Saturday, February 28, 2009

Saturday Is For Art




Friday March 6, I will be participating in an art show at the Collector's Art Group, 225 East 6th Street in downtown Cincinnati with four other local artists. Today, I have posted three of the five paintings that will be in the exhibit. The first painting is titled "Level Playing Field Out The Window" and is from The Envelope Collection. Painted on a black paper envelope that I once received reports, it measures 12"x9". The second painting is also on a black paper envelope 12"x9", titled "Tribute to Jackie Robinson: Leveling The Playing Field 1947-2007. This piece is a collage, as a photo is used in addition to the acrylic paint. The third painting is on MDO 1/2" plywood and is titled "Tanked: The Wall Street Watch of 2008" and measures 24"x16" and is painted in acrylic. It is framed in a gold metal frame under glass and haning on the wall can easily be mistaken for a broken clock.

I enjoy recycling paper and wood products and making art from them. I have been drawing on envelopes for many years and I have always enjoyed working with wood since I was a very little boy in my father's work shop. Finding new surfaces to paint on or simply to create new objects, such as the shadow boxes from empty Whitman Sampler candy boxes, seems to grab my interest. I know many artist have used discarded materials to create art, and several artists continue to do this. Many Outsider artist use found objects such as wood, pieces of metal, cardboard and even old newspapers to create fine art. Other than it is expensive to always buy new materials to create art, I will leave it to the shrinks and art historians to debate the real reasons behind the artist's motives or motivation.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

I hope you do well at the Art Show, Fred. I hope you sell enough and make enough to buy a whole fleet of MacBooks.

BTW - I really like the watch. I've seen the others previously - the watch is new to me. And I like it.

moneythoughts said...

Thanks for your good wishes. As for the MacBooks, I would be satisfied with one new Macbook.

I'm glad you like the tank watch. This is painted on 1/2" MDO plywood. This plywood has a paper surface, front and back, and is very nice to work with. I do a lot with a straight edge and compass and this plywood is a great surface to work with. You can get it at a lumberyard. See if you can buy a small piece of scrap to try it out, I think you might like it. I bought a 4'x4' piece and had them cut it up into 6 pieces 24"x16". I have painting on all 6 now.

The tank watch will be in the art show. The title: TANKED: THE WALL STREET WATCH OF 2008. Next Saturday, I hope to post some photos from the art show.

Betty said...

I love the two baseball paintings! All three of my boys were baseball players, my youngest just beginning the season this year. I wrote a story about the origins of baseball...fiction, entirely.

moneythoughts said...

Thanks for the nice comments. While I use the baseball field as one of my icons, as it appears in a number of my works over the years, it has more to do with politics than baseball. The expression a "level playing field" has been around for a many of years. I use this icon as a goal that we strive for, but is never fully reached.