Martha Kelly Art

I've had two articles  written about me over the last few months. It's always lovely to get a little publicity when you work for yourself and don't have an advertising budget. The first article was in Fix Magazine, and the second in the Commercial Appeal. I realized I had posted them on the "About" page of my site but hadn't put them on the blog. At the end of a week of bad sketching weather, which I've spent doing finishing touches on big indoor work that I can't get good photos of myself, it seemed like a good time to add them here.

I was pleased that Emily Keplinger's article talked about the Memphis Urban Sketchers as well as just me. Urban sketching is still a new term, and it's great to raise its visibility outside art circles. I was also  pleased for our local group's next outing to get a plug.

Elmore and I adopted a cat for Valentines Day. Our old cat, Richard, had died just before Christmas, and we were really missing having a lap buddy in the house. Mikey (9 months) is a very welcome addition to our household, and is sitting in my lap now as I type. He doesn't hold still that much, but I love his black and white patterns and want to do some more sketching of him as I can. I've also realized that I never sketch Merlin, so I may be doing some more pet sketches now that Mikey's arrival has jolted me into a couple.

One of the many things I love about being married to a fellow artist is hand-made valentines. Elmore forged this heart-shaped hook for me in his small forge made from a fireproof brick. He's been making other hooks and bottle openers for our kitchen, and I love carrying on our daily lives in the midst of things he's created for our home.

In other Valentine news, it's just on a year since Elmore reinforced the floor to receive my new letterpress. He spent four afternoons on his belly in the crawl space digging holes and sinking posts into concrete. It was the best Valentine ever, and I could not be more lucky.

I'm also still madly in love with my letterpress a year on. The first block I carved for it was a valentine. I was thinking of Elmore, of course, but I'm glad to report that the letterpress and I are also thriving in our relationship.

I've been working on a five panel painting for my church, Idlewild Presbyterian, for the last year or more (with several long pauses along the way). This is my final large project for them as part of my artist-in-residence position. I'll keep doing the weekly bulletin drawings, but I don't have another large project planned for this year.

Over the last week, I've finally gotten the five panels pretty much finished. Today I had a scattered sort of day, with lots of outside business to attend to, but I did take advantage of the cold weather to finish the backs of the panels.

I wanted each individual canvas to have the critical information on it, which is that this large piece, my vision of the tree of life at the center of God's Garden, is painted in memory of my mom. I had done layers of gesso on the supports of each canvas earlier, and today I got all the lettering done. Lettering is not my strong suit, but fortunately  it will be facing the wall anyway. I just want the information on there for posterity, and also to have Mom's name, even hidden, present in worship each week, as my own sort of permanent prayer for her.

These two photos show the information on the diagonal struts of each larger panel (there are two that are 36x72"). The first photo is the three smaller panels, each just 12" wide and six feet high. I've got a date with my photographer for next week, and I'll post the front when I have good photos of the finished work to show.

My neighbor and fellow urban sketcher Stuart Lacey has been suggesting we go draw at the stable that houses the carriage horses just north of downtown. I finally got it together to join her yesterday, and it was fabulous. Fortunately, we showed up just as the owner dropped in, and he very hospitably gave us the run of the place and told us to come back when more was going on and bring a group. I'm going to try to get the full urban sketchers down there sometime.

Stuart watched the farrier shoeing a younger horse, but I was drawn to the whole line of stalls and settled down almost immediately to do the above watercolor.

It was getting noticeably colder by the time I finished, so I didn't start in for another one. I did several quick pencil sketches waiting for Stuart to get done, and then we headed home for a little warmth. I definitely want to go back and paint more, though. What a fun afternoon.

Our fearless founder Elizabeth Alley was away this Saturday, so I was the official greeter for the Urban Sketchers meeting at the Peabody. Thanks to a recent newspaper article about the group, there was a huge crowd of mostly first-timers. By my count, we had at least ELEVEN TIMES the number of people (21 instead of 2) we had last time I facilitated (in 99 degree heat at Overton Park), so I'm calling the morning a howling success.

It is always great fun to get to talk shop with other artists -- we compared our travel art kits, our work habits, and our goals, and I think everyone enjoyed the chance to meet other people with the same interests. Lots of people lingered to chat a good while after the ceremonial duck march and the comparing of sketches. The duck master even came over to meet us and welcome our group to the hotel.

Photos from our outing:

One of the great privileges of being an artist is being able to preserve a special or beautiful moment in time and share it with others. I was painting the other day when the moon rose above a line of fir trees. I did the above watercolor sketch quite quickly, before moving on my next planned, much more detailed work.

The scene stayed with me, as several moon rises through the years have done, and on Saturday, I sat down and did a small carved block from it. Yesterday, I ran the block on the letterpress for new note-cards.

Most of the cards look like the one above, but instead of mixing the ink on a palette, I added the green and blue separately on the ink disc itself, so the first several (before it got mixed thoroughly by the rollers) have a more tie-dyed appearance (called a "rainbow roll" in printmaking). It's more subtle than the tree I did in yellow and blue (mostly because of the darker colors involved), but it's there.

The light and dark contrast of a single color block really changed the feel of the image away from the lightness and color of the original watercolor. I'm now working on a three color block that would let me get a little more of the original feel in a print. This scene hasn't quite let me go yet.

I had a standing morning obligation last week cancel, and the timing was perfect. The weather was gorgeous, so I headed to Dixon Gallery and Gardens. I started in the garden and painted first. I've been enjoying exploring their statuary in its natural surroundings -- a nice contrast between nature and man-made.

Then I headed inside to see the new Rembrandt to Rubens exhibit. As is always the case with smaller museum collections, there was a great deal of up and down in the quality, but the Speed has some lovely pieces that are visiting us just now. Aside from the stunning Rembrandt and Rubens of the title, they have an exquisite Pieter Claesz breakfast still life. Claesz is one of my favorites of the Dutch painters, a fondness dating back to my college art history classes, where I fell in love with the still life genre in general. There was also a quite lovely Van Ruisdel landscape. The Dutch pieces were definitely my favorites in the exhibit, but it's an interesting show and well worth seeing.

I hadn't painted at the local botanic gardens until yesterday. I started at Dixon (I wanted to see their new exhibit as well as paint), but after lunch I moved across the street. There aren't as many formal gardens as I had hoped (the Missouri Botanic Gardens blew me away last summer with their rich assortment of garden areas), but I did like the above view.

Just as I was finishing, I noticed the moon rising above the line of evergreens and did a very quick watercolor sketch.

The very coolest thing about Memphis' garden is the newish playground. Tree houses, sculptures, and play areas were all designed by local artists, and it is a charming and whimsical place. I did one watercolor of my favorite of the the tree houses.

By this time, it was late afternoon, and I'd been outdoors painting almost all day (with a short lunch break to see the paintings at Dixon). It was a wonderful way to spend a blessedly warm February day.

It was a gorgeous day here, so I took my camp chair over to the Greensward at the park and just settled in to paint. I did two different views in different media without even moving my chair. It was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. Merlin lounged around in the sunshine and had some meet-and-greets with other dogs, so we both had a ball.