Thursday, April 24, 2008

Artist's Residency

I'm very excited to announce that I've been offered a residency at the Ora Lerman Charitable Trust Artist's Residency at Soaring Gardens in Pennsylvania this summer!

I'll be there for eighteen days, June 16 - July 3, interacting with other artists and creating my own artwork. I intend to work on some paintings but I want to focus on creating artist's books.

It's the first residency I've been offered and I'm very excited about it.

The residency includes room and board, but I'm expected to pay for travel expenses, which can get expensive. So I'm asking for your help. If you'd like to help out, click here for an invitation to be a partner on my creative journey.

------------------------
Special thanks to Alyson Stanfield - I got the idea for this from her book, I'd Rather Be In the Studio.

I don't think I've written anything about artist's residencies, so I'll do that soon...

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Different Media

I wrote recently about trying to figure out how to handle marketing different bodies of work. But now I'm facing a different problem: working in different media.

I used to paint only in acrylic, and I played around with layering colors and trying to achieve transparency. But when I discovered encaustic, it seemed to solve all my problems. I could embed objects, collage materials, write words, scrape, scratch, layer... So I've worked almost exclusively in that medium for almost four years.

But when I started on this new body of work (the Palimpsest series), I wanted to explore the ideas in different media, as I had done with the Seeking Shelter series. That particular series came out of all of the work that I did in grad school. I spent the whole time working through ideas and media, and Seeking Shelter is the culmination of all of that work, and it just happens to be created in encaustic.

I know Joanne Mattera has written about not wanting to be labeled an "encaustic artist," and I can understand and respect that. About not being defined by your medium. And it's never bothered me if someone called me an encaustic artist. [I don't care what you call me, just call me, right?]

But I'm afraid now that I've pigeon-holed myself. I've created a few new pieces in the Palimpsest series that are not encaustic. I've been experimenting with acrylic, oil, and pastel. I think all of the pieces go together as one body of work and I don't think acrylic pieces would look out of place next to encaustic pieces as long as they seem cohesive in style, subject matter, etc. But when I was talking with a gallery owner about sending work to him, he seemed hesitant about me sending the non-encaustic pieces. He said I have become "known for" encaustic.

I'm going to send them anyway and see what happens.

So I'm curious. How do you handle working in different media? Or introducing work created in a new medium? Have you had the experience of being labeled as a particular kind of artist or expected to only work in a certain medium?

Sunday, April 20, 2008

I Don't Really Want to Be an Expert on This...

I was recently interviewed for American Artist Magazine for an article about rejection.

The article will appear in the June issue.

You can read it now online:
Putting a Positive Spin on Rejection

Saturday, April 05, 2008

More Shameless Self-Promotion

Just wanted to post some info on recent shows. I'm noticing a lot of artist book activity lately and I like it!

Deanna Wood - Palimpsest: Secrets Revealed, photocopies, colored pencil, Canson paper, staples, and wax

Secrets and Lies, National Juried Artist Book Exhibition
23 Sandy Gallery
Portland, Oregon
March 20 - April 26, 2008

I created this book specifically to enter in the show. It seemed serendipitous, as it fit into my recent body of work so perfectly. I will definitely be doing more books as part of this series.

--------------------


Deanna Wood - Bicycle Andante, inkjet prints, vinyl, metal tape, reflector

Deanna Wood - Desk Drawing, color copies, spiral binding

Merging Visions - Collaborative Art and Poetry Exhibition
Visual Arts Society of Texas and Denton Poets' Assembly
Emily Fowler Central Library and North Branch Library
Denton, Texas
April 1 - April 30, 2008

This exhibition is a really fun idea - the poets made poems available to the artists and the artists made artwork available to the poets. The poets looked at the art and found pieces that either reminded them of poems that they had written, or they wrote poems that were inspired by the artwork. At the same time, the poets made their poems available to the artists, who paired the poems with existing artwork or created new art based on the poetry. The pairings are displayed at 2 branches of the library, in celebration of National Poetry Month.

My friend Beth Honeycutt, who is a member of the Poets' Assembly, gave me some of her poems to read, as well as her daughter, Stephanie's. I was drawn to one poem by each of them, and created the artist's books pictured above. Beth wrote a poem in response to one of my paintings.

More images of Desk Drawing and Bicycle Andante in this Flickr set.

--------------------

One last artist's book-related event - I'll be speaking about artist's books to the Dallas Area Fiber Artists on April 28, at 7:15 pm at CC Young Cultural Arts Center Auditorium, 4829 Lawther West, in Dallas. I'll also be doing a mini workshop before the meeting.

--------------------

I'll be speaking to the Women of Visionary Influence Artist Ring about my path as a full-time artist on Wednesday, April 9, 9:30-11:00 am, at la Madeleine on Belt Line and Montfort in Addison.

----------------
Now playing: Joshua Radin - Everything'll Be Alright (Will's Lullaby)
via FoxyTunes