Works in Progress with YoungMoms

Brooke and Brooke(?)

This week wraps up the art workshops with YoungMoms of Kennett Square, PA funded by a Leeway Foundation ACG 2013. 

YoungMoms and mentors get down and work together on the mixed media
figurative sculptures

 The goal of the project is to work together collaboratively with a variety of materials and media while we learn about women who have overcome challenges and adversity to make a positive impact on the world.

We always start with a great home made meal prepare by wonderful volunteers from the community and then the kids go off to play in another room with the two sitters while we get down to work.

YM Executive Director Linda Mercner, left,
with volunteer extraordinaire
Barbara Proto on right

Our first two sessions together had us creating collage portraits of different women followed by a session making exquisite corpses.  We are now well into creating mixed media sculptures of our own super women.

Using inkjet prints of the YoungMoms faces we used Liquitex gel medium to create image transfers onto Crayola Model Magic- reminding us that we create our own future, and anything is possible.

The Power of Love
by Justine

The images transferred onto the surface with varying degrees in tact, and everyone had a great time working back into the faces with collage and paint.

Bridget... has worked with me before and it is so awesome to see
her come into her own as a woman and a mother

The girls also began to create the armatures for their figures out of boxes, tubes and other recycled materials.

Bethany and Stephanie

The sculptures are a work in progress... just like us! They are going to be on exhibit at the 3rd Annual YoungMoms Brunch on April 26 at the Garage in Kennett Square, PA.

To the Touch- Artist as Collector

Arizona based artist Becky Joy is this week's guest blogger for the Artist as Collector Series.

Spirit of the Senses
33"H
©Vala Ola

I LOVE sculpture. This is a favorite piece of sculpture by a friend, sculptor and painter, Vala Ola that I acquired through a trade, with me paying for the casting cost. Vala is a master with design. 

I had been admiring this as she was sculpting it and was overwhelmed when she said she wanted to trade for one of my sunset paintings.

I love to touch sculpture and feel where the artist moved the clay and how the fingers and hands fit into the piece. I can tell that Vala's hands are close to the same size as mine by the feel. To me that is a real connection with the work.

When we made the trade, I cried I was so happy with it. Later Vala was admiring a small plein air painting of mine and I gave that to her. I felt the sculpture deserved another painting and besides, she's a good friend.

Becky Joy is a painter known for her glowing light and colors in her work. A teacher and a traveler she leads painting workshops all over the world.

Your Brain on Art

Remembers those advertisements from the Ad Council stating that "this is your brain on drugs"?

Well this, is my brain on ART... all lit up! (and, without any assistance from the other shrooms)

Yes that's me all bundled up... it was cold, but festive!

Taken at the First Annual Mushroom Drop at Kennett Square, PA bringing in 2014, this 8' x 8' stainless steel mushshroom wrapped with hundreds of LED lights presented a photo op I couldn't pass up.

January just seems to be blowing open the doors- of my mind. Lots on my plate, besides eggs.

1. Catch & Release a solo exhibition at Project Space Gallery in Wilmington, DE Opening February 2, with artist reception on Friday February 7, 2014. The past few days in the midst of finishing up new work for the exhibition at Project Space I have been busy working on the invites for the Project Space exhibition titled Catch & Release designed by Caryl Felicetta of Think Plan C. In fact, building your mailing list IS an art, and maintaining and regular updates are a good practice. ArtBiz Coach Alyson B. Stanfield offers up lots of suggestions and systems to get your mailing up to date and keep your fans and friends in the Loop.

2. My Painting Studio Class begins tomorrow Wed. January 15 at The Center for Creative Arts in Yorklyn, DE. Registration is still open. You can sign up online.

3. Prepping to begin a collaborative sculpture project about women with YoungMoms of Kennett Square made possible by a Leeway Foundation Art & Change Grant.

Want to be in the Loop? Sign up here to get my monthly news updates and emails.

Loop, welded steel, 25" x 56" x 41.5"
©NanciHersh
Photo: Christian Kaye

Big Fork - in My Drawers

Day #1, November 28, 2013 from What's in My Drawers.

Big Fork
wire, pulp, encaustic
©NanciHersh
$75.00

                                                                        

Thanksgiving Day as well as the second night of Chanukah.

Celebrating abundance, miracles, family- and remembering those who are no longer with us.

The fork on the right is from the silver set I inherited from my maternal grandmother, Rose. I was fortunate enough to know all 4 of my grandparents who were an influential part of my life.

Rosie a beauty, loved quality and beautiful things. She traveled the world and brought me home dolls from every country. She also took painting and sculpting lessons. Recently and surprisingly,  I learned that she volunteered and drove an ambulance during World War II when she wanted to help the war effort but my grandfather a prominent attorney did not want her working.

I started making these utensils out of wire, pulp and encaustic when I began thinking about what we inherit - genetically, culturally, and- literally.

And, how what we keep, what we let go of, and how this collective stuff shapes our identity.

Dig in.

Happy Thanksgiving. Happy Chanukah.

Click here to see the post about What's in My Drawers and be in the loop for the rest of the art and stories in this blog series.

Welding Sculpture Celebration

Please join us if you are in the area. I will have 3 pieces on exhibit in this beautiful setting.

Also stopped in on this week's workshop and saw this week's participants busy at work. There will be lots of interesting wonderful work to see and lots of food and drink to share.

Staying in Touch- Artist as Collector

New Jersey based artist Donna Payton is this week's guest blogger for our Artist as Collector Series.

Corner of the Midnight Dream

acrylic on wood panel 

9" x 6" (23cm x 15cm)

©2013Jun'ichiro Ishida

I met Jun'ichiro Ishida when we were both doing an artist's residency at Vermont Studio Center several years ago.  He is a very interesting artist from Japan living and working in Brooklyn with his wife, a talented jewelry artisan.  Besides his work consisting of a modern interpretation of gorgeous traditional Japanese landscapes, I was drawn to his big smile and friendly manner.  He had a book on Buddhism in his studio at the center and we began talking. We have stayed in touch through email, as well as going to shows and openings together. 

Jun's piece is so uplifting and beautiful. He designed my first website (which he is also excellent at). Jun recently took the train to visit me in my studio. I am purchasing another of his small works to hang by this one. Jun is working on it right now. 

Donna Payton is a painter, sculptor and mixed media artist living and working in New Jersey. 

Her sculpture Color Code Cone with a sound piece with computer generated music by her son, Jason Rosenstein, coming from the cone. It will be included in a show called Noise at the Noyes Museum in Oceanville, NJ,  September 2013-  January 2014.  

Gifted Art

New Jersey based artist, Bob Matarangelo is this week's guest blogger for our Artist as Collector Series.

Over the years I have accumulated more than a fair share of artwork from students, friends and collaborators. Some were gifts, others purchased, and still others part of an exchange. Each holds a personal back story, in addition to its aesthetic qualities, so choosing one is never easy.

I have decided to post about an untitled diptych given to me by Ric Haynes from Quincy, Massachusetts. Ric was my best friend in graduate school as we matriculated towards our MFAs at Vermont College, both of us in middle age.

Ric's process incorporateds a thickly brushed application of oil paint leaving an impasto trail, like the frosting on a Wayne Thiebaud cake.  His characters are benign monsters lumbering through a barren pastel world, while captured in an iconic Robert Crumb gesture. Their draw lies in that tenuous space between comic and horror, like Grimm Brothers Fair Tales. They are loaded with personal references but their secrets are not easily accessed.  These images are the unique product of Ric's most inner creative being.  In fact, it is Ric we see hanging on the wall, but in a Shamanistic, shape shifting form.

Ric is also a poet, printmaker, watercolorist, and a very accomplished artbook maker, with his work in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C.

Bob Matarangelo is an artist working in digital video, animation, painting and sculpture. He is also a teaching artist and has created and collaborated on many public murals in New Jersey.

Timeless Travels and Inspiration

This week's Artist as Collector is from photographer Niki Berg who sent me this post from a stopover en route to India where she will be traveling this month.

Magdalena Abakanowicz
from Facing Sculpture
©2012RicardoBarros from

"Hello from Germany,

Here I am sitting in a cafe in the airport waiting for my flight to Chennai, India. The reality of being a traveler is already felt with the awareness of a very large and diversified world to explore. Time has become timeless somehow. Traveling through multiple time zones and feeling fluid enough to function in the present.  I hope I will feel this way for the next leg which is even more dramatic.

Some years ago I read about a workshop being given by Ricardo Barros on "Marketing Your Photos". It was given in Cape May, New Jersey, where I had never been.  It was a marvelous experience. Richardo is a wonderful person, photographer and teacher. 

We did a trade of photographs and I chose two of the wonderful and inventive portraits from the project "Facing Sculpture". One of which is this photo of Magdalena Abakanowicz. She is an amazing sculptor. I chose this portrait for her magnificent face and satisfying expression, as though she just finished one of her magical pieces.  Her expression says "life is full and perfect." 

Thanks NIki- safe and wonderful travels... looking forward to seeing the new work that will transpire from your adventure!

What is your collection that speaks to you of joy and satisfaction?