Reflections Part two

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I've just completed a commisioned piece of art to honor Jonathon Riley, US middle distance runner and BHS class of 97. These photos are snippets of the final piece. I'm withholding a picture of the complete frame until the Gala committee has had it finished with the mirror. I will also put a link to their pre-bidding link once I have it.

Bottom Right Corner: The Olympian




Upper Left Corner:
Always Training


Bottom Left Corner:

Running Allowances
Upper Right: The Pursuit of Excellence







One of the interesting things that is not pictured here and will not be done until the night of the gala is the area that I've worked into the piece for Jonathon's signature. We were told that they would be signing the piece and I after talking with Jon who lives out on the west coast, I discovered he had studied art and design at Stanford. I decided that it would be fitting for his signature to be PART of the art and not sit on top of it. He is an artist after all, while currently his medium is running shoes and stop watches, he says the next phase will be sketchpads and erasers.
My hat's off to you Jon. And if you have any worries about succeeding in your next phase, I didn't get started until I was older than you (not that I'm much older now!). Just continue to be passionate about whatever you do. It will serve you well. To the Gala committee, thanks for the creative opportunity to be a part of a great cause.

Reflections Part one

I am very excited to be one of the six locally chosen artists to help celebrate the 10th 21st Century Fund Gala. The fund has raised upwards of 10 million dollars for initiating new educational programs for Brookline High School. This year the fund is honoring 6 different BHS grads or BHS parents. Each artist was asked to create a piece of art for one of the honorees. The catch was that the art was actually the frame! Inside each of the frames will be a mirror, hence the name Reflections. I was matched with Honoree Jonathon Riley, US middle distance runner and 2004 Olympian class of 97.

While I usually don't like to spell out what I'm doing or what I've done, this frame will be presented to and signed by Jonathon and then auctioned of to the highest bidder. It's for a good cause so I'm willing to bend my standards and take you on my frame/art making journey. Here we go:
Step one is ALWAYS getting something on the canvas and collecting my found artifacts. I started with a beautiful frame supplied by Hsiu-Lan, proprietor of Fast Frame and Gala volunteer. Then I flipped through my many books looking for the story I wanted to tell. Even though I was working unconventionally on a frame, I still wanted to go through my standard process.


Step 2 was to add more paint. This is a fun new technique I discovered quite by accident. I use a disposable paper palette when I'm painting and I found that I could actually peel off the paint when it was dry. It's hard to replicate these paint patterns any other way. So I remove the sections I want from the pallet and adhere them with soft gel gloss. Ah, I love soft gel.
I have also started collecting more substantial artifacts at this point.
Step 3 is composition. Tell the story but don't be obvious. And me? I like to add a few fun secrets into each piece. I really wanted this frame to be a fine work of art at first glance. I didn't want this to be covered in running shoes. I like to engage the viewer. I want them to enjoy the piece as they walk by but be rewarded by the secrets within that can only be discovered by making time to look at everything.


Step 4 is putting it all together. Here we have the two bottom corners in progress. Numbers, numbers and more numbers. I also wanted to fit the 5 Olympic rings into the piece, they are hidden in a few different places. Can you spot them. Hint: don't think OBVIOUS.

Tomorrow I will post more of the finished frame. I hope you'll come back to see it!