The Big Apple

Just got back from a trip to New York City. Spent a day at the Museum of Modern Art and an afternoon at the Chelsea galleries. I'm back home now full of ideas and new directions to explore. Can't wait to get back in the studio - in fact I'm heading there right now! Here's the view of Times Square from our hotel room.

Update on Fayetteville show...

Just got back from the opening in Fayetteville last night for the opening of the Creation show at the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County.  I am pleased and honored to report that the Cape Fear Valley Health System chose my "Joy Squared" painting for a $6800 purchase award.  The painting will be displayed in their new building on the health system's main campus.

Beauty

I sometimes reflect on what it means for something to be "beautiful."   Merriam-Webster gives the first definition as:   "the quality or aggregate of qualities in a person or thing that gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit."

With this in  mind, I believe that I do strive to make my paintings beautiful.  They may not be so in the traditional sense of the word, but my goal is to at the very least pleasurably exalt the mind or spirit.  I know that when I achieve a glorious color combination it pleasurably exalts my spirit in the process of creation.  All I can hope is that the viewer can catch that spirit as well.

Alexandr Solzhenitzyn gave his 1970 Nobel lecture on the theme "Beauty will save the world."  Its an interesting read...

Accepted!

Woo hoo!   Heard today that my paintings were accepted into two different shows:

 Joy Squared was accepted into the Cape Fear Valley Purchase Award Exhibition, which will open with a reception on July 25 at 7pm and run through August 15, at the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County, 301 Hay Street Fayetteville, NC.

The second one was Chanteuse was accepted into the 2008 Regional Juried Art Show at the Craven Arts Council and Gallery in New Bern.  Chanteuse won a merit award at the show.

Library Show

Got the Bogue Banks Library show installed today at Pine Knoll Shores.    Invited Eleanor McArver and Pat Warnke to join me and hang some of their work along side mine from when we painted out at Patsy Pond together en plein air (painting outside).  It looks great!  Its fun to see three different artists' interpretation of the same scene.  I also hung the Les Halles (the french mural), several other large marshes, Total Disregard and one of the Pride and Prejudice paintings.  The show will be up through the end of July.

Maude

I don't usually post the commissions I do on my website, just for the privacy of the subject.  But this was such a great story that I asked permission to share it.  Maude was the "pie lady" of New Bern and baked pies for many of the area restaurants many years ago.  She passed away in her 80's this year.  In a lovely gesture, her son's partner commissioned me to paint a 30 x 40 portrait of her when she was a teenager.   The reference photo provided was stunning and a real inspiration...she sounds like she was quite a lady.

Riffs

In jazz, a "riff" is a variation on a theme.  I find that sometimes when I get some good momentum going painting, that I'll go off on a riff with a particular subject.  Its partly because I'll be halfway through a painting and will see that there are several different ways to finish it, and so rather than get "stuck" being unable to decide which, I tell myself, "Ok, I'll do it that other way NEXT time..." and keep going with the flow... often I will make a note in a painting journal to remember the other idea.  Then when the painting is done I'll grab another canvas and start with the same subject again, making variations in another direction.  The possibilities are limitless!  You can get an idea for what I'm talking about with my latest riff.  This was the first version, with this one, I started with a lovely colored texture on the canvas, and then drew directly on the canvas with a Sharpie pen and outlined the face - then went back in with thin layers of paint (glazes) to emphasize the features.  This one is called Raven.  If you look on my website, www.sallyanger.com you can see that I've done several variations on this theme - the latest ones being with really thick acrylic paint in textured layers of rich colors.