I teach at Two Hands Paperie in Boulder, Colorado and in my Boulder studio. Check out the Two Hands website here for class listings. If you are interested in a class in my studio, contact me by email - [email protected]
Copyright Please don't copy from my blog. All images and text are copyright of Fran Meneley and can only be used if you ask before you use. I share my artwork in the trust that others will appreciate, but not copy or claim, my work as their own. Links to my blog are welcome, but please do not re-post.
The Auction to Benefit Oaxaca Street Chidren Grassroots is open and in full swing. This is the painting that I have up for auction. It is a mixed media collage/painting on a 12" X 12" museum profile frame - with a nice 2" thick edge.
My painting, "La Noche", and many other beautiful pieces are up for auction and could be hanging in your home very soon. The auction closes this Sunday, June 12 at 6:00 pacific time. The current bid for La Noche is $75...so if it speaks to you...skip on over here and place your bid, before it goes to live in someone else's home.
This wonderful auction will directly benefit the street children of Oaxaca and ALL proceeds from the auction will go directly to the children. If you'd like to bid check out Rebecca's blog post here for directions. You must register, but it is simple and quick. Bids are done in the comment section of each artist's posted work.
If you'd like to make a donation in lieu of bidding on a piece of art, you may do so here.
I just finished up a new triptych of work for the "Awakenings" show at Patti Burton's Rabid Rabits Galeria in Longmont. I have been swirling the idea of combining collage with the watercolors that I've been experimenting with since my return from PLAY in January. The vintage postcards I've had in my stash began to call to me and as I edited my recent collection of collage materials, these ancient images and landscapes began to emerge.
I just found out from my friend Gaela that according to Chinese astrology we are in the Water Snake month of the Metal Rabbit Year. Hmmm....maybe I was channeling some of this energy. It's a mystery. I've also been reading a book about the Anasazi migrations and archeology in the Southwest. An ancient people with a very sophisticated spiritual community spanning centuries and great distances - they were also great artists and storytellers.
I find it difficult to say where my inspiration and imagery comes from. I begin working with my materials and I see what emerges. What whispers to me. I am lost in the process and it's only when I step back and reflect that I can see what's come through.
I framed them simply in shadow boxes to hang in the gallery.
Patti has pulled together 44 artists with new work for this spring show.
Wednesday was the perfect day for baking - rainy and cloudy - and so I headed up to Lisa's house for a little bake off.
Lisa turned me onto this wonderful book by food blogger extraordinaire, David Lebovitz. The best kind of armchair travel for a cold and windy spring. The Sweet Life In Paris sweeps you away to the streets and alleys and nooks and crannies of Paris inhabited by an experienced and passionate pastry chef (before moving to Paris he spent 12 years at Chez Panisse). David has a wonderful blog that I highly recommend you visit. Often. And if you haven't followed Mary Ann's sojourn to Paris, skip on over here to wander the streets of Paris through the eyes of a wonderful journal artist - immerse yourself in la vie parisienne for a little while. Not quite winter, and certainly not summer, I have loved this bit of arm chair and keyboard travel.
Anyway, back to the Cake Lab - ingeniously named by Lisa - we have more plans for forays into baking and pastry experimentation. Sorry about chopping off your head Leese...still getting used to my new photo app.
We gathered our ingredients and set out to make Chocolate Spice Bread - which is really a cake. Think the best spice cake you've ever had but deepened with chocolate (the recipe is not online, but you can find it in David's book on page 119). We decided we should do one gluten-free and one gluten-ful version. A true taste test.
Butter and chocolate melted together...Lisa and I both could have just eaten THAT bowl. Then eggs, honey and sugar beaten to a mousse-like consistency in the trusty Kitchenaid. Fold into that the chocolate/butter mix and a little flour, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and interestingly anise seed. A heady mix for sure!
These are our little sample plates, one each gluten-free and gluten-ful - we tried them straight up and then with a little greek yogurt and some berries. Either way - yum! The gluten-free one has a slightly different texture, but identical taste.
Until the next Cake Lab - bon appetit mes amis!
p.s. If you haven't seen Kings of Pastry, click on over here and you can watch it online. Who knew pastry could be so riveting?
I've just put the finishing touches on my story submission for the Fiction Project, the sister project to the Sketchbook Project. Open to all, "The Fiction Project is an opportunity to tell stories in a different way by fusing text and visual art. Add your voice to this year's coast-to-coast tour and create new work grounded in the act of writing. After traveling across the country, the Fiction Project will enter into the Brooklyn Art Library's narrative collection, archiving your stories to share them with the public." There is still time to participate - check out their website - their sign-up deadline is March 31st and stories must be postmarked by May 1st. We've all got stories to tell - real or imagined.
I wrote my story, The Tent, as an assignment for an art installation class I took at Anderson Ranch a couple of years ago. It seemed to be a perfect place to play with my new found love of watercolor illustration.
The assignment for my Anderson Ranch story was to write about a childhood memory that could contain exaggeration, imagination and invention.
Growing up in a 1960's, post World War II subdivision, each house had approximately 2.5 children and there were always cohorts in suburban adventure mucking about. We had freedom to roam and time in the summers to explore...even if it was just over to the next cul-de-sac or a bike ride to the neighborhood 7-11. It was our land, our childhood country - beyond which there be dragons.
My story is about memory and imagination. A tent of old army blankets in the backyard can become anything on a hot summer afternoon.
Every experience that I've ever had has led me to where I am today. Writing this story was a glimpse into how that happens - even as an exaggeration and fantasy I can see how these moments of my childhood informed who I am today.
A collector and scavenger from a young age, the adventure began and I didn't even know it.
Just back from the PLAY Retreat in Port Townsend with fellow journalers. I love the watery and tree inhabited land of Washington state. It's so beautiful and so very different from the high and very dry plains of Colorado.
The Seattle cityscape a tangle of bare branches reaching up...
...while down on the street, a little window shopping.
The trees of the Pacific Northwest astound me, they take my breath away. Their seemingly ancient countenance calms me and grounds me.
Tall and taller from the abundance of cool temps and water, water, water. Green oh green, how I miss thee.
I gaze in awe...up...
...and away.
A little time down on the winter beach collecting and arranging...
...a tangle of beach twigs and sea polished stones make their own stunning arrangement...
...a little plant pod of wrinkled beauty.
This old row boat abandoned to the winter elements...
..hundreds of lines to draw and explore.
I broke in a new journal, a new beginning.
A little water color from a summer photo.
A couple of journal pages exploring the composition from the beach finds.
I'll be teaching "Journaling Place" at Journal Fest in October and it's this very beach we'll gather on to bring about new combinations of nature's treasures. Then back to the studio to explore on the page. Stay tuned for more info.
The bright pink primroses of summer keeping company with the watercolor chairs, a summer dialogue.
And behold Teesha's pen caddy. Are you kidding me??? The colors alone make me dizzy - look at all the luscious pens...the mind reels.
Thank you Teesha and Tracy for the best PLAY retreat EVER!
Happy New Year! Looking for some new inspiration? Here are a few things that I have come across that float my boat. These new journals from Strathmore are great. My students are always asking for a recommendation on what journal to bring to class. It's such a personal choice I've been reluctant to recommend any. But this one does the trick. For $7.50 you get a nice big size - 9" X 12" - with 34 pages of 90 lb. mixed-media paper. Alot like the smooth Fabriano Artistico paper I put in my custom journals. Heavy enough to take water media, but smooth for writing and drawing. An excellent choice if you are looking for a new journal. Dick Blick has them and so does Amazon, but be aware that you'll have to pay for shipping. I'm working on getting my local art supply store to carry them for my classes - see if yours will carry them as well - and save the postage.
These journals come with several different paper choices. I test drove the one with mixed-media paper, the one with watercolor paper and the one with bristol paper and I liked the mixed media paper the best. It comes in other sizes too in case you are a wee bit intimidated by the 9" X 12" - but I say, go big or stay home. Try something new! Click here to have a look. The colorful graphic "Visual Journal" page peels away to reveal a shiny brown cover that is just waiting for some collage to make it yours. Or keep it spare and bare and leave it all on the page.
I'm really enjoying this new watercolor book. I've been wanting to experiment with something new and this book has great photographs and lots of good instruction, examples and projects. Watercolor has always been a watery mystery to me. I look at those hard, dry little cakes of color and go, huh? The beginning of the book has lots of discussion and photos of the different kinds of watercolor paints you can choose to work with and as well as techniques to get those fabulous watery, saturated color effects.
Not that the world needs another book on visual journaling, but this one is authored by two guys...less scrapbooking, more grit. I dig it. Lots of description and great photography - just a glance through was inspiring. A new perspective is always appreciated.
Way back in the summer I signed up to be a part of The Sketchbook Project. The brainchild of the folks at the Art House Co-op and The Brooklyn Art Library, the idea was to ask artists to submit a sketchbook for their permanent collection and to go on tour. As they put it, "It's like a concert tour, but with sketchbooks." They had 28,835 people request sketchbooks from 94 countries! The tour starts in February at the Brooklyn Art Library and then goes on to Portland, ME, Washington D.C., Atlanta, GA, Winter Park, FL, Chicago, IL, Austin, TX, San Francisco, CA and Seattle, WA. Go here if you'd like more info on where the tour will be in each city. If you go, you'll be able to check out sketchbooks to look at - even request one if you know someone who's on tour! Each sketchbook is barcoded, so we'll (the artists) know when someone has checked out our sketchbook to look at! How cool is THAT?
I took the pages that the sketchbook came with out and added in my own pages, made from my favorite hot press watercolor paper. My theme (each sketchbook had a theme so viewers could browse by theme) was "I'm A Scavenger". I've been collecting bits of found paper (aka trash on the ground), magazine blow-in cards, free postcards at restaurants - stuff my naturally scavenderous self is attracted to. It all went in a pile and got sorted as I began working in my sketchbook.
The covers were laid out and then some stencils were added...I had to be careful not to cover up my library barcode.
My work table looked like this for quite a while as it all came together...
...bits getting laid out...
...magazine blow-in subscription cards were cut up into bits to be reassembled. Who knew that junk mail could be rearranged with such a beautiful outcome? I like this so much - it's like paper mosaic - I think I'll experiment some more.
I used a view finder to see little abstract paintings in the wax paper that covered part of my work table.
A piece of a Chipotle food wrapper found on the ground and a condom from a walk the day after Halloween ???? (unopened, or else eeeewwww). Both became bits of a larger collage landscape.
The scavenger transforms the lost, the discarded into beauty. I call it found enchantment. Here's a little video of the whole sketchbook. Hope the tour comes to a city near you! Hours could be lost perusing pages and pages of this great creative concert.
Winter has finally come to visit us here on the high plains of Colorado - with 5 inches of new snow (the first of the year) and 2 degrees this morning - yup...it's winter. And with the hub bub of December and 2010 just about behind us, there's the new to look forward to. If you are in the neighborhood...
...stop by Patti Burton's new gallery, Rabid Rabits, for some inspiration. It's a live/work arrangement in old town Longmont (right next to Lucille's - great chicory coffee and beignets), with Patti's wonderful jewelry studio out back, their gallery, home and studio under one roof!
I'm showing a few of my dolls...
...along with Patti's amazingly gorgeous jewelry.
Some of my collage paintings nestled in with my mermaid doll, "La Serena" and one of Caroline Douglas' wonderful ceramic pieces. A beautiful Katy Diver ceramic plaque shares the wall.
"Queen Bee" is making a showing (not for sale) along several smaller dolls that are for sale, and a few of my fiber bags.
She's pulled together an impressive group of Front Range artists for the In the Flame show...
...stop by and have a look.
The Rabid Rabits Galeria is located at 530 Kimbark in Longmont. The gallery is open Wednesday - Sunday from 10 - 5 and Monday and Tuesday by appointment. And don't forget...Lucile's is right next door!
Thank you to everyone who stopped by the Studio Tour this weekend. It was great to see you all under Stephanie's majestic old trees.
Her charming house and backyard art oasis...
...was the perfect place to show our art and gather.
Her back courtyard houses her studio and a lovely garden space...
...and she graciously let Diane and I open up shop for the weekend to sell our wares..
...and give away a bit of art as well as...
...show case the summer's studio work...
...and talk about learning something new.
All the while Olive stood guard with those huge loving eyes, casting her canine spell on one and all, making us all fall madly in love with her. Who could resist that face? I know I can't and I'm not even a dog person (I know, I know). Stop by Stephanie's blog to see more pictures and stories of the weekend. Thank you, thank you Stephanie for your gracious and kind heart!
The Longmont Studio Tour is this weekend! Please stop by if you are in the area. You can go here to see a map and plan your route. I'll be showing at Stephanie's wonderful studio and there are about 10 great artists in Steph's neighborhood, so you can see a lot in one place. She's got some wonderful new work to show.
As you can see, I've been very busy this summer getting ready. I'll have some new collage canvases as well as some new stitched journals - blank on the inside for all your great work with the covers are done by me! I'll also have some of my travel journal kits available. I've been working on some new embroidered/beaded textile envelopes/iPod cases. It's hard to give them a name - I use mine for my iPod, but they could be used for just about any small things you'd want to carry. I've strung them up to be little purses this year!
Tons of handmade goodness. Stop by, see some great art and hang out a while!
