Starkville Area Arts Council Holiday Showcase coming up! 6 November 2014

Only a couple of weeks until our Starkville Area Arts Council Holiday Showcase group exhibition opens.  We will put the show up on November 3rd at 5 PM, but the opening will be at 5:30 PM on Thursday November 6th. That is the day you should come out! Wine, refreshments, art, and we will even have the amazing classical guitarist Stephanie Jackson performing!!! Of course, this is a great opportunity to meet the artists involved and to purchase some art before Christmas!

Butterfly Flowers by Mike Box

We have a diverse group of talented artists committed to showing their works with art ranging from stained glass to photography to traditional oil paintings. We will also run the range of styles from surreal to traditional still life paintings.

Flower painting by Kathryn Ramsey

"Posse" by Laurie Burton

Artists who are planning on exhibiting include: 

• Mike Box - awesome painter dude!
• Laurie Burton - trippy surrealist and realist
• Libby Cagle - abstract artist, beautiful color
• Linda Cambre - well known landscape painter
• Kathyrn Davis - beautiful stained glass artist
• Walter Diehl - photographer extraordinaire
• Fay H. Fisher - lovely pastel artist
• Wanda Hunter - awesome painter
• Briar Jones - does beautiful, fresh watercolor landscapes
• Dylan Karges - does awesome pastel paintings and intriguing ceramic works
• Kat Lawrence - superb photograher! 
• Duane Lyon - builder of cool stuff
• Joe MacGown - trippy surreal dude
• Michelle Neumann  - maker of amazing ceramic pieces
• Kathryn Ramsey - does beautiful colored pencil works, especially flowers
• Bonnie Renfroe - great ceramic artist! also does some wonderful paintings

Photo of an African lion by Kat Lawrence (she photographed this in the wild in Africa!)

Recaps of Recent Shows

Endangered Visions Exhibition in the Philippines 

Well, I sent one picture to international exhibition entitled "Endangered Visions" in Manila, Philippines. The amazingly talented and prolific Filipino artist Gromyko Semper curated this show and invited me to participate. My submission was called "Going to the Circus." It sounds like the show was a huge success and was well received. Lots of top level artists were involved, and I feel pretty good about being asked to participate. I probably should have sent more than one piece, but its pretty expensive to ship art and a bit of a gamble. As a result, I tend to ship smaller pieces such as this one. Fortunately it made it! I would have liked it more if it had sold, but from here I believe it and some others will be traveling to another venue. So, some folks in the Philippines and elsewhere got to see some art from a Mississippi artist. Thats what its all about really.

"Going to the Circus"

A few of the many extraordinary works at the Manila show

A picture of "Going to the Circus" in Manila

Starkville Area Arts Council Abstract Show

I had three pictures in a local abstract show here in Starkville as I mentioned in previous posts, one of which sold! Cool. In fact, I believe 4 or 5 pieces in the show sold. That is great news for our arts group. I hope future shows do even better.

Erin standing in front of the wall with a couple of my works (far right)

My abstract piece that sold!

The Meridian Museum of Art BiState Competition

I entered 3 pieces in the annual BiState Art Competition held at the Meridian Museum of Art in Meridian, MS this year, but only one, "Blue Fish", was accepted. I was somewhat surprised as it was the weakest piece in my opinion compared to the other two, "Pagan Totem Goddess" and "Convergence." In fact, "Convergence" won best of show and first place in the painting drawing division at the most recent Cotton District Arts Festival here in Starkville. Go figure. Anyway, sometimes I think it comes down to which one reduces the best for submissions to these shows, as well as juror preference. However, in this case, if you had these pieces side by side I think it would be hard to pick "Blue Fish" as the best one. Its cool, don't get me wrong, but honestly it was just a little quick study I did. Well, it did not win anything apparently, but, it sold for $500. Funny.

Blue Fish

Kentuck Arts Festival, Northport, AL 2014

Headed over to Northport, Alabama on Saturday (Oct. 18) with Laurie Burton to check out the Kentuck Arts Festival. Its a good one! Artists come from all over the country to sell their wares. Mostly, the art there seems to have a folkish feel to it, with lots of high quality craft type art, plenty of paintings on wood, some awesome sculptures made from found objects, some wonderful ceramic works, and some very interesting paintings. We met artists from New Orleans, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Texas, New York, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, and well, lots of places. But, yeah, don't take my work for it. Check out some of the pictures I took of the festival!