Art Hearts for Haiti

Laure Ferlita (click on above logo for link) has started a project to aid the relief efforts being done for Haiti. I found out about this project through Ann and Krista Meister - it felt like this was something that I could do beyond the contributions that we have already done.

Besides, it was a lot of fun to spend a day in the studio doing some of the mixed media kind of things that I used to do. The requested scale is the art trading card size. This was new to me too, so I approached it in the first way I knew how:

By doing nine of them on one page in hopes of getting one that would be decent. So eight of them look like this:

And the one I chose to send to Laure is this one:

So, hey, this art card thingy seems to be OK. Ann has already talked to me about setting up an Etsy shop and going to town with that. Maybe I can do such a thing after all.

Corsica

Corsica
12x16" watercolor on 140lb. Kilamanjaro

So here is my contribution to Bill Guffey's Virtual Paintout this month. Corsica must be a beautiful place to live. For my search I stayed close to the coast - I think it being winter and all. We had another round of ice yesterday and it was so sad to see the same trees bowing down once again. Their spirits seemed so burdened that it really affected me on my way to work. But, that's why we do art I suppose, perhaps at times a form of escapism. I hear a lot of artists say that they do art because they have to. Maybe that is the only real reason to do so.

Watercolor Show TV Interview

So here it is finally. This interview was shown last week on our very local TV station concerning my work for a watercolor show at our Community Arts Council. I've changed this video to a link - because what I had played automatically and that became irritating! So maybe this will work better.

Elizabeth Cotten

Elizabeth Cotten
22x30" watercolor on 300 lb. Arches coldpress.

Elizabeth Cotten was originally from North Carolina and had a remarkable story. She essentially taught herself to play guitar after an older brother left home with his homemade banjo. She was so very important because she remembered the music from her youth - the folk songs of itinerant musicians, community gatherings and "church music" of a time before recordings of this genre, so she became a direct conduit of a music that was transformed and passed down from the earliest of days in the south. The church told Elizabeth that worldly music was sinful, so she quit playing for 40 years.

It wasn't until she got a chance job working as a domestic for the famous Seeger family that she was "discovered" and then promoted. So her professional career started when she was well into her 60's. Her song Freight Train was her most famous, being covered by the likes of Peter, Paul and Mary during the folk revival movement 0f the 50's and 60's. Elizabeth was known for her "upside-down" style of playing a right-handed guitar left-handed, a style that made her music and her "Cotten-picking" fingerings quite unique. By all accounts that I have read Elizabeth was a spirited genius who would warn one to be right with God, but one who would love to play you a song.

Watercolor Show

Well as usual there are last minute things to do for a show that you did not anticipate. This time it was really good though - as I was literally ready to walk out the door to deliver my work to the Jones House - our local Community Arts Center here in Boone, the art director calls and asks to speak to Ann for help! Seems the show scheduled to run concurrent with mine had canceled out at the very last minute. Turns out that Ann had enough pieces (of course) for a show in this person's place. But what it meant was a day and a half of last minute framing. Thank goodness Cheap Joe's had what we needed to pull this off (he is just down the road from us). So, as the sign above says, a Double Nemcosky Exhibits event for the town of Boone.

There was a nice turn out as the weather cooperated for the opening reception (it was postponed from the week before as we were experiencing tundra weather). Everyone present exclaimed how tall my daughter was and enjoyed seeing some new work from Ann and yours truly. I've been holding this post because I did some local TV interviews talking about the work - but have been very impatiently waiting for them to be posted on their web site so I can embed them in a blog post. Eventually they will be there I'm told so I have to wait.

In the mean time I've started a new semester and that always brings the studio to an abrupt halt (rewriting syllabi, too many meetings, making copies and advising students). The first week did go well though - I think I have some good classes this go round. I did manage to finally finish Elizabeth Cotten (Piedmont blues series), and am still fascinated with virtually touring Corsica for Bill Guffey's Virtual Paint Out challenge blog (he got a wonderful plug on Katherine Turrell's Art of the Landscape blog - and she featured one of my pieces too!). So, in many ways I'm back and I plan to resume commenting on your wonderful blogs and Flickr groups I promise - I've have been looking.

One wall in my exhibit. Check out Ann's blog to see her work in her show.

Sea Six Cottage

Sea Six Cottage
11x15" watercolor on 140 lb. Kilamanjaro

This was a piece that I did a year ago this past October - it was one of those paintings that was framed and put into a show before I had the time to take a picture of it. I really liked this little piece so when I was swapping out frames for the next show I photographed it. Just wanted to see it up on the blog.

I love the porch of this rented cottage, and just sitting there watching people bicycle by while listening to the ocean waves a block away. Now that it's winter and the temp hasn't gone above 15 F for a week makes this a more special memory. That and the fact that we went at that time for my daughter's birthday - she has grown to love Edisto Island.

A Young Lady Sketching

A Young Lady Sketching
10x14" watercolor on 140 lb. Kilamanjaro white.

I think I have been thinking about this past summer a lot here lately. Ann took a photo of our daughter sketching next to Bass Lake right outside of Blowing Rock, NC. I always loved this photo and kept a little printout of it pinned to the wall of my studio. So here's a quick little watercolor sketch of her (I've been needing to get back to work!) based on that photo and warm memories of our outing last May or June. Stay warm and happy 2010 everybody.