A New Year...New Art...

I've pulled 63 pieces of art from my studio since the 1st of the year.  I have a piece in the Valentines for Aids show at the Flying M. I have 7 pieces at the C.W. Moore lobby show. I just hung the pieces above at InDepth Solutions as their artist of the month. I have 5 pieces in the BSU Earth Day Exhibit which is on the Second Floor of the Albertson's  Library at BSU. And I am the artist of the month for February at Gallery 55 in McCall, ID. 

Bike A new mixed media piece I made this week.  

Wonder 8 x 8 We are Women Fundraiser April 11

8 x 8 for We Art Women Fundraiser- April 11

No. 5 8 x 8  We Art Women fundraiser- April 11

Another new piece this week. Original acrylic painting of the McDowell mountains in AZ. with a cow skull. Mounted on an old chalkboard, hand painted with barbed wire and added embellishments.

July 2015 First Thursday Show at Boise Brewing

I got an email back in January that this new community supported brewery was looking for artists to show their work and design their posters and tap handle art for their beer of the month. I contacted them showed them some samples and was assigned the month of July. The opening was last Thursday.


I have got to say this was my funnest First Thursday Showing, so many friends came by to say hi and I had the whole top floor to myself so It was like I had my own private party. This was the second group of guests. On the couch with me are my studio gals, the other couch are my bike riding friends. Thanks to all that came out!

12" x 12" Mountain bike collages with bike parts 

One of a kind collaged cards, keychains and my email sign in book. 

This piece I wound up moving to another wall as I didn't want a rambunctious foosball player to bump into it. This is a collage on a round wooden table top with a bike wheel drilled into it, and it turns. 

You can see where I moved the wheel and I think it looks a lot better. The "glowing" on the bottom left are the posters designed by local artists for the beer of the month. Mine is on the right next to the couch. 

The second piece from the left sold at the opening.

This is the poster and tap handle label that I made for beer of the month. Warm River Wit- named after the smallest town in ID. Population 3. It is a Belgian style wheat beer. I didn't get to try it that evening as it wasn't ready yet. The posters are for sale at the Brewery for $10 artists do not get a portion of those sales but we don't have to pay any commission or fee for having the show.

My pieces will be up through the end of July 2015 so if you get a chance go by Boise Brewing at 521 West Broad St. next to the Boise Weekly. 

A BMX Assemblage

I got a message the other day asking if I would be interested in creating one of my original bike collages as a gift for a BMX racer in Texas. Of course I said yes.
First I looked up Anna Johnson whom at age 13 has made a name for herself as a National BMX Champion, has her own website and has already been racing for 7 years! I cut out a few pictures of her racing along with logos of her sponsor.
Then I took a bicycle chain and printed it with ink on paper to make a pattern and found other words and ephemera to complete the background.

I found an old rustic frame and used bike parts to make it 3D.

The last step is 2 pour 2 part resin over the whole piece and then lay the pieces in the resin. I changed up the chain to make a heart around the 3 cyclists near the center.

I hope she likes it. This is a thank you gift from her art teacher for being a great art assistant. 

First Thursday in January

Tomorrow is the culminating show of my time as a Boise Open Studio (BOSCO) participant in the Artist in Residence (AiR) program. 

I had one month residency in a really nice studio space in downtown Boise (BODO). 

We are located just above Cafe Ole and across the hall from Bodovino. We will be open from 5-9 pm on Thursday January 2, 2014. I will be facilitating a make and take Artist Trading card activity and Bonnie with have the Red Light Variety performers posing for her project.

Wood floors, brick walls. and right across the hall from a brand new wine tasting room.

 3 artists per month in the space with plenty of room to work uninterrupted. i.e. no computer to lure me....as well as ....

 Plenty of room to display our art....

 Our signage...

 I shared the space with Bonnie Peacher and Anne Sorensen, both local painters.

My goal was to complete a series of 12 -12" x 12" mixed media assemblage/collage based on mountain biking in different states out west. Below is my completed art. The only one missing is Arizona, which I unintentionally forgot to photograph. 

Colorado

Idaho

Boise

Sun Valley/Ketchum

California

Utah

Oregon

Wyoming

Montana

Canadian Rockies

Nevada

Foothills Ride

 This story starts with my husband sending out an email to all of his friends telling them they should bid on my bike piece that went to the World Bicycle Relief Auction. After I got home from the auction one of his friends called me and asked if the piece sold and I said yes. Next question was could I recreate that piece but with a different color scheme and larger. I said yes and we decided on 3 x 4 feet.

I went up into the foothills on my bike and took this picture of the hills but the sky was grey and our friend wanted a sunset, so I tried to paint one from memory and hated it. 

I went to visit my daughter in Denver and as we were leaving the shopping mall , I saw one of the prettiest sunsets I had ever seen and snapped a photo with my phone and then painted from that layered over the original sky.

The next step was to design the bike. These tubes that I had were too big in relationship to the  "wheels" 

 Oxide Cycles in Boise is a new start up making their own steel bikes. I went to Alan at the shop and asked him what his thoughts were.  

Wow, was I ever lucky. He had some tubing the correct size and said he could weld me a mini bike frame.

I had another friend Innes, build me a custom hand rubbed oiled red oak frame that is a work of art in and of itself. He put it into the frame for me and even made a wood backing to make it more secure.

Here is the finished piece. After screwing the wheels into the masonite backing I poured 2 part resin all over the whole piece and held my breath and it came out great! And now it is off to it's new home tonight. 

Beer, Babes and Bikes

Finding the parts

adding more

final steps were "antiquing" the pieces, gluing them down and pouring resin on top. 

I had a really fun project this past month. A woman contacted me that had seen my work around town and wondered if I would do a personalized custom piece for her to give to her boyfriend for Christmas. She told me all the things she could think of that characterized him in the way she knew him. During this process I figured out that I knew who he was. (Not a close friend but had met him a few times) She was going to gather ticket stubs etc and give them to me (this was before Thanksgiving) When I had not heard from her by the time I got back from NY, I decided to contact her and yes, she still wanted me to make the piece but no, she had not collected anything. No problem... I went shopping in my studio and came up with all the pieces, then had her come approve before anything was glued down. She loved it! The only thing she wanted me to add was a squirrel. (Which I happend to have!) I did have to sacrifice an earring for one of the items she requested-Tinkerbell.  So after it was all approved, I glued and painted and then poured resin over everything. We both loved the way it turned out! Now to find out if he did!

Riding to the Big Apple

I have had two main focuses of activity this summer my art and my bike riding.  They complement each other well as they each encompass different social, mental, and physical challenges and rewards.  While I enjoy this diversity I was also pleased to find some unexpected overlap.  It began when a friend who owns a local shop (Velomech) and the Boise Bicycle Project gifted me some old bike parts for my assemblage.  I put together several bike related pieces for the Sun Valley Bike Festival and other local venues, figuring that they might prove popular in our bike loving town of Boise.  I posted these on my blog and got an encouraging response from a blog buddy Rebeca who I recently visited in the Bay Area.  She told me about an interesting event she had recently entered sponsored by Scram called pART a fundraiser for World Bicycle Relief.  Not wanting to encroach on her space I inquired if the show was still open and Rebeca enthusiastically encouraged me to enter.

The more I researched the event, the more excited I got to be part of it.  The mission statement for the event is;  

(World Bicycle Relief serves people in underdeveloped regions of the world who suffer from lack of access to health care, education, and economic opportunity. With a bicycle you can travel four times farther, carry five times more, and save up to three hours a day in travel time (based on a 10-mile commute). So you can get to a doctor, to school, or to work faster and more safely. Doors closed by distance are now opened, as is the way to a better life. )

In addition to the chance to be part of this worthy project, there will be an auction / fundraiser in November held at a Chelsea theater in NYC that those accepted would be able to attend.

The more I learned about this exciting event the more I wanted to be a part of it, but I was late to the table and afraid I'd missed out.  With nothing to lose I contacted the event coordinators about getting in at the last minute.  To my delight I received this response.

 Pam We have had a great response from artists. I had set this years show at 75 and we have decided to expand to 90 artists. I have three slots open and 10 requests pending. the deadline for accepting the invitation is Aug 1. I looked at your site and think you'd be an artist that could contribute a great deal to the quality and talent I want. So to make it short Your in!!!! I was impressed by your work and of course the bike pieces you are a must so thank you and thank Rebecca. 

With this great news it is off to the races so to speak.

A week later I received a large box containing 100 bicycle parts donated by Sram. 

It was like Christmas opening all the little packages!

In a separate box I received this gessoed hardboard. Though I would be using the backside and not the nice gessoed frontside. 

I started playing around with the pieces seeing what would work. I decided on making a bike. I had to use at least 25 of the 100 bike parts.

Then had to decide on a background. I knew I wanted to use the bicycle chain. I was going to do a collage and use this painting of mine that is on a piece of canvas as the center of the collage. 

First I had to gesso the board as I was using the un gessoed side. 

I then scrapped the first idea and decided to do a whole painting on the board.  Using the idea from the first painting but changing it up a bit. Doing a kind of Van Gough sky. Adding a gate to the fence and a path for riding the bike. Riding in Idaho we have a lot of these wooden gates to open and close to keep the cattle in. 

Next was deciding on the frame color and treatment. I went with a  Silver Sage Metallic that I bought for 50 cents because the package had been damaged. This color goes well will the bike parts.

The bike evolved as I played around with the parts. Some pieces had to be sawed in 1/2 to work. 

After the painting was complete and the glue on the wheel parts and pedal pieces were dry I poured 2 part resin all over the painting and then laid the wheels and pedal into the resin.

After the resin cured for 72 hours, I glued down the rest of the bike , adding a gear and piece of glass for the sun. 

The finishing touch was adding some brand name stickers to the bike...Sram, Rock Shox, Truativ, and Avid, all owned by the same company who is sponsoring this event. I am quite happy with the way the piece turned out.

I hope to be able to make it to the New York City Gallery Show/ pART Project fundraising event which will be held on Thursday, November 29th, 2012 at the Cedar Lake Theater in the West Chelsea Historic District in New York City.