This Weekend's Holiday Art Walk will be oh so festive at the Summit Art Space building!  There are new shows in both the Box Gallery on the third floor and the SAS Gallery on the first floor;  a sculpture show on the third floor by Akron U senior, Andrew Louder; plus  we five "Penthouse Artists" will be there with bells on in our 3rd floor studios with credit card capabilities.  The Art Walk will run from 12:00 p.m. to 9:00 pm on Saturday then 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday.  Summit ArtSpace is located at 140 E. Market St., Akron, OH next to the Akron Art Museum.

I'll be offering free holday gift wrapping this weekend and will be getting a new shipment of my 2012 calendars in tomorrow ... so happy that they've been selling so well.  Come on down and get kissed under my freshly painted, "Mistletoe"!

I've been buying these flip stlye desk calendars from an artist friend the past  couple of years and love the way they set firmly on my desk providing an attractive ever-ready visual reference as I plan my work and leisure activities.  Friends and  family members have suggsted that I make a calendar of  my own  ... so this year I decided to create a 2012 calendar containing 13 of my floral painting images.  The calendars arrived today and I'm very happy with the color and quality of the printing. 

 
For the first time, more drawings of possible sculptures have been showing up in my sketch book than ideas for paintings.  I've got some fun paintings going in my studio but have been waking up most mornings with three-dimensional ideas. 

Currently I'm working on four different metal pieces with two more on the drawing board. The four are in various stages of completion ... each piece awaiting it's own list of aesthetic and structural decisions.  Some of these pieces are intended for upcoming  2012 shows.

The weather is getting cold here which inevitably directs my inner compass toward the south and I start looking forward to reunions my southern friends and family members.

During the coldest portion of the Ohio winters, I unashamedly hightail it to Georgia.  I regularly rent a temporary working space at the Tannery Row Artist Colony where I used to have a studio. This past winter I was approached by a fellow resident of the colony, Sabrina, about painting a large mural  on the outside wall of a warehouse in Chinandega, Nicaragua.  Sabrina and her husband head up an organization which does a variety of wonderful things to Nicaraguan people.

Armed with a variety of innoculations we headed to Nicaragua for our ten day adventure.  My four artist companions, Judy, Sabrina, Judy, Soonie (all Tannery Row Artists) and I planned and pounded out a mural  approximately 60' x 13').  Our subject matter reflected the good works being done by our commissioning organization to make life safer, healthier and happier for Nicaraguan people displaced by natural disasters.  

We drank gallons of water (it was VERY hot and humid) and lunched on peanut butter sandwiches.  Breakfasts and dinners always included tasty beans and rice and wonderully sweet fruits.  We commiserated about our increasing physical ailments, stiff necks, bug bites, sun burns, joint problems, dizziness, bad knees, etc. and we laughed, sang songs, climbed up and down ladders and scaffolding, danced, and painted on and on when we felt like we couldn’t lift another brush.  

Our experience was unforgettable and life changing. We pushed ourselves to our limits; we tearfully observed people surviving in unimaginable circumstances; we laughed and communicated with local folks using our limited language skills; we got lost in our work, and we formed a poignant professional and personal bond with one another.