/curator, Allison Gulick, watch me cry on the screen and it was a little too meta for my tastes. Hit me like a ton of bricks, and I fled the scene for about a minute, and had a run-in with an old lady in the hallway who asked me if I was meditating. I sucked it up and replied, "Yes ma'am, I'm 'meditating'" and came back into the gallery, where the photographer caught me with this. I can't say that I'm at all mad at the result, and now I have a lasting memory of that particular string of moments. This is an honest photograph.

On an even better note: I just found out this week that I now have an exhibition lined up at HCC's RCFG (the big gallery) for Spring of 2019! WOOHOO!

Artist Talk THIS Saturday, 9/30/17

Join me at the Artist Talk this Saturday at 4pm!

UPDATE! Tomorrow! Catch Me On Sofie's Parlor!

ETA: The original date was rescheduled!

Tomorrow! I was invited by the incredible Brenda Hayes, whom will be subbing on August 16th, guests will be singer/songwriter/activist Maimouna Youssef and ME! Tune in 3-5pm WPFW locally or streaming online at www.wpfwfm.org.

Sofie's Parlor is the longest running radio show for and about women! 

Here's the archive link for the show!:  http://archive.wpfwfm.org/mp3/wpfw_170816_150000jjsophie.mp3

The Big Show 2017!

I have one of my pieces in The Big Show at the Creative Alliance again this year...my piece is still available for purchase: only $150!

While I was there I also picked up a nice stack of postcards for the show in August! I am the red slice, because duh.

Come As You Are: The Spectrum of Vulnerability

Exhibition

I'd like to invite you to see my work at the Creative Alliance, on August 26th (main gallery)!

 "The eight artists in Come As You Are: The Spectrum of Vulnerability offer their individual vignettes and artwork as evidence of their personal struggles and the power of resiliency. Working in a variety of traditional and non-traditional media, the artwork addresses essential themes of the human condition and moves beyond individual perspectives and particular stigmatizations."

I'll have some older work to show, some newer work that has only been seen by about 30 people, and one piece that has never been shown in public (!). You'll get a real wealth of my guts in this showing! Tempting, amiright??? ;)

What: Come As You Are: The Spectrum of Vulnerability

Where: The Creative Alliance, Baltimore MD 
When: August 26 - September 30, 2017
Reception on August 26, 6-8pm

CTP

Something that seems adjacent to my art practice, but is really much more integrated, is my relationship with trauma. I had some extra time this semester and paid for something I really wanted and really needed. I took a series of five classes which resulted in a Certified Trauma Practitioner (CTP-Clinical) designation. I received the certification from The National Institute for Trauma and Loss in Children yesterday, but completed my work on Mother's Day. Kismet.

How this will work into my community arts practice will be another story, but for now I am very proud and content with how far I have come.

All for you, mom...

The Angsty Arts

Watercolors, for peace of mind (just a few of the many postcard size pieces I have been making lately)...

A Real Success!

The TFAPB Metallurgy Mavens at ToolBank event was such a great time! We had so much support from so many avenues! We also had a professional photographer and these are a little snippet of more to come...check em out! http://marlaynaphotography.zenfolio.com/tfapb-2017

Metallurgy Mavens - TFAPB at ToolBank!

In addition to a few watercolor on paper pieces for the exhibition, these two rowhouse pieces will be up for silent auction from me!

Make sure to get a FREE ticket for this TFAPB event on the 25th! https://www.eventbrite.com/e/metallurgy-mavens-tfap-b-member-show-tickets-31431480404

Work's Up!

Sweet spot on the wall, for my work at the Faculty Exhibition...

Interview with Project GirlSpire!

Find it here

Very pleased to be contacted by Project GirlSpire through The Feminist Art Project - Baltimore for this interview. It was kind of tough to do! It took a lot of way-back remembering and sort of displacing myself from my current self (!) A completely weird, mildly uncomfortable, and very exciting experience! I also found it rather therapeutic, especially since I am currently, (slowly) taking trauma-informed practitioner courses. So that, in itself, is a reflection on my experience.

The toughest part of the interview might have been the top five musical selection. I had to really think back to what was on my mixtapes in my car at that time...heh. No easy task, and I had to do a lot of cross-referencing to see what album from a particular artist came out during or before that year. Yikes. I think I achieved a pretty accurate representation in the end though. I also loved reminiscing about Anne of Green Gables. If I were 5 or so years younger, it would have been Buffy all the way. I think Anne Shirley is a pretty good precursor to Buffy Summers though...

Anyway, check that out, please!

Mail Art Maven

AHA! MAIL ART!

I've always loved the idea of art that travels, art that picks up the scuffs and marks made by the actual process of mailing things. In fact, some of my first listed exhibitions, waaay back were mail art exhibitions. I am still very excited about the idea of mail art and what it can encompass.

Here are some new mail art pieces that have already been sent away!

AND I will be guest artist (subbing) for a local arts center soon, and we came up with some great ideas in regards to my love of mail art and paper. They want me to really run with it...


KTHANKS, NO PROBLEM

All Things February!

I'm going to drop all of the graphics & details below

What: Faculty Exhibition, invitational
Where: Howard Community College, Columbia MD
When: January 12 - March 19, 2017
Reception on February 2, 5-7pm

 I'll have three pieces in this show.

What: Metallurgy Mavens, TFAPB invitational
Where: Baltimore Community ToolBank, Baltimore
When: February 25, 6-9pm (one night only!)

 I will have work in this show, but I'm not sure what yet, but I think it will be 3D work.

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And lastly, TFAPB's Curator-In-Residence, Aimi Bouillon has her first of two exhibitions this year, with an opening on February 3rd...

What: Feminism Fights Military Morals
Where: Ballroom Gallery, Baltimore MD
When: February 3 - February 18, 2017
Reception on February 3, 7-10pm

Drop-Off

I just got back from dropping my work at HCC for the Faculty Exhibition this year. This photo is wicked bad, but the lighting was so low in there, even with the flash. Anyway, I decided on three of my Time pieces, which utilize yarn to create line (time-lines).

Here are the details!

The Rouse Company Foundation Gallery

HCC Faculty Exhibition

January 12-March 19

Reception: February 2, 5:00-7:00pm

Re-Starts

Happy New Year!

I feel the urge/enjoyment to write again! 

Can I say that I had a catharsis on Christmas day, in writing my (long overdue, long feared) victim impact statement? Yes, yes I did. I stopped at the top edge of the landing in my stairwell when I was finished, and I let out a deep, emptying, full-bodied sigh. And just as I looked up, the sunlight rose sharply, as it does sometimes, and it dramatically cut off the shadows in the stairwell below. It lit that shit UP. I felt a moment of such great relief. I felt as if I had received a little bit of grace from the Universe. It was so beautiful that I could have cried, but I smiled instead.

Moth to a flame, I get closer to the light.

#getoutamyway #BIGLY2017 ;) #mothsgetburnedtho #hopingforthebest

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I am getting prepared to start work(s) again this week (BOOOO). I really relished having a few weeks off to decompress and (try) to relax. If you know me at all, you know this is a monumental task, and pretty much all vacations are wasted on me. And usually I find that my "vacations" are really my brain shutting off because it can't take anymore. In November/December, I wasn't quite to the stress level of the grad school shut downs -- where I would often find myself/"wake up" in a completely silent room staring at the blank wall in front of me, recalling no distinguishing thoughts, and realizing the clear passage of time -- but it was not the best that I have felt.

SO, that brings me again to "Time". I am getting ready to drop off my three pieces to the annual Faculty Exhibition at my college job this week. They will be from the unfinished-ish (? possibly, as my views on Time might morph/grow again, and then the series will be finished) series Of Essence and Time.

I would show you some images, but honestly, I have been altering them a tad. If it's an invitational, and I have not been accepted to a show based on specific work...there is a high probability that the pieces I have my eye on will be drastically (or minimally) changed in the final weeks up to the drop-off. With time, I can see what they need and get it done in one, bold, stroke. I already made my dramatic move on one of the pieces. None of them is safe!

I'll post images of the work as soon as they are more/newly/completely finished. I still have a few days of brooding and indecision over them all. One piece might even get switched out for another, last minute. That's how I roll (actually I am rarely ever indecisive, but choosing the art or the images for the portfolios takes A LOT of time and back-and-forth, on my part).

I'll have some moremoreMORE notable things coming up in the first few months of the new year, and I hope you do too. Cheers!