Tag: Art

The following guest blog post is contributed by Huron River Art Collective member Cara Cummings. Cara’s watercolor painting, Just for Today, was accepted by Juror John Gutosky into the Collective’s Fall Juried Exhibit, 2022.

Holding a flower in my hand, feeling the textures, seeing the subtleties in colors, noticing how many petals there are, how they curl, and how they are attached to the flower head – this is how I begin a painting.

Botanical art is only partially about creating a beautiful picture of a plant. It is also about learning to look, and beginning to understand, and share more about it. How are the same kind of flowers different from each other, or similar to a completely different species, genus, or even family? Twirling a stem between your fingers helps you to understand the form, to see how structures are related to each other. How can you tell the story of a plant by getting to know it? 

While photographs can be helpful reference tools, they do not provide a full picture of your subject. Using photographs to document your subject can be important, especially if it takes weeks or months to complete a painting. But even then, I use them sparingly, and only to compliment my sketches, notes, and color studies (color can be very off in photos).

Daylilies are big, bright, beautiful, magical flowers that arrive in the summer, and true to their name, only last for a day. And within a couple of weeks the whole display is gone again until the following year. 

I have always loved them, but for a long time have avoided painting them, as I was unsure of how I would work on such an ephemeral subject – I am a very slow painter – but this past summer, after watching them come and go for several seasons of living with this garden, I couldn’t let the brief opportunity pass again. Their bright, complex clusters of orange petals looked almost electric as they hovered in the deep green shade of the unmanicured jungle in the back corner of my back garden.

I chose a few stems that were just beginning to open, knowing that I didn’t have much time. I always start with quick, light pencil sketches, and find the form from there. I pulled one of the flowers apart, and holding a petal between my fingers, sketched it from several angles – I wanted to get to know it, so that when the petals began to shrivel up, I would have the memory of the feeling in my hand. I also took notes about the number of petals, the direction of the veins in the leaves (a monocot, parts in 3s, parallel veins…), and color of the closed buds – anything that would help me later. 

Finishing the initial sketch, and doing a quick color study went pretty quickly (the flower opened as I worked). But I was only able to begin the painting before the flower had changed, and then was gone.

Because I take the time to get to know my subjects, I am able to finish my paintings without having the original flowers in front of me. I do pick more blooms (if they are available) to have as references for a few more days which allows me to hold them in the light and get the colors of highlights and shadows, and to find details I may have missed, but for the most part I can continue to work from the memory of having held the flower in my hands.

Cara Cummings is a fine artist, illustrator, gardener, and educator from Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her work represents the synthesis of her background in biology, environmental policy, agriculture, and lifelong love of nature. Her garden is the place where she grows flowers and food, and is a place to inspire new art, and to provide educational ingredients to share with her students. To inquire about purchasing artwork by Cara Cummings, email: cara@carasgarden.com

Huron River Art Collective’s Fall Juried Exhibit can be seen at the Ann Arbor District Library (lower level) through the Reception on November 13th, 2-4p. Artwork is available for purchase directly from the artists with no commission. Join us at the reception to hear from the Juror, John Gutosky, and for awards.

All members are invited to submit guest blog posts. For Guest Blog Post Guidelines, please email communications@huronriverartcollective.org.

The following guest blog post is contributed by Huron River Art Collective member, Exhbits Chair and Community Exhibits Coordinator, Dennis Gordon. Dennis had two woodcuts accepted by Juror John Gutosky into the Collective’s Fall Juried Exhibit, 2022.

The term ‘woodcut’ is a confusing term, since it refers to the print made from a wood plate.  The above print (aka woodcut) , ‘Teasel’ is currently on exhibit at the Huron River Art Collective Fall Exhibit at the Ann Arbor Public Library.

This woodcut is the only time I have engraved on two separate plates and then attached the plates together (with thin slats on the back side – lots of them, and lots of screws!).

There are many things I like about woodcuts, but if I narrowed it down to two, they would be the strong black lines that you tend to get and the unpredictability of the whole printmaking process.  No matter how much you plan and prepare, you really don’t know what you have till you take the print.  Sometimes it is a good surprise, sometimes not.

One of the nice surprises with  ‘Teasel’ is the variety in the strength of the lines, with the foreground being very defined and the background being blurred.  ‘Teasel’ is similar to many of my other woodcuts in that it comes from a photograph that I have taken where a somewhat simple image can be worked on to produce texture and detail beyond the original photograph. I find woods, shadows, reflections, unusual angles of objects and scenic vistas to be my most frequent inspiration.

While many of my woodcuts are black and white, I often integrate color by painting a loose, not well defined background painting, letting that dry, and then inking up the wood plate and printing the image on that background.

Dennis also has some woodcuts on display at White Pine Studios in Saline and at the Gallery at Cherry Hill Theater in Canton. To inquire about purchasing artwork by Dennis Gordon, email: dennishgordon@yahoo.com

Huron River Art Collective’s Fall Juried Exhibit can be seen at the Ann Arbor District Library (lower level) through the Reception on November 13th, 2-4p. Artwork is available for purchase directly from the artists with no commission. Join us at the reception to hear from the Juror, John Gutosky, and for awards.

All members are invited to submit guest blog posts. For Guest Blog Post Guidelines, please email communications@huronriverartcollective.org.

The following guest blog post is contributed by Huron River Art Collective member Edwina Murphy. Pears & Honey was accepted by Juror John Gutosky into the Collective’s Fall Juried Exhibit, 2022.

The difference between art and craft is frequently debated by both participants and observers. A closely linked debate is that of Imposter Syndrome.

Imposter Syndrome: The feeling some artists have that make them feel that they will be found out as not being a true artist.

Imposter Syndrome is not unique to the arts but is rampant in many fields of work. Is a person an artist if they make their living selling art they produce? Are they an artist if they hold a Bachelor of Fine Art from an accredited organization? 

 
I, unabashedly, say that I am an Archivist with a camera as that is my profession.

Perhaps I also say it as I witnessed two friends debate the divide between art and craft for years mainly as a disinterested party. The archivist in the room that really had no skin in the debate. One friend attended the Art Institute of Chicago and holds a degree while the other holds a completely unrelated degree but does the most stunning detailed and creative original art books.

Meanwhile, my profession started to change and suddenly I was tasked with creating social media posts for a sizable organization. I quickly learned that these almost always required a photograph or graphic design to garner any attention. As a result, my effort was diverted away from such things as copyright laws towards color wheels and layers in Photoshop. It genuinely made a difference if the colors were correct in the graphic design. Contrast between backgrounds and fonts mattered. The style of font could set the tone for the item or event that was being featured.

A job change later and I was now working in a museum handling both documents and artifacts. Part of my job was to take photographs for inventory purposes and social media. I was given a point and shoot camera and was very unhappy with most of the photographs. It was a paper document that made me realize that something had to change radically. I was very accustomed to working with old paper, think 1400 to the mid-1980s. Yet, the item that turned the tide was less than two years old at the time. However, in the photos, it looked so dingy that it could have been decades old. The photos made me cringe.

 I purchased a camera and enrolled in a formal photography class. I did so specifically to take photos of museum objects, but the reality is that the skills needed for artifacts are instantly transferrable to most objects. Working with natural daylight is a bit different but, in the end, it is still controlling light.

Hence, perhaps I and people like me, should feel Imposter Syndrome pertaining to being an artist. I earnestly strive to get photos as realistic as possible so one could argue that there is not much artistic effort in my work. After all, it is commonly thought that a bee is yellow and black so a realistic image should feature those colors. However, upon close inspection there is a good amount of iridescent on a bee’s wings and capturing those shades so that they are visible is the work of manipulating the light and is perhaps the work of an artist.

Is a graphic designer who is tasked with making eye-catching social media posts an artist or an imposter? Ditto with designers who set up professional web pages. In 2022 when most marketing is done online either through websites or social media almost everyone has encountered a website that they found pleasing to the eye. In good websites there is a consistency of color and tonal range which people respond to favourably even if they don’t register the underlying factors, not unlike art.

Imposter Syndrome is a real factor for many people. Enough so, that it may inhibit people from sharing their work. It is a difficult feat to put your handiwork out into the world for either open or silent critique. Art is highly personal. However, I would argue with anyone experiencing Imposter Syndrome that by not sharing their work, they make the world a little less colorful, a good bit less delightful. Sure, some people may not be attracted to your efforts or may not understand your work. However, for every piece of art there is an audience and sharing your efforts is like bringing a dish to a potluck where one is contributing to the shared human experience.

If you look at your work and it makes you genuinely happy, feel free to call yourself an artist.

Edwina Murphy is the digital archivist for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and has worked for the University of Michigan, State of Michigan, and the Arab American National Museum. She holds a Master of Information and Library Science degree and is a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists.  Her photography training was courtesy of the Cornell University School of Architecture, Art, and Planning in New York. She has over ten years of experience working with websites, social media, and digital content. She lives in Ann Arbor with her husband and three dogs, Jeffy, Jolie and Petey. To inquire about purchasing artwork by Edwina Murphy, email: emurphyaa@gmail.com

Huron River Art Collective’s Fall Juried Exhibit can be seen at the Ann Arbor District Library (lower level) through the Reception on November 13th, 2-4p. Artwork is available for purchase directly from the artists with no commission. Join us at the reception to hear from the Juror, John Gutosky, and for awards.

All members are invited to submit guest blog posts. For Guest Blog Post Guidelines, please email communications@huronriverartcollective.org.