The Artist-Educator Nitch

Opening Reception:
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
6:00-8:00

The show will be hanging in the 3100 wing of the JKB for a month.

This is for any and all of you who are close to Provo, or will be anytime in the next month!!:
Many of you may know that as part of the art-ed degree, I have taken several art classes, almost as many as if I was a double major in art and education. Many of my peers share the feelings of inadequacy as an actual artist because we are not focusing in a certain area, and so several of us have never really been involved in the art-world here on campus. I, like many of my peers have never had the guts to enter my work into a student show. The other members of my student organization's presidency and I have decided to take a stand as artists. We created a show for art education majors to be hung in the gallery space (fancy name for hallway) where my department is located, 3100 wing of the JKB.
Each student was allowed to submit up to 5 pieces of work, and so I jumped at the opportunity. All 5 of my pieces made it into the show, and two of them, (hung as one piece) some of my watercolors, won a Juror's Choice award!
So, if any of you are around and want to see the artist-educator nitch, come on by! If you read this in time, feel free to come to the opening reception. There will be refreshments served!

Merry Christmas Dane

So, this is not exactly the best image, a little blurry, too bright on the frame and not bright enough on the painting, but I thought I would share with you the gift I gave to Dane for Christmas the week we were married. This is where it all happened, for those of you who didn't know.

Mt. Timpanogos Temple, oil on panel, 20''x16''

my promised painting

So, here is the work that I did last semester where I got much of my inspiration from Gustav Klimt.

Ruth, oil on panel, 16''x24''

Announcing Today's Featured Artist

Hi everyone,
I really have no idea how many people read/look at my blog. If many people did, I fear that the numbers must be dwindling as I have not posted anything since I created this blog. I originally started this blog so that I could have a place to show my work. Well, I thought that this might also be a good opportunity to tell you all about some artists that I love, both from the past and the contemporary world. A few months ago my sister Joanne asked me, is there even any good, uplifting art anymore--do people even make art that is beautiful these days? Oh yes, Joanne, they do!! I wonder if there are a lot of people out there asking the same questions. So, I thought that I would take this chance to highlight some of the artists and their artwork that are beautiful to me.

The first artist that I want to feature is Gustav Klimt. Although he is not contemporary, he has been on my mind a lot lately and worked in a style that is very popular in contemporary art.

Klimt was born as the son of a gold and silver engraver in a suburb of Vienna. He had a formal art training at the Vienna School of Decorative Arts. In 1882, Klimt opened a studio of his own with his brother Ernst and Franz Matsch, a fellow student. They specialized on executing mural paintings. They were quite successful from the beginning and received commissions from theaters, museums and other public and semi-public institutions.

He often painted figures with realistic looking faces, hands, or limbs, with bodies flattened with intricate patterns. His paintings are full of emotion, passion and deep feelings. One very famous work that is widely popular is The Kiss, (1907-1908) shown below:This work was painted during what is referred to as his "golden plate" phase, as he applied gold leaf to the surface of his paintings to enhance the pattern and texture. Much of his work is of women and incorporates themes of family, relationships, love and passion.

Last semester I worked on a painting based much after the style of Klimt. My assignment was to paint a portrait incorporating pattern, 3-dimensionality, and flatness. I learned that Klimt's patterns are not patterns at all, but rather they are more organic as they are continually changing, never repeating the exact same motive more than once. I painted my friend from Honduras, Ruth Vasques, who is also and art education student at BYU. I will hopefully have an image of my painting soon to post.

If you are interested, you can read more Gustav Klimt him on wikipedia.com.