Heartfelt Workshop, April 21

I'm very excited to be offering this workshop. Felted hearts are for me, now, what fairy houses were a few years ago - they make me happy and I can't stop making them. I thought it might be a fun workshop to offer, especially with Mother's Day and the wedding season coming up.

Creating a heart is an opportunity to put loving thoughts into an object that then can become a meaningful gift for a mother, baby, bride, or other loved one (you could include a written note of the thoughts you've carefully put in your heart).

Come enjoy the peaceful and heartwarming experience of needle-felting. You’ll learn basic felting principles, create a heart or two of your own, and go home with all you need to know to make more. This class requires no specific skill.

Class fee: $65 (materials included)
When: Sunday, April 21, 2013 from 1–4:00pm
Where: Grove Gallery,325 Grove St., E. Lansing
Questions: bhranilovich@gmail.com

To register, go to the PayPal link at the right.

This is the first time I've tried using this system, so please e-mail me pronto if it doesn't work!!

Grove Gallery

So much water has gone under the bridge since I last wrote here that I'm just going to start with the present and move forward. In January I joined the Grove Gallery in East Lansing. It's a charming space with some great people, located at 325 Grove Street,just north of Ann Street (by the 7-11) in East Lansing. Grove is growing and fine-tuning all the time as resources allow. Working with the gallery is a creative process in its own right. I'm showing a number of media; encaustic, clay, acrylics, pastels and sundry others. I should be teaching some workshops there soon. Please come check us out. Jenny Schu currently has a wonderful bead and weaving exhibit worth seeing.
 

Birds and the Bees at Midtown in Kalamazoo

As of this week I might be ready.

Midtown Gallery in Kalamazoo asked me to be part of an exhibit called "Birds and the Bees"...bees, because another artist and I will both have encaustic work...birds because the owner knows I like to paint them.

It's been and interesting few months. I've been producing pieces, but was not feeling right about the work. I've been feeling pressure because Kalamazoo is where I got my BFA. Even though my name is different, that insecure part of me has been chanting "what if THEY look at this work and feel they expected more out of me after so many years". Annoying as that voice was, it made me realize it was I who expected more out of me after so many years. I needed to step up to the plate again as an artist. I've been making images, but not doing the inner work necessary to make ART.

In the end, maybe nobody would know the difference, but me. I assure you, it's the critical difference between truly enjoying the process and being proud of the work. Once I found the zone I looked at most of the work I'd done up to that point and deemed it unsuitable for this show. I started over and am SO glad I did. I feel like I've come home and remember what it's like to love being in the studio. It's a gift.

I may do one more piece, but know I'm ok if I can't. This is the first exhibit I've had for a couple of years (life sucked me up for a bit), so I'm looking forward to seeing the work hang. As always, I'll like some of it, hate some of it, find other people like pieces I don't. It's all ok.

Self-Promo

On March 22 I'll be doing a brown-bag workshop for the Arts Council of Greater Lansing. It will be at their office on Turner Street in Old Town from noon till sometime after 1:00. It's been very interesting preparing materials, as it's become clear how many options artists now have...free and more effective than ever before.

With Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, e-blasts and blogs, you can post images, videos, calendars, invitations and more. You can encourage an ongoing dialogue about your work,organization, or medium of interest and network to your heart's content. You can do it passively - not having to ever talk to a soul or put your artistic soul on the line. It's pretty perfect.

The trick is, you still have to do it. Somehow or another, you must tell people you exist, what you do, and (directly or by implication) why they should care. Marketing is an art form in itself. It's fun to plot which medium will accomplish what and layer the approach. It's gratifying to get responses to posts, or to create a community around something dear to your heart.

If you're interested in joining the conversation and receiving some written tips, please contact Katie Robiadek: Katie@lansingarts.org or 517.372.4636 x 3.

Hacked

A couple of months ago my site was hacked. It's a good thing, as it has long needed reworking and this pushed me over the top. Coincidentally, Adobe came out with MUSE, which is software for Web design. For the first time ever, I was able to create a site...and not in a templated format.
The software is still in beta stages, but has tons of potential. There are little issues of alignment I have not been able to resolve, but all in all I'm very excited and decided to go ahead and post the site. Check it out if you like.

While the design options are limitless, I stuck with a pretty traditional format. Once I get this under my belt I want to start to take some bigger chances.

Working on the site helped me think about my life a bit - how do I want to present myself, if at all. Because I just never know what's ahead, it makes senses to keep a site. I can't imagine my life without some art in it, but I'm feeling pretty low key at the moment.

Resolution or Revelation

2010 was full, to say the least. In April I got a full-time position with ZimmerFish and have spent the last 7+ months adapting, learning, learning, learning, and adjusting. During this time I completed previous freelance commitments, a small ceramics exhibit, and encaustic works/workshops for a grant - and slept.

Now that I've settled into the job, which I love (thank you universe), I'm thinking about what's next for my personal artwork. Till recently, making art has always been tied into making a living. I do think this has affected the nature of the imagery, no matter how hard I've tried to just be true to the work. In the end though, so what. I just want to make art. It's a truly selfish experience.

I'm lucky. I know it and I want to use the celebrational act of making art to make at least some little part of what can be a tough and frightening world better/kinder/easier. I've had times where I tried to say something important with my work, but don't think I've made a butterly's flap of a difference. So, it's time to consider how to bring it all together - what, how, for whom - making me smile and look forward to 2011.

Lansing Art Gallery Demo

Last week, as the conclusion of my grant for the Arts Council of Greater Lansing, I did a hands-on demo of encaustic. The attendees were mostly artists and I'll be curious to see who pursues the medium. Several people tried it out. This is one of the images I worked on...not complete.

If you look at the green and red marks in the lower left corner, you can see where one goes from fat to skinny. This is a technique of incising the was, then filling the groove with color, then scraping away the excess to leave a filled-groove mark. The rest of the marks have yet to be scraped. I like the line quality this creates.

All in all the piece needs some cleaning up and punching here and there. I'm still undecided about whether to add more flowers...could go either way.

Today I'm finishing up the final report for the grant. I'd like to thank the Arts Council for helping me get going with encaustic, which I think will hold my interest for quite some time.