Artworks on View (and For Sale!)

The following works are on view (and available for purchase. unless noted otherwise) at Scattoloni Bakery (formerly known as Foley’s) in downtown Portland, Maine, through April 30th*:

  • “Composition #1” 2017

  • “Composition #21” 2017

  • “Composition #2” 2017

  • “Cascade” 2018

  • “Composition #15” 2017-18

  • “The Beat” 2018

  • “Composition #30” 2017

  • “Stereo Blast” 2017 (NFS)

  • “Dive” 2017

  • “Muse” 2019

  • “Sea Soul” 2019 (NFS)

  • “Tea Time” 2012

  • “Vortex” 2018

  • “Flow” 2018

  • “Waves” 2017

Please go see the pieces in person. You really get a better sense of the metallics, iridescence, glitter, shimmer, and shine that pictures just can’t do justice. There are 15 pieces on view at the bakery, and 13/15 are for sale. They’ll process the sale right there are the bakery counter. A price list is featured on the wall, and business cards are available. The bakery has WONDERFUL, delicious pastries both savory and sweet, and also vegan. Check it all out and enjoy!

*I will have art work at the bakery through at least the end of April. Artworks that are sold will be replaced with a new piece. So, there is a possibility to see more art!

"Connected" 2017 (Painting for Auction, 20% to Charity!)

In the past month or so, Willamina T. Mosenfelder and I have started collaborating on some pieces. For our first collaborative piece, we used a 16" x 20" pre-stretched canvas (stapled on back) and acrylic paints, finishing with a high gloss varnish. We each take our turns with the art piece, deciding on our own what to add, what the next step will be. We communicate very little about the piece to each other as to allow our own intuitions guide us on what we would like to do. We went back and forth working on the piece for a few weeks. Then, gave ourselves a deadline. And here we are! This painting is signed by both of us on the back of the work.

"Connected" (2017) can be seen below:

"Connected" 2017

"Connected" 2017

We're very excited about how this piece came out!

This work is available for auction! Please follow [this eBay link] to go to the auction page and make your bid. The starting bid is $150 (not including shipping), and will go on for 10 days.

Here's the important bit: 20% of the final sale price will go to the Natural Resources Defense Council! Here is a description about them from their page:

NRDC works to safeguard the earth—its people, its plants and animals, and the natural systems on which all life depends.

We combine the power of more than two million members and online activists with the expertise of some 500 scientists, lawyers, and policy advocates across the globe to ensure the rights of all people to the air, the water, and the wild.

https://www.nrdc.org/about

Please consider making a bid on this work to help support the NRDC, and own an awesome piece of art! Thank you very much!

Update: NTS

I've been continuing to work on the Not to Scale piece. I'm going to be switching out some equipment, once I find some things, for ones that better fit the idea. I'm also going to be going from rough draft to final draft on the wall and booklet components. Additionally, this weekend, Gus and I will be painting my studio off-white, because right now it's an awful shade of blue (which was the way it was when I moved in). Once I've got most of the pieces put together and assembled, I'll be able to share some pictures of the various components. The group show for our program opens in July, and this piece will be there, so stay tuned for more information as the date gets closer!

WIP: "Not to Scale" (2014)

"Not to Scale" (2014) Video Game Screenshot (Opening Scene)

I present to you... CURRENT PROJECTS! You'll find a new link at the top of the page which takes you to the projects (the big stuff anyways) that I'm working on right now. There will still be lots of content posted on the blog, of course, like periodical updates, sketches, etc. Check out my project: "Not to Scale"

Thanks!

About Then / About Now - Group Art Exhibition - Join me on Wednesday!

Join me for the opening of

About Then / About Now

at the UMF Art Gallery and Emery Community Arts Center

in Farmington, Maine

Opening Night: October 9th at 5:00pm

Running: October 4th through November 18th

Featured Artists: Katherine Steward, Annah Mueller, Rebecca Stevenson, Kristen Bisson, Christy Carle, Stephanie Small, Tim Berry, Giselle Scherle, Emily Baer, Joshua DeMello, Nicole Phillips, Andrew Thompson, Markeith Chavous, Other Various Artists

RSVP on the Facebook Event!

Part of the UMF Charter Day Celebration (150 Years!)

UMF

UMF

An Artist's Statement

Daily, women like myself are attacked on (at least) two fronts: by visual representation and by our roles within society. The internet and information technology are powerful tools for feminism and progressive ideas, but with influence from the media, pop culture, advertisements, the entertainment industry, and contemporary politics, the image of a beautiful, sexy woman has been reduced to wide hips, long legs, large breasts, big butts, and tiny waists, and the roles for women are continuously reinforced to be submissive, passive, overemotional, weak, incapable of intellect, etc. Our patriarchal society desires to control “woman.” I am interested in how individuals and society are involved in the construction of contemporary identity through visual representations and roles. I am interested in how society views, interacts with, uses, and transforms women, and also how it doesn’t. I myself, both purposefully and inescapably, participate in the world and certain structures which I also criticize. I live and make in contradictions.

I also live in the internet. I live in the real world, too, but so much of my life has also involved living in the internet. I have a digital self that rarely resembles my physical self and only occasionally represents my mental self (or so it would seem). I am as much my online aliases as I am otherwise. At the same time, I am also reacting to the world around me, as a young woman and as a feminist, in a society that continues to suppress and oppress women. Like most people, my identity is a construction and an interpretation, pluralistic and complicated, transformed by my experiences within both the digital and physical worlds.

Concepts/subjects that inform my work include, but are not limited to: feminism (particularly third wave and cyborg feminism), the contemporary roles and representations of women, the virtual/physical world/border, the male gaze, internet and video gaming culture, politics and current events, chatrooms and forums, animations and cartooning, characters and their development, and so forth. Specifically, these influences include: Donna Haraway, Cindy Sherman, Hayao Miyazaki, Naoko Takeuchi, Hoogerbrugge, et al.

Some of my concerns include: 1) How both technology and the internet play a role in Feminism; how it tends to reinforce sexism while also being an opportunity for liberation and progressive thought. 2) The visual representation of women in entertainment animation, video games, comics, and within society. 3) The interactions with and treatment of women in the entertainment industry, in politics, at the individual level, within society, and in the digital world.

I would like (hope) to communicate (illustrate): the hypocrisies; the representation and roles of women; the mis/treatment and/or mis/representation of women; the changing definition of women; the current struggles, challenges, and injustices facing women/feminism today in both the physical and virtual realms. My motivations include: observations and experiences within and between the physical/digital world(s), sexism/patriarchy/capitalism/militarism/corporatism, the potential of technology, the inequalities and injustices here and abroad, etc.

Art, for me, is the exploration and the journey: ideas in progress. It invites and provokes conversation. When I make art, I sometimes feels like I’m participating in a form of activism, and I’d like to believe that I am making a difference in the world through what I make as an artist. I am interested in how it prompts us to contemplate and question societal structures, producing and influencing an increased sense of awareness and maybe even inspiring action. I want to be a storyteller.

Neil Gaiman Quote: Mistakes

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make new mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: Art, or love, or work, or family life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

Neil Gaiman

 

Gage Academy of Art - Drawing Jam 2012

Yesterday, Olivia and I went to the Gage Academy of Art - Drawing Jam 2012. It was a lot of fun! It felt like an art-making festival. We got those pseudo-paper bracelets for "tickets." They had loads of supplies available for people to use, free of charge. There was music happening in the rooms and around the building. We checked out the different studios, i.e. sculpture with clay, painting, drawing, etc. We joined in on a couple of drawing sessions. I really enjoyed it. The first model was wearing a medieval costume, and the second was in a very colorful outfit with fake dreadlocks. Later at the event, I enjoyed a piece of chocolate cake, and Olivia ate lots of Goldfish Snacks. Here are some photos of my adventure at the Drawing Jam:

My Drawing of the Medieval Model

My Drawing of the Colorful Model (Sketch)

My Drawing of the Colorful Model (With Color)

Olivia's Drawing of the Colorful Model

Fish in the Mouth of the Skeleton

Senior Thesis Exhibition:"Line"

http://www.sunjournal.com/encore/story/1008133 (Mar 31, 2011 12:00 am) ‘Line’ UMF exhibit features works of three senior art majors

FARMINGTON -- University of Maine at Farmington showcases the work of graduating art majors in the upcoming 2011 Senior Art Exhibit entitled “Line.” This exhibit is free and open to the public and runs from Thursday, April 7 through Sunday, May 15, at the UMF Art Gallery. An opening reception welcomes the public from 5 to 7 p.m., April 7.

This eagerly-anticipated senior capstone exhibit features the work of UMF seniors Kristen Bisson of Farmington, Annah Mueller of Oakland and Giselle Scherle, of Farmington. A dynamic and inventive digital media installation, “Line” alludes to the artists’ use of both drawn and written lines in their work.

Kristen Bisson’s work is concerned with the formation of personal identity through media, and explores the idea of the “virtual self” in a way that is both immediately appealing and thought provoking. Her animations are fresh, fanciful, sharp and insightful.

Annah Mueller’s work—large scale typographic installations and video works—concerns itself with the peculiar contradictions inherent in contemporary design language and the culture of advertising. Dense, elegant and strangely compelling, these pieces have a resonance that transcends their apparent simplicity.

Giselle Scherle has created a world unto itself, and a cast of animated characters to populate it. Her works are sometimes melancholy, often tragic, and always infused with a strangely poetic atmosphere. Scherle’s gestural painterly, highly evocative drawings are united into poignant explorations of universal human emotions.

The UMF Art Gallery is located at 246 Main St. in Farmington, immediately behind the Admissions Office. The gallery is open noon to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday, during the UMF academic year and by appointment. For more information, or to make special arrangements, please call 778-7002, or email Elizabeth Olbert, director of the UMF Art Gallery, at elizabeth.olbert@maine.edu.