41...Asleep in the Cascades

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I had a wonderful trip out to the Seattle area last weekend for my 41st birthday. I visited my brother and his wife in Sammamish. On Friday we drove up to Lake Wenatchee in the Cascade Mountains, it was so beautiful! Every morning when I woke up I ran for my camera because the view with the sun coming up was so breathtaking. We had a great time cross country skiing and ate lots of good food. If you go, rent your skis at Plain Hardware, yes the name of the town is Plain! Photos are of my one and only most favorite brother, Carl & I and my 4 legged nephew Willie.

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Prior Birthdays:

2008  41 = Lake Wenatchee, WA

2007 40 = Venice, Italy

2006 39 = Saugatuck, MI

2005 38 = Bedford, PA...enroute home from a show in Virginia

2004 37 = Punta Cana, The Dominican Replubic

If you can swing it, I highly recommend this traveling birthday idea...premise: Go to sleep or wake up somewhere you have never been before. I started in 04, you know what they say about all work and no play...this guarantees an extra little get away every year!

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Artist Statement.....I finally wrote one.

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I only accomplish these important things when I really don't have time. I should be packing as I'm heading out of town in the morning for my 4th annual Birthday Adventure...Premise: Go to sleep or wake up someplace you have never been on your birthday! This year I will go to sleep near Lake Wenatchee in the Cascade Moutains of Seattle at my brother's new cabin!

So back to the statement, the deadline for Chicago's Public Art Portrait Project is Monday, I just couldn't pass it by. The Proposal required a Design,Concept Statement, Resume, Slides and...sigh, an Artist Statement. I have been putting this off for too long...instead using a weird bio/statementee thing. So tonight I did it...please note this project does not involve my animal imagery so I did not include anything relating to the animal art or mission. That will be an altogether separate piece. When I have more time I will created a combination statement that ties it all together. Enough talk, here it is:

When I paint, I feel like I am on an adventure, the blank canvas or board is like the open road. It’s easiest to take a route I know well but most satisfying when I have the courage to go down a path I have not traveled before – that’s when my most interesting compositions emerge.

Based on my adventure theory, I guess it’s not surprising that many of my paintings include roads and narrative landscapes. These painted stories include a visual vocabulary of beloved shapes and patterns that make up my contemporary folk and urban pop art style. I have a constant source of imagery influenced by my dreams, daily sketchbooks and my precious adopted dogs.

Raised in a small Wisconsin town, I always dreamed of living in the big city. The energy and vistas of Chicago’s more industrial, urban views constantly inspire me. My style was surely influenced by a childhood of endless Sunday mornings sitting in a Catholic church staring at the stained glass windows.  My color sense further developed every Christmas as my Mother allowed my Brother and I to mix our own frosting colors for holiday cutout cookies. Those colors still make up my palette.

Making art and seeing the joy it brings to other people inspires me, and keeps me moving forward in life, always excited to create something new.

-Anne Leuck Feldhaus

I would love your feedback. If you are looking for tips on how to write your artist statement I highly recommend visiting the very helpful sites of Alyson Stanfield, Molly Gordon and Arianne Goodwin. And most definitely check out the Smartist Telesummit for statements and so much more.

Brutus...a lovely tribute to a handsome guy

I've got lots of great process images for the creation of this fun commissioned pet portrait...and this photo of Brutus at home in Alabama with his brand new tribute painting is the cherry on top. I hope to put together a page on my website showing all the steps and maybe even do a little postcard or brochure. Right now my pet portrait information pages look like this. Jean, his wonderful owner left me a really great review at PetServicesReview.com, thanks Jean I do hope to see you in October at Kentuck!

Here's a full photo of the completed painting:

Color....finally!

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I'm excited to finally be making progress on my road trip paintings. I started them last fall after our October trip to Alabama. I have been contemplating the color for a long time, but I see now that it has been worth the wait. Okay..who am I kidding, I have been scared to add color, I forget that if it doesn't work you can simply paint over it!

The ceiling is really low so I placed them on the easel horizontally... grumbling as I did it (I know there is a big lofty studio out there just waiting for me) I realized that it's probably a good thing for me to do now and then compositionally. I also work upside down from time to time.

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The red border was a bold move for me but I think it really works.  I'm hanging a show next weekend at Flourish Studios and would love to have these paintings done in time...you know me and a deadline!

Multiple

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Illustration Friday Word: Multiple.

There are multiple ways you can cure a hangover. What magical treatment works for you?

How does it feel when you create?

Excerpt from an email interview I had 2 yrs ago:

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1) How does it feel when you paint?  What do you enjoy most about the process?

It feels like an adventure, the blank canvas or board is like the open road - it’s easiest to take a route you know well but most satisfying when I have the courage to go down a path I have not travelled before – that’s when my most interesting compositions emerge. I love each step and am often tempted to leave it as is, but then have to carry through with my process: the rough black sketch of my initial composition...the abstract color field created after and then bringing it all back into focus with black line.

2) How do you feel when you've successfully completed a painting?I feel a giddy happiness, a sense of accomplishment and sometimes a sense of surprise and wonder that I did it.  It gets me excited about the endless possibilities of unknown creations ahead...

3) What does "successfully completed a painting" mean to you?

It means I’m experiencing the feelings in #2!  Sometimes it takes several days, weeks or months for me to really appreciate or fully see what I have created. I have plenty of unsuccessful pieces around – but these are critical as the most treasured advice I ever got was “you have to make a lot of bad art in order to get to the good stuff so you better get to work!” ...George Cramer, my Sculpture & Foundry Professor and mentor in college.

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4) What three words describe how you feel about your work?

Happy, hopeful, grateful...

If you are still reading this...Now it's your turn, tell me how you feel when you are creating... be it art, writing, cooking, gardening, etc.

My Egg Truck

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So I made this cute little truck out of terra cotta at Lill Street, building it was the fun part. Then comes the not so fun part: Glazing it...always a frustration for me - working with glaze is nothing like paint. To get the color saturated you have to put many coats of white to cover the orange clay and then many coats of the actual color that you want...and you are still not guaranteed full coverage. Last year I coined the phrase..."let go and let glaze" I'm still trying to embrace it.

So why an egg truck you ask? Well as I layered on all the white glaze I was having conversations with the other people working at my table and they asked what my truck was carrying...I had no idea and was not sure what direction I would take outside of having that great purple cab. The next thing I glazed were the tires, and I thought they looked like sunny side up fried eggs...so voila...an egg truck. Check out each side and the bottom...I titled it "eggzactly".

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5 Degrees & a Snow Day...

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This first photo was from yesterday, Alice will go out and sit on the deck when it is a mere 5 degrees acting as if it is a balmy 75 degree summer afternoon...she has also been known to sit there in the rain and in the snow. She is pining away for the neighbor cats who have opted to stay in for the winter. The words that set her off and we must whisper around here are: cat, kitty cat, chatty kathy (as we often call her since she is quite the talker) she gets so excited...ironically to get her to come in from those freezing temps I just say "here kitty, kitty" and she comes running..it's hilarious. The only other magic word is 'treats'!

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The girls (well, Alice) had fun in today's snow storm...Izzy doesn't like to spend much time in the cold, she prefers to lay on her bed next to the old radiator snoozing away. She is such a sweetie, we went to the vet today for a blood test, she is on a new drug called Rimadyl which has really helped with her arthritis but it can do some funky this to an old gal like her so we had to make sure all was well...and it is! : ) While waiting for our results we met a 15 year old Beagle named Gus...he looked like a very wise old dog. Okay..time to go out and shovel some more snow!

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