I have applied for and been accepted as the artist of the month for September 2010 for the Weinberg Center for the Performing Arts in Frederick, MD. I am excited to be working on art which is a new direction for me. I've been creating some works with "wet-in-wet" acrylic backgrounds, and with brightly colored images rendered in Sharpie markers over the background. I was inspired to do this through a class in abstract acrylic painting taught by Ed Ramsburg at the Delaplaine Visual Arts & Education Center in Frederick. I was doing a lot of work based on pouring wet acrylics on paper or canvas, letting the wet paint dry, and then pouring some more layers. I was thinking about making some gifts for parents who were helping me with an art show at my school, and I came up with the idea of the wet-in-wet backgrounds with brightly colored drawings over them. The parents seemed to really like their gifts, and I enjoyed making them, so I began creating more art of this sort for myself. One of my chief sources of inspiration was our pet guinea pigs, so at the Weinberg Center next September, performing arts patrons will be treated to artwork whose subject will be Brownie and Double Stuff, our two pets, as well as landcsapes and various other subjects.

I'm planning on having around 25 pieces for the show, at sizes like 18" x 24" and 16" x 20". I still have quite a few to complete, but as I am an elementary school art teacher, I have my summer vacation to look forward to during which I can create full time. I hope you can come to see my work at the Weinberg Center in September 2010!

"Battlefield Reflections at Frederick Cellars

Four artists including myself are having an artshow at Frederick Cellars at 221 North East Street in Frederick, MD. I, along with Rebecca Jackson, Deborah Lovelace Richardson, and Glenn Souders have on display plein air landscapes of local battlefields such as Antietam, Monocacy, and Gettysburg. In 2008 I encouraged other artists to paint en plein air and so we started in March of that year at Monocacy Battlefield in Frederick. This is a lesser-known battlefield, and it's an undiscovered gem in our area. We painted together with many other artists from Maryland and Pennsylvnia in June 2009 at Gettysburg, as part of the Gettysburg Festival. Then we hit on the idea of having a joint show so we kept on painting separately and together at Antietam, Monocacy, and the South Mountain battlefield. We organized the show with about 30 pieces, all paintings, at Frederick Cellars for the month of November and it was very well received.