Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Surrounded by Nudes



We are building windows to go over a friends spa. It's a bow window, the type that has five or six flat panels to go in a circular design around a bathtub. One day, after I'd been researching classic nudes on the Internet, after about two hours and finding very few that were right, I told Jeanne that I had to watch some mindless TV to clear the many images out of my head! The trials we go through for our art! Anyhow, I found three that will suit us for the window and there will also be a reverse of them in the other three panels. I think they will turn out to be some very wonderful panels, really inspiring! The one pictured is the most elegant of the three and will look especially good when softened by the sandblasting. But now I've got these prints waiting to be cut out and blasted, so we really are surrounded by nudes!

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Jeanne and The Downtown Art Stroll


In July, Jeanne was made the Director of The Downtown Provo Art Stroll. She has been meeting with gallery owners in the downtown stroll area, encouraging them to be proactive in getting artists for the stroll. She's kind of like an organizing cheerleader. August 6th was the stroll and today, August 10th we had an "After The Stroll" meeting to see how things went. One gallery wasn't even open during the stroll, one gallery made a sale, each of the galleries had between 60 and 250 visitors. It's really fun to go on the stroll, especially if the galleries are pumped about it each month. After all, it's free advertisement for them and it gets them known better by the community.

So what does that have to do with stained glass? We believe that we either all survive together or we sink. We have stained glass hanging for sale in two of the galleries and we'll be featured in another in December. So it's to our own interest to help the galleries survive, to do well, to have more traffic and build interest in all the arts. After all, we're pretty sure that good art raises one up and ennobles the spirit. So we're making the world a better place by creating and promoting good art.

It was also great to see the mayor of Provo (John Curtis) out visiting all of the gallery's, supporting the arts and visiting with folks in the community.

Jeanne has been diligent in meeting with gallery owners, in fact putting in more time and effort that a few of the gallery owners, getting ready for the stroll. She has found four more locations that will be part of the stroll, two of them have been exhibiting art all along, but weren't on the stroll map. Two other business owners were wondering how they could be a part of the event, but didn't know who to talk to! She feels grateful for the few folks who are willing to do a little extra to make the stroll a success. Now she just has to get things ready for September and then have a success at the semi-annual art chase in October (I didn't even know they did it twice a year!)