Visit Before it is too Late!

This weekend our current exhibition is going down and it is a fabulous display. But like always, something great goes up in its place never leaving the gallery to look dull in comparison. 

Here is a link to the Statesman Journal article that SAA's James O'Shea wrote as well as a  picture of his current photography exhibition show (The American Dream) that is on display along with the Young Artists' Showcase that will go down soon. Check it our at the Bush Barn Art Center while you can! 

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/life/2014/04/06/large-drawings-created-for-sake-of-art/7316315/

quiet mornings, quiet days

This week has been very quiet and calm with working at the Salem Art Association. My site supervisor Catherine is gone on vacation and without constant projects and duties to work on with her here, I am working on things I already know and have learned. I am helping Jennifer the gallery coordinator with doing random things around the Bush Barn. Once Catherine gets back sometime next week, I will be back doing loads of busy work and preparation for my participation in the Radius 25 showcase as the submissions for the call for artists is due by the end of May. I will most likely help with sorting of the artist submissions once they start coming in around that time. I also added more to the Young Artists' Showcase exhibition catalog as I am adding pictures from the Hillcrest submissions since they were highlighted in a Statesman Journal article recently.I added pictures of their artwork to correspond with the article and poems they wrote and submitted. Knowing I have a lot ahead of me, I am doing lots of quiet prep work and little tasks this week within the gallery.

Outside of SAA I have looked in-depth to drawings and wall drawings. Artists of particular interest would be Jim Dine and local artist Andrew Myers. Here is a drawing by Jim Dine that I especially enjoy as the muted monochromatic colors match the mood of these quiet and rainy days. 

Gallery Life

Starting with the usual meeting, we talked about weekly updates, shared exciting tidbits, and everyone's vital roles to Salem Art Association. Getting advice to add more to the exhibition catalog I finished, I added a page or so and completed the never ending showcase book. I then shadowed Jennifer, our Gallery Coordinator and brilliant artist as we performed little necessary duties for the gallery and gift shop. I changed light bulbs, checked in and out inventory artworks, talked to a new artist, packaged away artworks, labeled pieces, and printed/documented the many items and artists that are dealt with. These small task are absolutely important to the Bush Barn Art Gallery as it keeps us organized. Without the neat filing and POS inventory systems used, we would be without the ability to accurately keep track of the thousands of artworks and artists associated with them and our gallery. These will continue to be important skills as I was able to work on my own and confidently work my way around the art gallery. 

*simple days*

This week, a few SAA members are gone especially my supervisor Catherine who always has interesting things for me to do. Entering the Barn on the cloudy Monday, it seemed very quite as only a couple people were on the premises. Unsure of what I was to do, I wandered up to the Nest and visited James as he could easily have a random task for me to accomplish. Not having many things off the top of his head, I looked through old photos of the Curios & Curiosities Showcase in January/February 2014. Making sure they were all rotated and aligned, I went through and picked the ones I thought were the best. I then trekked to the downstairs intern computer and edited all of those pictures on PhotoShop. Then feeling like I have bugged James enough, I headed off early for the day. This week and maybe next will be small in task load but I have the ability to help anybody in need and do some things on my own.  
For how simple it was, I decided to include a simple Picasso drawing that I really like:
Head of a Woman, 1905 

Saturday Adventure to Find Free Art

Today, my friend and I decided to take a walk through Bush Park as it was joyfully sunny out. Enjoying each others company while walking along the trails of flowers and oak trees, we stumbled upon a hollow tree. In it we noticed paper and pulled out a small hand made book with a note attached. It is from Free Art Friday in Salem where any artist of Salem can hide self-made works around town and post about it online with a hint to where it is hidden. Along with pictures on the site we felt obligated to look up, we felt this secret project around town is a brilliant good deed and artistically amazing. We ventured next to Engelbrect Antiks, an antique shop in downtown Salem where we bought old postcards from the early 20th and late 19th century. We attached a similar note about Free Art Fridays and hope to find more artistic acts of good deeds around town in the future. Here are some pictures from our finds and Saturday adventure:

Here is also more info on this local art project:
http://diystudio.net/free-art-friday-salem/

Files and Coffee

In the early morning, it was time for Wednesday's usual meeting for the staff of SAA. We gathered and shared information of how everything is going with each person(work wise) and even celebrated the birthdays of a gallery assistant and for a dog (Buster) of our staff member Debbie. We discussed marketing, the past Saturday's children art day, and future plans for Art Fair. We concluded our meeting (full of coffee and snacks) with a laugh and all proceeded to our own individual duties. I was then able to shadow Jennifer through random office tasks. I entered information into our inventory system, take items out of POS, and file artists away in our cabinets. I repeated knowledge I already knew about our POS system and learned new things about how to keep the system organized in the Bush Barn Gallery. It was a simple, low key day today but I was able to learn new things and visit with the staff to make it a rewarding seven hour day at the Barn. 

Sunny Daze Mondays

As Spring is starting to actually form within the departure of clouds, I luckily got to spend part of my day outside. With a new exhibition coming near, the word needed to be spread on a call for artists. Radius 25 will be an exhibition display in the summer and we are looking for artists within the 25 mile radius to participate in the themed exhibition. Posters were made as we need to advertise our need for artist submissions within the next month. I took a stack of freshly printed posters and headed out into the sunshine to distribute them around town. I drove downtown and walked around to busy coffee shops, restaurants, and small businesses to get the word out. I went to a little over ten places in the downtown area and enjoyed the sunny stroll I took to hang up the glossy prints. Then I headed back to the Barn where I continued to work on the Young Artists' Showcase exhibition catalog. Adding finishing touches, captions, and picture edits, I was able to lock in a 95% finished rate on the catalog as it awaits final editing and approval before it gets printed and distributed to others involved with the showcase. There was a couple people who loved the Young Artists' Showcase so much, that they are actually interested on purchasing some of the kid's artworks. I then had a chance alone in the gallery to look again at the beautiful works as I put sticky notes on the few pieces curiously selected. We then will call the teachers/parents for permission on selling the pieces as every artwork will normally be returned to the children after its display time. The quiet Monday was great overall besides the constant nagging of the beautiful sunshine.  

The Art of Nature

On this day, we dedicated it to nature and the surrounding beauty of Bush Pasture Park and the history it contains within the nature of the new season of Spring. Along with Oregon Botanical Artists, Salem's nature expert and fellow Bush House historians, I ventured on a mini hike through the park in mid morning/afternoon to see the sights of the new season. I like nature and the true beauty it brings Oregon but I seriously do not know much about plants and its specific qualities. Everyone had so much particular knowledge about every species and it fascinated me that there was so much interesting facts about the plants and flowers that cover Bush Park in Salem. I would not be able to duplicate the facts and information everyone spout out during the hike but with the love of art I have and the knowledge I have, it mimics the same interest and knowledge these ladies (and men!) have on the subject of nature and botany.  I followed everyone on the sunny walk and was mostly a silent listener. Ending up slightly hungry, tired and muddy, everyone else still had fired spirits and wanted to continue on in constant amazement. We then all ended the walking tour with a lovely lunch at Bentley's where we all continued to socialize but more about our pasts, interests, art and the many other things that brought us together. 

Learning more about nature illustration was very interesting to me as it was a way to document every species with extreme characteristics and qualities to be demonstrated before the process of photography. Especially with Oregon being a grand place for the story of Lewis and Clark, documentation of the Pacific Northwest's native species is important compared to the illustrations of today's botanical artists. We will be premiering the art of these artists with a coming up exhibition: In the Footsteps of David Douglas.

Exhibit Dates: September 12 – October 18, 2014 

For more information on this upcoming show:

http://salemart.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Prospectus-In-the-Footsteps-of-David-Douglas-032014.pdf 

SalemArt.org

For more information on these premiere nature illustrators: 

http://www.oba-artists.com/

Here are some pictures of the park and it's beauty: (I did not take these)