Martha Kelly Art

I got to go sit in with Darel Snodgrass for a little bit of Memphis's npr pledge drive yesterday. I got to talk about why WKNO supports local artists in a way I've never heard anywhere else, and I also got to talk a little bit about the Skyward show hanging next week. I hung out for three different breaks during classical music, so of course I took the chance to do an #inktober sketch as well.

Here is a sneak preview of my Skyward show that opens next Friday night, November 3rd, from 6-8pm at Eclectic Eye (242 S. Cooper in Memphis). I'll have more than these, but I decided to put up the first batch on my website today.

I've been doing massive amounts of computer work the last few days, which is never as much fun as making art, but I did manage most of a new, small painting for the show next week as well. I've been working to get more serious about an email list. I've always collected them on my paper mailings lists at shows, but I have a printing press I'm in love with, so I haven't been that serious about using email. However, all of the book publishing/marketing emails I've been listening to lately (I'm thinking ahead to the Mr. Darcy book while I paint for the fall show) have really emphasized the importance of an email newsletter. So I've decided to join the 21st Century and dive in, at least occasionally, when I have shows or other important news.

If you'd like to receive an occasional newsletter, please sign up here:

for my upcoming show at Eclectic Eye in November, but I also enjoyed a good chance to do a print that has been dancing in my head and wanting to get out. It's still in progress, but the first full proof is below. Keep an eye on this space as I work on it and also get back to oils on paper. I've been giving myself a few quiet, slow days to recover from the craziness of last week, but each morning I've gotten up wanting to work on this print for a little while with my morning tea. That's how I know I'm living the life I've wanted to -- vacation is a chance to do more (if perhaps different) work that I love.

sketched her own bees and also a honeycomb design. One of the things I love about Melissa is that she doesn't do the same patterns or shapes over and over again. Everything is fresh. So this teacup is unique, and I love its old fashioned delicacy as well as the generous saucer I can use for my tea spoon or perhaps a cookie. I'm old fashioned in always wanting a saucer, since I use milk (that creamer is the tiny one I found in Paris this summer with a bird on it, and it's gorgeous) and want to stir in the milk and have somewhere to put my spoon. Tea is a ritual with me, a small bit of daily pause and happiness in the midst of my usual busy. I love everything about sitting and having a small pot of tea in the day somewhere.

I'm also trying to make the most of Inktober this year, which I'm usually too busy to really celebrate. I cleaned out a fountain pen I've had and put new grey ink in it that I've been wanting to try, and I also broke out a blue marker for the top sketch. I used markers a bunch several years ago and have gotten completely away from them in favor of watercolor, but they have their own fun, graphic feel, so I'm going to work on reclaiming a bit of marker work this month as well.

I've been doing a bit of sketching while also pulling prints for the fall show season and continuing to work on oils on paper for November. It's "Inktober," which a lot of artists I know really post for online, and I'm always a little spotty since this is always deep into show prep for me. But I want to do it as much as I can. So I've started off the month with a bunch of ink gestures.

Being an artist means I don't go out to a lot of fancy evenings, but I decided to actually buy concert tickets to Rhiannon Giddens last Friday. My sister really likes her, and I had loved the snippets I'd heard on npr. She absolutely knocked it out of the park. It was one of the best and most powerful concerts I've ever seen. She did a wide range of songs, nailed every single one of them, told gripping stories, and also told hard truths in a way that brought a room together instead of dividing it. What a gift in this (or any) age. Go see her if you get a chance. I did just a couple of quick sketches (on the left just below) in near darkness because I wanted to have this moment in my art journal to remember.

The next night I ended up at the symphony (which was good, but which didn't rock my world the way Rhiannon had). Fortunately after the break (which is always the place I lose most of my ability to really concentrate on something both purely auditory and non-verbal), they had a piece about Ellis Island which wove in spoken accounts of various immigrants who had gone through there. It was powerful, and I also enjoyed sketching the actors. And the hats.