Exciting Fall Events Coming Up!

I just updated the list of upcoming events in the right sidebar. September, October, November, and December are always busy months for artists and this year is no exception. For me, the fall is always sort of "kicked off" with "Celebrate Agriculture With the Arts", held at Circle Gallery in Madera. The address is 1653 N. Schnoor Ave., and can be found fairly easily from the Cleveland Exit toward the north end of Madera. This is a very exciting show because things are grouped and judged in agricultural categories, rather than by artistic medium. The categories are as follows:

California Crops
Farm Machinery & Structures
Our Farm and Ranch Friends
Celebrate Agriculture--The Human Factor
Water, Agriculture's Lifeblood

Art media accepted include paint drawing, sculpture, fiber art, photography and jewelry and all media are judged against each other, within each of the 5 categories.The impressive awards, informative and inspirational remarks and lovely reception are always well-attended, enjoyable events and everyone is welcome to attend. This has always been one of my favorite shows --some years I've been lucky enough to win awards and sell my work, which is always nice. This year my 2 entries were both accepted and they are entered in California Crops ("Valley Vignette") and Our Farm and Ranch Friends ("Sunrises"). You'll have to come to the reception or the show to see them, but I will post photos after September 14th when Awards are announced. It is an evening reception usually from 5 or 5:30 till 8 PM or so. More details to follow but you might want to put this event on your calendar.

This year, my artistic fall actually starts with a show at the Fresno Art Hub. It is a joint show with Kate Jackson, a wonderful watercolorist, acrylic, and mixed media artist from Merced. Kate and I met years ago at the "Paint Yosemite" workshops and have wanted to do a show together for a while. Kate suggested a show centered around stamps and stamping and we both agreed that it would be both fun and challenging. There are a lot of possibilities with this topic--postage stamps, rubber stamps, stamping with found objects and much much more, as you will see when you attend one of the art hops during the time that Kate and I are featured artists. The name of the show will be shared within the next few days, as will more details and an event page. I'm having a lot of fun using different kinds of stamps in different ways on different pieces. The show will be up from August 30th till October 10th.

Save the dates September 7th and October 5th to attend Art Hop, with a special stop at the Fresno Art Hub. I will also have work at Chris Sorensen's those 2 nights; the September theme is "Geek Art" and October will be"The Dark Arts". These 2 will be a stretch for me, but I'll give it my best shot.

In October, Laura Fraedrich and I are going to have a show at "Mixed Messages" called "Baker's Dozens". For this show, we are each going to do 13 12" x 12" canvases of our favorite animals. Our styles are different, but complimentary, and I think this will be a very fun show! I'll bet you can guess which ones are Laura's and which ones are mine.

Dates for October include an opening reception on Sunday, October 1st from noon till 5 and an evening event on Friday, October 13th. We plan to make it a LUCKY FRIDAY the 13th because we hope some of the animals will be lucky enough to find out where their "furever" (not in all cases, of course--especially the birds and reptiles!) homes will be.

October 8th, a Sunday between the 2 animal events, will be the 6th Anniversary Celebration of "Mixed Messages" opening. The time will be from noon till 5 so you can come right from church or you can come out after lunch. Refreshments will be served and you'll be able to see brand new work along with some older pieces. The old "Art Hop" special prices of 25% off all framed pieces and 50% off shrink-wrapped prints and originals will be in effect on October 8th.

In November, Adam Albrecht will be the Featured Artist at MMA and he will be showing, sharing, and selling some of the new items he has been making. More details and dates to follow soon.

And in Late November/all of December, "Mixed Messages" will have a lot of gift items for your holiday shopping as well as another collaboration project between myself, Paul Parichan, and Melanie Schow. We are already beginning to work on Doves and Crosses for the holiday season.

So, you see why I say it will be a busy fall--hope you'll put some of these dates on your calendars now and watch for my details and full Event Pages on Facebook soon. My Facebook business page is "Mixed Messages" by Kathleen Mattox. If you haven't liked it yet, I hope you will. I just passed by 1000 Likes and will be doing a giveaway very soon.

Well, as my friend Shiela Boyd likes to say--"Sparkle and Shine!" And I will add--"Onward and Upward!"

My Word for the Year/2017

Right now, my word of the year is still in the development stages. I know what the idea is that I want to focus on this year, but I can't put it into one word yet. First, I'd like to reflect briefly on the 2 words for last year which were 

"Challenges and Collaborations"

I started 2016 off with the January Painting Challenge which I called "31 Paintings in 31 Days for $31, painting "Signs and Symbols" each day for the month of January. I didn't sell them all but I did sell the majority of them. They made a nice, connected group and people commented on how they made unique and  personal gifts because so many of the words and images seemed a perfect match for certain people in their lives.

There were other challenges in 2016 involving taking some outside "distractions" off my plate so that I could concentrate on becoming a more successful painter and do a better job at marketing my work and promoting the gallery. I "let go" of being president of the Sanger Downtown Business Association, stopped teaching classes for children and adults (at least temporarily), and stopped facilitating Sanger Art Hop and Shop. I feel like I have a whole new life ahead of me in 2017 with more time to devote my positive energy to both creating and marketing.
  

In terms of collaborations, there were many opportunities to do things with other artists. The most important collaboration swere 3 project series with Sanger artists Paul Parichan and Melanie Schow. Paul made wire shapes, I gave them backgrounds and words, and Melanie embellished them with beads and wirework. We did 3 collaborations: a heart series of seven in February, a star series of 7 in June, and a tree series of 15 in December. At this time, we have exactly ONE available star remaining. The series were very successful and we will continue the project in 2017 with 2 new series coming out in May and December. Watch for them!

In 2017, my goal is to try to paint for some venues and shows that I
haven't participated in regularly in the past. I started off the year by
entering the "Black and White" show at Chris Sorensen's Studio and

"Black and White" show entry

followed that with an entry in the "Squeeze Me" show at the same location. I am going to try to enter all the shows there this year.

A detail of the piece done for the
"Squeeze Me" show

As a member of the Madera County Arts Council, I participate in a number of "theme shows" at Circle Gallery each year. The first one of the year (January-February) was "Journeys" and the one coming up in March will be "Reflections". The year will continue with 2 month shows with different themes, culminating in the Celebrate Agriculture show in October/November and perhaps a miniature show in December. So, I must be thinking ahead and painting ahead to have new work ready for each of these events. Sometimes I have a painting that works for a theme without painting a new one, but that seldom is the case. I also like to submit more than 1 when I can so that different people are always seeing several examples of my newest work at various locations. Another factor to consider this year is that I'm making a change from doing mostly watercolors to doing mostly acrylics. I don't have a lot of acrylics in my "inventory" and need to be painting new ones all the time.

For the 30 paintings done in January 2017, I decided to incorporate postage stamps or stamping of some kind into each of them. Only 3" X 3" and 6" X 6", the challenge was doable and fun and people have been giving me stamps so I can continue the project. The "stamp idea" came about because Kate Jackson of Merced and I decided to both do the project with stamps and to have a joint show or shows together later in 2017 or early 2018, or both. All of the work in the show will have stamps or stamping in it and these small paintings will be nice affordable additions to the show.

All of this leads up to my idea or thought or word(s) for 2017. I started out thinking that the word might be "Connectivity"--the state of being connected. It seems important to connect all of these disparate events and activities in some way so that I can be building inventory for the shows with Kate, producing new acrylics, and painting thematically. It seems apparent that the connecting factors are acrylic paints, gallery wrapped canvases, and stamps or stamping in all of them. This way, I can use them throughout the year as entries for various shows and still be building inventory for the joint "Featured Artist" show at the Fresno Art Hub in September/October 2017.

Soon, the idea of "Connectivity" morphed into "Congruence", the state of agreeing or corresponding and then into "Integration" which is defined as an act or instance of combining into an integral whole. I know that there's a word in the back of my mind that better describes this state, but it has yet to come forward. I'm sure that it will soon, but, for now, my word for 2017 will be "Integration" and will involve concentrating my efforts on developing a body of acrylic work on canvas that all uses stamps or stamping.

The Madera Ag Show

Last Tuesday was judging for the Madera Arts Council "Ag Show" and the reception and awards were on Thursday evening, September 16th. There were about 74 accepted entries and the judge was Paul Buxman, a artist and farmer from Reedley. I love his work, but I wasn't sure he'd love mine. So, I was pleasantly surprised to find that "Fowl Weather Friends" received a second in the Poultry category. Good friend Grace Rankin's wonderful Rooster got first place and fellow Timberline artist Janet Morita's beautiful white chickens got third place. Here is a photo of my entry:











My second entry was entered in the "Vines' category and it is called "Rose Window" because it is a painting of bottles of (Rose) wine in front of a Rose Window. A play on words, as is often the case. :)

Painting a half sheet painting still feels very strange to me--I'm not in MY element while doing it, but it is nice to have paintings in a variety of sizes available. The poultry painting is my normal full sheet, framed to 30" X 38" and Rose Window is framed to 22" X 29". This is Rose Window:


The Ag Show is held at the Circle Gallery in
Madera and is a show well worth viewing. For
future reference, the categories offered are these:

Citrus

Dairy

Farm Machinery & Structures

Fruits & Nuts

Irrigation

Livestock

Poultry

Vegetables

Vines

Entries are made by category rather than by medium, so this is a unique show in that respect.

All My Children

That's pretty funny, for a title, since I only have 1 child! And pretty "soap-opera-ish", too!

Today, I "sat" at Timberline Gallery and worked on updating my inventory list there. It's always good to take in new items (in this case, the ones for the "Being Green" show)  and remove ones that have been in a particular location for a while. They haven't sold and sometimes it's because they need to be freshened up, relabeled, repackaged--or maybe they just aren't up to par!? But when I'm collecting my pieces from the 3 galleries I'm in, I always say (or feel) that I'm "gathering up my children" from here, there, and everywhere.

I am currently in the process of "regrouping" and redistributing paintings before the Reedley Opera House show the end of April. I will "shuffle" things around between Timberline, The Art Stand Gallery, and Circle Gallery in Madera so that I have what I need for Reedley. Plus, trying to finish some new paintings up before the show as well. Being an artist is never dull, believe me!