The Memphis Urban Sketchers met on my home turf of Idlewild Presbyterian this past Saturday, and it was fun to get to draw with a whole group in the church I grew up in. It's a beautiful old Gothic church, built just before the depression, and it was fun to share it with the group.

I got my first peek at the Memphis Magazine City Guide issue that used my illustrations. It's on sale for the month of August, and it was fun to see my watercolors in print. I took one to my opening Friday night for folks to see.

It was a highlight week for me, art-wise, because the opening for my watercolor show at Playhouse on the Square was wonderful also. I really appreciated so many friends turning out to support me, and it was fun to get to share some of my favorite places with them through art.  The show will be up through September 16th, and I hope people will see it and want to visit Greece and Turkey.

"Places of Desire: watercolors of Greece and Turkey" will be hanging starting Friday at Playhouse on the Square. The exhibition, which could also be called "What I did with my summer vacation" will be on view from August 3rd to September 16th.

The opening is Friday, August 3rd from 6:00-7:30 in the main lobby of Playhouse on the Square. Come and have a glass of wine with us if you are able to.

The show is made up from the watercolors I did in Greece and Turkey this summer, and I'm excited to have an outlet to display them while the trip is still fresh in my mind.

It's leap day, and I'm celebrating with a couple of new projects. Here is the proof of my first real multi-block color print (at least the first one that wasn't a class assignment). I need to refine the edges a bit, lighten the sky, and use a more opaque dark green, but this gives you a good idea of what it will look like eventually.

This process is a leap for me, especially since I'm still printing by hand, rubbing on the back of the paper with a wooden spoon. This block will have to be printed three times for each print (one for each color, with time for drying in between), instead of just the once for my black and white ones. I visited an old family printing business here in Memphis yesterday. They have a lovely, small table top press that they no longer use, and I was hoping to sweet talk them into selling it to me, but sadly they weren't ready to let it go yet. Maybe someday. It would have been very helpful for this print in particular.

My other leap today is starting a new oil painting -- I finally finished my five canvas piece for church, so this is my first new painting in a while. I've got a show with Elizabeth Alley this fall at Askew Ferguson Nixon, and I'll have a mix of oils and watercolors. Today I'm starting the first oil for the show, one of Dixon Gardens. I'm finding myself really drawn to formal gardens lately and only wish we had more in Memphis for me to paint.

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.

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"Midsummer Dream" is up at Playhouse on the Square.  The show is a mix of girlhood block prints, mixed media on paper using text from A Midsummer Night's Dream (the opera that will be playing through the run of the exhibition), and paintings and prints from Greece and Turkey.  The imagery in the text pieces overlaps with the Greek prints, since the play is set in Athens.  I had fun playing with moon motifs, the famous caryatids, and other images that crossed over easily from the play to my landscapes. 

The opening reception is Friday, January 28th from 5-7 pm in the lobby of Playhouse on the Square at the corner of Union and Cooper in Midtown Memphis. 

My new show "Earth and Water" just went up in at Seven Sisters Gallery in Black Mountain, NC.  It's recent landscapes, both farm and river scenes.  It will be on display in their main gallery room (on the right as you go in) until March 27th. 

MIFA has kindly let me be the first artist to have a show in their Meals department, so I've got woodcuts and river paintings up down the long hallway, plus a few in the hall leading over to the main office area.  They've got more information up on their website, and my regular gallery commission (40-50%) for sales at this show will go to support MIFA's programs.  It's art you can feel good about buying.

Seven Sisters Gallery in Black Mountain, North Carolina, will be giving me a featured show beginning in early November and lasting through the winter months.   I'll be showing farmscapes and river paintings, both canvas and oils on paper, to offer a wide range of prices.  It's fun to have a show to work towards as I paint this spring and summer.