Category Archives: art

Sunday at the Art League

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I am one lucky artist – yesterday’s opening at the SA Art League was exciting. Miguel Cortinas, fellow painter in the exhibit, did a beautiful job of hanging the show, and the pottery pieces by Eloise Stoker and Nancy Pawel complimented the paintings and mixed media works. The whole occasion made me feel like a real grown-up painter! Thanks to everyone who came out – and here’s a video of me trying to explain some of the work. There seem to be a lot more questions than answers. I guess that’s how the old art game works sometimes.

PS – Congrats to Dinah Robinson, winner of the Friendship Bridge Friday Freebie!

Fall giddiness, art abounding, Friday freebie

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This weather just makes ya want to dance – rain last night, sunshine today, temperatures in the 70s – it feels like fall! And I’m just in under the wire with the Friday Freebie and some other giddy observations about all the art that is going on this weekend.

All of my artist friends who are participating in the Uptown Art Stroll this weekend should have fabulous crowds – I’ll be there as an onlooker and idea-stealer :). The array of talent and variety of media in this neighborhood show is impressive. I participated several years ago – so many interesting people come to this event.  If you’ve never been, here’s a link to the map – it’s a lot of fun!

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On Sunday, please stop by the San Antonio Art League Gallery in the King William area for the opening of the exhibit I’m in with Miguel Cortinas. Many thanks to Clarence and Helen Fey for inviting me to participate in this venerable annual exhibit. Here’s one of my favorite new paintings – it’s called “Stroll” (speaking of strolls), and where these guys came from and where they are going, I dunno – I just painted them and didn’t ask questions. My other favorite new piece is “Buddha and the Chocolate Box” – it’s underneath the birds – makes me wonder where these weird inspirations come from! Ain’t art great?

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“Stroll” 36″x40″ Acrylic on canvas Lyn Belisle

 

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“Buddha and the Chocolate Box” 16″x16″, Mixed Media Lyn Belisle

Last but not least, the Friday Freebie for SHARDS subscribers is this lovely little purse from Friendship Bridge, an organization that helps impoverished Guatemalan women find self-reliance and empowerment through their art. My friend Teresa from Friendship Bridge will bring a beautiful assortment of textiles and jewelry to the Studio on November 12th. You can read more about it in the November Studio Newsletter. And if yours is the lucky name drawn from the list of subscribers on Sunday night, you’ll win this little purse (and I’ll even put a Shard Face inside).

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Happy Friday – hope to see you at an art event this beautiful weekend!

Lesta and Lyn – a half-day workshop exploring mixed-media surface design

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Finally! Lesta Frank, my much-revered artist pal, is coming to the Studio to pair up with me for a half-day workshop on Sunday, November 9th. It’s called Exploring Paper Surface Design, and it’s going to be amazing. We’ve been talking about doing this forever and now it’s really gonna happen.

Lesta and I go back a looo-ooong way (like, high school). She’s a popular teacher as well as a well-known watercolorist  – funny and innovative, as those of you who’ve seen her at the Show and Tell Saturdays already know. Here’s a very short sneak preview from one of those sessions – I love the part when Lesta says, “If you don’t like it, just keep adding stuff”! There are four spots left for the workshop at the moment if you’d like to join us. Have a great day and thanks for following SHARDS!

That’s my story

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Making art for an audience is tricky, and it brings out my Creeping Cowardly Conformity. I’m discovering that as I finish up a series of small collages on canvas that will be included in the San Antonio Art League show which opens Sunday, Nov. 2nd. The Art League is a venerable organization with lots of Real Painters, and being invited to participate is rather intimidating. Here is one of my pieces in a five-part series called “Copper Koan.” Like a lot of my work, it deals with the concept of shards and fragments of incomplete stories. A “koan” is a paradox to be meditated upon, and it seemed like a fine concept for this series (the series title is also a take-off on “copper coin.”)

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“Copper Koan: Wand” Lyn Belisle 2014

 

This is what it looked like yesterday (below) – I didn’t want to add a little face or any text because I thought that would make it look “too crafty” and “not sophisticated-ly abstract enough.” Arg . . .Creeping Cowardly Conformity makes us compromise. You make like this one better, and that’s super OK, but I kept thinking it looked incomplete and anonymous.

koan-reSo what the heck – I added the distressed earthenware face and the text fragment on my little Copper Koan, and now that they are there, I’m much happier with the piece. I hope my audience likes it, but we, as artists, gotta remember that we’re driving this Art Bus and if we take directions from our passengers, we’ll get everybody hopelessly lost. That’s MY story and I’m sticking to it!

PS. If you’d like to see the exhibit for yourself, please know that I’d love to have you there to discuss all of this and to see the work of my fellow artists – here’s your invitation! Feel free to share 🙂

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Hey, Lyn – it’s Friday, so where’s the Freebie??

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Ok, OK, it’s been a busy week – but, never fear, I do have a Friday Freebie for a lucky SHARDS subscriber whose name will be drawn Sunday night. One of the things that’s kept me busy is getting ready for the Trinity University Alumni Artistans Showcase tomorrow. It’s an event that I dearly love (I’m a Trinity grad as well as faculty member) and I try to participate in it every year. This year, I’m showing Milagro Journals. I love making these.

Milagro Journals

Milagro Journals

On the inside, there is a library card pocket (boy, do I miss those old-fashioned book checkouts) with a quote about the little miracles (milagros) in our lives. Yay! minside

So if you’re a SHARDS subscriber, old or new, by Sunday night, you’re in the drawing for one of these Milagro Journals. And if you’re a Trinity grad, like me, c’mon by the Artisan Showcase at the Holt Center tomorrow from 11:30-1:30.  Happy weekend, everyone – and expect a miracle (like that cold front that’s finally supposed to make it on Saturday :).

Wrapping it up with love

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Lyn Belisle and Joanna Powell Colbert and assorted Dia de Los Muertos amigos

. . . .and then she woke up and it was all a beautiful dream. Hey, no – wait, it wasn’t! The Unfolding Myth weekend with Joanna Powell Colbert really happened, and it was amazing! Two days of work and fun and creating and discovering passed much too quickly. My heartfelt thanks to all who participated. The artwork that came out of this experience speaks eloquently. Joanna gently guided us through discoveries about ourselves that were reflected in our collages.

I’m still processing my own lessons from the weekend, but if you’d like to see some of the work that went on at the Studio, take a look at our video (below). And then visit Joanna’s website to see how you can experience some of the magic that she does through her Gaian tarot. Thank you, Joanna, from all of us!

Weekend update – good things abound

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moonGood morning – and a cooler one it is, with a full moon as well – nice! I’m sharing two short weekend videos with you guys – Saturday, I visited Dan Pfeiffer at his new gallery in Fredericksburg which was featured in last weekend’s San Antonio Express-News. What an amazing space, and the art is even more impressive. Dan has a wonderful eye for unique surfaces and structures as evidenced by the sculptures by Phil Evett and ceramic figures by Deborah Fritts. The work he shows is very atypical of the usual Hill Country galleries, but it fits in beautifully because it’s all very organic in concept, much like his own fine woodworking. Plus, if you go, you’ll get to see some of Dan’s Fan Planes in operation – very cool indeed.

And on Sunday, the first of my fall Studio workshops kicked off with Composition and Collage on Canvas. We discussed the AB3s of composition and did some work with fabric transfers and acrylic paint. Each piece was well-thought out and beautifully constructed – take a look:

I’ve added a second session of this workshop on Sunday, September 28th from 3-5 by popular demand (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase – LOL). Have a wonderful week, and happy birthday tomorrow to my dear friend Carol Mylar, fiber artist and former studio partner. Hooray for good friends and birthdays and cooler temps and full moons! And art! And kitties and puppies! and you guys . . . . . .♥♥♥

Know when to fold ’em –

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tagPresenting, for your Labor Day holiday folding pleasure, a simple but impressive little origami project. You can make a stack of these pocket-note-tags to use on gifts or even as place cards. You can even drink out of them, as you will see. This Emmy winning (not) short video was produced in my dining room. Awards go to Max the Cat for Best Immovable Object and Chico the Cat for Best Wardrobe Malfunction.

 

Work, work, work – rust, rust, rust

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handHiya – I’m popping in for a minute to show the latest results from my summer vacation painting month at the Studio – these are the first two in a series called “Sympathetic Resonance.” They are a continuation of my explorations into rust and patina, their color and texture. I love the way these are presented – a craftsman friend constructed heavy cedar boxes that stand by themselves as objects or hang on the wall as frames – either way, the pieces seem to work. The cedar compliments the patinas.If you can’t see the pieces in your email (and if you’re interested), you can look at them in browser view.

Yay! Art is so much fun when things are going well. I am taking a few of these pieces to Dan Pfeiffer’s Gallery in Kerrville next weekend to see if they are a good fit for his space. He is a fantastic woodworker/artist. So I’ll be laboring away on Labor Day doing what I love – hope you will be, too! More soon, happy weekend.

Scintillating Sampler from Saturday’s Show and Tell

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basketAnother fine Saturday Show and Tell has come to an end, but the memory lingers in the video sampler (below). Lesta Frank performed some decorated paper magic, and Jasmina Wellinghoff dazzled us with her paintings, as you will see. Another hot topic was Christie Smith’s basketry skills and her information on TOWN, the Texas Outdoors Woman Network. Through the Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife, they offer weekend workshops on everything from Natural Fiber Basketry to Scuba Diving to Shotgun Basics – dang! Check it out.

I’m so grateful to all of the Show and Tell participants for teaching each of us who was there something new and inspiring. Before I pop in the Show and Tell video, congrats to SHARDS subscriber hjmei@cox.net for being the random-drawing winner for the Friday Freebie Shard Pin Kit – email me with your mailing info – yay! And if *you* didn’t win, you can order one cheap cheap from my Etsy site. Be sure and tell me if you want warm colors or cool colors in your kit. Now on to the August Studio Show and Tell Revue!

PS – did y’all see today’s Google Doodle honoring tennis great Althea Gibson? Pretty cool.

Althea Gibson’s 87th birthday