Tag Archives: art

Winking Or Sleeping?

Winking Journal Cat…

Journal Cat - needle felted wool and mixed media anthropomorphic cat sculpture — Journal Cat

Perhaps she is sleeping with one eye open? I’m not exactly sure. I started out wanting her to be sleeping, but couldn’t resist the temptation to have her peek at the viewer with one of her bespectacled eyes. Depending on the angle, the cat appears to be either sleeping with one eye open, or winking knowingly.

Like a predecessor named Literary Cat, Journal Cat is a calico. For some reason they strike me as the cat that hangs out in bookshops, libraries, or one’s favorite reading nook. She looks like she would be equally comfortable curled up in your lap as you read as well.

Journal Cat isn’t actively reading or writing, but rather reclining on a fabric covered journal. The journal is no longer operational. The pages and cover have been glued together providing a comfortable base for our feline to rest on. The journal, hand formed “pince nez” specs, and fishline whiskers create a more multimedia piece. The primary media is still needle felted wool. You can view a short video from my last post to see how needle felting works, and how I incorporate it into my sculptures.

back of Journal Cat sculpture — Journal Cat back view

As is the case with most of my anthropomorphic figures, Journal Cat expresses her human-like characteristics in minimal fashion. Her bright scarf, glasses, and literary perch tell you what she is about. The viewer is left wondering exactly what this cat’s journal entries would look like. I would suspect a lot of naps among the prose and poetry.

Another Show Reminder

Journal Cat will be at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts‘ September featured artist show, Unmuted, along with all my other new works. The show installs in the gallery on 9/20 and will having its Last Friday reception and will go live online on 9/24.

On a Roll?

Where are the posts?

Hi reader. I was working on a commission piece. I can’t write about that yet, because it’s a surprise. As a result, you haven’t heard from me in a while. After I put that work to rest, I was able to get into the studio and start working from my sketchbook again. This is now a bit of a crunch. I need to get together the body of work for my featured artist show. I’ve shared a few pieces already that will be in that show, and will continue to do that until the show opens. I’ll save you the full litany of the things aside from creating the art that needs to happen between now and then (photography, editing, inventory, writing statements, social media…) I will just say it is a lot, and get to work.

Roll on

My newest piece is titled, Roll. She is a young elephant who appears to be having a great time on her trike. She is the latest in a line of art doll figures on bikes that I’ve created.

"Roll" anthropomorphic elephant art doll sculpture on handcrafted steampunk push tricycle. Needle felted wool figure. — Roll (left side view)

Roll brought me back into my garage work space for a while. I fabricated her handlebars, and bike frame from heavy gauge copper wire and brass tubing. The bike seat is hand sewn purple faux leather. The wheels are caster parts. The trike’s back deck is a piece of painted wood trim. Once the trike was finished, I knew how big to make the wire armature for the figure.

Roll herself herself is needle felted wool over a quilt batting wrapped wire frame. She has iridescent black glass beads for eyes. I finished this figure off with a small pink bow on her head, and light turquoise colored skirt.

The intention for this piece was to both capture motion, and to be able to provide motion. Yes, the sculpture does actually live up to her name and rolls.

I also wanted to make sure that Roll conveys the joy of her movement. Her bright expression as the wind blows back her trunk and ears says it all.

Rolling into HGA in September

Roll and all her friends will be at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts the last week of September.

Holiday Planning and Preview

procession of needle felted puffin ornaments — Puffin Procession

I am doing a bit of holiday planning this week. It is more involved than in past years. Before, I just had to decide what I was bringing to the gallery, and if I would have items in any other shows or shops. The complexity comes in the form of now having an Etsy shop, and HGA also having an online shop.

Surviving in the age of COVID makes an online sales presence pretty much a requirement. This means choices need to be made where items will be. Pieces that will be online, need more photography to provide shoppers with different angles, idea of scale, or context. To have popular holiday items, like ornaments in all locations, I have to generate more inventory. Items going in to my Etsy need to be weighed and boxes found because you can’t list them without shipping info… even if you are offering free shipping.

Choices, Choices

Feet on the Ground is an anthropomorphic reindeer wearing snowshoes art doll sculpture — Feet on the Ground

My newest anthropomorphic art doll sculpture, Feet on the Ground, is an example of a hard choice for placement. He is so fun and eye catching, I want to list him everywhere. Listing an item for sale online, and having it available in a gallery is not a great idea. It raises the possibility of crossed sales. In his case, I think I have decided that he should go into the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts holiday show, and sit proudly on top of a pedestal. Never fear, if you aren’t local, you can contact me here, and we can get him to you.

Feet on the Ground is a stable anthropomorphic art doll sculpture. He stands on four custom made snow shoes. “Feet’ is constructed of needle felted wool over a wire and quilt batting frame. His hat and scarf are needle felted wool as well. I made his distinctive snowshoes from polymer clay, toothpicks, embroidery floss, leather, and metal brads. Iridescent black glass beads are used for the eyes.

Something New for the Holiday Season

I recently made a miniature version of one of my needle felted panel pieces and attached a pin back to it as a gift. The recipient asked if I was going to have these items available in the gallery. At first I said no, as I don’t especially enjoy working on lots of small gift items, and would rather concentrate on my sculptures. After a bit of consideration, I admitted that it couldn’t hurt to make a few and see how they fare over the holiday season. Above are a few examples with a large paperclip for scale.

Old favorites Too

I will have my needle felted puffin and bear ornaments available in all three (gallery, Etsy, and HGA online shop) locations. I will let you know when all are available. There is still a bit more inventory background work to complete, and two locations (HGA and HGA online) have specific dates the shows open. I will let you know all those dates and times, as we get a bit closer!

Moose Call to Etsy

Moose Call is my newest anthropomorphic art doll sculpture, and he seems an appropriate piece to announce the opening of my new Etsy shop.

Moose Call anthropomorphic moose art doll figure sculpture — Moose Call

I have gone back and forth on opening an Etsy. As you know, you can inquire about my pieces available for purchase here. Additionally, I have pieces listed on the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts shop pages.

Driving traffic to stand alone websites mine or HGA is multifaceted. It is easier and more effective to let those whose job it is take charge. So, I made the decision to let the web marketing pros on Etsy take the wheel in that area. That doesn’t mean that I don’t still have to do as much posting and sharing, or even perhaps more. But, it does mean that the audience is already gathered in one place.

Having work available both online, and in the physical gallery, takes a bit more inventory finesse. I am learning as I go. Taking more and more varied images of each piece. Weighing and measuring each before listing them for postage calculations. Also, making sure that inventories in the virtual world and physical gallery don’t intersect. Not sure, but it may be possible that this last one could cause some cross dimensional rift to form. As a result I have only a few pieces up so far. I will be working to round out the inventory soon.

The Moose Himself

Moose Call sits about about 14 inches tall on his “stump” base. He is needle felted wool over a wire and quilt batting frame. I used dark slightly reflective beads for his eyes that provide a nice extra sparkle. He is dressed for a brisk day in the woods with his wool vest, scarf, and cloven mittens and boots.

face of Moose Call, anthropomorphic moose art doll sculpture — Moose Call close up

My Etsy Shop is named LWSculpted Shop, and you can purchase Moose Call there right now!

If you do take the time to visit my new Etsy shop, please give us a “Favorite ❤️.”

Thanks.

Anthropomorphic Art Dolls Moving On?

…But they’re not gone!

This week is the last Friday of the month. A new featured artist show, Construction, is going live online for HGA. But, Three Narratives isn’t really going anywhere. My anthropomorphic art dolls will remain available both within the gallery featured sales pages, and here on my Available for Purchase page.

Multitasking anthropomorphic art doll — Multitasking 12″x7″x12″

At the Gallery

Those same anthropomorphic art dolls are now at the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts awaiting our controlled reopening. As you can imagine, a space where patrons linger, converse, and touch objects is rife with contact concerns. The HGA owner artists are carefully considering all the angles we can think of to safely start to welcome visitors back. The current plan is to offer private appointments one weekday, and open a few hours with precautions on Saturdays. Details on both options are still being finalized. I will share all that information with you here, as soon as I can.

High Fashion anthropomorphic art doll — High Fashion 7″x18″x10″

Not Just Anthropomorphic Art Dolls.

Even with the move towards careful reopening, we are building and refining HGA’s online sales offerings. As you might imagine, something that required building on the fly has experienced a hiccup or two. The experience of the past few months has taught us that we need to develop this side of our gallery further. Keep checking in with me here. I will continue to share new developments. In the mean time, take a second look at our special Art Under $100 show. This show features pieces donated by the HGA member artists, and all proceeds go to maintaining the gallery.

Blue Butterfly Bag — Blue Butterfly bag 8″x11″x1/2″

Flower Necklace -purple and turquoise needle felted flowers on leather chord — Flower Necklace

Making Lemonade

Marketing art at the moment is, as you might imagine, an interesting challenge. For both my own work here on this site, and for our co-owned Hillsborough Gallery of Arts the learning and adjusting curves are quite steep. In both instances, sharing more online seems to be the short answer. The answers about how, and what is most effective are much longer and trickier. The cliche of “turning lemons into lemonade” is the guiding principle, and an increased online presence using a variety of attacks is the strategy being employed.

Newest Lemonade Stand

On the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts website there is a new choice on the top menu bar, Art Shop. This page offers a selection of work by all of the HGA artists that you can now purchase online. Take a moment to check it out. There is a wide variety of media, styles and price points available.

Wise and Magical anthropomorphic wise-woman owl sculpture — Wise and Magical

My latest anthropomorphic art doll sculpture titled Wise and Magical is one of the two pieces I have available on that page. She is a colorful wise-woman owl who has apparently been forging for some herbs for her medicine bag. Wise and Magical is perched on a natural stick base.

D.I.Y. also is available now on the new HGA Art Shop page. I shared D.I.Y. with you a few posts back, and only had her available here on my site. I also took the opportunity to update her image as well.

Also New This Week..

The new Art Under $100 donation page that I wrote about last post will be up this Friday, May 15th at Noon. Remember, my Blue Butterfly Bag will available there as well as donated items by other HGA member artists with all proceeds going to keep the gallery going while the doors are shut. Shipping is included on all items there.

Look at the Screen

Artwork looks much different through a computer screen. Some views are actually enhanced by an image. I see the details of the Mona Lisa much better in high resolution scans than when I looked through glass from the midst of a pack of tourists. I’m sure the experience would be very different if I were able to view the masterpiece face-to-face. In the real world, however, the computer screen may be one’s best option.

My Sculpture on the Screen

High Fashion 7″x18″x10″ $450
Climate Report 11″x10″x11″ $425
Emu Incognito 8″x16″x13″ $400
Multitasking 12″x7″x12″ $475
Literary Cat 11″x10″x8″ $425
Too En Pointe? 13″x18″x11″ $440
Stroll 8″x12″x6″ $385
Upstart 8″x12″x9″ $385
Happiness Isn’t 7″x13″x6″ $385
Out of Water 16″x9″x10″ $385
Pierre 4″x13″x8″ $400
Secrets Locked 8″x4″x5″ $285

My much humbler artwork is definitely viewed best up close and in person. Sculptures of relatively compact scale need the viewer to move in close, and see all around. Needle felted wool adds a textural warmth to the surface of my pieces that does not translate as well in photographs. I could provide multiple views of each sculpture, but even those run up to the barrier created by the two-dimensional screen.

Experiencing an art show from the side of the artist has also been altered by the computer screen. I posted here presenting a few pieces each time, and then shared each post on social media. Then, I sat back and waited for blog comments, or likes and shares. Even though I had done these things in the past for my shows, now they are the show. A conversation with someone at the opening about what made one piece their favorite is replaced with a “thumbs-up” emoji. Seems that the show has been distanced in both space and in time.

On The Horizon

I am waiting on some direct links to share with you for other things we are working on for the gallery. HGA’s website will soon have a couple of additional pieces for sale by each of our member artists on the HGA website. The Square market where we have virtually shared our featured artist shows (like my current Three Narratives) will also feature a special new offering. Each of our HGA member artists donated a piece priced $100 or less with all proceeds going to the maintenance of the gallery. Shipping is included for all of these wonderful works. This up-cycled denim bag with needle felted embellishments is my donation.

I will share links to these two new places for you to access our art as soon as they are available.

Performing Creatures

I admit it. I fall prey to finding humor in puns, and some of my new creatures are obvious candidates for punny titles. My swan dancing in her toe shoes titled, “Too En Pointe?”, is a prime example.

Too En Pointe? anthropomorphic art doll — Too En Pointe?

Swan Lake is the world’s best known ballet. I choose to depict this most recent dancing figure as a swan. I think that choice might be a bit too “on point” for some. For those not familiar with dancing terms, dancing up on toe shoes is called being “En Pointe.” I suppose I could have made her title an even greater head shaking pun if I had called her “TooToo En Pointe?”

Title aside, I enjoy how this sculpture came together. She is a commanding figure at 18 inches tall and her wings spread wide. That she somehow can maintain her en pointe posture dancing on water makes her just a bit magical.

More Performing Creatures

If you are familiar with the romantic comedy Notting Hill, you might recognize the title of “Happiness Isn’t.” There is a painting, La Mariée (The Bride), by Marc Chagall that plays a role in the story. The main characters Anna (Julia Roberts) and William (Hugh Grant) discuss the imagery of the painting. Anna states,”It feels how love should be. Floating through a dark blue sky.” William quips, “With a goat playing the violin.” To which Anna responds, “Yes, happiness isn’t happiness without a violin-playing goat.” That clever exchange was the inspiration for “Happiness Isn’t.”

Happiness Isn't anthropomorphic art doll — Happiness Isn’t

Even though the goat in the actual painting appears to be holding a cello, I chose to depict my figure with a violin too. He is one of those figures that just brings a smile, and has no other job than to contradict his own title.

Stay Tuned…

Things are changing quickly as we navigate sharing and marketing artwork online. I’m not sure this month’s Featured Artist show (changes Friday, April 24th) on the HGA website will be presented in the same way as the current one. There are some new gallery offerings going up just about every day. Keep checking in both here and on our Hillsboroughgallery.com site to see what is new and available. I just made some pricing updates on my own “Available for Purchase” page. You may want to recheck your favorites. I’ve revised the newest back to last year’s scale, and I have taken in to account the need to add on shipping costs.

Art show in the Time of Corona

Open Art Show Online

It is not very hard to come up with a topic today. There is seemingly one thing on everyone’s mind, the Covid-19 pandemic. Artists and galleries are no exception. I’m guessing you may recall that I am an artist/owner of a collectively run gallery. We shuttered the brick and mortar Hillsborough Gallery of Arts for the duration of the North Carolina stay-at-home order. We have not, however, stopped showing and selling art. Last week we launched our first online art show. The March Featured Artists show “Glimmer to Spark” opened online last Friday at noon.

My Featured Art Show

I am one of the three artists scheduled to be featured next month in HGA’s April art show. Our show, “Three Narratives” is scheduled to open on April 24th. That will not be occurring, so like “Glimmer to Spark” we will be opening online. While the work from home concept is certainly conducive to getting studio time in, the challenge is sharing that work with an outside audience. This is especially true when that audience has many other things on their minds.

Clicking around my site here will reveal some new items. There are images of new work for you to take a look at in the Available For Purchase gallery. I switched my purchase inquiry to that page as well, so you do not have to click elsewhere if something catches your eye. You will find two image galleries on the Past Works Gallery page. One contains most of my sold art dolls, and the other a selection of previous mixed media pieces.

Burying the Lede (just learned that spelling)

From the images on this pages, you may notice that my work for this next show is a bit different. All of the new pieces I created for this show are somewhat surreal anthropomorphic figure sculptures. After sculpting a white rabbit titled “Alice is Late” last year, I decided to look a bit more at anthropomorphic figures. I was happy with the form and effect of the finished sculpture, and viewer response to him was great. I love how now that I have a dozen of these figures gathered together for photography that they look like a mass escape from some bizarre and unknown piece of children’ literature.

In the past, I shared just one or two pieces from an upcoming art show because the idea was to entice people to come and see them in person. It is best to see any art, especially sculpture, first hand. This time around I have several weeks to share at least 12 new friends with you, so I’ll be posting a new piece or two every few days. Keep an eye out. My posts will certainly be much more frequent then they’ve been in the past.

Carolina Songbird

Songbird for Author Show

It is almost time for the Hillsborough Gallery of Arts to present the yearly “It’s All About The Story” show tied to the work of a local author. I have a Carolina songbird, the cardinal, as my subject this time around. In a twist on our usual format for this show, we decided to honor the work of a songwriter and composer with Hillsborough ties, Billy Strayhorn.

Carolina Songbird needle felted panel with cardinal — Carolina Songbird

Take the A Train

Strayhorn was a jazz composer best known for his work with Duke Ellington and his orchestra. He composed what came to be known as the Ellington theme song, “Take the A Train“, based on Ellington’s written instructions for Streyhorn to get to his house.

I am not well versed in big bang jazz, so I decided to approach this theme as if we were looking at the work of a poet. I found my inspiration within the lyrics of a song titled Rose Room.

For their musicians are the birds and bees
And they will sing us a song
As we are strolling along

More Familiar Inspiration

I found additional inspiration for this piece in the photographic work of an artist even closer to home. In fact, within my own home. My daughter is a talented young photographer with an ever growing portfolio of impressive work. She snapped a striking image of a rather persistent male cardinal just outside her window.

Cardinal image by Alexcina Wartski — Cardinal inspiration by Alexcina Wartski

You see that the panel I needle felted is a stylized slice of this image. I was drawn to the strong contrast, and the play of depth-of-field in this photo. I tried to replicate those elements in the panel.

Show Opening

Come See Carolina Songbird and all the work inspired by Billy Strayhorn at The Hillsborough Gallery of Arts, February 24 through March 22. The opening reception for the show is during the Hillsborough art walk Friday, February 28, from 6 to 9pm.

Wartski Art Dolls and Sculpture

Art dolls and mixed media sculpture