Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and May You Find Peace and Happiness in the Coming Year    Lee

Progress is a piece conceived and comleted over a couple of years.  It started in one place and ended up far from where it began.  The original intent was to offer a circular shadow and hint of a casting object at the intersection of two roof planes of a building in a series I called sliver paintings.  The slivers were small narrative pieces that the viewer had to imagine the completion of the object in their head. I went in with the idea of trying a new technique (to me) of using thickly layered oil paint pulled through using a wide comb over an underlayer of contrasting dark paint. I also was exploring glazing. After my first run, I had to redo the shadow because it did not cast in a convincing circle. I layered another layer of paint and changed the shadow glaze.
After I created the base painting, I set it aside as finished, but I felt it lacked… It just was. It was very plain and stark. I started to think about what I was depicting and what kind of message I could convey with it.  It was an old garage that had seen its better days.  The shadow was long and the sky was bright and clear.  I reflected on the typical garage’s role to serve the motor car and how the motor car is founded and relies on refined oil or gasoline.  Then I connected in my mind the blue sky.  There is a lot of sky/future in that picture. It is blue, bright and hazy.  I thought it would be appropriate to put a jet trail up there. For me, this symbolizes the future or progression of fossil fuels: originally cars and ground vehicles, progression to flying machines and even space machines (shuttles). I really thought about it positively at first, but the progress of locomotion and fuels seemed at the time stagnant (even now it is dominated by big oil) and that progress is still really based on fossil fuel and not alternative, sustainable technologies. So you will note that the jet trails from right to left  and the garage rafters and shadow trail left to right crossing and not going anywhere.  The final hint of the piece is the letters “B” and “S”.  These are self explanatory when put together with the garage, jet, fuel idea and the title “Progress”.  My statement if that in the area motor car transportation, Progress is hamplered and that the future technologies at this point are not progression, but BS.  I am often told it is too subtle.  Well, I do not believe that you need to hit people in the head. Sometimes it is not about what the artist creates, but what the viewer sees. Some people have told me the piece is engaging, calming and they like it…the meaning is hidden. That is also acceptable :-). Art should make you want to look at it and to live with it. E-mail me if you have a comment. I would love to hear your thoughts :-). nleeball@att.net

Ok. So last weekend was the excellent Raleigh Visual Art Exchange’s annual SPARKcon festival.  As always, it was jam-packed with fun and exciting things to do all weekend. There were circus performers, street artists of all types (plein aire, street painting, photographers, graffiti, … just everything), dancers, fashion designers, actors, poets, writers, gamers, bartenders, comedians, singers, bands, skaters etc.  There really is something for everyone. Follow this link for more information: www.SPARKcon.com.  SPARKcon arrives every year the 3rd weekend in September and is ”sparked” by the participants and organized by the always awesome Visual Art Exchange (www.visualartexchange.org), so you can also get involved for next year’s event if you are inclined to do so and I hope you will :-).  Anyway…

I was a street painter in the ARTspark part of the event.  I love to chalk, it is super fun and just exciting to be among the crowd. I usually participate with my super talented fellow artist and good friend Tarrah Huff. We have chalked together for the last four years. Of those four, we won the grand prize twice, were featured artists and received Best in Show: Design this year.  Yay us!  This is a chronicle of the events of that weekend :-)

Day 1 As always, Tarrah and I have a color draft of the work we intend to create for the event. Tarrah, being the master color-smith, has set the map from the line drawing I have created. We grid the square, and then chalk line the drawing.  This year was particularly difficult in that it involved many constructed diagonal lines…and wet rain.  It would have been great if it stayed light and sporadic. It was not great.  The first night we laid it all out and put down a mud chalk base. We covered it with plastic, usually a good idea.  We stayed until about 10:30pm, then headed home.

Day 2 is the gripey day. This time, the water seeped under the cover and stuck to the plastic. It started wet and stayed wet off and on until 5pm when the relentless light mist just would not give up and began to turn into real rain. Tarrah and I plugged along all morning hoping to have everything at a solid state allowing me to come back on Sunday to touch up and highlight. Tarrah left leave mid-afternoon because of an engagement. I stayed and continued to work until after 5pm and was hoping that I would catch a break and put the tarp on when it dried out again. No such luck. The drawing was wet.  I decided to go eat and see if the weather would co-operate and dry out a little. At 7pm-ish, it was even more dismal. I decided that I was going to have to let the work stay out overnight because it would just come off on the tarp, plus, it was really quite built up from wet layering. As I was talking to a fellow participant, I looked up and some passerby was sticking his foot in my work.  Here is where my impulsivity and stupid bravado kicked in without my thought to back it up.  I yelled..I dont even remember thinking before my mouth engaged… “Hey Dude, what do you think you are doing,” I know the words ”Hey” and ”Dude” were involved, but I’m not exactly sure.  It may have been the high school art teacher in me seeing a student being foolish in the classroom. I may have been just the incredulity of the situation, I don’t know, I just know I was pissed.  I was told that he said “I’m sorry”, but all I heard and saw was laughing and silliness from his surrounding friends. I responded with two more phrases full of disdain I am sure, one being,”That took hours to create,” and the other “That’s my artwork you are stepping on.”  This is also where we noticed a photographer and her subjects dancing on someone’s square across the street.  We tried to politely (now) tell them they were stepping on someone’s work, to which she informed us that she was a “professional” as if that gave her the rights to destroying a fellow artists work.  The audacity of people is just mind-blowing! I think I’ll go cut up someone’s canvas because I’m I painter and a “professional.”  How ridiculous. When I left, it was wet, rainy, and grumpy. I feared the return of stagger foot. You can ask my husband about the anxiety part :-).

Day 3.  “He” returned. It was inevitable. People have little respect for others. I don’t know who or what ”returned”, but IT drug its feet across Tarrah and my work and left foot prints to Dan Nelson’s art cart, stole a can of paint, dumped it at the foot of our square and dropped the container on the tarp covering our friends work next to us. I was not phased as I returned at 8:00am Sunday Morning. It was a Holy day, and I had to let it go. Funny, all the anxiety was waisted the night before. I quickly assessed what I needed to do and just went to town. I started by reconstructing the cross beams and fixing the slurred sky. If you notice, I have great respect for Escher in this piece ;-).  I also tried to drain the “moon” from its pool of water.  That was the funny thing of our square. There was a circle indentation. We decided to use it to our advantage. After I started, everything fell into place and I stopped at 1:00pm. Eventually, we learned we took Best of Show: Design, good end to a funny weekend.  I would have liked another couple of hours, but I think we did well considering the weather and the unruly night vandal. I really did enjoy the experience. I learned great heaping helpings about me, others, chalking and my fellow artists, who are completely wonderful and helpful people. I wish there were more opportunities to get shoulder to shoulder with other artists creating art. It is just such a learning experience watching and talk ing to other artists when you have an artifact and production in common…And there is always the story of the event itself. I will always remember foot printer and the midnight vandal. I do not hate them, I look at them as story fodder.  They will always be greater in a memory ;-).

Featured Artists SPARKcon GroundSPARK 2010

I often wonder how time gets so crushed and stretched as we meander along. Next week will be a great week of art and arting. Tuesday – Friday, I will have open gallery and studio hours at Without Borders, 18 Glenwood Ave,  from 11am to 3pm.  I will be working on a commissioned triptych, re-imagined blue piece and finalizing the sidewalk chalk work Tarrah Huff and I will do on Friday at SPARKcon.   It should be an exciting and busy place full of great works by Susan, Tunde, Allen and me,  complete and in progress :-).

Lights Down

On Friday, Tarrah and I will be on Fayetteville street chalking it up! This is always a fun time where we are working on the street with music and art all around us created by groups of all ages: middle-schoolers, high-schoolers, college students and adults.  It is so inspiring and fun. I cannot wait!

Grand Prize
GroundSPARK 2007

The process of creating a sidewalk chalk work begins with the search for a suitable idea and afterwards to create a visual. Tarrah and I work from our experiences and photos creating a line drawing of the work. We then play with color, the brighter the better with chalk. Using a scaled grid, the drawing is transferred to the street, line drawing first.  The chalking really begins after that. Color is applied first as a basic base color layer that is ground in with fingers, socks, gloves, or whatever you have around to keep your finger tips with prints. We used to use hairspray to “set” the layer, but that is not necessary. It just helps immensely if there is wind, or an inconsiderate soul who rides over your work on a bicycle after dark.  After the base layer is down, you add the texture and variations of color that create a work of art and Voila!, Street Art :-). I hope you can come by September 16-17 on the Fayetteville Street and join the fun. See you there!

Grand Prize GroundSPARK 2009