Martha Kelly Art

This past weekend was the Pink Palace Crafts Fair, a longtime fair in Memphis, and I was the demonstrator for printmaking. It’s special for me to be out there. I started going to the fair with my parents as a kid, I remember getting to choose my special Christmas present just as I got old enough to fall in love with the silver handmade jewelry, and now I get to be a part of it. I don’t generally do outdoor fairs, and I don’t own a 10x10 tent, nor do I want to, but this fair puts me safely inside an enormous tent (which was key this past weekend) and lets me sit out and see all my friends and neighbors passing through the show.

It’s fun to sit and carve in my lap and let people see the laborious process (though deeply satisfying) that goes into each carved print. I like talking to the kids who love art, the teens who have done a block or two in school art class, and adults of all stripes who make art or appreciate it. I even get a little work done! This past weekend I worked on five different blocks. I had one large one going already and did a bit more on it, though you hit a point where damage can happen to something intricate if you’re in and out of concentration all day. I started a new large block for most of Saturday, but again, I felt like I needed more concentration to finish that one out. So later in the weekend I jumped to a smaller block based on a recent gouache painting of cherries. That gouache and all its friends are still up in my still life show Daily Pleasures at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis through November 3rd. I’d been thinking for a while of trying this one in a print as well, and I grabbed a scrap piece of Lino and drew it out Sunday morning to give me something new to work on. Above are yesterday’s color tests. I’m hand rolling several colors at once and printing it all in one go, a simpler form of color work than carving an individual block for each separate color.

One last tiny block I did was a snail, based on a sketch I did out west this summer. I had my sketchbook out with me, as I always do, and happened across that sketch. I always need new note card designs, so I’ll get this one printed for the later fall shows.

Here is one of the larger blocks I was also working on. The other hasn’t progressed far enough to really show yet. I’ve only got a small percentage done, even though it took a while to get there. Both are continuing my series about water that is mostly oils, but I’m working on getting some prints to go with the larger paintings. This one still needs a bit of work in the water, where light meets dark, but it’s mostly done now.

I've had a number of requests to do a calendar again for 2020 after taking 2019 off. I was busy last year, but also the last calendar I did had a bunch fewer orders than previously. There were a lot of local artists doing calendars last year, and I wasn't sure if folks were tired of mine. This year I decided to assemble the art and take online orders. If I get enough orders to make it worth the printing costs and amount of time it takes, I'll go ahead and get it printed. If I don't get enough orders, I'll cancel all orders (well ahead of any credit cards being charged). So here's your chance if you want a calendar for 2020. Go ahead and put your order in now on my website, and if I get enough, it will happen. I'll say again that NO CHARGES WILL GO THROUGH AT ALL unless I actually get the calendar in hand and have it ready to distribute. You can "vote" and place your order at my online store.

www.squareup.com/market/martha-kelly-art

Calendars are $18 again this year, and choose from the website for pick up (if you're local and willing to pick up from me in Midtown) or shipping for 1, 2, or 3.

The group of images for this year is brand new -- no repeats from previous years (as always).

I was a guest on Memphis on the Mark this week, which was great fun. I've known Mark Jones my whole life, since we both grew up at Idlewild Presbyterian here in Memphis. He's a film  maker with a number of movies (including Tennessee Queer, a small town family drama, which uses my house as one of its main sets) and several web series to his credit. His newest venture is an interview show with film makers, artists, and other creatives. I was thrilled to be on. We talked a lot about my printing presses and how they work, for those who are interested in that. And I found out that I talk with animation and apparently need to ask for a clip-on mike instead of a stick-on one. The stick-on one fell down my blouse quite early in the process and can be heard rustling throughout the interview. I'm not ready for prime time yet...

I was away for the weekend but came home, locked in, and spent the morning printing a color version of this print. It takes more concentration to print color than black and white, since I have two small rollers and have to hand mix the colors on the block each time. They’re all in the same general pattern, but there is necessarily a little variation with each one.

This is a varied edition, which is labeled “ed var 1/40” at the bottom of each print. That means that there are 40 total prints from this block, but they don’t all look alike. I ran out of paper at 13 colored ones (I’d meant to do 15), so the rest will be black and white. It’s not worth setting back up another day for just two more. I usually pick one good look and go with it for the final print, but I liked both versions of this one, and sometimes it’s nice to have some variety to offer people. Just for fun.

I have loved the Walter Anderson Museum (WAMA) for years now. Anderson is one of my top art heroes, along with John Constable (for his life and work habits as well as for his gorgeous landscapes), Georgia O’Keefe (for her strong independence and her love of place as well as for her paintings), and a handful of others. Anderson, like both of those others, had a deep and strong connection to the landscape he lived in and an absolute need to share his vision of its loveliness with others through the art he relentlessly made. He is not well known outside the south, where he spent his life living in his boyhood home of Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and painting the coast, wildlife, and barrier islands, but I think he’s one of the best artists America has produced, along with Sargent and O’Keefe.

WAMA is a magical place for me. They not only have a massive number of his free standing paintings, but they have his boat, his bicycle, and (most importantly) two different rooms covered in his murals. You can completely immerse yourself in color and form and pattern on all sides. The secret room he painted (solely his until his death, with no one else allowed to see it) brings me to tears every time I stand inside it. I’ve been trying to get down this spring, since it’s now been several years. I cancelled not one but two reservations due to sickness, but the universe gave me a gift this week. I had three pieces accepted into a group show at this museum that I love. The theme is water, which is perfect for me, since I’ve been doing waterscapes since last summer. Two of my oils and the above print will need delivering down next month.

I’ll get a delightful “mini-break” as the Brits say between art drop off and the opening two days later. I had originally planned use to shoot down overnight, and I’m excited to have such a marvelous reason to stay for three nights instead. I’ll immerse myself in the museum, visit Shearwater pottery (the family business Anderson grew up in, which remains in the hands of the current generation), and spend a little time at the beach. Careful readers will remember my glee a few months ago when I found a Shearwater teapot at a local antique mall. It’s gorgeous but also has several cracks. I may get myself a new one for daily use and to mark this special occasion.

The opening is April 18, 6-8pm, if anyone would like to join me for a mini break at a place that will stay with you for a long time.

After a good bit of time deep in oil paints, it’s been fun to dive back into prints again recently. I’ve got several different combinations of moon and/or dance prints that I’m working on. Above is the newest dance print, which is the biggest and most close up attempt at figures I have made to date. I’m overall pretty pleased. There’s a bit more work to be done in the hair, but I think it’s close to finished. I had a background pattern in mind, but I wasn’t sure enough to carve it straight in, and after pulling this proof (this is the second one I’ve pulled in progress to look at), I think I like the figures against the deep, black background.

Below is the second layer of the moon print that I showed the base layer of in the last post. I’m going to do two different prints over the moon, and this is the first one. I’ll have a layer of wood type to finish this off, but I’m also realizing I kind of like it just with the figures. I may do a small edition of each. Also below is a drawing for yet another new print. I’ve been thinking about Genesis and creation a lot for an upcoming project, and this is kind of squeezing in on the edges of that.

I’ve been working more slowly this week, struggling a little with a cold, so stand up painting has been out, but prints lend themselves to sitting quietly. I’ve carved this one pretty fully at this point. It’s based on one of my larger waterscapes, but I liked the image enough to want to play with it in carving as well. I’ve tested it in black and white and in color, and now all the options are hanging in my work room while I ponder them and decide what I want the final edition to be. I like several options, so I think it will end up a “varied edition” where there are a total number of final prints, but they don’t all look the same. That way people can choose which they prefer.

I also pulled out an older block I had abandoned several years ago and did some more work carving it. I like the moon, but it needs something to go with it. I’m pondering using it with two different other blocks I already have that I would like to revisit and use in different ways. I tend to think about one single image at a time, and collaging prints like this is good mental stretch for me.

So lots of smaller things are happening at once around here, which is great for prints, because you can let one project dry while you work on a different one for a bit.

Y’all. My newest fan. This photo makes me unbelievably happy.