Friday, August 2, 2013

A Change of Pace

Because of a simple raise of the hand, I began a trek into a bit of a change of pace for me.  My days are usually filled with clay, either throwing on the potter's wheel, constructing and hand building, glazing and firing, packing and shipping and various other duties that are part of the potter's process.  I pretty much am an artist devoted to clay. 

I feel like I've been cheating this past week.  A couple of months ago at my local art club meeting (the Westchase Artists Society) I volunteered to be a featured artist at one of two Fifth Third community banks in Westchase.  It's a partnership that we have with the banks to provide them with artwork for their walls in exchange for exhibition space for our artists.  It's a wonderful thing that the bank is doing for our group.  Sometimes, because most of our 2-D artists have been featured, it's hard to get someone new to volunteer, so I raised my hand.  I figured that I could frame some of my photographs and that would be that. 

Not so fast!  That is never THAT with me.  I was at Michael's (it's dangerous to have one within a mile of where you live) and they had a huge sale on stretched canvases, multi-packs, gallery wrapped, oh my.  I stocked up.  When you see a two-pack of 16" x 20" canvases for $3.99 what do you do, I ask you?  As time passed and it got closer to installation date for the bank, I started to think, wouldn't it be fun to paint?  And then I started thinking about what to paint.  My first thought was abstracts would be fun.  Then my next thought was FISH!   The paintings magically appeared from my brushes and paints.  I made a series of fish that pay homage to my ceramic fish teapots and tabletop fish.  So far, all are based on real reef fish.  And I must say after installing the paintings at the bank, they transformed the bank into a colorful and fun aquarium.  It really is nice to see paintings on the walls versus stacked up in a studio.

Just in case you're not in the area or able to get over to the 5/3 Bank in Westchase on Linebaugh Avenue, here are a few photos of the "girls" that are on display.