Printpalooza a Big Success

A Small Museum that Makes a Huge Splash, Leepa Rattner Museum, Tarpon Springs

There were print makers of all kinds from every where! There was printing on clay, wood carving, linoleum carving and drawing on stryafoam printing plates.  There was mono printing on a grand scale as you have never seen before and famous printers brought in from other areas and states.  Just being around that reminded me of my days of printmaking long ago at the university and later with kids and adults.  Now the creating printing juices are flowing.  I have got to Print!!!  I have got to Etch!!!  I have got to carve!!!

This week in clay class I am going to explore printing on clay....now for all the fun we saw and  people we met!

Printpalooza Advertising

 

Printing T-shirts from woodblocks

Wood Carving of Car ready for Printing

Putting on wood block for printing 

Finished image of Print

Printmaking Press

The inks used were a regular oil pasted printers ink.  They will stay on through washing and remain permanent.  The press was a small press and rather unique, the handles for turning were make of welded together chain links.    There is always magic when an image jumps from one surface to another.

I will continue with post of the separate events following this one.  And a post about a wonderful printer by the name of Sean Starwars, yes, that is right SEAN STARWARS.  A wonderful artist and a great person.  Look forward to more post on Printpalooza today!

Printpalooza and the Leepa Ratner Museum

Leepa Rattner Museum(click for link)

                                                                                                                                                                                from google image

Today I will meet friends at the Leepa Rattner Museum in Tarpon Springs, Florida.  Tarpon Springs is a delightful Greek Community that makes one feel they are in another country while there.  Today is the printpalooza event.  Printmaking was my major in college, so this should be particularly delightful for me.  
Leepa Rattner is a small museum that is large, in that it has a big effect on the community, not only for Tarpon Springs, but St. Pete and Tampa as well.  We call these combined areas Tampa Bay which has a total population of 2 or 3 million people. People love this little museum and its reach is wide.  I will take pictures today of the event and share them with you.  I am meeting a friend who is an art therapist there and another friend who takes adult students for art appreciation classes.  It should be a wonderful art outing and I look forward to sharing the day with you.  

from google image

Welcome Iran!!!

Welcome Iran it is so nice to have you with us!  We look forward to learning more about Iranian art(click for link) and culture, such a rich and ancient culture.  

Detail of Iranian Ceramic Tile

Welcome Finland!!!

It is so nice to have you aboard.  We look forward to learning more about Finland and your arts!

Kari Caven/ Famous Finish Artist
from google image

This Weeks World Visits in Review/See Who is Checking in This Week

Photo from Google image...its source is Rawlins College, U.K.
Give them a google and see what they are about!

It was a banner week for us at Rabbit's Moon Studio breaking two readership records in one week!  


Your readership and loyalty humbles us.  We feel so fortunate to have a large world art community and such loyal readers. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!  So let's look at who in the world checked in this week in our global art community! Betsy


United States
U.K.
Canada
Russia
Germany
Italy 
Netherlands
Sweden
Switzerland
Gabon
Malaysia
Singapore
China
India
Ukraine
Slovenia 
Bahrain
Pakistan
Brazil 
Thailand
Argentina 
Mexico 
Norway
Bulgaria
Portugal
Columbia
Australia 
Dubai 

Posting instructions from my Peruvian Friend

You know how people who understand technology


think the rest of us are a bit dense...maybe 


dumb?  Well my Peruvian techi friend Monica


is willing to explain this to us in simple terms


but not without a bit of sarcasm.  But throwing


wheel keeps her humble as it does us all.  There


have been so many people having problems that 


wanted to post comments that I am posting this


again.  Monica's explanation is pretty simple


and straight forward.  Give it a try and make


a Peruvian Techie feel good! 

Smart Peruvian Techie friend and Potter Monica

Ok, here we go again, its not so hard to do it people!!!  (note the tech sarcasm!)

1. After you finished reading the new post go down and you will see a little enveloped and the words "comments" click there

2. Now you will see a white rectangular space where you can start typing.

3. Below the white square you will see

Comment as:...................... (and a littel arrow - click the arrow)

4. Find the word Anonymous and click on the word

5. Below that you will have 2 choices: publish and preview

6. If you choose preview you have the choice to see what you wrote and do some changes IF you want, then click publish

7. If you choose publish, well, you will publish whatever you wrote inmediately

8. Some bloggers have the option to read everything people submit before publish, but i think in Betsy case you can publish anything inmidiately 

9. If you do what i said, you will have your first comment published.

photo by Elizabeth Gordon

When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work.  I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw.  She stared at me, incredulous, and said, "You mean they forget?"  

Howard Ikemoto

Answering a Request for How to Post Comments on our Blog

JUST CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT, YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

I have had a request from many people who want to leave a comment and can't for some reason or another.  There seems to be some difficulty.  So here is a video tutorial I found on you tube for everyone on how to leave a comment.  It takes you through step by step.  I look forward to hearing from you all.  Give it a test, even if it is just to say hi or I love art!  Thank you, Betsy 


Click on the highlighted sentence below and it will take you to the tutorial.  I look forward to adding a voice to the hundreds I see read our blog daily worldwide!


How to leave a comment on Rabbit's Moon blogspot, a video tutorial.  

RABBIT'S MOON STUDIO ARTS INITIATIVE

Rabbit's Moon Studio Arts Initiative 

EVERYTHING STARTS WITH AN IDEA!
photo by Elizabeth Gordon

We want to honor people who are using art as a basis for change in their community.  We also want to hear about ideas using art that can change the world for the better.  It can be a small idea or a large idea.  We will share those ideas here on this blog and we will highlight people who are making a change. 

 All you need to do is this:

*For Someone Who is Making a Change:

   Rabbit's Moon Arts Initiative 

  1. List their name and a bit of biography

  2. How they are making a change in your community using art 

  3. Add any photo's(attachments) of the project that helps people see what is being done.

 4. Submit your email and contact information

*For Ideas Using Art to Effect a Positive Change in the Locally or Globally 

   Rabbit's Moon Arts Initiative 

  1. List your name

  2. The name of your idea or project

  3. Write up your idea in clear and easy terms.

       A Paragraph about the idea and then an outline of the steps of  

       how the project can be achieved.   

       The more specific you are the more doable the project is.

E-MAIL YOUR SUBMISSIONS TO  RABBITS5@AOL.COM

Attention Rabbit's Moon Studio Art Initiative  

 We will review the ideas as they come in and then contact you by    

  email if your idea is chosen to be highlighted on the Rabbit's

  Moon Studio blog with an international audience.  

PEOPLE HELPING OTHERS HOLDS US ALL UP

 If it is chosen we will let you know when it will be published on line so you can share with your community and others.

We look forward to sharing your communities success and your ideas for using art to build a better world. 

WOW, WOW, WOW!!!!! Rabbits Moon Studio Broke Two Records in One Day!!

*THANK YOU !!!!!!!  THANK YOU ALL!!!*

City of Philadelphia Mural Project/ A Program Using the Arts for Positive Change

Yesterday was a double banner day for us.  We broke our record for number of readers for one day and a new
benchmark for readers since the start of the blog!!

  We are in awe of your readership and continued loyalty to the arts. 

We exist for the love of art and the good we believe it can achieve in the world today not only for societies, but individuals.  Your support helps us spread that message world wide.  Keep sharing our message with your community, friends, co-workers and family. 

Student in my art classes who fell in love with art

SO LET'S GIVE BACK,  LET'S BUILD A BETTER WORLD TOGETHER USING ART NOW! WE CAN DO THIS, AND WE CAN DO THIS NOW!

Philadelphia Mural Project/a project started to end gang graffti

As a teacher of 37 years I saw up close and personal how art changes lives.  I also saw how it could help a community bond and make positive strides.  Through the arts we can help this world be a better place for us, our children, and children's children.  We can work with science, ecology and social media...we can reach closed minds and societies.  The Arts are a Powerful method for positive change.  Reach out change the world...Reach beyond your studio, gallery, museum to individuals whose lives you can change...to young and old, to a community you can effect, to a world that needs a positive focus.  


Rabbit's Moon Studio Arts Initiative 

We want to honor people who are using art as a basis for change in their community.  We also want to hear about ideas using art that can change the world for the better.  It can be a small idea or a large idea.  We will share those ideas here on this blog and we will highlight people who are making a change. 


 All you need to do is this:

*For Someone Who is Making a Change:


   Rabbit's Moon Arts Initiative 

  1. List their name and a bit of biography

  2. How they are making a change in your community using art 

  3. Add any photo's of the project that helps people see what is being done.

 4. Submit your email and contact information

*For Ideas Using Art to Effect a Positive Change in the Locally or Globally 


   Rabbit's Moon Arts Initiative 

  1. List your name

  2. The name of your idea or project

  3. Write up your idea in clear and easy terms.

       A Paragraph about the idea and then an outline of the steps of  

       how the project can be achieved.   

       The more specific you are the more doable the project is.

E-MAIL YOUR SUBMISSIONS TO  RABBITS5@AOL.COM
Attention Rabbit's Art Initiative  

    We will review the ideas as they come in and then contact you by    

     email if your idea is chosen to be highlighted on the Rabbits

     Moon Blog.  If it is chosen we will let you know when it will be published on line so you can share with your community and others.

We look forward to sharing your communities success and your ideas for using art to build a better world. 

George Rodrigue, An Artist Giving Back by providing art supplies to schools and fellowships to individual students

Here a some ideas of communities and people who are have used art to help individual and communities using the arts.  Most of these are in the United States only because we have easy access to that information, but we look forward to hearing about projects and programs world wide to add to our list.  We hope this gives you a good idea of how people and communities are using art to build better lives and communities.


George Rodrigue Youth Art Development Foundation 

Rodrigue handing our a years worth of art supplies to Louisiana schools

Philadelphia Mural Project

Project Based Learning/Bill Strickland

A New Deal for the Arts/Roosevelt and the Depression

Art for Change

Using City Parks Programs for Art

American Organization for the Arts
an outline of a project for New Orleans


People Express/UK

Youth Art Corp/Pinellas County Florida


Hyde Park Art Studio's/A Tampa, Florida City Recreation Initiative

Monica's pots are getting larger and larger as she learns the art of wheel throwing

Carol using our new slab roller

Monica Throwing 

Carol and Betsy admiring a new pot

Maryann using the pottery extruder

Botero/An Artist of Immense Proportions

Botero

Botero/Columbian Artist  photo from google image

I was researching South American artists that interest me and Botero is one of those.  I can remember when I first saw prints of his fat people and thought how fascinating he chooses to do this and my next thought was why. Botero explains his use of these "large people", as they are 
often called by critics, in the following way:


"An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it"

Botero / Columbian Artist                         photo from google image

El Presidente by Botero

This spoke to me and goes back to our discussion of process versus product in our previous post. Botero is trusting his innate intuition as an artist without questioning it.  As I read more on his biography  it intrigued me even more....he spoke of staying free of the trends of modern art and called himself the most Columbian artist in the world though he lives elsewhere.  The reference was to staying free of others influences and styles.  His style has even been named it is so unique, Boterismo.   


"His works feature a figurative style, called by some "Boterismo", which gives them an unmistakable identity. Botero depicts women, men, daily life, historical events and characters, milestones of art, still-life, animals and the natural world in general, with exaggerated and disproportionate volumetry, accompanied by fine details of scathing criticism, irony, humor, and ingenuity." Source Wikapedia 

Still Life with Fruit by Botero    photo from google image

"Botero is an abstract artist in the most fundamental sense, choosing colors, shapes, and proportions based on intuitive aesthetic thinking."Source Wikapedia

Botero Sculpture for St. Petersburg Museum Exposition
photo from google image

 If I think about how I approach my art I hear some of the same themes...trusting my intuition, not questioning it, not judging it, but knowing it will guide me where I need to be. I think it will surprise some that Botero is an abstract painter in a sense when his works seem so realistic....but it is an exaggerated sense of realism as in literature we think of magical realism.  He makes powerful points about politics and human behavior in a classical style.  I find his Abu Ghraib series very captivating almost in the same way Picasso's Guernica is in relating the horrors of war and 
the worst of human behavior.

Botero/Abu Ghraib Series

  

Process versus Product

You will learn to enjoy the process... and to surrender your need to control the result. You will discover the joy of practising your creativity. The process, not the product, will become your focus. (Julia Cameron)




The following shows studies of an assemblage I created called Alternate Universes for a gallery showing.  The history of the piece is this.  A friend found this rusted stove top on a four lane highway and retrieved it for me.  I propped it up outside by backdoor against an oak tree where it stood for a good year or more.  Every day on the way to and from work I passed it and gazed at it.  Eventually a thought begin to form in my mind...a hazy distant thought...portals....then I went to my studio surrounded myself with all my things and went to work..it is a process of try this, no, try that, hundreds of choices..over and over.  Then I feel a flow starting that seems right....things begin to click. yes, that works, what about this....ah...what if I add this...I take a break, stand back, think and start again,that day or the next....as the ideas come and then a whole forms and I almost hear a mental click...DONE! This is it!

Thumb Nail Photo Study Sheet of Art Work in Process
Elizabeth Gordon

Artists and teachers debate this a good bit...product versus process.  As a teacher and an artist I have always landed on the side of process.  For me the process leads to the product...but it does not have to initially.  The importance of experimentation and play in art cannot be emphasized enough.  If your focus in on the end product that a teacher has said, make this and here is an example...then you mind is narrowed form the start to all the possibilities to a narrow few.  If you are concentration on your sales or a client or a critic then your mind has set a limited path and the effort will be controlled and perhaps staid.  To be open to process is not to control, to turn the control over and let creativity flow from you.  It is like a surfer cresting a wave, you  must let go, feel the power beneath you and ride with it. 

Detail of Assemblage              photo Elizabeth Gordon

When I taught I refused to make examples before hand and if I showed how to start something I destroyed it right after, so children could approach things from their own perspective and will unlimited possibilities.  
In teaching I can tell you it is the adult student who has the most difficulty letting go of control and just going with the flow...letting the experience guide you.  For me it is the only way I can work...I resist all else.

Detail of Assemblage              photo by Elizabeth Gordon

  I love working in the moment and seeing what the result will be.  You may be a planner, an artist whose sees a work clearly and creates it...but I do encourage all to take a walk on the side of process and letting go, you will find growth in your work you had not expected and a new sense of freedom that will be liberating in art.  And your will begin to trust yourself and your in the moment choices and responses.
  

If you are open, the possibilities can be endless and surprising.      from google image

Let me know if you try and what the results are.  I would take great interest.  

The Art of the Ukrainian Easter Egg

Ukraine Easter Eggs

When I was teaching art to children from time to time I would receive presents from the children and their families.  One year a child came in with a little box and said I have something for you.  My Grandmother wanted you to have this.  It was the most beautiful hand painted egg her Grandmother had painted. She were from the Ukraine.  It remained one of my most prized possessions for many years until it was broken in a move.  They are so beautiful  and so skillfully done.  

Happy Easter and Happy Spring to All/Studio Dreaming

Clicking on Highlighted Words will lead you to links with more information.

Mr. Easter Rabbit on Blossom Ridge

My studio in Asheville

Biltmore Estate Gardens

Last year about this time I was in Asheville, North Carolina at my home and studio there.  It was so beautiful every thing was in bloom and there were craft show about.  Mr. Rabbit was making his first spring time showing after coming as a present from my brother and his wife.  This is the time of year I long to go to the mountains..I love the dogwoods in bloom.  The Asheville Arboretum and the Biltmore estate with all their spring plantings.  It is a treat if you have never been.  The Blue Ridge Mountains are a national treasure.  For movie buffs, Hunger Games was just filmed just out of Asheville.  Also the last of the Mohicans and Cold Mountain were filmed there also.  
Another must see is the Appalachan Craftsmen Guild on the Blue Ridge Parkway just out from Asheville.  

Welcome Morocco!!

It is so nice to have you.  We look forward to hearing more about Moroccan Art and Culture.




Here is a link you may enjoy about Moroccan Art and Culture.  Click on the following highlighted words: Moroccan Museum

Pottery Class/A Place of Enjoyment, Community and Growth

    

Betsy W. and Carol examining her pot

 

Pottery Class

Watching other people enjoy and grow in art is so satisfying, especially to a former art teacher.  Hyde Park Art Studio is a rare place in city recreation centers.  It has equipped art studios and artists who are instructors.  If your community or city does not offer this, then you will want to consider it.  It benefits the community so much.  All ages of people come. There are children's classes as well.  

Betsy number 3 organic hand built pots

We have three Betsy's in this small class/this her organic plant pot

Monica throwing larger and larger on the wheel

painting on wax resists 

These are just a few individuals in a community learning and sharing, but more so they build a bond that strengthens the whole area and gives back.

Betsy W.'s new glazes on casserole ppot

loading the kiln

It does not matter if it is for art shows, themselves or others, they are creating.

kiln shelving stacked and waiting

detail shot of student using lace pattern rolled into the clay

Monica's plates...Wow, that girl is getting good.