Art in Cleveland = Article Gallery

Hope you can join us at the opening or the closing!

Once again, my art group pals and I are having an exhibition. Curator Mary Urbas and Article Gallery director Louis Ross invited us to exhibit there during Women's History Month. So exciting!

I have so enjoyed creating a great deal of new work for this show: fiber art mixed media quilts and hangings, stitched mixed media collages, and 3-D work. I'll show you more over the coming weeks. Here are a few detail glimpses:

Embellishments being added to Travel Ban.

Adding stitching, both hand and machine, to my collage, Lost Angels.

Jill Milenski, Gail Crum and I will also be giving a gallery talk at the closing in April. We hope to see you!

Love Voodoo

One of my artworks from the exhibition In Their Own Right, Love Voodoo, sold at the opening.

Love Voodoo by Gayle Pritchard, on exhibit at In Their Own Right

As requested, here are some more detailed images of the artwork.

Stop by to see the exhibit, which is on view until July 28th. Summer gallery hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 1 - 4 p.m. Hope to see you there!

The Art of Collage Opening, Part Deux

I wanted to post the rest of the pix I have from opening night of Piecing It All Together: The Art of Collage. As at most openings, pictures standing in front your own artwork is a prerequisite : ) As I mentioned previously, there were a lot of artists represented in the exhibit, and a lot of great work. Hope you enjoy seeing a few more pieces here.

Me, standing in front of one of my larger pieces, Beauty Queen. On the wall to my left are works from Opie and Linda O'Brien, one called Sorry, and, above that, Unlock the Magic.

Two black and white collages by Jeff Kallet, being studied. These were very interesting, and almost assemblage in their dimension.

I love the stitched details in Shirley Ende Saxe's work.

More typical of Gail's work historically, here is This is What a Feminist Looks Like

These two collages, Her Cocoon, by Shirley Ende-Saxe, and Aujourd by Jeff Kallet, complement each other perfectly, and are both warrant study.

Hope you enjoyed your vicarious visit to the exhibition. Now, get back to work : )

Appreciating Life With Eyes Closed

Gayle's assemblage in progress



I  hurt my eye last weekend, but I have no idea how or when I managed to do it. When I finally went to see my eye doctor, he found the scratch, and told me it could have even been caused by a stray hair blowing in the wind. I guess this might be a downside of having long hair. In any case, once again I was forced to STOP: stop what I am always doing, which is working, and close my eyes; rest. God, I hate that!

Maybe you have a similar personality, and maybe you don't. Years of journaling and self-examination prodded by observations from my loved ones have taught me that I feel best about myself when I am accomplishing my goals. For me, this probably comes out of my childhood, growing up in a large family, and trying to be noticed in a good way. The end result, in my adult years, is that I have a very difficult time shutting down. My active artist's mind races through the day, and thinks all through most nights, as ideas flow into my consciousness and spill over into my dreams. I love that!

This week, I was left unable to actually bring my ideas into fruition, as my hurt eye failed to cooperate. I was left pondering ideas, and thinking of lists of what I wanted to do next. The situation was aided by the fact that two of my young grandbabies were here all week while their parents traveled. There is nothing like caring for babies to make one stop and smell the roses. They are a constant reminder of what is important in these brief lives we live. Stopping the whirlwind of self-absorbed brain activity to sit down on the floor and play, make lunch, read stories and cuddle is a good way to remember that the number of hugs and memories of being loved are a large part of what makes us who we can be.

Yesterday, I was able to get back to work. My week ended on an especially high note in my Be a Pro workshop. I had a great class of eight articulate and ambitious seekers, and the discussions were lively. I felt buoyed, and I hope the participants felt more empowered to find their ways forward as artists and writers.
Later this month, I will be teaching a workshop I call Spirit Boxes, Sacred Vessels and Shrines. We'll be making personally meaningful assemblages from found objects. Hope those of you who live locally can join us. Now...back to my journal lists. Have a great week, all!



Gayle's Reflections of Mexico assemblage



This Way, Please, Part 2: It's Hell Getting Old

Here are some more pix from my visit last week to Clare Murray Adams' studio. The day ended with a quick dinner at home before heading out to the gallery at BayArts for the member's show opening. My friend Gail Crum's wonderful piece, It's Hell Getting Old, was one of 50 pieces juried into the exhibition!

It's Hell Getting Old, a mixed media artwork by Gail Crum

My friend Gail inside the free-standing library. 





One of Clare's artworks onsite



Everywhere you looked, indoors and out, Clare and her artist husband are surrounded by artwork. It doesn't get any better than that!



Artwork everywhere! Here are some of John's sculptures



After an inspirational tour of the property, we sat in the living room for dessert. How can you not love the Rooster Chair?

After stopping by the opening to see Gail's new work, we headed over to a local winery to see one of our favorite musicians perform, Cletus Black.  A fabulous bluesy singer-songwriter, Cletus is also just a really cool guy. I have never seen anyone so comfortable in their own skin.



Cletus at the winery

It was the perfect ending to a fabulous day.



It may be hell getting old, but I plan to do it surrounded by art and artists; this is what keeps us young at heart.

Into the Swing of Things

Home, one of my mixed media paintings

This past week, my life slowly began to return to normal. As I have written before, in my world, family comes first. Over the past month, family duties called, and frequently! My primary duty has been as nurse to my husband, as he recovered from foot surgery. Between carting ice bags, food, a guitar, laptop, tea and water up and down the stairs of our home, I had little time to think about work. When I wanted to work, I had to find alternatives to sewing, since my studio is right next to our bedroom, and I didn't want to wake my sleeping giant with the noise of the sewing machine motor.

Along with some new handwork, a baby quilt for my etsy shop, I re-read a few books, including one of my favorites, How the Irish Saved Civilization. I took the time to also read a new book from the Ohio University Press Ohio Quilt series, Philena's Friendship Quilt, the same series in which my first book appeared, Uncommon Threads: Ohio's Art Quilt Revolution. It was actually nice to have some time to read for pleasure.

A new book, which just came out, and which I have not yet read, was written by former Shelburne Museum curator Robert Shaw. Entitled American Quilts: The Democratic Art - 1780-2007, Shaw's book promises to be a great read. As a leading scholar in the field, Shaw's previous books, including The Art Quilt, numerous articles, and his concise introduction to Art Quilts: A Celebration, have vastly contributed to an understanding of the art quilt movement in the United States.

To get back into the swing of work, and with fall coming on here in the midwest, I moved my 'garage' workspace into the house this week. My upstairs studio, with just one very large work table, does not have enough room for me to spread out and work on some of my other design items. I needed a place to work on my TagTalk greeting cards, collages made from recycled clothing tags and product packaging.

By moving a few side chairs in my family room, I was able to create a space to organize my vast collection of tags. It's nothing fancy, but has already improved the speed of my composition process.

Some of my TagTalk cards

So, as you can see, I have been busy, as I get back into the the swing of things. As the days shorten, and winter approaches, I look forward to many happy hours of sewing bliss.

Creativity Lives

Oil pastel sketch: Aunt Vivian, Grandma, momma

Finding and connecting with the source of our creativity requires a certain amount of practice. It’s a bit like the discipline of dividing plants in the garden to keep them healthy, or performing daily exercises to stay limber.

Once rediscovered, the process of creating offers much to the human endeavor. Creativity can solve almost any problem. This is a one-sentence version of a favorite quote that I keep in my studio. The rest of the quote, attributed to George Lois, reads: “The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.”

Well, almost everything.

We are attending the funeral of a young man this morning, a young and talented artist. He was the son of neighbors, acquaintances we became friendly with through the osmosis of raising children and attending their school activities. He was found dead by his own father, hung and out of his misery. We only learned a day later that the young man had been in insufferable pain from cancer. His sudden death, still tragic, was framed in a different light with the new knowledge. For him, creating was clearly not enough to ease his suffering. Luckily for us, in his physical absence, his spirit remains in our minds and in the artwork he left behind.

Creating can be a positive outlet for dealing with pain and grief. When my mother died suddenly nearly twenty years ago, “making” gave me a place to put my feelings. In my artwork, bits and pieces of my mother’s life were transformed; sheer curtains, a St. Christopher’s medal, a bridge tally became talismans for remembering.

When my father died without warning the following year, I felt compelled to create artwork about him, as well. I continue to create such artworks even today, as I experience the loss and emotion of grief in new ways as each year passes.

Hero: Only one of Daddy's Battles and The Day Momma Died, front

Years ago I was asked to participate in a national exhibition entitled Memories—Images of the Soul. The artwork shown was a powerfully moving testimony to the abiding capacity of the human spirit for expression and renewal. I remember walking through the gallery amongst the artwork, the emotion in the space palpable, and being moved to tears by the experience. In the exhibition catalog, the project coordinator Rick Grahovac wrote, “Art evokes and transforms our inner experiences, the movements of our soul, into concrete form. Our thoughts, feelings and the meaning we create from our encounters with life and death are contained, preserved, and available for our contemplation. The process of making art allows us to mourn, to externalize the inner experience of grief. …Art gives us a way not only to remember, but also immortalize and remain connected to our loved ones who have died.”

Mother Shrine

When someone dies, all that remains for the living, regardless of one’s religious beliefs, or lack thereof, are memories and objects connected to them. When all of those living who remembered the person are also gone, only the objects remain, often cut off from their original context. Creativity, the end product of human imagination, lives on, though, long after we mortals have returned to the earth’s soil. A poem, a song, an artwork hung on the wall, continue to stir the soul of anyone who is open to the experience.

What do we do when art isn’t enough? Create more art. Sometimes, it is all we have to give.

Book of Years: Granddaddy, detail

All artwork by Gayle Pritchard, http://www.gaylepritchardart.com/. Copyright protected.