Missouri Art Now

 This year, 2021, is Missouri's bicentennial.  As a native of Kansas, I learned next to nothing about the Show Me State growing up, and I continued that ignorance for the fourteen years I've lived here. (Sorry!) However, I do know that we have a plethora of talented artists and the Missouri Art Now exhibit is showcasing a few of us.  My work from 2019, "How Soft the Hazy Summer Night" was selected as one of sixty pieces to celebrate the bicentenary in a traveling exhibition from March to November.  

How Soft the Hazy Summer Night
36" diameter
aluminum, vinyl, acrylic

From the call for art:

On the occasion of its bicentennial, it is important to recognize that Missouri has and remains a significant site for visual artistic production. The Arts Council of Southeast Missouri in Cape Girardeau, Hannibal Arts Council, Post Art Library and Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin, and the Albrecht-Kemper Museum in Saint Joseph are collaborating to create Missouri Art Now, an exhibition featuring sixty works from artists throughout the State of Missouri, together demonstrating the vibrant visual arts culture in the state.

You can see it hanging at the opening March 5th in Cape Girardeau.
photo credit: @Missouri2021 on Instagram

And now some detail shots...

I slathered on the paint really thick and scraped an old mop brush through it before drying, adding texture.  Then I sanded and did it again with a different color.

   

After all that was done I went to town with the vinyl orzos.

 

The title comes from the fourth stanza in a poem by Ellen P. Allerton called "On The Farm,"

How soft the hazy summer night!
On dewy grass the moon's pale light
Rests dreamily. It falls in town
On smoky roofs and pavements brown.
How tenderly when night is gone,
Breaks o'er the fields the summer dawn!
How sweet and pure the scented morn.
(Get up! Old Molly's in the corn!)

And, as it is a traveling show, here's where it can be found throughout the year:

March 5-27, 2021

Arts Council of Southeast Missouri in Cape Girardeau

April 9-May 15, 2021

The State Historical Society of Missouri in Columbia 

May 29-July 17, 2021

Post Art Library and Spiva Center for the Arts in Joplin

July 23-September 6, 2021

Hannibal Arts Council in Hannibal 

September 17-November 7, 2021

Albrecht-Kemper Museum in Saint Joseph

More info at www.missouri2021.org 

Gifts of Art

Hey, there.  Been awhile.  I've been hibernating.

But I'd like to share a cool thing!

The University of Michigan Med Center has a program called Gifts of Art where they install art, rotating four times in nine galleries, throughout the hospital. There are also musical performances and lunchtime concerts.  It's free to apply (YOU SHOULD IF YOU'RE AN ARTIST!) and I thought, why not?  Let's try it.  

So I was selected to have my work up from mid-December to mid-March.  I made a ton of work (see most recent blog posts) to fill a corridor that is 100 feet long.

panorama

It was a very long and narrow hallway, but said to be the largest gallery space.

photos by Adrian Wylie

And, of course, these works were all for sale, and I SOLD A FEW!  Hot Brazen Heavens, Spring's Promise, Crooning Cottonwoods, and Crickets' Din are all going to live at another hospital--Henry Ford West Bloomfield, in the maternity ward!  Isn't that cool?  A portion of the sale goes back to the GoA program to help sustain and find more great artists looking for opportunities to show their work.  

Bring Treasure, Crooning Cottonwoods, Sweet Sons/Sturdy Daughters

Crickets' Din, Hot Brazen Heavens, Miles and Miles and Miles

Spring's Promise, Gardenlands, Make No Peace With Trouble

I was also asked if I would donate an image to help promote the program, and I was happy to do so. (This image is from work that was at the Kemper show, which spring-boarded this whole endeavor in the first place.)

Seriously, apply!

The only down part was that Ann arbor is an 11-hour drive from KC, and if you follow me on Instagram you might have seen a few posts about this...there's a lot of dirt between here and there and a few ice cream places, but I didn't love the trip.  I just wanted to get home and wasn't able to enjoy myself or see much culture.  I'm not a born-road tripper, so this part of the job is always hard for me.  Oh, well!  It's a better job for me than most other things!

I'm so glad I did this and hope to keep pushing myself in this way--making bigger work and trying to show in new places.  Happy Spring!