tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76147743933952509802024-03-05T08:35:03.085-05:00CHRISTINE SULLIVAN'S ART BLOGChristine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-66684469600999225402020-02-28T12:50:00.001-05:002020-03-02T10:12:10.705-05:00Leaping Into The Left Bank Gallery<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">A Glimpse Inside My Studio in Columbus, IN</td></tr>
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One of the things I love about living the creative life is how it allows room to play - meaning, as much as it is work with deadlines and several non-painting tasks it is just as important to spend time remembering to hold to the child within. I often start my studio days painting on brown Kraft paper using my hands to push the paint around and just play. It is an easy way to loosen up. I also take some time to experiment with new colors, new subject matter and many of the"what ifs" that rattle around in my head or show up in my dreams. Certainly, there are often many failures when I attempt this on canvas but I strive for this as it is truly where the learning comes from. You just allow yourself to fall down, face first and then slowly get back up and move forward. More on that next month. Today is Leap Year Day!</div>
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So what's new? I spent January reorganizing my studio. While the photos don't really convey the amount of work it took I can attest it has helped me in many ways - </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizSLO3iGomDMUdXIf8EWdO465USYlTC2N1n-AX8BpQuzl7AeOdRKqqFeuG8lcXceJZoDza31LX_HBoEP5UsdBI9BgvkjHWdr07yOb0WV0qN3TbEuF3HVETFU_nfiqVN4NnU6AiWDN-dO18/s1600/Studio+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizSLO3iGomDMUdXIf8EWdO465USYlTC2N1n-AX8BpQuzl7AeOdRKqqFeuG8lcXceJZoDza31LX_HBoEP5UsdBI9BgvkjHWdr07yOb0WV0qN3TbEuF3HVETFU_nfiqVN4NnU6AiWDN-dO18/s320/Studio+1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Another Glimpse Inside My Studio - The Painting Side</td></tr>
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clearing my space makes room for new ideas and helps to declutter my mind. An unexpected benefit is that after two years in this space it now feels more like...me...and I'm ready to leap into a new body of work. </div>
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I'm also excited to share that I'm in a new gallery - the <a href="https://www.leftbankgallery.com/collections/christine-sullivan" target="_blank">Left Bank Gallery </a>in Orleans, MA on Cape Cod. As a customer I have had a long relationship with this gallery and its owner Audrey Sherwin Parent. Then last November I leaped into the Left Bank Gallery in Wellfleet with an old college friend and rather impulsively asked if she was taking submissions. After a few days of conversations my work was hanging in her Orleans gallery. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Left Bank Gallery on Cove Rd in Orleans</td></tr>
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I've always considered Orleans my home away from home so being in this gallery now is especially meaningful. Orleans is where my parents vacationed us for two weeks each summer since I was six, where I waitressed my way through college at the Captain Linnell House and then moved to after college when I found a "real" job as a junior cartographer/graphic artist for the Butterworth Map Company in W. Yarmouth. </div>
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Fast forward to 1986 when my parents retired and moved to Orleans and started a new life, becoming part of its very fabric for nearly 30 years. By then I had moved off-Cape but when I visited, my mom and I would steal away and gallery hop and the Left Bank would always be our first stop. We would pick out earrings for each other, look at and discuss the paintings and exceptional craft objects then go have lunch at the Land Ho! </div>
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I remember a conversation I had with Audrey that likely she has no memory of. It was in 2012 when my mom was showing signs of dementia and in a "nursing home" and I decided I would return in the Fall and rent a place for the month of November so I could spend more time with her. I found a great rental up in Wellfleet - the old James Lechay mid-century modern home that had a separate art studio where I could continue painting. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">James Lechay's Wellfleet Studio</td></tr>
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As it turned out my mom passed two months prior and yet I decided to keep the rental as a way to help me through the grief. I even took a week-long workshop with Cynthia Packard in Provincetown and was the first time I met Anne Packard who has since had a very strong and positive influence on my art and life.</div>
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Many days that month I would walk the streets of Wellfleet - to the library, into town, and to the beach areas. I remember the day I walked into Audrey's smaller Wellfleet gallery (it has since burned down) and found her there and she shared what she knew about Jim Lechay, the history of the mid-century modern homes and, with my mom's loss still on the surface, we started talking about our moms, the unique heavy loss it is as tears were still fresh and I learned from this short conversation that it is a terrible right of passage we all must endure and share as part of our life's journey. I bought myself a pair of earrings, thanked her and walked back to my rental. I don't think she ever knew how this one conversation helped me that day.</div>
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Fast forward a few years later after my dad passed. There I was, back in her Wellfleet gallery letting my mind wander and rather impulsively purchased an <a href="http://capecompass.com/bauman/about.html" target="_blank">Arthur Bauman</a> fish mobile to hang in my studio (I have a lot of fish in my studio, this is my favorite). Arthur's mobiles typically are much larger and very Calder-like yet this fish caught my heart. I have never met Arthur but learned he passed away last year on my birthday.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">My Arthur Bauman Fish Mobile hanging in my studio window</td></tr>
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Anyway, I think I just wanted something, anything, to help me feel better. It does that now, it makes me smile.</div>
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Last fall when I was showing Audrey my work I could feel my parents in the gallery with me. Maybe that was why she took a leap of faith to add me to her roster of artists. I decided to give her a call a few weeks ago to see how things were going. She was excited to report that my work had received a lot of positive feedback and that four of my paintings had recently sold. Always good to hear after you've joined a new gallery.</div>
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I have a sign in my studio that says, "I am on my way to where I started" - it's written in a circle to remind me to be present while also to remember where it all started, and for me I know for sure a lot of it started in Orleans gallery hopping with my mom. </div>
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Take a leap of faith today and remember to play. /Chris</div>
Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-41696810079088181602018-06-30T16:21:00.000-04:002019-09-21T16:12:50.986-04:00Following Your Heart<div style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This past winter I rather impulsively closed my Florida studio and moved to Columbus, Indiana. Wait. Indiana? Aren't you a New Englander?! Well...yes, and I always will be, at heart at least. But life is a journey, it transitions with and around you, and moving to a new city opens your heart and mind to all the many possibilities of a future unknown...(this said as we drove into the vortex of the coldest winter on record in southern Indiana - doh!).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But I hear you asking again, Sully, why Indiana? The answer is simple: I followed my heart!.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You see Indiana is where our daughter lives and when we visited her and her now wonderful fiance' the smiles on our faces were never broader and after my parents passed I no longer had a true anchor on Cape Cod and we had been complaining about all the traffic and congestion in Florida and we just one day looked at each other and said, "let's do it!" </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you haven't heard of Columbus I understand, we hadn't either and were a bit embarrassed by our ignorance once we learned that it is internationally known as a tourist mecca for those interested in modernist architecture. In fact, it ranks #5 on the list of top US cities to visit for its architecture! It is also known as the home of Chuck Taylor. You know, the sneaker guy. <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Christine Sullivan • Trailing Memories</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">For weeks we huddled by the fireplace, taught our Florida dog how to do her business in the snow and tried to decide where things should go and then I began the hunt for a new studio. Columbus is just under an hours drive south of Indianapolis and there are wonderful renovated buildings filled with artist studios. But no vacancies. And that would be a hike. I looked at a few options but none seemed to be it. Then I just seemed to stumble upon a building right in downtown Columbus that was under renovations and had space for lease. And before I knew it I was working with the contractors and team to design a space that was new but held onto the past as much as possible - a peek of the old brick, the worn patterns on the cement floor, open ceiling and a drop-down frame for lighting all with a window looking out onto City Hall and across from the county courthouse whose clock tower tolls on the hour. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Christine Sullivan Studio E - Columbus, IN</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3c4858;">It's hard to </span><span style="color: #3c4858;">explain what it feels like to have moved quickly to an area of the country you aren't familiar with. Using GPS to get gas, grocery shop, find your way back to your house is a part of it. Like tumbling through your days in a clothes dryer. But once I started painting I was able to, eventually, find my center. I was focusing on seascapes for my upcoming show in Provincetown and working on a catboat painting...and then a door opened. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="color: #3c4858;">I</span> was in the midst of painting "Tranquility" (see below), frustratedly "niggling" at it uncertain of what it needed and shifting this and that when something else caught my attention. My Pandora station had switched from the blues of Sting and Bonnie Raitt to the Christopher Cross song...<i>Sailing</i>. Wait. What is that?!? I am painting a sailboat and SAILING starts playing out of nowhere!?!?! Then I heard these lyrics, "oh the canvas can do miracles, just you wait and see, believe me". The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. I sat down and listened. It brought me to a conversation I had with my Dad the week before he died. He LOVED to sail and his best buddy owned a catboat that they often enjoyed together. I took it to say he liked the painting, that is was done and felt inspired to paint several more which will be part of my upcoming show. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It dawned on me for the first time that afternoon that my new studio address, 217 Washington, was the same number as my dad's apartment number. 217. That lonely week cleaning it out after he passed floated by. And it was just at that point I felt a rush of confirmation that this move was meant to be. I had followed my heart. And now a lot of that heart is here in these new paintings. If you are on or near the Cape next weekend, please stop by to take a look. I'd love to say hi! </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i>Tranquility 30 x 20" oil/linen</i></span></td></tr>
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<i>- cs</i></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue;">UPCOMING EXHIBITION </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">OPENING FRIDAY, JULY 6TH 7 - 9 PM</span></b></div>
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<b>Oils By The Sea / ROCCAPRIORE GALLERY</b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #444444; font-size: x-small;">437 Commercial Street • Provincetown, MA</span></b></div>
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Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-71697969547771736852017-06-25T12:46:00.000-04:002017-06-25T13:57:50.793-04:00Finding My Way Home<div style="text-align: justify;">
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One of the things you deal with after being officially "orphaned" is not having a home to go to. For many years I couldn't wait to get away from "home" and later as it became my "parents home" it was a place of refuge. A grounding place. The Cape was this home, too. At first it was where we learned to swim, row a boat, dig for clams while packed in a small cottage out in East Orleans with a sink the size of a dinner plate and a shower so narrow you had to keep your elbows in. When I was in college I took summer jobs in Orleans and shared dorm-like apartments we could afford on tips and minimum wage. After graduation I took my first real job at a map making company in West Yarmouth and rented a home with two others in Barnstable Village. While I got to know the varied towns and villages and back roads of the Cape, when I needed refuge I always headed to Orleans, to Nauset Beach and back to the Mill Pond. Meditating in its peace and listening to the Bob White's call.</div>
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A few years went by and I moved off Cape, had a family of my own and then moved to Florida for a new job. Now Orleans was where my parents lived, where I spent my Thanksgivings and Christmases. A new refuge. A place where I gallery hopped with my mom who was now painting and a member of Nauset area art leagues. The place my husband and daughter came to know through me. And as the years sailed by the roles began to shift and soon it was the place I went to ensure my parents were okay, the house was being taken care of, to take them to Dr's appointments and then to help them move from their home to life in assisted living. </div>
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In 2009 I returned to painting full time and started dividing my time between visiting my parents in Orleans and spending time up in Provincetown and Wellfleet - taking painting workshops, renting studio space and later delivery work to the gallery. Interspersed were the many trips to the Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis where I would calm my parents and sit and watch the Island ferries as they came and went, the nurses and doctors come and go and then, finally my parents. First my mom then, three years later and in the same exact room, my dad.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Into The Mystic, Oil on Linen</td></tr>
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Last summer I came to the Cape with such mixed emotions. I was fighting back the memories and feeling lost. Where is home? I visited the rolling waves of Nauset Beach and walked the quiet shore of the Mill Pond and listened to the Bob Whites as my body mirrored the leaning beach grasses. I shopped at Shaw's and had a beer at the Ho! All the things that I used to do. I went and visited my parents resting place - the church grounds in Orleans - and found myself talking about the weather and looking up at the tall pines swaying in the winds. Everything was the same. And different. </div>
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Then I drove up to Provincetown to deliver my new paintings. We were hugging and laughing and getting settled. I checked into my room, picked up a few things at Angel Foods on Commercial Street and that afternoon found myself sitting in a beach chair behind Poor Richards Landing after a wonderful swim in the warm waters and watching the shifts of colors over the Wharf while having a beer with friends and realizing this is home, too. I was still hurting but I was in the cradle of the Cape's bounty.</div>
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And now almost a year later I am heading back to Provincetown and for the very first time I can hear myself saying, "I am moving forward. My grief is starting to lessen." Time has a way of helping with that. And I am learning that nothing ever really dies, that we are our past and we find our way forward and that it is as much with the strength of our friends as well as the natural environment that surrounds us that helps us to move on. The smell of the salt air, the taste of the salt water, the shifting winds in the marshes, the billowing cloudscapes, the pinks of the sunsets, the early morning birds calling, the boats bobbing in the harbor - these sounds and images have been my constant as it has for many generations before me. And this is where I go when I paint. Like tapping into a universal place. And I realize now that this too is home. A place we carry within us and holds a part of all we love and all we loved dearly within it.</div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Christine Sullivan - New & Selected Works</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><b>Opening Reception Friday, July 7th • 7 - 9PM</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Oils By The Sea / ROCCAPRIORE Gallery</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">437 Commercial Street • Provincetown, MA</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUaZu1e8T8OmqS14xcizlArC7f-xwWR_SP-PXa_a-Dk5Dv-mp5gU9Fi9ResBg-jeEAko02MRA7w0vg51wDITd1_22XvqafY_nWb-RGxmvaHuA27dYca6WPzOwdilVdYG5FXwplZT1ufVpj/s1600/BeachComber.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1088" data-original-width="1326" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUaZu1e8T8OmqS14xcizlArC7f-xwWR_SP-PXa_a-Dk5Dv-mp5gU9Fi9ResBg-jeEAko02MRA7w0vg51wDITd1_22XvqafY_nWb-RGxmvaHuA27dYca6WPzOwdilVdYG5FXwplZT1ufVpj/s320/BeachComber.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: blue;"><span style="text-align: justify;">P.S. I have been painting daily since February and these new works are part of my healing process as I find peace within the ever changing yet constant landscape of the Cape and are part of my show that opens Friday, July 7th at Oils By The Sea / ROCCAPRIRE Gallery located at 437 Commercial Street on Provincetown's East End. Stop in and say hello!</span></span><br />
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/c</div>
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<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-70229884620954400382016-07-21T15:18:00.002-04:002016-07-22T10:59:29.471-04:00Starting Up A Brand New Day<div style="text-align: left;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Brand New Day 20 x 24" oil on canvas</i></td></tr>
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It has been close to a year since I've posted, a year filled with a lifetime of changes that thankfully, after a six month dry spell, has me back in the studio and excited to see where this transition leads.<br />
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It started last May, just after my birthday. I was excited to be back on the Cape for another intensive 3-day landscape workshop with Anne and Cynthia Packard in Provincetown and time to visit with my dad. I then ferried over to Nantucket for a week-long plein air painting workshop with Thomas R. Dunlay. The weather was exceptional, as was the company and I returned to my Elmira studio tanned, refreshed and began diligently to finish up and deliver new works for several upcoming shows.<br />
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In August I returned to the cape for my featured artist / solo show at <b>Oils By The Sea / ROCCAPRIORE Gallery</b> in Provincetown and stayed another week to relax, paint and visit with Dad. Then it was back to New York for the Finger Lakes Exhibition at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY where I was asked to give an artist talk in early September. This was followed by another group show in Olean, NY. So you see in a few short months I had traversed New England four times, the great state of upstate New York six times, received several awards, gave my first artist talk and learned I was accepted in Vermont Studio Center's residency program. My art life, you could say, was abuzz! </div>
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That is until mid-September when I woke from a deep sleep to my cell phone buzzing in circles on my bedside table. I fumbled to grab it, saw it was 3AM and the call was from my dad's assisted living number. I bolted upright. It was my 94 year old dad saying he had a bad night of pain and hit the wall emergency button and the EMT's were transporting him to the Cape Cod hospital. I remember mumbling, "Okay, okay Dad. Thanks for letting me know. I'm sure you'll be okay. I will call the hospital in the morning. Okay, love you too." </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Hammock Shop 18 x 24" oil on canvas</i></td></tr>
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My head fell back to the pillow. My thoughts racing. He sounded pretty good, his mind was still working well...and yet he asked me to call my older brother who lived in Boston. I barely slept. There were tests and xrays and calls and waiting but quickly learned it was a small intestinal block causing all the pain and a simple surgery was needed that day. The surgeon said it went better than expected, my dad was doing extremely well for his age and soon he was up "walking the hallway." I was in the car driving to the hospital when they said he was doing so well he was being released that afternoon and to meet him at the rehab center. Feeling relieved that he'd be okay and seeing he was in good hands and seemingly his normal self I checked into my hotel and collapsed. That night another call came. He could not eat or drink and was sent back to the hospital. I will spare the details but leave it to say I stayed another three weeks and my dad passed on October 10th. I was by his side.</div>
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It would be several more weeks before I was able to return home, stunned by all that happened. Taken aback at the grief I was feeling thinking that since my dad was 94 I'd be prepared for this loss!? Then I closed up my Elmira studio and headed down to Florida for the winter. We were slow to unpack and I was dreading the holidays when at Thanksgiving we learned of the tragic death of our niece. Too much to process. Filled with overwhelming sadness and disbelief I just wandered through the holidays in a daze. And I still did not paint. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj78zKReZbLRpB58DBPG1UIfWQwzZJXbLREoWCR8dmBeSjV3c-Z6m0V4wr4RljwSm-SY7y3BKzET12T06eSXEOS4rfQTLomUevEPWz9b9qE_N4QUJmL2E2SkEFxZOr4qqVIgc7XYhReTpV4/s1600/ThreePostsCottage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="267" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj78zKReZbLRpB58DBPG1UIfWQwzZJXbLREoWCR8dmBeSjV3c-Z6m0V4wr4RljwSm-SY7y3BKzET12T06eSXEOS4rfQTLomUevEPWz9b9qE_N4QUJmL2E2SkEFxZOr4qqVIgc7XYhReTpV4/s320/ThreePostsCottage.jpg" width="320" /></a><br />
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Sometime in December I called the Vermont Studio Center explaining my situation and asking if I could move my February residency to another month. I had not touched a brush since July and didn't want to waste the opportunity. A woman on the other end of the phone was very patient and saved me with another option, "You know... I'm happy to help you find another month but this is a wonderful place to just come and be with your thoughts. There's no pressure here. All your meals are taken care of. You're surrounded by other artists and you can meditate and be alone if you'd like and use it as a time to help you through this transition in your life. It may be just what you need." I hung up the phone in the same manner that my head had hit the pillow after my dad's call. Thoughts racing. Maybe this would be a good idea? I decided to go.</div>
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My experience in Vermont deserves it's own separate blog post but for now let me just say it changed my life. At first when I returned to Florida I simply spent time thawing out (average temps in VT were often below zero) yet I knew something had shifted. Everything I looked at was speaking to me. Blades of sea grass bending in the breezes grabbed my imagination as the pitch in the language the birds hurling across the brush made me stop and search for them while the shifting colors of the sky and sea were churning around me. The connection between all living things was at once evident and I went into my studio and started painting. These were healing works. I first needed to work on new Cape 'scapes for my upcoming new season and show in Provincetown which was a good way to pull me back. I often cried and felt guilty if I was feeling joy. I often stumbled as painting after a six month dry spell feels similar to when you go back to the gym. It hurts. It's not easy. The muscles aren't like they once were and the results aren't there as quickly as in the past...so it was often frustrating! I had to look at the notes I taped on my studio wall, notes I wrote to myself in Vermont that say, "It's okay to be happy" and "If you're not struggling you're not learning." And listened to Sting's "Brand New Day" in my headphones like I did in Vermont because my only goal while there was NOT to paint like I do at home, search for what's next. Explore. Play. Find the joy again.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8iFhOUzXSlp7PaZuFkWeUvPEyhwC6I25B-nK45QYzWhbqHIj0kkgkiyNZ8YeWGvlVKZa8B7Evps6uIgC-9ma_cRfSF7ZCyMRWz6wX4jzyXJGNYXOWLO597clifV5rO8LJCaPytu7bVHAz/s1600/Sullivan.LoveSong.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8iFhOUzXSlp7PaZuFkWeUvPEyhwC6I25B-nK45QYzWhbqHIj0kkgkiyNZ8YeWGvlVKZa8B7Evps6uIgC-9ma_cRfSF7ZCyMRWz6wX4jzyXJGNYXOWLO597clifV5rO8LJCaPytu7bVHAz/s320/Sullivan.LoveSong.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Love Song 12 x 12" oil on linen</i></td></tr>
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This is what painting does, for me anyways. It takes you along. Walking you through internal thoughts and memories, often times feeling both pain and joy. Making mistakes. Figuring out solutions. A connected conversation of sorts. So when I got a text from the gallery owner in Provincetown, a few weeks after delivering new work, saying that one of my new paintings had just sold? I stood still. It was my birthday. The painting was one created from memory of a place my family vacationed at as a child on Cape Cod that I titled, "Love Song." And I couldn't help but think it was my dad sending a message. And it shook me awake like a call in the wee hours. But this time it was happy news. Thanks, Dad.</div>
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/yours in the art life.<br />
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<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-87888839426183954232015-07-28T17:36:00.000-04:002015-07-28T18:18:54.528-04:00AUGUST AND ART ON THE CAPE <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyGzJzdwj51aN-8EVv3MEqFMvmJYIXTNXyaSxd-vaJ1J1j1ZA-JgVxev-abDCQzOYPuGOK_R2qc1zWpw7GQ0uigC6VW10Q0Pnq2iGGM3QwcqYR4HfNa6gRQ9JX69UQdsf4F_mWHvG_W9f8/s1600/christinesullivan15.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="484" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyGzJzdwj51aN-8EVv3MEqFMvmJYIXTNXyaSxd-vaJ1J1j1ZA-JgVxev-abDCQzOYPuGOK_R2qc1zWpw7GQ0uigC6VW10Q0Pnq2iGGM3QwcqYR4HfNa6gRQ9JX69UQdsf4F_mWHvG_W9f8/s640/christinesullivan15.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>In The Dunes 18 x 24" Oil by Christine Sullivan</i></td></tr>
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August, boy August on the Cape. As young children it was simply paradise. Our last grasp of summer before school, a way to hammock ourselves and yet alive with the possibilities of what was ahead. And how appropriate that it is the same window for my first solo show on the Cape.</div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">Please join me for my opening reception</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>FRIDAY, AUGUST 7TH / 7 - 9 PM</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b>Oils By The Sea / ROCCAPRIORE GALLERY</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;">437 Commercial Street, Provincetown MA</span></div>
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In our family, much like many of you, our parents would pack up the station wagon to the gills and make the trek from Syracuse to the Cape the first two weeks of August. We'd stay in the same, small cottage in the Nauset Heights area of East Orleans known as the "Blue Shutters" and owned by Mrs. Hopkins. Complete and unplugged it sat on a spit of land with the Mill Pond, a salt water tidal pond, on three sides. It was where the salt air and the salt water meet and became my center. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Harbor House, 20 x 24" c sullivan</i></td></tr>
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And while the "big beach" surf of Nauset was the main attraction during the day, it was the quiet moments back at the cottage when we were left to ourselves that I remember most. Alone, down at the edge of the Pond pulling clams from the mucky sand earning my .50 cents a dozen, or out rowing around the Pond while my brother snorkeled for and speared small crabs, even as I sat on the stone steps outside the rickety screened kitchen door shucking ears of corn for my mom, hearing the Bob White calling in the distance, I somehow, even then, knew. It was all around me as my tanned arms pulled at the green husks. Seeping into that place where we go when things get tough, as they surely would, becoming my Bell Jar. I was seven years old. And it is there when I open a tube of paint. Back once again I go. The pink of the late evening sky above. The tips of the sea grasses bending in front of me. The quiet of the purple beach heather, almost whispering as the tide slowly shifted with a gull overhead.</div>
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Of course I have had these experiences as an adult. After I grew out of the summers with my parents I returned alone to live and work on the Cape. Then my parents moved there for twenty-five or so years. My mom returned to her landscape painting, my dad to his 18 foot sail boat on Pleasant Bay. Knowing full well that none of this would consider me a native but my fifty year relationship may stand as an acceptable close second, at least for some. My nights on the bar stools of the Land Ho! well set. But it's always the childhood memories that are the strongest. That I pull from. That joins us all. Especially while painting. </div>
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This was never more evident then during my last workshop with Anne Packard and her daughter Cynthia Packard this past June. We were standing there. On Ms Packard's deck. About ten of us. Busily setting up our easels and paints with little to no small talk. Looking out at the Bay. The Pier. Wondering what we would stare down and attempt to capture and hearing Anne and Cynthia making the rounds...when a brisk wind brought with it the sharpness of that familiar combination of salt air and low tide (which my best friend still refers to as "dead fish!") and my heart lept. Literally. And I was brought back…to those summer days…that love. The sea. The boats. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Provincelands 30 x 40" Oil, c sullivan</i></td></tr>
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I have about a dozen paintings in this show all of which are Cape images. <b style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Oils By The Sea / ROCCAPRIORE GALLERY</span></b> is located on the East End of Commercial Street and is owned by long-time local artist & film producer Shirl Roccapriore. The history of the location is deep as it was once home to a strong Portuguese fishing family that drew their livelihood from Cape Cod Bay and the surrounding waters. Later it became Harvey Dodd's gallery (1933-2011) for decades. I couldn't feel more honored to be represented by this high quality gallery and to have a solo show here in August. </div>
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Come join me <b><span style="color: #0b5394;">Friday, August 7th</span></b> for the opening reception. The gallery is located directly across form <b><i>Ciro and Sals Restaurant</i></b> and next door to <b><i>The Mews Restaurant</i></b> so it's easy to find and to make a night of it! And if you are not able to come see the show in person please visit the gallery website at <a href="http://oilsbytheseagallery.com/">oilsbytheseagallery.com</a>. </div>
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All the best! /c.</div>
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P.S. While you're in P'Town be sure to pick up a copy of the <b>Provincetown Art Guide</b> magazine and check out my full page ad. </div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">Oils By The Sea / ROCCAPRIORE GALLERY</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">437 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA 02657</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">508-280-1278</span></b></span></div>
Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-83895334788525738452015-07-12T12:29:00.000-04:002015-07-12T12:37:08.191-04:00Three's A Charm: Rochester-Finger Lakes Exhibition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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It was both exciting and challenging to work on this, my first attempt at melding my present painting process with my cartographic past. As it was to learn that <i>"Finger Lakes Geomorphology"</i> was juried into the <b><span style="color: blue;"><a href="http://mag.rochester.edu/" target="_blank">65th Rochester-Finger Lakes Biennial Exhibition</a></span></b>. This years juror was Michael Rooks, Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Atlanta's High Museum of Art, who chose 68 works by 46 artists from a field of 920 entries by 330 artists - thus I am honored to be in such good company. This will be my third appearance and is largely credited for launching my professional art career.</div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">It is also exciting as this was a bit of a departure for me. The base of the painting is a "map" - harking back to my geography/art degree and early days as a cartographer on Cape Cod - describing the locations of the eleven long and narrow lakes that make up the Finger Lakes. But it was the energy of the earth event that created these lakes, about two million years ago, that shaped my painting process. As did the human interaction and migration as the sense of place evolved. There are nods to the early towns and villages, the salt mines, open farmlands, recent vineyards, the NY State Thruway - but it is more personally an example of my love of paint, rocks and of this region. One that I hope will lead to a bend in the road in my own painting journey.</span></div>
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The exhibition opens with a reception on <b><span style="color: blue;">Saturday, July 25th from 8pm - 11pm.</span></b> There will be live music (including a large dance band in the grand ballroom), a drinks and dessert bar and the museum is open so you are able to stroll through five centuries of world art in a marvel of architecture. </div>
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Memorial Art Gallery is located at 500 University Ave, Rochester, NY. I will be lecturing here during the exhibition on <b><span style="color: #666666;">Thursday, August 27th at 7pm</span></b> and the exhibition ends September 13th. </div>
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Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-78188825874809043552015-01-09T10:20:00.000-05:002015-01-09T10:20:00.763-05:00Artist of the Year - An Exhibition Filled Weekend!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">What better way to end my reign then to see it go to my friend and fellow artist, <b>Jan Geyer</b>, The Gargiulo Art Foundation's Artist of the Year 2014. After several months of experimentation in the abstract, Jan is now a figurative painter with expressionist tones and over the past year has been working diligently at her craft and exploring new directions. First there was the Harold Garde Strappo print making workshop. We took this one together but it was Jan that truly fell in love with this Garde invented print-pulling-off-glass process and then developed it in a way that uniquely showcases her deft drawing skills. Then there was the award of a 4-week artist residency at the renowned Vermont Studio Center this past August. It was here that she fell back in love with painting the figure and came back inspired and worked diligently over the Fall finishing an expansive and impressive body of more than forty new figurative works. These will all be on display at two exhibitions / awards shows this weekend. </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Here's the rundown, and you'll want to attend them all:</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Tonight, Friday, Jan. 9th, 6 - 9PM</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The weekend tips off when the Gargiulo Art Foundation hosts the Artist of the Year Exhibition at Salvo Art Project's gallery at NatureScapes Nursery (313 Old Brick Rd off Rt 100 just two streets west of Belle Terre). Salvo's tall ceilings and studio-surround atmosphere is the perfect backdrop to experience about a dozen of her fresh figurative paintings and Strappo prints. It is also a great place to relax on a Friday evening with friends and enjoy the art and open studios of other local artists. Add to this the live music in doors and the gardens of NatureScapes outdoors where you can sit next to a warming fire-pit and enjoy a glass of wine under the night sky and it all makes for a memorable evening.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Plus, many of the former Gargiulo Artist of the Year recipients will be there - Linda Solomon, JJ Graham, Weldon Ryan, myself, Peter Cerreta, Jane Sbordone and Edson Beckett - and it's a great way to support the arts in our community as a portion of all sales of Jan's work goes towards the Gargiulo Art Foundation's Art in Public Places program here in Palm Coast. And Salvo asks for a $10 donation at the door to support funding improvements to this large structure currently housing studios for eleven local artists. The celebration kicks off at 6pm.</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Saturday, Jan. 10th, 6 - 9PM</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then on Saturday Geyer opens her expansive Studio at City Marketplace (located next to the Walmart plaza) allowing us to experience an intimate look at her work space and process as well as nearly thirty additional new works, some of which were born during her awarded four-week residency at the Vermont Studio Center this past August. Jan's studio is on the balcony level of City Marketplace, just a few doors down from the Flagler County Art League's Second Saturday community event. The mayor of Palm Coast will be on hand with Tom Gargiulo and Arlene Volpe for the award presentation. Her studio will be open from 6 - 9PM.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>[Speaking of Tom Gargiulo and Arlene Volpe I continue to be amazed at the amount of hard work they continue to put into their Foundation's Art in Public Places within our community…even during a scary year of health issues...and naming one local artist as Artist of the Year helps bring attention to individual artists. I can tell you from my own personal experience that this one award, received last November, acted as a slingshot for my professional art career (and I can't thank them enough). ]</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Jan's work is also part of a show which opens this Sunday at I AM ART/RACHEL & FRIENDS Gallery in Hammock Beach called "SHE: The Figurative Feminine"</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> - celebrating work by and of women. This show opens </span><b style="color: blue; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sunday, Jan 11th, 4 - 7PM. </b><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The exhibition also features works by local artist Diana Gilson and Kate Miller and includes several resulting works by students of Kate's figurative class held there. The gallery is located at the "Pink" building on A1A north, next to 386 Restaurant. This "Sunday Soiree" event kicks off at 4pm. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Hope to see you at one or all of these events this weekend! </span></div>
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Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-20824681076431499652014-12-04T11:09:00.000-05:002014-12-05T06:08:45.982-05:00Plum Contemporary Gallery Grand Opening Friday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfdis-1WLog-dfY7CcPMk0krkVCmcb84jKNn8uqB84u-3-WWFjyA3RGC2yhaH7QtJPFeRePqtsZ2D36DbB9k9gEzC2TNMRLG_Wa_iGs1BlbZ6uuwFR5F88CQPbNXC0PubyFhEYVQDNb4Rh/s1600/photo+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgHXVufVo4wQt1DfhY4KAQ94WZyXzWQRfIj6Sq0ASCO3u2d_B3qsPbPKDaCCF23mslOmZbJjOtFTToA7XBtiQcilWAhACp2e5TslP52X34KhO4legJz7-zxtxK5ie2XsfukzPCJagCMV2l/s1600/photo+4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgHXVufVo4wQt1DfhY4KAQ94WZyXzWQRfIj6Sq0ASCO3u2d_B3qsPbPKDaCCF23mslOmZbJjOtFTToA7XBtiQcilWAhACp2e5TslP52X34KhO4legJz7-zxtxK5ie2XsfukzPCJagCMV2l/s1600/photo+4.JPG" height="520" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After months of hard work by owner Karen Sheriden and her fine staff, Plum Contemporary Gallery will be holding a grand opening celebration this Friday, December 5th starting at 5PM and the public is invited to enjoy contemporary art, live music, fresh food and drink by area vendors and meet the artists. The new location at 10 Aviles Street is just steps across historic Aviles from its prior location and yet has twice as much space and dramatic tall ceilings to showcase an increased number of works while losing none of its creative and personal approach to art appreciation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Please join me in what is sure to be a special evening. /cs</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;">PLUM GALLERY GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;">FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5th / 5:00 - 9:00 PM</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: large;">10 Aviles Street, St. Augustine, FL</span></span></b></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWAy5MisQNs6YWiJioFs1H9FmHf502Z2ZY-ecDW620wr9vX5wPVgbMMexwNVybam_prWLfWRWldyaLsiRwNOsQQVFEQ4EKq1zvz7eBeIyKJFJeoqf_SeQ7gQknCNy3xuSqCbx49jOGKIFr/s1600/TomokaRiverMorning.jpg" height="640" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="480" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tomoka River Morning, 40 x 30" Oil on Canvas</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyQnKl9z8OFoHV2BupYiy3SdX6ruUIlihtApOBrPo6g6Fa-nAZbNtSV0mtAn87gDJMUpdbXWiJEloW6j8p_KSDnOMje3_WiyC0Xpmyrp9EH7pPQPqWw7tTFim7Sf4pTnopAXzuUe6FbOcf/s1600/MidSeason.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyQnKl9z8OFoHV2BupYiy3SdX6ruUIlihtApOBrPo6g6Fa-nAZbNtSV0mtAn87gDJMUpdbXWiJEloW6j8p_KSDnOMje3_WiyC0Xpmyrp9EH7pPQPqWw7tTFim7Sf4pTnopAXzuUe6FbOcf/s1600/MidSeason.JPG" height="476" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">In The Mid-Season, 18 x 24" Oil on Linen</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvTAUsAKnaBie-W3Dq2wMtSkD63_PflcsP0Q6wHWHWx0VHmEMPplMsIbGPc76y8WU6nmZfzF6Z4S2eIozaTes7AEXqvjVARaIxOkfl7tVK5PT0m72ZiXk1b4Z5vmYTc5QD_IlZDzRQDwQx/s1600/DSC_2583.JPG" height="640" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="627" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Riding High, 12 x 12" Oil on Linen</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvTAUsAKnaBie-W3Dq2wMtSkD63_PflcsP0Q6wHWHWx0VHmEMPplMsIbGPc76y8WU6nmZfzF6Z4S2eIozaTes7AEXqvjVARaIxOkfl7tVK5PT0m72ZiXk1b4Z5vmYTc5QD_IlZDzRQDwQx/s1600/DSC_2583.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"> </a></div>
<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-25061464713598084442014-10-31T09:13:00.002-04:002014-11-08T09:18:33.161-05:00SALVO ART PROJECT OPENS NOVEMBER 1ST<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFsHy8E9aAluGVeYt_s4t_nFPTkmrIp4gduG6eBvlDP2BZi68zcyzOQrKSLNJG0xJIb62SREysuXj7uXvUqB5YHbGAjoUTDna5dh-xNM4wOsQjZmR88XTJ6JMhf_7ikQDB6IIObt9NOm2G/s1600/NewStudio1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFsHy8E9aAluGVeYt_s4t_nFPTkmrIp4gduG6eBvlDP2BZi68zcyzOQrKSLNJG0xJIb62SREysuXj7uXvUqB5YHbGAjoUTDna5dh-xNM4wOsQjZmR88XTJ6JMhf_7ikQDB6IIObt9NOm2G/s1600/NewStudio1.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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Come join us at the grand opening of THE SALVO ART PROJECT - a new artist co-op nestled within the old Florida beauty of NatureScapes Nursery in Bunnell, Florida. </div>
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The interior layout of this two story barn-like structure was designed and built out by artists John JJ Graham, former director/owner of Hollingsworth Gallery, and Petra Iston to house studios for 13 area professional and emerging artists. </div>
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<span style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="color_11" style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #2d2d2d; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Saturday, November 1st / 5PM - 9PM</span></span></div>
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<span class="color_11" style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #2d2d2d; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Grand Opening & Art Exhibition</span></div>
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<span class="color_17" style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #a84000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SALVO ART PROJECT</span></span></div>
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<span class="color_17" style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #a84000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Old Brick Road, Bunnell, FL</span></span></div>
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<span class="color_17" style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #a84000; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">(off Rt 100, 1/2 mile past Belle Terre on the left)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; font-style: italic; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; font-size: 11px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="color_11" style="background-position: 0px 0px; background-repeat: initial initial; border: 0px; color: #2d2d2d; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Live music starts </span></span></span><span style="color: #2d2d2d; font-size: 11px; font-style: italic;">at 6PM. $10 Donation at the door. </span></div>
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The outer circle of studios each have their own large sliding glass doors with views of the gardens and tall Florida oak trees and the inner circle is where you'll find the gallery of contemporary art. </div>
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SALVO ART also holds after school and summer camp classes for local area children and offers several adult evening classes - go to <a href="http://salvoart.org/">SALVOART.ORG</a> for more details on the artists, classes and upcoming events/exhibitions or call 386-871-9546.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh52dEHCvLtjXUqWzj8ipy1hOY-noFaa2GB1KfwW39tDp5P3eppnvfkArZZZs5m8mWqJ3lvVDLUzppYRpwcw_mNrU-jn7FuPuftDIxHhKmLhqZ8gSQqzeQgMFu0lI9hYAwZKOUE524rE1LZ/s1600/NewStudio3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh52dEHCvLtjXUqWzj8ipy1hOY-noFaa2GB1KfwW39tDp5P3eppnvfkArZZZs5m8mWqJ3lvVDLUzppYRpwcw_mNrU-jn7FuPuftDIxHhKmLhqZ8gSQqzeQgMFu0lI9hYAwZKOUE524rE1LZ/s1600/NewStudio3.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Moving in day. Notice the floors are painted, there are walls to paint on (my preference vs easels) and we each get these amazing, large glass doors that open to and bring in the surrounding gardens, nursery and old Florida landscape. </td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The view and central Florida oak that stands right outside my glass doors. As Anne Packard said to we studio artists in her landscape workshop I took this past June in Provincetown, "you must paint from life!" So now I have the best of both worlds - all I have to do is step out!</td></tr>
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<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-61185034503626700342014-06-02T16:25:00.002-04:002014-06-03T07:44:47.293-04:00NEXT UP: PAINTING ON CAPE COD & NANTUCKET<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw9oCp9WTEsfuWR4Oy2UZbA2fe7Q_KgaV5jWGneX90oqIwWci0ixd16mKWsUm9Ulvm6hU4lUo1pOLcvdj2BzBjiCei8Fu2opTi8qaV9GM3CQ6YGvdyR2wS31J48z8RYKK3H5ai2Kkga76H/s1600/Provincelands2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw9oCp9WTEsfuWR4Oy2UZbA2fe7Q_KgaV5jWGneX90oqIwWci0ixd16mKWsUm9Ulvm6hU4lUo1pOLcvdj2BzBjiCei8Fu2opTi8qaV9GM3CQ6YGvdyR2wS31J48z8RYKK3H5ai2Kkga76H/s1600/Provincelands2.JPG" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Province Lands II, 30 x 40" Oil on Canvas</i></td></tr>
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Summer is almost here and, feeling blessed that I was in Florida during one of the worst winters the North has seen in twenty-five years, I have moved into my Elmira studio and am preparing to head to my "home away from home," Cape Cod. This will be an exciting trip as I spend quality time visiting my dad in and around Orleans, drop off a car full of fresh paintings to my newly signed gallery, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/oilsbythe.sea.5?fref=ts" style="font-weight: bold;" target="_blank">OILS BY THE SEA</a> in Provincetown (more below), paint for three full days in a workshop led by America's premiere landscape painter, <b>ANNE PACKARD</b> (and her highly acclaimed artist/daughter <b>CYNTHIA PACKARD) </b>then hop on the ferry to Nantucket for a few days of plein air painting with Boston Painter <b>TOM DUNLAY</b>. What a whirlwind and yet I am so excited. And thankful. I will try to post my progress or I may wait until after. Either way and until then, may you have a joyous spring and I hope you are able to find inspiration to fill your creative side - be it painting, gardening, cooking, writing or just holding on to the now and seeing, really seeing the beauty around you. Brush on!</div>
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<b>NEXT RECEPTION: </b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">FRIDAY, JUNE 6th, 6 - 9PM</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">OILS BY THE SEA GALLERY</span></b><br />
If you are in and around the Cape this weekend the galleries in Provincetown hold a "First Fridays Art Walk" and I'll be at Oils By The Sea Gallery during their 6pm - 9:30pm reception. This fabulous gallery is tucked amongst what is known as "Gallery Row" at the East End of Commercial St. and is owned and operated by the talented artist, Shirl Roccapriore. In addition to showcasing her own work, Shirl represents four artists all with ties to the Cape: Christine Sullivan (painter), Jim Broussard (painter), Sally Brophy (photography) and Dawn Zimiles (encaustics). And if you can't make it, please stop in this summer and tell Shirl I said, "REE!"<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg2ChoPXpmtJ9vE6BCg-cwSC1ixKd8HyH6lnBPKlA8dEvXUHKhE1Sm1OaizfygllOPN6K2zP84PLsYsxkcRCmwOpbIh6dvRIov7hYOlRiM-zfNYY-XDUW0geKnIr5WGYlPnbdqdmAUVi29/s1600/obts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg2ChoPXpmtJ9vE6BCg-cwSC1ixKd8HyH6lnBPKlA8dEvXUHKhE1Sm1OaizfygllOPN6K2zP84PLsYsxkcRCmwOpbIh6dvRIov7hYOlRiM-zfNYY-XDUW0geKnIr5WGYlPnbdqdmAUVi29/s1600/obts.jpg" height="276" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Oils by The Sea Gallery</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #cc0000;">437 Commercial St. </span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #cc0000;">Provinctown, MA</span></b>Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-53922787521891069032014-04-15T15:59:00.003-04:002014-11-08T09:19:31.436-05:00PAINTINGS HEAD TO SAUGATUCK<div style="text-align: left;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harbor House 24 x 30" Available at Roan & Black Gallery</td></tr>
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When you are painting an image of a place you well know, the process, as with <i>Harbor House</i>, often seems effortless. I'd been planning to paint this structure for some time. It seemed a beacon from the past, the Cape Cod I knew as a child, strongly standing ground out in East Orleans. It is at the end of Tonset Road near a landing with a small turn about. A spot I drove to with my plein air painter friend, <a href="http://www.lorimccall.com/" target="_blank">Lori McCall</a>, last Fall while scouting painting locations. We stepped down the few stairs to the harbor waters, taking in the bright dingy's tossed against the deep marsh grasses and watched as a fisherman headed out through the narrows, and decided it would do nicely. After a few hours of struggling with the transition of painting in the out-of-doors, I needed to regroup. I took the few steps back up the landing and in so doing looked directly at this house. It was then that its quietly familiar standings and weathered grey shingles grabbed my shoulders from a place back in time, and I, quite startled, felt the immediate and strong need to paint it. However, the good light would soon be lost and I was leaving the Cape the next day so I took several photographs, jotted a few notes and made a small sketch. And there it stayed, like those memories, on the shelf of patiently waiting.</div>
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Fast forward to two weeks ago when, here in my Florida studio, deep into the painting process, I opened a drawer and there it was - starring at me. I knew it was time. I pulled up a clean canvas and dove in. Almost immediately my Cape experiences began to pour from my brushes. I remembered all those vacations as a child where six of us would squeeze into a two bedroom cottage and spill out in the early morning air to walk by the Mill Pond as our parents packed up for another day at Nauset Beach. I remembered we would pull ourselves up onto similar porch chairs with the traditional blue and white stripes and how the mix of stone and sand felt beneath my tanned, bare feet. </div>
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Several hours went by when, feeling I was close to completion, I pealed it off my easel and hung it on my studio wall to "cure"- giving it the necessary time for the thick paint to set and me time to stand back and see what it needed. That next morning I noticed it held a strong presence and, after a few small changes/additions, I knew it was ready.</div>
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Concurrently, I just signed on with a new gallery, <a href="http://roanandblack.com/" target="_blank">Roan & Black</a> in Saugatuck, Michigan. Roan & Black is owned by two, very passionate and savvy guys who completely transformed an old mechanics garage into a successful gallery. It is a bold, fresh contemporary space located in a beach town known for its commitment to the arts. Saugatuck, a small city on Kalamazoo Lake just around the bend from where the Kalamazoo River meets the eastern shores of Lake Michigan, is similar to the Cape with its boating culture, stunningly broad beaches, vast dunes and fields of billowing beach grasses. It is also at the center of "The Art Coast of Michigan."<br />
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So it dawned on me, while looking at <i>Harbor House</i> and thinking about how I had just shipped several paintings up, that maybe this one would also work in my first group show with R&B called "STRUCTURE" opening this Saturday, April 19th. The response I received after emailing the image was a resounding, "YES!" and three days later the painting left my studio for the 1,158 mile journey to Saugatuck.<br />
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I quietly left the UPS Store thinking about how quickly this painting went from a place in my heart, to the canvas and now on to Saugatuck. It was then that I heard the last line of Casablanca. You know, when Bogart says, while walking into the dense fog, "Louie…I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." And realized how wonderful it is to be able to send a part of ourselves out into the world.<br />
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/c.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi74HcBql4qQTKZtBl0biBICwkS3J9OEaEYy7iVHRZHLalWvwDgsuuwWVAKxKn2KZpi1_jPFrdww1Fa1Eelgnm5oEnK8QS4bdb9nvqFEiN07gD8OmMNlhe4slIZEA43F5bh_h_iDN7dSVJI/s1600/structure1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi74HcBql4qQTKZtBl0biBICwkS3J9OEaEYy7iVHRZHLalWvwDgsuuwWVAKxKn2KZpi1_jPFrdww1Fa1Eelgnm5oEnK8QS4bdb9nvqFEiN07gD8OmMNlhe4slIZEA43F5bh_h_iDN7dSVJI/s1600/structure1.jpg" height="218" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<b>STRUCTURE </b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;">A collection of six artists working </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;">and how structures inspire their work</span></div>
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<b>OPENING RECEPTION</b></div>
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<b>SAT, APRIL 19th, 6:30- 9PM</b></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; line-height: 17px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Roan & Black Contemporary Gallery</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px;">3315 Blue Star Hwy, Saugatuck, MI</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>© 2014 christine sullivan</i></span><br />
<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-44190217993188303202014-04-11T11:05:00.001-04:002014-04-12T12:11:15.361-04:00A Wonderful Art Weekend! <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Original by Linda Solomon</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Dear Friends - This is a wonderful weekend to be outside - not only to enjoy the warmth of Spring here in the Hammock, but we have three days filled with special art events that kick off <b>this afternoon (Friday)</b> with a one woman gala show and sale at Le Cose Belle and rolls right to the launch of the FLAGLER ART & WINE SHUTTLE on Sunday! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Here's the details, hope to see you out and about! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span><b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Friday, April 11 / 4 - 7PM</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Art of LINDA SOLOMON</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A One Woman Gala Show and Sale</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A special evening at LE COSE BELLE GALLERY in the Hammock featuring the work of Linda Solomon. Linda's work will fill the walls of Le Cose Belle as well as a good portion of my studio space next door. Come on out and enjoy some light eats and wine as well as the contemporary art in Rachel Schiff's gallery, "I AM ART/RACHEL & FRIENDS."</span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Le Cose Belle is located in the Pink Building next door to 386 Restaurant and across from Paul Baliker Gallery on A1A. </span></i><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Saturday, April 12 / 6 - 9PM</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">4 ARTISTS EXHIBITION</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Jan Geyer, William Mazziotti, Robert Mielenhausen, Harry Messersmith</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A Gargiulio Arts Foundation Sponsored exhibition held at HOLLINGSWORTH GALLERY as part of their "Second Saturday" community art event at City Marketplace, 160 Cypress Pt Pkwy. Plus, stroll down to the <b>Flagler County Arts League Gallery</b> for their Spring Show and you'll also see the original oil by Linda Solomon that is being raffled in support of her cancer treatment expenses.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Sunday, April 13 / 12 Noon - 6PM</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Art of LINDA SOLOMON</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">A One Woman Gala Show and Sale</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This special event continues on Sunday at LE COSE BELLE GALLERY in the Hammock with a <b>mamosa brunch </b>from noon to 2pm with outdoor seating and a special "trunk sale" of Linda's works.</span><br />
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<b><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Sunday, April 13 / 2 - 6PM</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Then, things really get rolling at 2pm with the launch of the </span><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">THE FLAGLER ART & WINE SHUTTLE!</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">That's right! Sunday afternoon from 2pm to 6pm there will be a comfortable shuttle bus making the route on A1A between Flagler Beach's OCEAN BOOKS & ART and LE COSE BELLE GALLERY in the Hammock with stops at the following galleries:</span><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Balker Gallery</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Le Cose Belle Gallery and Boutique</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Christine Sullivan's Hammock Studio</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I AM ART / Rachel and Friends</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Hammock Wine & Cheese</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Art LaMay Gallery</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Ocean Books and Art</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: blue; font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Down By The Sea</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="line-height: 30px;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">Tickets are $10 / $15 per couple and can be purchased online at </span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/e/flagler-art-wine-shuttle-tickets-10700023057?aff=es2&rank=0&sid=5cb25235c25c11e3953a12313b0a99d4" target="_blank">eventbrite.com</a></span><span style="font-size: small;"> (simply type in "Flagler Art and Wine" in the search menu to get to the event page) or in person on Sunday at the Adult Educational Center in the Hammock or in Flagler Beach at the site of the Farmer's Market. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;">NET PROCEEDS GO TO THE UNITED WAY'S WOMEN'S INITIATIVE FLAGLER to benefit women and children in need. For more information 386-693-4882.</span></span></span></h2>
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<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-55810326883515424182014-02-13T11:00:00.000-05:002014-02-13T11:29:26.323-05:00JJ Graham Paintings<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLOboVXVfdyOG_k5Sa6b39Kwk6EiclM2V_nHsfQdcWjyL20abEC9k3RGI3Hh8uHoGjftElyn3X2sx3a52rVC_8zeIXkGAWKfTqeV6XiJqa4YF0By2dlKfMVBJJpOb-bN_EnRGQlDOl0ITE/s1600/IMG_5686.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLOboVXVfdyOG_k5Sa6b39Kwk6EiclM2V_nHsfQdcWjyL20abEC9k3RGI3Hh8uHoGjftElyn3X2sx3a52rVC_8zeIXkGAWKfTqeV6XiJqa4YF0By2dlKfMVBJJpOb-bN_EnRGQlDOl0ITE/s1600/IMG_5686.jpg" height="320" width="225" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Petra by J.J. Graham, Oil 2014</td></tr>
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Here we are, in the bleak mid-winter. But hard at work, with his unique abundance of light and color, is artist John (J.J.) Graham. Typically working at making other artists look good at his Hollingsworth Gallery in Palm Coast, FL, Graham has been feverishly painting the past month and now it is his turn to shine. </div>
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<b>Tonight</b> we celebrate the paintings of John J.J. Graham with the opening of his solo show at the <b>Peabody Auditorium</b> in Daytona Beach, FL.</div>
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<b><span style="color: blue;">JOHN J.J. GRAHAM - PAINTINGS 2011-2014</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue;">ROSE ROOM GALLERY</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue;">PEABODY AUDITORIUM</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue;">Daytona Beach, FL</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: blue;">OPENING RECEPTION TONIGHT / 5:30 - 7:30 PM</span></b></div>
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JJ's expressive style, which has been evolving over the past twenty years or so, continues to prove that great paintings are really born through a love of paint and the not-so-easy process of blending your true self into and onto the imagery. Most painters tend to shy away from revealing too much, but those who dig in and excavate, pour, scrape and spill it all on the canvas, are typically those whose raw paintings we can never get enough of. And these new paintings don't disappoint.</div>
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I stand in his studio and watch his incessant pushing and pulling of the brush, leaving short yet determined strokes, followed by J.J.'s "pause and paws" approach. This is where he paws at the paint and pauses to look at the surface before diving in yet again. Then there's a full body turn as his left foot pops up while his right arm comes down quickly layered by a more graceful, almost wand-like move with a scrappy looking piece of charcoal and bam! Images appear, lines form, he travels in it, around it and allows it to come alive - almost like he is letting something out or waiting for it to knock him over. Sometimes this happens in minutes, others take days and weeks - but always his paintings are living and breathing testaments to the workings of an artist who paints without fear and has built a style that is uniquely Graham. </div>
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When looking more closely at his paintings you typically find nuggets of both information and detail along the sight-line. Be they texture or a color shift, you soon learn, while holding a glass of wine and slowing down to really inhale the images, there are other worlds living within, behind and alongside what first captured your eye. Not unlike J.J. himself. The depths and caverns not always on the surface. And we see, when looking at both the artist and the work, that this is the out pouring of someone whose life is dependent on the canvas, on the process of painting and is obsessed with paint. </div>
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Come discover these new works in person and meet the artist tonight at the Peabody Auditorium which is just north of the intersection of International Speedway Blvd and A1A along the beach. There is plentiful parking, light eats, and wine and is free and open to the public. Come on out. You just may find yourself taking one of them home.</div>
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Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-77152604107451507722013-12-31T12:50:00.003-05:002014-02-13T09:26:19.070-05:00Happy New Year from The Hammock! <div style="text-align: left;">
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Hello and Happy New Year! Just a brief note to say thank you for continuing to support my art life. It has been another wonderful year of growth and exploration and I have met many new friends and collectors along the way. My wish is that you are able to spend more time in 2014 fulfilling your passions, seeing more of the beauty in the world and discovering it within. And that you and your loved ones have a healthy and happy 2014.</div>
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I am kicking off the New Year with a show which opens this weekend at <b><a href="http://hammockwine.com/gallery/" target="_blank">The Hammock Gallery</a></b> in Palm Coast. The gallery is part of the <b><a href="http://hammockwine.com/" target="_blank">Hammock Wine & Cheese Shoppe</a></b> compound, set under a canopy of trees on historic A1A (N. Oceanshore Blvd, north of the toll bridge and across from the Publix plaza) and operated by warm and wonderful people who not only have a passion to bring you delectable cheeses and introduce you to bountiful wines but they also bring in LIVE MUSIC every weekend and original artwork each month. I mean, where else in Palm Coast can you spend happy hour sitting outside with your friends enjoying wine in a colorful garden setting (or indoors if it gets too chilly) listening to great LIVE music and taking in the art?!</div>
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All the best for the coming year. /cs</div>
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<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-3768797313426108182013-12-22T07:46:00.000-05:002013-12-22T07:46:54.382-05:00From my home to yours...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>Happy Holidays and best wishes </i></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;"><i>for a healthy and peaceful New Year. </i></span></h2>
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<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-65789566992929145942013-12-05T09:42:00.003-05:002013-12-05T10:48:54.617-05:00Post Show Blues? Head to Miami!<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jim Dine (American b. 1935), Summer XI at Alan Cristea Gallery Booth</td></tr>
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Coming off a solo exhibition leaves me with opposing emotions. First, my heart is filled with gratitude for all that have supported me thus far and to my family and friends who have put up with me during the past few frantic weeks.<br />
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And to all of my existing and new collectors who purchased my work during this show - Thank you, thank you!<br />
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Yet, privately, a post-show blues effect has been settling in. Thoughts of "now what?" enter my brain and the paint brush seems further and further away from my hand. "Do I keep painting the way I have been or do I keep pushing myself to find out what's next?" The answer of course lies in just getting back in the studio but even better how about taking an ARTIST ROAD TRIP! That's right, it's the first week in December and that means it's <b>Art Basel / Art Miami week! </b><br />
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I, and four other painter friends, made the four plus hour drive to Miami Beach two years ago and it forever changed me. It was like visiting my favorite NYC museums and galleries only times one hundred and doing so over two and half days.<br />
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First, you're in Miami Beach. Art Fairs abound, the sun is warm, the azure ocean calm, the restaurants are abuzz. But then you enter Art Basel and/or Art Miami and you are worlds away. You wander from gallery to gallery, your heart pounding and overwhelmed with emotion as you get up-close and personal with the works of your favorite artists. Then you round a corner and see a 12 foot tall Rothko or a fourteen foot wide Kirkeby and you feel like you have just died and gone to heaven. So you sit down, enjoy a glass of wine with a salad that sets you back 20 bucks, rest your feet, compare notes with what others have found then get back out there. All the while your brain is filling with fresh ideas.<br />
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What a great way to re-engage the mind and art spirit before the upcoming three months of production work and shows. Maybe I will see you there? /c.<br />
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You can learn more at these links:<br />
<a href="https://www.artbasel.com/en/Miami-Beach" target="_blank">Art Basel - Miami Beach</a><br />
<a href="http://hyperallergic.com/95319/your-essential-guide-to-the-2013-miami-art-fairs/" target="_blank">Hyperallergic's Essential Guide to 2013 Miami Art Fairs</a><br />
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<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-1157214154159149472013-11-08T18:26:00.003-05:002013-11-11T10:11:04.935-05:00Art Show Press: A Learning Experience Part II<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Part 2: As I said in the prior post, there is so much that goes into an art show, especially a solo show, and typically the last thing you think about is the press interviews. Here is interview/article #2 by Pierre Tristam of <a href="http://flaglerlive.com/">FlaglerLive.com</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The interview was intense, starting from childhood and going to present-day yet it was the way the questions were raised that had me connecting my own dots and pondering for days afterwards. The best learning from this one was about scheduling your time. It took place between 6 and 8PM after a long day of hammering and wiring more than 30 of my paintings. But hey, the article is very generous and I am thankful for the support and assistance and coverage Pierre so generously gave me. Enjoy! </span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">At Hollingsworth Gallery: </span></b></div>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><span style="color: #0b5394;">Christine Sullivan, Artist of the Year</span></b><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">by Pierre Tristam, Friday, November 8, 2013, FlaglerLive.com</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">You can spot a Christine Sullivan painting from a mile away, and not only because many of her works intentionally place you at that remove from their characteristic subjects: the far-away barn, the lone boat, the undulations of seaside dunes, the slumbering cove, a shoreline farm seen from above, like those Google satellite maps, but with <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=ann+packard+artist&safe=off&espv=210&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=cid9UujYH8SqkQeoy4GoAw&ved=0CE8QsAQ&biw=1680&bih=965#es_sm=122&espv=210&q=milton+avery&safe=off&tbm=isch" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: blue; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Milton Avery colors</a>, and of course, especially in her more recent paintings—the works at the heart of her solo exhibit opening at Hollingsworth Gallery Saturday—the clotheslines, the recurring clotheslines that are like her earthbound version of boats’ masts and riggings. The signature is distinctive.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">The sparseness is evocative not of distance or isolation but of intimacy, of something as familiar as the feel of a favorite blanket in winter. Sullivan’s sceneries are the continuation of life by other means: memory and geography and nature, “that feeling that when we’re alone, we’re not alone,” she says, echoing the words of Ann Packard, the <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=ann+packard+artist&safe=off&espv=210&es_sm=122&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=cid9UujYH8SqkQeoy4GoAw&ved=0CE8QsAQ&biw=1680&bih=965" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: blue; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Cape Cod painter</a> whose lone, empty boats recur as often as Sullivan’s clotheslines. She is reflecting, she says, “that unspeakable feeling when you’re painting, when you’re off by yourself, taking a look at the ocean, you’re in the environment, you’re in the landscape. There’s this feeling that we’re all connected, and I think that feeling comes from that feeling of connectedness with the earth and all living things.”What you don’t see is people, animals, the clutter of living, noisy things. It appears to be all absence, as if Sullivan has a thing for neutron bombs, the kind that eradicate life while leaving everything else intact. But there’s nothing desolate about what you’re seeing, certainly nothing sad or mournful about it. You want to keep looking, and you do, sometimes at the same painting for long periods, because it draws you in. The colors are understated. The seduction isn’t.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">The intimacy doesn’t stop with the scene on the canvass. Sullivan’s technique, the occasional drafts of drawings still visible beneath the paint, the cuts in the paint, the intentionally unfinished look—no landscape is ever finished, after all—bring you into her studio. That connectedness again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">What’s less discernible is how recent Sullivan’s mastery of oils happens to be. At 56, she’s spent most of her life either surrounded by art in a family of artists or practicing it in one form of another, even through her work as a cartographer and, from the mid-1990s until just a few years ago, as one of the creators of the Golf Channel in Orlando, where she oversaw all branding products, including advertising in all media. She’s also been a prolific writer, a keeper of journals, a poet, <a href="http://yellowfishliving.blogspot.com/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: blue; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">a blogger</a>. But it’s only after she retired and permanently moved to Palm Coast in 2009 that she took up oils. It happened as she took one of JJ Graham’s very first classes at his then-nascent Hollingsworth Gallery, as she started dropping in there once a week, then twice, then three times, then daily, then rented a small span of wall where she could paint every day, and did, then a studio of her own in back of the gallery, and then, and then.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">“Show up. Isn’t that half the battle?” she says. She’d married, she’d held job after job, she’d raised a daughter (now in college). She now took on life as a full-time artist, painting seven days a week, starting at 10 or 11 and not finishing until 6 or 7 in the evening. With long breaks previously, she’d painted for years, but never oils. The 35 oil works on display in her Hollingsworth show are all from the past four years, and most are from the past two, the result of her faintly obsessive work ethic but also of her close association with Graham, the teacher who now realizes that a graduation of sorts quietly took place somewhere along the way. “She has the right attributes and the right work ethic,” Graham says, “so much so that at this point I don’t consider her my student. She’s my contemporary.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">It helped a lot that Sullivan’s evolution took place during the richest part of Hollingsworth’s young life, when it was itself a Cambrian explosion of artistic talent—with Graham, the late <a href="http://flaglerlive.com/39296/richard-schreiner-retrospective/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: blue; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Richard Schreiner</a>, Linda Solomon, Bill Brant and many others fuming up the place, several of whom taught at Hollingsworth. Sullivan soaked it all in. It’s paying off.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Saturday evening, with Palm Coast Mayor Jon Netts and many of her artistic colleagues present at Hollingsworth, she will be recognized as the 2013 Gargiulo Art Foundation Artist of the Year. Schreiner was the recipient in 2012, posthumously.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">“My first emotion after I heard the news was to be following Richard Schreiner to get this award the year after he got it was—I mean, I just bawled my eyes out in the car and called Arlene,” Sullivan said, referring to Schreiner’s wife, who lives in Palm Coast and has also been an intimate friend of the Hollingsworth community. “It’s a humbling experience certainly when you look at the artists who have received the award. But to follow Richard: I’m hoping he had something to do with it, even though his was certainly overdue. I’m certainly not the caliber of artist that Richard was, but there’s certainly a bond that we had and a dear friendship.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">Schreiner’s work—dark, acidic, wry, politically engaged, exuberantly angry, often reveling in the unnatural—is everything Sullivan’s work is not, though the two artists shared that happy coexistence that Hollingsworth made possible. They had this in common: they were both as emotional as they were intellectual in the way they approached their work. True to the inviting intimacy of her method, Sullivan illustrates that approach in her blog. Take this segment from a July posting about “Turo Lighthouse,” one of the works in the new exhibit:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, 'palatino linotype', palatino, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: xx-small;">I arrived at the studio early this morning and read a bit of my <i style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.phaidon.com/store/art/josef-albers-to-open-eyes-9780714849652/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: blue; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Joseph Albers: To Open Eyes</a></i> book and turned to look at where this painting was up till today. Covered in two, possibly three session’s worth of bright blues, greens and peach colored paint. Ugh.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Two days ago I was so mad at where it was going I just tossed it in the corner and painted a few others. Rather successfully I might ad. So this morning I decided I needed to remind the painting just who was boss (chuckle) and finally it hit me. My color strategy was entirely WRONG and the foreground had to change. </span></div>
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<a href="http://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/TruroLight-sullivan.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: red; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Christine Sullivan's 'Turo Light.' Click on the image for larger view. (© Christine Sullivan)" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-61018" height="200" src="http://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/TruroLight-sullivan-251x200.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); display: block; margin: 0px 0px 5px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 4px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="251" /></a><br />
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Christine Sullivan’s ‘Truro Light.’ Click on the image for larger view. (© Christine Sullivan)</div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">I went to work, first at the palette, developing a new family of warm, earthy colors and a few new greys, and then got to it. For the next hour I painted, changing almost every inch of the 24 x 30″ canvas and then, breathing, I stepped back and smiled.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">The archetypes are all there: the distant lighthouse, the earthy colors, the fence (replacing the clotheslines or the riggings), the absence of anything like a human figure. Sullivan was a geography major and an art minor in college (</span><a href="http://www.plymouth.edu/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: blue; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Plymouth State University</a><span style="line-height: 21px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21px;">in central New Hampshire, where was attracted by the skiing opportunities). That absence of human figures only speaks of the pervasiveness of “this sense of place,” as she terms a theme central to her work. “It is so much about the relationship that we all have, not just with the land, but with all the people that share this land. Then it just spills over into all living things. It’s that connectedness that inspires me, and I think is the foundation of my work. It could be just the landscape, or that’s where the clotheslines come in, or the telephone lines. You know that a man or humans have been in this environment by some of the marks that I have in my work, and some of them are intentional and others just seem to happen.” Like the wind swelling the sheets on one of her clotheslines, a literal breath of life—a spiritual breath if you like—that visually captures life’s momentum Think of Henri Bergson’s</span><span style="line-height: 21px;"> </span><i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">élan vital, </i><span style="line-height: 21px;">or “current of life,” powerful and irrepressible.</span></span></div>
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<a href="http://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/macmillan-sullivan.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: blue; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="'MacMillan Wharf (P'Town),' 2012. Click on the image for larger view. (© Christine Sullivan)" class="size-thumbnail wp-image-61021" height="200" src="http://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/macmillan-sullivan-265x200.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); display: block; margin: 0px 0px 5px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 4px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="265" /></a><br />
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‘MacMillan Wharf (P’Town),’ 2012. Click on the image for larger view. (© Christine Sullivan)</div>
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<span style="line-height: 21px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">The human element is never an intrusion. It immerses her scenes by its very absence, in the same way that the landscape’s unceasing changes do: you don’t see the changes taking place in front of your eyes, you can’t, but every scene speaks of that change. Sullivan explains: “We think land is our constant and yet it’s the opposite because land is always eroding and evolving and growing, right? Because it is a living thing. And then there’s this parallel with us as humans that—so are we, much like our lives. We have this history with the land, and it gets passed through by generation and generations. This essence of local geography to me is important in that I think I found that by painting.”</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">She’d lived her first years at a farmhouse outside Syracuse in New York, then in a suburb of the city, spending parts of every summer on Cape Cod and never knowing then that the years would have as deep an imprint on her understanding of the land as they would, as they do in her work. That’s the memory at work in the paintings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">“The word geography to me,” she says, “it’s that definition of our relationship with the land, and its relationship to us. That happens through folklore, it’s local history as well as just from what we do, we carve out a piece of this earth and we call it home. That becomes imprinted upon our soul because that’s what we identify with. That sense of home is so much more than a house and family. It’s all these colors and the environment of the land around us, the folks that feel about the purple mountains in Arizona and have that special relationship as we do here with our ocean and our sunshine, these wonderful skies that we have.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">And somehow that sense of place converged literally and artistically towards Hollingsworth.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">“Of all the gin joints I walked into, did it just happen that I happened to walk in here? And then to meet Richard Schreiner? Then to take a class with Richard? Then with Brant?” Sullivan says. “Hollingsworth is this magnet of some sort, it has drawn all of us who have a desire to be with other people that see the same things and feel the same things that we do. All of our art work can look different, and please, I hope it does, but we all have this common ground. And JJ is right at the center of that.</span></div>
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<a href="http://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/harwich-marshlands.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; clear: left; color: blue; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; margin-top: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="'Harwich Marshlands,' 2013. Click on the image for larger view. (© Christine Sullivan)" class="size-large wp-image-61022" height="387" src="http://flaglerlive.com/wp-content/uploads/harwich-marshlands-650x500.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(221, 221, 221); display: block; margin: 0px 0px 5px; max-width: 650px; outline: 0px; overflow: hidden; padding: 4px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="504" /></a>‘Harwich Marshlands,’ 2013. Click on the image for larger view. (© Christine Sullivan)</div>
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<a href="http://flaglerlive.com/61014/christine-sullivan-artist/" target="_blank">Link to actual article on Flagler Live</a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-30935465068715415952013-11-07T08:21:00.000-05:002013-11-07T08:28:57.857-05:00Art Show Press: A Learning Experience<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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There is so much that goes into an art show, especially a solo show. From chosing the work to the details of signing, wiring, framing. Add to that helping to produce an exhibition catalog, price list/brochures and then...the press interviews. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about why I paint or what I paint but when you are interviewed you are forced to address these and other questions. Here is the first article printed/published by the Palm Coast Observer.<br />
<b><span style="color: #0b5394;">See you Saturday, Nov 9th 6 - 9PM</span></b><br />
<b><span style="color: #0b5394;">HOLLINGSWORTH GALLERY, Palm Coast, FL</span></b><br />
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<b>Artist of the Year: Christine Sullivan</b><br />
by Shanna Fortier<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Christine Sullivan sat in the classroom at Hollingsworth Gallery last week looking at the wall where she temporarily had hung two pieces for her upcoming show — the same wall that was her painting space just three years ago when she began taking classes with J.J. Graham.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“This is where it started,” she said, looking around the room. “I never had any vision about where I wanted to be; I just wanted to learn. The journey is always about getting better.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">And learn she has. Sullivan has been selected as the 2013 Gargiulo Art Foundation’s Artist of the Year.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“I can’t find the words,” Sullivan said. “It’s such an honor — to be in the same pool with other people that have received this award — I’m excited, I’m joyful. To get work seen by more people is really exciting, but to get your work acknowledged is off the charts.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Sullivan is a fourth-generation painter. Her house growing up was filled with art — prints of the masters and the work of her great-grandfather.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“Art was always in my blood,” she said.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">She went to Plymouth State University for two reasons: to ski and to study art education. While in school exploring silk screen print making and 3D-sculpting among others, Sullivan fell in love with geography. She changed her major five times, but eventually ended with a degree in geography and an art minor.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“As a painter, geography is the focus of everything I do: the relationship with the sense of place and the people that reside in it — people and the land," she said. "The land has an imprint on us.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Sullivan worked in the corporate world but took up watercolor painting after having a baby.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“I found that if I did it every day, it was so good for my soul,” she said of painting. “What’s funny is I quickly found that I had a style that was unique to me.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Her living room was her art studio, and she was teaching her daughter to paint, until one day it wasn’t fun anymore. In 1999, she packed up painting all together and didn’t touch a brush again for 10 years. She retired and moved to Palm Coast in 2009, which is where her story with oil painting begins.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Sullivan’s inspiration to retire and begin panting again came from her mother, who had retired to Cape Cod and became a successful painter.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“I saw what joy it brought to her,” Sullivan said while fighting back tears remembering her mother who died last year. “She would be so proud of me.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Graham is also extremely proud of his pupil. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“She fell in love with learning how to paint and not being an artist,” Graham said. “She buried herself in the studio for a year, and she would show up and ask questions and then rush to her studio and do her own experiments. She wasn’t concerned in showing work yet. That is, to me, why she succeeded.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Sullivan calls her style "representational abstract." She explored a lot of abstract, but kept coming back to a small bit of reality. She had to have something there to recognize.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“There’s that feeling when you see a painting that looks familiar,” she said.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">While most people would classify her work as landscape painting, Sullivan stressed the sense of place.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“We mirror so much in relation to the earth,” Sullivan said, referencing the tides and the animals that migrate through our land. “All of this, I think, is connected, and that’s something I try to touch on with my paintings without putting it so literally.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Her colors come from her heart. The grays, greens and whites are the colors that she sees every day in the beach community. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">What started as a hobby for Sullivan to supplement a retired life of golf and the beach has turned into a second career.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“I paint every day,” she said. “It’s no longer something to do to keep me busy. It’s something to do that helps me breathe.”</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">Tom Gargiulo said the foundation took a risk this year by choosing Sullivan, a young, up-and-coming artist, for the top honor because previous Artists of the Year have had decades of experience.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">But Sullivan said she is not done yet. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px;">“My goals are usually day-to-day, just to continue to grow and get better,” she said. “Let’s enjoy the party and then let’s get back to work.”</span>Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-55884553921770879322013-09-16T08:49:00.001-04:002013-09-16T08:49:33.987-04:00Art of the Southern Tier Takes Center Stage<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcAudPbfH9QQqzNerW-imzOXk_KQrYK_tjPdZ61cC3zu3_jo5RsiiplNhX4624x3lq8EV2yMUZt5XVWHPtvgX6Woo2vlb9G-rdFm-XJBM8wHj1P6tg_Oqtyum5plWwiyicO3gUezNCg4Mq/s1600/clotheslineSeason.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcAudPbfH9QQqzNerW-imzOXk_KQrYK_tjPdZ61cC3zu3_jo5RsiiplNhX4624x3lq8EV2yMUZt5XVWHPtvgX6Woo2vlb9G-rdFm-XJBM8wHj1P6tg_Oqtyum5plWwiyicO3gUezNCg4Mq/s640/clotheslineSeason.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Clothesline Season </i>by<i> </i>Christine Sullivan, 30 x 40" Oil on Canvas, 2013 Southern Tier Biennial</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: large; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">The 2013 Southern Tier Biennial (STB) opens this Saturday, September 21 with dual receptions at Olean Public Library Gallery at 3pm and Jamestown Community College's Center Gallery at 4:30pm. The exhibition and receptions are free and open to the public. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The STB invited established and emerging artists within the nine rural counties that make up the Southern Tier of New York State to enter the exhibition and selected, through an intense jury process, a limited number of works they feel best represent </span><span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">the vitality and diversity of contemporary art in the region.</span></span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This years jurors were <strong style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">Kate Koperski,</strong><span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"> Director of the Castellani Art Museum of Niagara University located in Niagara Falls, New York, and</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><strong style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">John Vanco</strong><span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">, Director and Curator of the Erie Art Museum located in Erie, Pennsylvania. T</span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">ogether they selected 38 artists out of the hundreds that applied. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">The STB is spearheaded by <b>Anne Conroy-Baiter</b>, Executive Director of the Cattaraugus County Arts Council who, together with the Olean Public Library Gallery, Jamestown Community College and Cattaraugus Region Community Foundation, has built this into </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">a high quality, regional contemporary art event. A four-color catalog and unique artist-recorded cell phone tour nicely compliment the exhibition experience. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">Four cash awards will be presented at the reception this Saturday and both participating galleries are within walking distance of each other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">If you are able to make it to the exhibition I know you will enjoy the quality art, the friendly people as well as the beauty of the city and surrounding area. Cradled by the "enchanted mountains of Cattaraugus County," Olean was sculpted by glaciers and built on the confluence where Olean Creek flows into the Allegheny River. </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: large; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">It is home to Jamestown Community College and, just a few miles west, St. Bonaventure University as well as Allegheny State Park. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: large; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">You can explore this year's STB artists at </span><a href="http://southerntierbiennial.com/" style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: x-large; line-height: 21px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;" target="_blank" title="">southerntierbiennial.com</a><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: large; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">SOUTHERN TIER BIENNIAL</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">SEPTEMBER 21 - OCTOBER 25, 2013</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;">SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 21px;"> 3:00 PM RECEPTION & AWARDS, </span></span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 21px;">OLEAN PUBLIC LIBRARY GALLERY</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 21px;"> 4:30 PM RECEPTION & CELEBRATION, JAMESTOWN COMMUNITY </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 21px;">COLLEGE </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 21px;">CENTER GALLERY</span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The <b>Southern Tier Biennial</b> is presented by the Cattaraugus County Arts Council, the Olean Public Library Gallery, Jamestown Community College, and the Cattaraugus Region Community Foundation made possible by an endowment from the estate of F. Donald Kenney</span></span><span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">. </span></span><span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Kenney, who died in 1997, was a graduate of Holy Cross and received his Masters in Business from Harvard. He spent his life working at the highest levels in the international investment banking world and served as chairman of the Board of the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts as well as on a number of international arts boards including the International Council of Museums, the Finnish Foundation for the Visual Arts, the Ireland–America Arts Exchange, and the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Not bad for a kid from Olean, NY. </span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Links: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">Southern Tier Biennial <a href="http://www.southerntierbiennial.com/">www.southerntierbiennial.com</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; line-height: 21px; text-align: left;">Cattaruagus Council of the Arts <a href="http://www.myartscouncil.net/">www.myartscouncil.net</a></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Olean Public Library Gallery <a href="http://www.oleanlibrary.org/arts">www.oleanlibrary.org/arts</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Jamestown Community College Center Gallery <a href="http://www.sunyjcc.edu/">www.sunyjcc.edu</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cattaraugus Region Community Foundation <a href="http://www.cattfoundation.org/">www.cattfoundation.org</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 21px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-67809164139504524962013-08-05T10:34:00.001-04:002013-08-05T10:34:17.462-04:00The Painter's Dance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzQ6sFAH_yVQ17gPPwQTZGQN3rDMFtFGh8N9Oa01_vzpunFQe8RSpDzBDyx7RPktmmBV8VBnSZ2JCKnni1UyWDL9sIdyxmUGKQYpBXdEXxHcYaGZJPluNi-kDM6VYtINhr0hhmu-M5m8qi/s1600/Skaket+Clearing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzQ6sFAH_yVQ17gPPwQTZGQN3rDMFtFGh8N9Oa01_vzpunFQe8RSpDzBDyx7RPktmmBV8VBnSZ2JCKnni1UyWDL9sIdyxmUGKQYpBXdEXxHcYaGZJPluNi-kDM6VYtINhr0hhmu-M5m8qi/s640/Skaket+Clearing.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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As the youngest of four and the only girl summer vacations on the Cape offered an equal ground. Gone were the daily fights and battles among siblings. Instead, we would rise to the sound of mourning doves, skim alongside the Mill Pond looking for crabs, dig in the low tide flats for clams as the tide slid out through the narrows to sea. </div>
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We would rarely speak a word. The white row boats surrounded by green sea grass knocked against each other, the gulls drifted overhead, the echo of chatters amongst a family across the water all surrounded us and became a brave new world to explore. I can still hear the lone bird's distant call - <i>Bob White, Bob White</i>.</div>
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Up in the small cottage our folks would be clattering pans and packing up for a long day at the beach as the cicadas marked the weather forecast - hot and sunny. We'd be called up and, like a family of mules, we'd each be given bundles to carry - towels, beach chairs, umbrellas, totes with books, sunscreen and the coveted bag of oreo cookies - and make the long trek down to Nauset Beach. </div>
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This is summer on the Cape. As I worked at the above painting these feelings became unleashed and I simply danced. Oh what fun it is to be a painter! </div>
Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-48845737885091797142013-07-31T14:21:00.002-04:002013-07-31T14:21:55.816-04:00A Painting's Journey: Truro Lighthouse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Truro Lighthouse, 24 x 30" oil on canvas, christine sullivan</i></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Well here it is. After a week of decisions - some good, some not so good, and this morning's painting session, I am finally feeling better about "Truro Lighthouse" and think it may be finished. Or close. Here's the update:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I arrived at the studio early this morning and read a bit of my <i>Joseph Albers: To Open Eyes</i> book and turned to look at where this painting was up till today. Covered in two, possibly three session's worth of bright blues, greens and peach colored paint. Ugh.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Two days ago I was so mad at where it was going I just tossed it in the corner and painted a few others. Rather successfully I might ad. So this morning I decided I needed to remind the painting just who was boss (chuckle) and finally it hit me. My color strategy was entirely WRONG and the foreground had to change. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I went to work, first at the palette, developing a new family of warm, earthy colors and a few new greys, and then got to it. For the next hour I painted, changing almost every inch of the 24 x 30" canvas and then, breathing, I stepped back and smiled.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">As a relatively new painter I continue to struggle with the mental game and often find myself caught in that grey matter area between my ears that chews on such things as what do I want to paint, how do I want to paint, why do I want to paint and who am I painting for. And what I've noticed this week is that sometimes, well actually often times, I have all this garbage going on in my head <i>while</i> <i>I'm painting</i>!?!? Can you relate? It's also referred to as, "getting in your own way." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So...I've learned from this painting's journey that I need to work at "being in the moment" because when I'm painting with crap in my head then crap will stick to the painting. And also to stay connected to the subject matter - to be connected with the land so much that you can smell the salt air and feel the breezes. And finally, to be strong and confident in the studio. It really will make all the difference. Now, if someone would just tell Sybil...</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Thanks for joining me and, 'till next time, I hope you are enjoying and learning from your own creative journey.</span></div>
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Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-54623286174072962013-07-24T19:59:00.002-04:002013-07-24T19:59:40.454-04:00A Painting's Journey, Day 2: Decisions, Decisions, Decisions<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOUI0zTmS6v0cq6Q8qwGr00xTKZ1GOc-2r6eO81zBoyOAmiM-VMOxs-TKWldZahryH1kuXRfX9TS-Ip8nrkOLyiatHbqR3k-0KqkL1J-Qm0wJNyvBKlHrgond5Qu70ikZwY55AErtVaTGa/s1600/Truro3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOUI0zTmS6v0cq6Q8qwGr00xTKZ1GOc-2r6eO81zBoyOAmiM-VMOxs-TKWldZahryH1kuXRfX9TS-Ip8nrkOLyiatHbqR3k-0KqkL1J-Qm0wJNyvBKlHrgond5Qu70ikZwY55AErtVaTGa/s640/Truro3.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Work in Progress - End of Day 2</i></td></tr>
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What a wonderful day for painting! The heat wave broke last night and the light breeze was flittering the leaves making interesting designs on the wood floors and after a short walk with the dog it was off to the studio. Instead of going right to the easel I first sat down and wrote down some ideas I was having about the Cape and the dynamic connections I have with the ocean. Then I set up a new playlist of music on my iPod (Sting's Brand New Day and Dan Fogelberg's Netherlands were my favorites today) and then sat and looked at where I left off.</div>
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I really liked the preliminary draft using mainly black and white and a little red so the big decision today was whether to continue in this direction or jump and go with color. I spent more</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji2kkgLOM4Rqnlc1MDMD6kxBhpeFa89LAWP1v49Gvq9V-lppG7e-cXFoZoWj0U7ECBkJvdml2iR-Cxcmih0VPLEXznxmbZ8dIK1K10vJhJOuBt-Xft0QPW4OHT56hK4MZD8-XRmol9aEoH/s1600/Truro1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji2kkgLOM4Rqnlc1MDMD6kxBhpeFa89LAWP1v49Gvq9V-lppG7e-cXFoZoWj0U7ECBkJvdml2iR-Cxcmih0VPLEXznxmbZ8dIK1K10vJhJOuBt-Xft0QPW4OHT56hK4MZD8-XRmol9aEoH/s200/Truro1.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Work in Progress - End of Day 1</td></tr>
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than an hour at the palette and made up batches of neutrals in earth tones and a few greys with a more "cape/federal" blue tones. Then I spent time looking at the photo and decided I should mix up some oranges and a few greens. </div>
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I took a deep breath and decided to go with color. Starting with the tree line down went dark green, then a muted ochre. I dove into the orange and went for the foreground. And then went into the soft yellow of the lighthouse and brought that forward as well. Painting all areas of the canvas at once is a great habit I picked up along the way. As I was painting the front of the houses in the federal blue shades I pulled them forward onto the fence posts and in the small house in the upper left. </div>
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Stepping back I liked where it was going but at the same time felt like it just wasn't me. Immediately I hear the voices from the Cape saying, "Chris you really need to paint from life!" I took a break and reviewed my notes and closed my eyes and put myself at this location. What did color do to the scene? Was I just making a "pretty picture" (another kiss of death) here? </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWSYA-2dHQear6OgvL2dWP_32D52LK1ZkxXGaw9M9lFrYBUt8OV0INmLjb57g9RP6xViBRgtM6VCFQPZ_Oz_emIWpJeQWaqhtGk0G27CLlsQSbFNy1yCF7J6r-HhX9Otx8nFvxKiA2WeP0/s1600/Truro2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="257" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWSYA-2dHQear6OgvL2dWP_32D52LK1ZkxXGaw9M9lFrYBUt8OV0INmLjb57g9RP6xViBRgtM6VCFQPZ_Oz_emIWpJeQWaqhtGk0G27CLlsQSbFNy1yCF7J6r-HhX9Otx8nFvxKiA2WeP0/s320/Truro2.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Work In Progress - Early Day 2</i></td></tr>
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When I went back to the painting I focused in on the technical issues. I realized the lighthouse needed to be "heavier" so I widened it and moved the "light" part of the lighthouse around a bit (see image to right). This decision turned out to be a bad one and I spent the next hour over working it. Sigh.</div>
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Then, the funny thing that happens during these moments is the little things you "try" that turn out to work and become learning moments - this happened after I let this painting sit alone for awhile and worked on another one and when I came back I went to work on the top of the lighthouse - you'll notice it is still a bit distorted (in the top photo) as it changed shape a few times but enjoyed making marks with the palette knife. </div>
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I finished up the day by starting to work on the details - the white trim of the windows, the fenceposts, adding dark blue to the roofs and back right trees. Then it 5PM and time to give it, and my feet a rest. </div>
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There is still much to do before this is even close to finished but feel I know what it needs..while at the same time feel like I may take it in an entirely different direction. Guess I will just have to sleep on that! </div>
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<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-58446151538397671112013-07-23T12:50:00.002-04:002013-07-23T19:43:31.953-04:00A Painting's Journey: Day 1, Choosing the Subject<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIuB7V1Q5rxTcQk2vLSK1tmc2uzeG0CF9vmUAab9xHJ419hUq-p1p_SNq_4pzZf3DMXu9WBipPXut22YLr4Eofji5UQ2zERUtUYgSvZWmOjrsZzRO8i9SYljE4mQ0XM8die6ZvDjK_zf5e/s1600/SullivanDRAFT1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIuB7V1Q5rxTcQk2vLSK1tmc2uzeG0CF9vmUAab9xHJ419hUq-p1p_SNq_4pzZf3DMXu9WBipPXut22YLr4Eofji5UQ2zERUtUYgSvZWmOjrsZzRO8i9SYljE4mQ0XM8die6ZvDjK_zf5e/s640/SullivanDRAFT1.JPG" width="640"></a></div>
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<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Yesterday I started work on the above painting, Truro Lighthouse, and thought it would be interesting to follow a painting from start to finish as I work on some new ideas. Below is my first post. Feel free to travel with me and post your comments along the way... </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I was in the studio on another hot and humid Monday morning here in Elmira, NY - the fan whirring loudly as my bottle of water condensates on my work table. I wasn't sure what to do and was sitting at my desk reviewing notes from workshops I had taken on the Cape last Fall as a number of photographs of the Cape loosely fell between my fingers. I looked up at my post-it note goals, two of which are: increase your inventory of Cape and/or boat paintings and, push yourself to venture into new and unfamiliar territory. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I took another look at the small stack of photos and lock in on this snapshot of the Truro Lighthouse and it took me back to the day I visited. I was alone on a rather brisk, grey November day. Here, high above the Atlantic Ocean, was a place I hadn't been to since I was a young child. I remember the feeling of anticipation I had while walking up the sandy path and then, as if a vast curtain opened there it was. The beautiful, formidable, strong fortress mothered by a warm, clapboard Cape house breaching the sky like a whale's tale. And her surrounding split-rail fence invited me in to continue walking. </span><br>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The wind picked up as I followed the path out to the top of the bluff and embraced the ocean view, the salt air filling my lungs. When I turned back to look at her, there stood before me this image and it caught my breath. Her</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> solid cement foundation rising out of the sand dune seemed to rustle at my soul and I quickly picked up a blank canvas and decided this is what I would work on today with my passion fires brightly burning. How long as she been there? How many ships caught her beacon to safety in a gale? How many people have worked and lived here? </span><br>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I then got to work. I took my time between the photograph and the canvas. Back and forth. Back and forth. And then boldly determined and drew in the three dynamic "composition lines" that I learned from Cynthia Packard during one of her workshops (which I now remember took place the week before this photograph was taken). This step sounds easy but it takes some study and practice because where you place the image on the canvas can make or break the painting, and if it's not determined BEFORE you start painting then you will, most certainly, fail. Trust me...and the paintings I've tossed over the balcony.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">When I felt I had this step down I began to sketch in the next layer of dynamic lines. I should have stopped here because I drifted off and started sketching the subject itself. This is the "kiss of death" according to Cynthia, who, along with her mother, Anne Packard, feel that you really should only paint from life. And while I agree, I am going to use this approach to help abstract out my lines. We will have to wait to see how this pans out.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Next, I begin the under-painting process. This is when I block in the shapes, lines and form and plan out the high contrast areas. I then sketch in, with the paint brush, the dark lines to solidify the main graphical elements. Then, with the foreground still staring blankly at me, I rather quickly paint-sketch in the fence posts with an exaggerated purpose. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I step back and like how these help to lead my eye back into the painting. It feels a bit too realistic for me but I trust I can handle that later in the painting process and decide to leave it. I fix some of the errors at this point - </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">the lighthouse was too "fat" and some of the buildings needed adjustments (and still do, which can wait until later) - and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">at this point I start to like where it is going and feel okay leaving it until tomorrow. </span><br>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I tease some color onto the roofs which I know I shouldn't do as one of my "rules" is to never begin to add color until I've determined what colors will be on my palette so I do stop at this point and start thinking more about where I want to take it. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">What is it about this lighthouse? It's history. It's purpose. How did it make me feel when I first came up to it and when I looked back at it. What is it that draws us to them? And more technically, what colors would convey these feelings? A more muted approach or a more bold, colorful approach? I leave the studio with this door of thinking wide open and with eager anticipation to return. </span></div>
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Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-86768959339652450122013-07-03T11:16:00.003-04:002014-04-02T07:56:11.963-04:00How One Show Can Make A Lasting Impact<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Two years have flown by and it's time for the <a href="http://mag.rochester.edu/" target="_blank">64th Rochester-</a><a href="http://mag.rochester.edu/" target="_blank">Finger Lakes Exhibition</a> held at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY. This juried biennial features 100 pieces by emerging and established western and central NY artists. The works were chosen from a field of 623 entries by 230 artists and juried by Alex Nyerges, director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Regionally, this show carries with it a prestigious history and it's an honor and a pleasure to be included. Especially since the gallery is celebrating it's 100th anniversary. This show has created a bit of history for me, too - both personally and professionally. I was thinking about this when I made the trip to the Memorial Art Gallery last week. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"The Cardinal", 48" x 60" Oil on Canvas, 2011, $5,700, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Friday was delivery day for the upcoming show. I woke early. Packed the car with the large painting chosen for the exhibition (above) and three smaller works selected to go in the gallery store (see the very end of this post), along with some plein air painting supplies (just in case) and then...it started to rain. Not just rain, it poured the entire two hour drive from Elmira to Rochester. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">That said, I arrived without fanfare and smiled to find my friend, <a href="http://www.lorimccall.com/" target="_blank">Lori McCall</a>, getting out of her car just as I pulled into the drop-off zone. We had planned to meet here but we didn't speak while on the road and somehow arrived at the same time. Well, we laughed and hugged and then got down to business. I, once again, coaxed the large painting out of the back of my SUV (remember it's four feet by five feet and covered with a heavy tarp) without getting it wet. We both signed in, picked up our tickets and headed around to the front entrance to drop off our small works for MAG's gallery store. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">It was still pouring rain so we relaxed, made friends with the gallery workers and decided to stay awhile. We noticed a docent-led tour of the museum was about to begin so we tagged along. Afterwards, while the tour was informative and enjoyable, we needed more. So we went off on our own and ended up staying another two hours. We just didn't want to leave. It's that kind of a museum.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Was it the Cezanne(s), the Monet(s) or seeing the large Fairfield Porter I love so much? Or maybe it was falling for a small work by Eduard Vuillard or a uniquely impressive oil by Winslow Homer? Or absorbing the art with a fellow friend and painter who was just as speechless and inspired as I? Or possibly the building itself whose architecture transitions from grand marble hallways and walk ways to two story granite cathedral ceilings with paintings almost the same height?!? Well, it was all of these and more. And a good reminder why we must have and support our museums. Art must be preserved and is best seen in person. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Modern Wing, Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">We said our goodbyes and see you in two weeks and left rejuvenated and inspired to get back to our respective studios.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">As I was driving back home the rain started to let up and I reflected on the impact this show has had on my life and emerging art career. There were two significant events that took place during the show that have made a lasting impact on my life, both personally and professionally.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">First of which is one that led to additional sales and new, lifelong friendships. As part of the show </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">two years ago I had two small works in the gallery store, both of which sold the night of the opening reception. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">One of the buyers, a Rochester resident, contacted me a few weeks later by phone and shared how much he liked the painting and that it was a gift for his daughter's summer home on Cape Cod - to which I stopped and said wait, what? really? where on the Cape? Orleans?! Not only is that my home away from home but the painting you purchased was composed from a pond in East Orleans. It was meant to be. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">He then said he was calling to buy one of my paintings he saw on my website, as a gift, for a dear friend.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">That next Spring I received an email from his daughter on the Cape. She and her husband wanted to commission a larger painting. We met in the Fall while I was living in Wellfleet and I installed the completed painting in their home this past May. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The second led to the award of a 4-week artist residency and a new, impassioned theme for my work.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #20124d; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">During the show I met up with fellow Elmira artist, <a href="http://www.colleenmccallceramics.com/" target="_blank">Colleen McCall</a>, who, hearing me complain about my small home studio, told me about a call to artists for a 4-week artist residency at the <a href="http://www.communityartsofelmira.com/" target="_blank">Community Arts of Elmira</a>. Well, I jumped on it. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">As part of the submission process I had to meet with the board to discuss the usual why me's and what would I do's. I pitched the idea of painting a series of "Clothesline" themed paintings using our region as inspiration. This idea came to me during a landscape I was struggling with. And again, later, when someone asked me why I never include people in my paintings? I was thinking about this when I drove by a marvelous farm with clothes out on the line and it hit me - clotheslines are people, too. A reflection of their owners. How they hang. How they handle the winds. Some get left out alone for days. Others are neat and tidy. But always they are tethered together. Much like our communities. And I knew then that it would make for an interesting theme and subject matter.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Well I got the residency that November and first I drove all over the Finger Lakes region taking hundreds of photographs of clothes on the line then went on to paint every day for 30 days in the magnificent and historic Langdon-Pratt building where I was surrounded with supportive and wonderful people. The residency included two artist "talks" where the clothesline paintings were not only well received but I learned the concept struck a chord with the more than fifty attendees as afterwards everybody wanted to tell me stories about their clotheslines, then and now.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Community Arts of Elmira</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">When it was time to decide which paintings to enter in this years exhibition I included what I felt was one of the best clothesline paintings from the residency, "The Cardinal." And was thrilled when it was chosen. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">So, what a wonderful and lasting impact this show has had on me and I look forward to meeting and making more friends at the opening reception on July 13th.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">As always, brush on.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">cs</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">P.S. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">I am writing this from my new studio upstairs here at...the Community Arts of Elmira. Isn't it funny how the universe works?</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mqL71xwRs6dKvoMpFmTJ7UY0fABtedpzxoLgm6egEEeftzoPxfBPgc_JK72tYkWDQ4xpG99pEhR4s8O4ux6x713oRb2c1q_iIaaZiQRM8p75j-i43fPwnH9z_80L7x_PwTMC34Q0NPEJ/s1600/IMG_3070.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2mqL71xwRs6dKvoMpFmTJ7UY0fABtedpzxoLgm6egEEeftzoPxfBPgc_JK72tYkWDQ4xpG99pEhR4s8O4ux6x713oRb2c1q_iIaaZiQRM8p75j-i43fPwnH9z_80L7x_PwTMC34Q0NPEJ/s640/IMG_3070.JPG" height="504" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Planting Season, 24 x 30" Oil on Canvas, 2013, <br />
Memorial Art Gallery Store</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSIEZBX1xyOqFhY8kaqD5TNdkEQ0CkNVWUcJWH9JkMtdYSLJs-Dqx9YDz8M3k8c1f9cNx1VbaWUNPgeF51Z0rOoqB0ZAZNvFNL3GpF9Ib1eNx_nUCfG3llY6YCin_Oj8sxjl8lJoqYj2aL/s1600/IMG_3178.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhSIEZBX1xyOqFhY8kaqD5TNdkEQ0CkNVWUcJWH9JkMtdYSLJs-Dqx9YDz8M3k8c1f9cNx1VbaWUNPgeF51Z0rOoqB0ZAZNvFNL3GpF9Ib1eNx_nUCfG3llY6YCin_Oj8sxjl8lJoqYj2aL/s200/IMG_3178.JPG" height="195" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chequessett Neck (Wellfleet), 12" x 12" Oil, <br />
Memorial Art Gallery Store</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj71RSJZ0oipemxm2LhbeHMztKe8qavuyDeyD1u8Vf2npIVByw6ZyzZrI21WQwMCB15uTmXTmGeWQO0TBWZ9alOxrHq7sqSO2ztDvWLel3dBQgwU5g-hvW93IUo-tEJhg8VSKqbFVr38zgO/s1600/IMG_3181.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj71RSJZ0oipemxm2LhbeHMztKe8qavuyDeyD1u8Vf2npIVByw6ZyzZrI21WQwMCB15uTmXTmGeWQO0TBWZ9alOxrHq7sqSO2ztDvWLel3dBQgwU5g-hvW93IUo-tEJhg8VSKqbFVr38zgO/s200/IMG_3181.JPG" height="193" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Duck Harbor (Wellfleet), 12" x 12" Oil on Linen, <br />
Memorial Art Gallery Store</td></tr>
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<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7614774393395250980.post-54465394549762054502013-03-19T15:11:00.004-04:002013-03-19T16:49:25.988-04:00Wait A Minute! My First Outdoor Art Show<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxficUyYcszvMDHSDsJybfk9IOwCF777qnQI5g27NGExlpw3DRjkgnEVddqQSK5-vws5R-Q8395H0pf6KfXHlotRFJ1f3mXI62H7_U82n_vV_jyPqXRB05aCD5l3gsDvjS-fUvLb5jH3EI/s1600/flaglerfestmarch13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxficUyYcszvMDHSDsJybfk9IOwCF777qnQI5g27NGExlpw3DRjkgnEVddqQSK5-vws5R-Q8395H0pf6KfXHlotRFJ1f3mXI62H7_U82n_vV_jyPqXRB05aCD5l3gsDvjS-fUvLb5jH3EI/s640/flaglerfestmarch13.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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I participated in my first juried outdoor art show this past Sunday, <b>The Flagler Fine Arts Festival</b>. It's location in Flagler Beach, FL is just about perfect. It is warmly sandwiched between the rolling waves of the Atlantic Ocean and the smooth salt waters of the Intracoastal Waterway at an intersection filled with a steady stream of locals, beach goers and bikers enjoying "just another day in paradise." I said to my husband, while we started to unpack the car (at 7:45AM), "what better way to spend St. Patrick's Day then out here under the warm sun and by the ocean with other artists! Even if I don't sell anything I'll be a happy camper!" <br />
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My friend and her husband arrived shortly after with their beautiful, professional tent. She makes excellent jewelry and is a pro at these shows but as she didn't plan to participate she kindly offered up her tent (THANK YOU!!). Luckily, this also included the much-needed help to set it up! It didn't take long for the four of us to "get 'er done" and after several warm hugs and numerous votes of good-lucks they left me to wrangle with how to display my works.<br />
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I pounded nails into the wood slats (behind and attached to the hanging canvas I had made for "walls") and hung two paintings. They looked greaaa....oops! No sooner were they up when down they went. Slamming face first onto the gritty ground. Apparently, their weight rolled the slats forward just enough for the paintings to slide off the nails. After scratching our heads we came up with an idea that might work, if only we had a few more items...sooo off my loving husband went to the local hardware store.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMf4revO_exrasnLMQgounQJLZV9_e6qgTruq39FAO5cwqLq-GT53yA95KPflhmHM80GOoAwM4PxfFJtur5EJ5IyDrBymrtBJGQaq5IEfrEMuyDqEDeLnr1DxMxVxbhP2Y9RB0b-E9bql/s1600/insideright.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMf4revO_exrasnLMQgounQJLZV9_e6qgTruq39FAO5cwqLq-GT53yA95KPflhmHM80GOoAwM4PxfFJtur5EJ5IyDrBymrtBJGQaq5IEfrEMuyDqEDeLnr1DxMxVxbhP2Y9RB0b-E9bql/s320/insideright.jpg" width="223" /></a></div>
As it turned out, he was gone just long enough for me to learn that I could make "chains" from looping the large number of cable ties I had brought (cable ties and duck tape = a must for ANY situation) together and with the help of one of the volunteers who held the paintings up while I attached the chain of plastic ties to the top tent poles. It was working! I had just finished hanging the final painting when my husband eagerly returned with a small paper bag. I greeted him with the, "oh thank you anyways, Dear"routine and he sat down a bit dismayed while I pondered my next dilemma. How to display all of my new "mini" paintings without wire backs?<br />
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I then bunched them together on and leaning against the small card table in the back corner and took a few long draws of my now cold coffee. Then one of my art friends and "next door art show neighbor" brought out a wooden A-frame shelving unit and offered to set it up between us so I could use one side and she the other (see below). Phew! Thank you, Linda Solomon! Problem solved. Now I could sit down, right?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho8mdwyg3diwAfI5A8CVlhd83_pv8elRZcuutCUm4dX20KQ3bZ3UgEp0Ji-dyyl6g0bJwedUnoGpr6JAfLpto6QZAOob6zWPt9gOniNIOeBiwLEDIGlE09BDMCgObAfZ3UOM1XoDQipSsv/s1600/festwall.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho8mdwyg3diwAfI5A8CVlhd83_pv8elRZcuutCUm4dX20KQ3bZ3UgEp0Ji-dyyl6g0bJwedUnoGpr6JAfLpto6QZAOob6zWPt9gOniNIOeBiwLEDIGlE09BDMCgObAfZ3UOM1XoDQipSsv/s400/festwall.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My small works display shared with fellow artist, Linda Solomon. </td></tr>
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If you've been to outdoor art shows you kinda know what not to do. The image of the "bored artist" sitting inside their tent while everyone walks past flew through my brain. Or the ones that sit behind their tents and eat or knit. Well, I didn't have a "back door" so didn't have to worry about that. I put my chair out in front of the tent and sat down for a few minutes and quickly felt the beating sun on the back of my neck, plus people were now arriving in small droves so I donned my green St Patrick's Day hat and stood up...for most of the rest of the entire day.<br />
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The steady flow of people and sporadic conversations left little time to sit anyways. I was able to sneak in a yogurt, a few bottles of water and a short trip to the public rest room and later in the day a short run around the park to say hello and see what the other artists were up to. My friend and owner of Hollingsworth Gallery, J.J. Graham, had the tent next to me and was entertaining the crowds with a painting demo which he smartly continued with for most of the afternoon. I couldn't help but to think how much easier it is for we artists to sell our work through the gallery system...even with their well-earned commission...our time is definitely better spent inside the studio then out here on the street. But I was determined to give it the college try.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6jwQYN_zO4UKqVI63-qvLc122BUf0SWO6aF_2CnU7t3hRuE7V5MQUaZQVcsFGbFB6zxbZPqd8HtdjyWeHRhinYv01-Ylhb6pTAdL4ZVATrO4kZ2mI5xXg1KeovicSocUkzoiONpuQ324E/s1600/JJFestDemo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6jwQYN_zO4UKqVI63-qvLc122BUf0SWO6aF_2CnU7t3hRuE7V5MQUaZQVcsFGbFB6zxbZPqd8HtdjyWeHRhinYv01-Ylhb6pTAdL4ZVATrO4kZ2mI5xXg1KeovicSocUkzoiONpuQ324E/s400/JJFestDemo.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">J.J. Graham - artist and owner of Hollingsworth Gallery<br />
demonstrates his unique approach using acrylics.</td></tr>
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I smiled and waved at many nice people, talked to handfuls of people that love to paint but were still searching for "their way" and heard many a story about a son or daughter who is in the business. Soon it was time to think about closing down. Yet I noticed there were people still arriving and we were given instructions not to begin tearing down until 4pm. So I decided to wait a minute or two.<br />
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This was when I noticed a couple in my tent talking about one of my boat paintings. I gave them space. They walked away. Then they returned. Twice. I then stepped in and we talked pricing. They took one of my cards and left saying they might call me tomorrow. Oh well. It was time to close up.<br />
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Packing up seemed easy enough. Same with the tearing down of the tent. As we stood by our cars we heard who sold what and I reminded myself that I was fine with not selling anything, that it was a good test and suddenly felt how much my feet and legs were hurting. I guess it was warranted after standing for almost seven hours straight and maybe those "bored looking artists" sat down for a reason (I'm such a newbie!). I just couldn't bring it upon myself to go to the studio to unpack/unload my car and instead hobbled home to enjoy some corned beef and cabbage. And a glass of wine. Or two.<br />
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The next morning my body and brain was on slow and just around 10:30, while I was briefly out with my dog, I received a phone message from the couple I had met at the festival saying they wished to buy my large boat painting after all. I returned the call and we happily agreed I would bring it over at noon. When I brought the big painting in I noticed they had already cleared a space for it and were anxiously awaiting my arrival. And seeing that the house sat directly on the ocean and was filled with boats and sea fare, I knew this was meant to be.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiscRXHQOgUz3JY-CUtP1dWf6lTlDGvn6oUllqJI5pomyLXxfnj0071K8GEyAxz7h4duT3OgraC7OvUHVLR1OOsIMRA7VCxvisUuH9zgtLxoOrAaNwk7Z9-bptRLlhkF9igTJEMe7UzI9lr/s1600/buyers2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiscRXHQOgUz3JY-CUtP1dWf6lTlDGvn6oUllqJI5pomyLXxfnj0071K8GEyAxz7h4duT3OgraC7OvUHVLR1OOsIMRA7VCxvisUuH9zgtLxoOrAaNwk7Z9-bptRLlhkF9igTJEMe7UzI9lr/s320/buyers2.jpg" width="172" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Sea Fence" - resting in her <br />
new home.</td></tr>
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The woman then asked if I happened to have the mid-sized boat painting in the car and I said yes (again, thankful I hadn't taken the time to unload yesterday) and brought that one in, too. They found a space for it over their gas fireplace and noted that coming into the home from the beach you would see both paintings.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoFnUoIMojizuWyC5nFj_m92LimMhrCgkkNDVvehyphenhyphenq9ITloVPpRwyPTriQZqt-TER0hLw1BmQfQXOtiN_i0w7kMqRmnv1WL02mY_pe5hPzEjYMe9gzIo-GTTA3RvzDfFxanHar7ZPKXa4q/s1600/Sullivansolds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoFnUoIMojizuWyC5nFj_m92LimMhrCgkkNDVvehyphenhyphenq9ITloVPpRwyPTriQZqt-TER0hLw1BmQfQXOtiN_i0w7kMqRmnv1WL02mY_pe5hPzEjYMe9gzIo-GTTA3RvzDfFxanHar7ZPKXa4q/s320/Sullivansolds.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Mill Pond (Tethered Friends)" and <br />
"Sea Fence" in their new home.</td></tr>
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They decided to buy them both. It was such a pleasure to see these paintings come to life when placed in their new home and I felt such peace.<br />
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Afterwards, I reflected on all the work I put into this show, laughed at all the ups and downs, the "strategy" of creating all those new "small/affordable" paintings that didn't sell...and how I felt the presence of my mother with me (she spent her summer weekends doing outdoor art shows on Cape Cod for twenty years). And reminded myself that all I need to do is to keep <u>painting for me</u> and with passion for what I love to paint - the ocean life, the farm life, the clotheslines - because you just can't force these things. You just need to be patient, work hard at what you love, seek out new opportunities (even if some seem like flops) and wait for the universe to do the rest.<br />
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P.S. A big thank you to festival Director, Justine Wintersmith and the city of Flagler Beach for supporting the arts and putting on these great events. While this is the only one I am able to participate in, the festivals are held on the third Sunday of every month through July. Brush on!<br />
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cs<br />
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<br />Christine Sullivanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06453972095202689142noreply@blogger.com0