Coming Up Soon at Jubilee Arts

On Friday May 6, 2011, the second community art exhibition for House Of Ruth Maryland will have its opening reception at Jubilee Arts from 3:30-5:30 pm. The second part of my own visual thesis, 3Tributaries will be up as well, for the duration of the month of May. Refreshments will be provided and a participatory art workshop will be available to all that come!

Come and see it Baltimore!

More on the Quilt

We are showing our finished quilt for the first time on Monday, after our critique. It will be up at MICA in Baltimore for the next few months in various buildings. The fb invite is here:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=216346221710787&index=1

More updates to come, as we are still building the structure...

Photo by Anne Kotleba

'Tis SOLD!

I just found out that my row house painting/print at the Art on Paper show was purchased by "the Fox's". I do not know who the Fox's are, but thank you, the Fox's! It was very validating to hear, since it's one of the pieces that led me to my current visual thesis work, 3Tributaries.

To better see the piece, go to this earlier post: http://artinshanaty.blogspot.com/2011/02/art-on-paper.html

And here it is in the MFA Circle Gallery with its red dot:

No longer mine.

NYC and Wisconsin

I have a few photos on flickr now from the recent mural tour of New York City that MAC/CAC took. I also have a few more recent photos of my quilt piece, or as I like to call it, "fabric collage". I changed the original theme from women's rights to workers' rights because I have been so obsessed with what has been going on in Madison and around the country. It actually hurts me when I watch the news, because I can't be in Wisconsin to protest this (imo) insanity.

Link to flickr set of the NYC mural tour: http://www.flickr.com/photos/artinshanaty/sets/72157626317402639/

The statement for my quilted piece is as follows:

The bird is used here as a metaphor for freedom, forward movement and our basic human rights. Specifically, I have been thinking about the nationwide attack and vilification of the working class in America. When "birds" are caged and their voices are squelched, all freedom is lost.

When they cannot sing, they scream.

Finished (but without the cage bars) piece above.

This is the official state seal on the Wisconsin state flag, and it's located near the top of the piece. We are having a simulated "cage bar" down the center and across each of the pieces. I placed this centrally because I knew the two people would be severed/divided...just as Wisconsin is right now.

This writing above says: Collective bargaining is a democratic action that keeps us one step away from slavery and takes us several steps closer to equality.

Located in the center of this raven's body is a sacred heart with the words "Forward" and "Wisconsin" across it. The writing at the bottom says "Forward not Backward".

P.S. The Wisconsin state statue by Jean P. Miner is also entitled "Forward".

Virtual Tour

You can cruise around the Maryland Federation of Art exhibition that I'm currently in, Art on Paper with this cool virtual tour feature! Check it out!
http://www.panoramastreet.com/live/Demos/MDfederationofart/

ETA: Ah ha! It's a NEW feature for MFA. I found this article written about the show and its panorama-ness.

Funnin'

During our team meeting on Friday morning, we worked on our quilts, reviewed our quilts collectively, figured out the order of where the pieces would go, and then generally screwed around and hammed it up. Here are some of the photos taken yesterday by our professors:

Collected Voices - Collected Dreams

An upcoming House Of Ruth Maryland community art exhibition will be held at Jubilee Arts starting on April 1st. The Jubilee Arts community will add to the exhibition all month long! And there will be free art classes taught by me for 8 weeks! I will start to hang the show tomorrow...

Fabric Collage-ing

'Fabric Collage' = my version of quilting. Yeah, I gotta be different. MACAns were tasked with a quilting project a few months ago. This is a Quilting for Social Justice project, brought to us by Dr. Joan M. E. Gaither. She was lovely and smart, and made beautiful art, but I have to say, quilting is not my bag! And these have got to be the largest quilting pieces ever made. They're like, 5 foot by 3 foot or something as ridiculously large (we MACAns dream big).

Needless to say, this was a struggle for me aesthetically. How to make this quilt something that I would make (hint: I would never make a quilt). So the challenge for me was not so much the social justice aspect, or the message, but instead the actual medium. So my solution was that I glued everything. I used no-sew glue and treated it like a giant collage...with fabric. I may add a little paint later, I have been thinking about it.

Anyway, I'm just about finished. I still have to add the words, and I have to rethink the words I picked out two months ago, but the rest of it is finished. We had decided that our overall theme would be "cages". In fact, the quilt will have a (giant) armature and thus become an actual (giant) cage. Each of the six of us got to create one "view", or social commentary into the cage. We will each have a bar down the middle of our pieces as well, to simulate the caged-in feeling. I will have more details on all of this later, and I'm sure, many more photos. I just wanted to give you some in-progress shots...mine is a bird, and it will be about workers rights. I have been particularly affected by everything going on in Wisconsin right now (and the rest of the country, for that matter).

Inittowinit

I'm in these two shows right now... (postcards are somewhat crooked because I need a new scanner, as this one does whatever it damn well pleases, so after an hour -really, an hour- I gave up trying to make it perfect. *irritated*)

New Images

Hey everyone, I've been in the midst of mid-terms and so have had far less time than usual. Even though I am on 'break' again, I will be working until next week Tuesday for sure. So what I'm going to do is drop a few recent photos of stuff happening related to my thesis and then hope to be back here again soon. Until then, here are some thesis images...

This one was taken last night during the Community Conversation about DV/dating violence at the first reception for my thesis, 3Tributaries (at 901 Arts in Baltimore).

There is also a nice little write-up about me on 901 Arts' blog: http://901arts.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/safe-spaces/

Have a good spring 'break' everyone...I will mostly likely not. Break for me a little bit, and then let me know what 'we' did. HA.

Community Conversations

Hey Baltimore! You are invited to the closing reception, and part one of my three-part thesis 3Tributaries, which is happening on Friday March 11, from 5:30-7:00 pm at 901 Arts in Baltimore City. Here is the e-vite, and I hope to see you there!

1 901 Arts

As the AmeriCorps Artist-in-Residence for the House Of Ruth Maryland, I have been facilitating art workshops with shelter residents since October. Lately, we have focused our creative energies on the concepts of “safety” and “protection”. When I was asked recently to serve as a guest artist and facilitate classes in Baltimore’s Better Waverly neighborhood, I brought these same themes, concepts and art techniques to the youth at 901 Arts.

The youth and I discussed the reasons domestic violence shelters exist and why women and children might seek a safe haven like the House Of Ruth. After our discussion, the youth developed collograph printmaking plates addressing the theme of “safe spaces”.

The youth created beautiful art work, conceptually and visually! They were especially interested in investigating the safe spaces in their own lives.

The art work displayed here is part one of my three-part visual thesis, 3Tributaries. The row house images on display not only reference national domestic violence statistics, but also explore techniques and metaphors in printmaking.

It is an honor to show my work in conjunction with that of the Better Waverly community residents. Thank you to program coordinators Cait Byrnes, Sarah Tooley and all of the talented youth at 901 Arts for inviting me!

Art on Paper

Two In Four

I am very excited that this piece was accepted into the 34th Annual Art on Paper National Juried Exhibition at Maryland Federation of Art! Check out this link for the digital postcard/invite.

YAY!

3Tributaries

One in every four women will experience Domestic Violence in her lifetime, and Domestic Violence (DV) is not discriminatory. Through the use of Baltimore's row house imagery, the home affected by DV is indistinguishable from the next.

My visual thesis started this weekend. It's in three parts, at three different locations. The first reception will be at 901 Arts in Baltimore on March 11, from 5:30 to 7:00 PM. Here's more information about the upcoming exhibitions. I will be announcing the reception details on the sidebar of this blog in advance of each show as well...

These are very impressive in person, by the way...they're giant postcards printed on a half sheet of card stock paper, front and back. They cost me a bundle, but they were totally worth it.

Seeing Red

Hey y'all, I am in this current exhibition at MICA, Seeing Red. I submitted my piece The (Womb) Wound Must Be Honored, which is about the topic of Female Genital Mutilation. Here are the postcards and some photos from the exhibition, which opened tonight!

This is for V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls.

Cutie Pies

These are among the best worry dolls ever created. I'm quite sure of it, and quite biased, I might add...dolls created by House Of Ruth Maryland youth under the age of seven. I am speechless by them sometimes...follow the link for so many more cute little people dolls:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/artshouseofruthmaryland/sets/72157625867633185/