Portrait paintings.

I need to update my "commissions" page on my website with some work from the past year or so. This one was a fun one:

Art Recommendations for June!

Raleigh, NC:
First off, of course I have to urge you to come visit 311 West Martin Street Galleries and Studios. Both the galleries and the studios, all of it. We'll be happy to see you! Here's our website, which includes directions:
www.311galleriesandstudios.org

Also, I have a piece in Visual Art Exchange's current juried show, "Emulous". The point of the show was to exhibit work which recreated or emulated the work of artists (mostly well-known ones, of course) past. The work I entered and its inspiration can be seen here.

Okay. Enough self-promotion... and on to other things to see in Raleigh:

See Shaun Richards' latest work, alongside work by Owen Beckmann and Ani Hoover, at Flanders Art Gallery in Raleigh, NC:
www.flandersartgallery.com

Sarah Powers - the force of awesomeness/Executive Director of Visual Art Exchange and a kick-ass artist as well – is currently showing in Durham, NC at the Bull City Arts Collaborative:
www.withouttrees.com

San Francisco, CA:

Painting by Juliette Lemontey

See Juliette Lemontey’s work at Edo Salon in San Francisco, CA, through the end of June:
www.edosalon.com/gallery.html

New York:

A painter whose work I really, really really love is showing right now at the New York Academy of Art Summer Exhibition. Her name is Alyssa Monks, check it out:
NYAA Summer Exhibition: June 17 - Sept 7 (Opening June 17th)
111 Franklin Street, NY, NY 10013 (check out www.nyaa.edu for more info.

More soon...

Long time no post.

Oh my, it's been a while since I've posted. Oops. Meant to do this every day, but things have gotten busy... work, paintings, painting commissions, the NBA Finals. Yeah. In this particular instance my New England heritage trumps my 9 years in California, and therefore I'm hoping the Celtics pull this one through. WHOOOOOO!!

Also last week: my grandmother would have been 91 on the 4th. Makes me think about time lost, and regrets, and how tragic it is that she passed on just on the cusp of starting a new life, really. Moral of the story: really, there are many. In any event, I miss her, and wish there could have been more time.

Time = the enemy.

We also had our June First Friday at the studio. Good turnout, I think both because of the CAM show and also the Scavenger Hunt that was part of First Friday that night. I still don't know who won, nor what the clue was at our studio. Alas.

Speaking of painting and such, I feel certain that this fellow should feature in a painting at some point:

A long day’s journey into the Triad.

The portrait show at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art ended today. It was a good show, and we got some press - also a good thing. Click here to read an article that mentions my work, from the Winston-Salem Journal.

Since we were up in the Triad area picking up my paintings, we stopped by Old Salem, the mostly preserved and/or reconstructed Moravian settlement in Winston-Salem. It's been 19 years since I've been there, and I remembered little except that it is wee and quaint and there are Moravian ginger cookies. Going on a Sunday, it was rather quiet – seems like everything in Winston-Salem and Greensboro closed down on a Sunday, creating a virtual ghost town – but entirely pleasant.

So: Old Salem, it is still wee and quaint, and there are still Moravian ginger cookies. Mmmm, ginger cookies.

Sosta. with teeth.

We finally made it over to another spot of Raleigh awesomeness today: Sosta Café, located in downtown, right near Artspace, at the corner of East Davie Street and Wilmington. SO! YUMMY! Plus, the owner has a great apartment for rent in Avignon, France, and is having a raffle drawing for a free week there. Whooooo!!! Naturally, we entered that drawing. Overall, good menu - you can see it on their website – and the folks working in the café are great, and friendly, and they make a thoroughly excellent hot chocolate. I really, really hope they stick to this schedule of being open on Saturday... I will therefore probably be there every Saturday. Mmmm, hot chocolate.

Also: we finally saw the movie "Teeth."

It was actually better than I anticipated, though gruesome, though probably especially gruesome and creepy for male viewers. There were some angles of it plot-wise which surprised me, some were overly simplistic; overall a mixed bag, but a good one.

Did that make sense? Oh, just go see the movie yourself.

A night off for forgetting.

I took the night off, and we went to see "Forgetting Sarah Marshall." If you like juvenile humor in the vein of "Knocked Up" and "Superbad" and so forth - as I do - you will probably enjoy it as well. I especially enjoyed seeing it at the local theater that charges $1.50 per ticket. Heh.

Sketchy.

As mentioned, I have some commissioned pieces to finish, but I did manage recently to sneak in a little sketch right after I got back from France – a tiny little portrait sketch of Canadian artist Janette Hayhoe; we were in the same portrait painting class last year with Studio Escalier:

jh2

oil on panel

2008

4"x4"

Diane Feissel