I submitted a couple of pieces to the Hott Sheet show at the Wonder Fair gallery here in Lawrence. I don’t show much of my “art” all that often, so I thought I’d post what I submitted to the show. The show’s opening sounds like it’s going to be a big party, so if you’re looking for something to do on Friday, you should definitely stop by!

Hott Sheets Art Exhibition
When: Friday, June 25, 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Where: Wonder Fair: Art Gallery, Shoppe and Studio, Lawrence

I’ve been thinking about starting a series of flat, graphic African masks since I really love working with the shapes, colors and emotion. This piece is an initial exploration of this concept, painted in acrylics.

This piece is based on the nursery rhyme:
Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.

There are some very colorful explanations of what this nursery rhyme means, so I thought I’d work that into the piece as well! I also wanted to work on some drawn type, so this seemed like a great place to experiment with that.

This coming Thursday, December 4, 2008, the Wonder Fair: Art Gallery will be having an opening of new work by Justin Marable. Justin’s art is always wonderful to see, so I highly recommend checking out his work.

In case you missed it, I did a studio tour with Justin in early 2008 that was a lot of fun!
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I was asked back again this year to do the graphic design for the Second Annual River City Reading Festival, an annual event that promotes reading to the Lawrence and surrounding communities. I was very excited to get to work with Lawrence-based artist/illustrator Lora Jost on a poster and series of bookmarks that advertised the event. The image above is the poster that Lora and I came up with for the event that happened last weekend.
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Pok Chi Lau is a photographer and teacher from Lawrence, KS who has made Chinese migration and the emergence of China a focal point of his work over the past 40 years. Pok Chi was my photography teacher in college and had an enormous influence on me and my work in terms of how I approached image making as well as how I looked at different cultures through the lens of a camera. He still remains a strong influence of mine as well as a friend and so I was very excited to learn that he has a new book of his work out called Flow China!

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OK, so one more non-design post before I get back to business . . . Last night KU defeated Memphis in an amazing NCAA Championship basketball game and the town of Lawrence went crazy! It’s been estimated that 40-75,000 people rushed downtown to Massachusetts St. for a party that even a torrential thunderstorm couldn’t stop. Congrats to this year’s team on a great season. It’s a great day to be a Jayhawk!
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