Tag Archives: minnesota

01/17/12

Essential Art / Catch 22

Don't Steal This Artwork -- Buy my Freaking Stuff

The Essential Art Juried Art juried exhibit, sponsored by Visual Arts Minnesota, is currently showing at the Paramount Gallery in St. Cloud. Shelly Leitheiser’s watercolor painting “San Jose Street Scene” is included in the show, which includes approximately 32 artworks, both 2D and 3D from artists all around the state of Minnesota. You can see this show now through January 31, 2012.

The website for the show and reception is here.

The slideshow doesn’t show much, only about 4-5 artworks are shown (and of those, one painting appears repeatedly*) (and it’s not mine!). The reception also had a better crowd than what is portrayed in the slide show. I wish more people would come to these receptions, but at least go to the Paramount and catch the exhibit! Local artists are very fortunate and grateful to have exhibits like this in our city.  (The painting above is not my entry into the show, that is seen below in an earlier post.)

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01/12/12

Working and Thinking About How to Stand Out as an Artist

How does an artist stand out from all the others?

I have no idea, obviously, but I think from recent local events that in certain locations (mine) it helps to be a man if you want to be taken seriously (more on that some other day).  In a related vein, I’m sorry I missed this event, because I agree that artists are entrepreneurs.

WARM member Robyn Hendrix recently attended Giant Steps, a one-day, interactive conference of inspiring folks forging their own paths and designing their own vision of work and life. Robyn shares how the day filled her with food for thought and left her digesting inspiration.

Giant Steps: So much food for thought, my brain has a tummyache.  In a good way.

What is Giant Steps?  Giant Steps is a remarkable one day conference for creative entrepreneurs of all types, founded by Susan Campion of Camponovo Consulting and M.anifest.  It brings together creative professionals, artists, foodies, business owners, consultants, freelancers, nonprofit and/or arts administrators, musicians, dancers, photographers, filmmakers, and anyone else who wants to be at the table.

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11/30/11

Planet Earth Art Exhibit

The local arts organization sponsored several themed juried art exhibits this year, and the last on the list is the Planet Earth exhibit. My painting “Erosion” (which you can see here) was juried into this show, which you can read more about in that previous post too.

Below are more photos from the exhibit.

I hope everyone in the central Minnesota area can make it to see this show. Studio C is in the lower level of the Paramount building, which is directly downtown near the Falcon Bank. You can’t miss it. It’s an unusually strong show, in my opinion, and not because of my painting but because of the other artwork in it. There are some very unique pieces and I’m very happy to see St. Cloud art shows branching out into accepting more mixed media and collage and unusual things in general.

11/20/11

Erosion for Planet Earth

This is my painting  Erosion that I did both for my environmental series, and for the St. Cloud Paramount ‘s “Planet Earth” juried art show. This painting was picked for this show by a juror who is a potter, or ceramic artist, and I’m not sure what to think of that. I know at least one other artist who believes that 3D artists should not be judging 2D work. As a 2D artist, I know I could not honestly juror 3D art and feel fully qualified, because it would not be the type of art of my choice. But I can’t complain about this particular juror because he liked my painting.

This is a 24″ x 26″ painting done in acrylic on canvas.

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11/17/11

Art Crawl on Friday November 18!

Be sure you check out the last art crawl in central Minnesota before the holidays… the November 18th Art Crawl. This is the first time that Artists at 701 (Dona Koshowany and myself) are officially participating in an advertised capacity. As a result, we have a new website for Artists at 701.

You can meet us and see our art (and more) this Friday, November 18th, at the next downtown St. Cloud art crawl. Come and see us at 701 West St. Germain, from 4:00-9:00 pm. on the 2nd floor.

There will also be a guest artist for the November art crawl — watercolor artist Deb Vander Eyk. All of the artists you can meet this Friday at 701 work in water media, which means acrylic and watercolor, but our work is very different and varied.

We will also have things besides paintings at the art crawl to look at and to purchase, such as cards and other hand-made things, and a few good things to eat too. Yes, that means cookies. Stop by!

09/27/11

Navigating the Aftermath Art Show

I have two paintings in the Navigating the Aftermath art show, one of which is shown in this ad for the event, which is touring Minnesota. If you are in central Minnesota, come on down to the Paramount Theatre on Wednesday night for a very cool and meaningful art and movie event called Navigating the Aftermath. The aftermath is that of the Iraq War, and the movie, which is also free, is called The Unreturned. It’s a good movie, socially relevant and important, and most people who see it learn a sad truth about the Iraq war. It created 4.5 million displaced people who now have nowhere to live. In that respect this will be an eye-opening event for some people.

Though most of the artists in this show are from Iraq or the Minneapolis area, there are several local artists who have work in the show too. My contributing artist page for this tour is here, where you can see some of my other anti-war artwork. I have even more, which I’ll write about here some day. For now, this is it.

08/27/11

Glowing Water

This photo is unaltered and un-enhanced, except to make it smaller.

I love photography as much as painting — sometimes more, because the results can be as effortless as seeing something and instantly capturing it.  This is a photo from my camping trip last week to Glendalough state park, in Minnesota.  It’s near a small town called Battle Lake, and this lake is actually called Annie Battle Lake.  It’s a gorgeous, pristine lake and free of pollution. No motorized boats or watercraft are allowed on the lake and as a result, it’s in the same shape it was probably 200 years ago.  The water is so clear you can see the bottom of the lake 10, even 20 feet off the shore.  No doubt that increased the sun’s reflectivity off the water, and the outcome of this photo.  The golden color is the sun shining on the sand — under water.

I have quite a few versions of these photos and they will probably be for sale on Artspan in a few days.  (See my link to Artspan on the left).

08/9/11

Sizzling St. Cloud Summer Art Crawl

St. Cloud Summer Art Crawl is August 19 and 20th!  Stop by my studio at 701 St. Germain, Suite 206 if you are in town. I will have some paintings on display (and for sale) at my studio  (at least, that is the plan).  More updates on this coming soon.

The art crawl website with list of artists is here.  I’m not listed but I will definitely be in my studio those days, with artwork on display.

06/30/11

Costa Rica Sentinels

This painting was done using several photos I took in Costa Rica last November. It’s meant to evoke the beauty and exotic mood of the location. This river, which originates with a beautiful waterfall, was overseen by these mysterious rock “sculptures” that were just sitting on large rocks, like sentinels of the river. This particular location is near the volcano Arenal in northern Costa Rica.

I don’t usually paint scenic/river scenes, but I find myself doing more of this type of work lately because I have so many photos of Central America. I’ve gone there a few times since 2005 and hope to go next year with my DSLR, so I’ll have even more photos to paint from.

This painting was just accepted into the Rivers show in St. Cloud, Minnesota, juried by artist Ron Merchant. The reception will be July 11th from 6-8pm, upstairs in the Paramount lobby.

Original NFS, but prints are available at Artspan. I’m starting to like doing paintings like this more and more so I’ll be doing more of them.

05/23/11

City Abstracts


These paintings are nearly done and are abstracts meant to resemble city scenes. I can’t help but add the wild sky in the blue one. I’m in the middle of trying to get some paintings done for an art show again, because there are so many of them this summer and fall, so I’ll be very busy with various paintings. It’s a little hard to work on them and photograph them and then post them, but I will do my best.

I meant to go down to Minneapolis today to get my two paintings that were in a show there but tornadoes kept me from going. Actually, there were several tornados around the area (and the country) today and some of them ended up in North Minneapolis and Fridley and that area. They crossed over the highway I would have been on if I’d gone, at about the time I would have been on them.

05/11/11

Sun on My Face

This is the beginning of a new project. How about interesting photography via inanimate objects that represent people? This was taken with my Pentax today. I took several more with other interesting in-camera filters but this one stood out.

When I was in college, one of my art professors exhibited his photography in a faculty exhibit. This was a long time ago, but it stuck in my head because it was such an unusual exhibition. The photos were of (baby) dolls climbing and falling down stairs in what looked like an old abandoned house. It was very creepy, almost horror-movie poster worthy. I’m not trying to emulate that project or mood, but I’m fascinate by dolls being our representatives and that children play with them, and what that means.

Some dolls are either creepy, or especially human-like, or both (especially the eyes). As a result of that I’m going to do something very interesting with my new models, so stay tuned.

The title is in celebration of our first hot spring day here in Minnesota!

03/10/11

Afghan Girl

I am drawn to photographs of children that are survivors of the wars the U.S. is engaged in, especially girls. This is an image made by a photographer I found online, a man traveling through Afghanistan, not a soldier and not a news person. Maybe for that reason the girl does not look at all guarded. He found her in the countryside, in a very rural area in Afghanistan. I’m about half done with this one, maybe less. So far, it’s acrylic, on a watercolor on paper background.

When it’s finished, I’ll put the finished version here as well as on Leitworks.com.

Meanwhile, I’m loving my new Pentax K-r camera! I wish I could take photos all day long now that I have it. Honestly, they are not paying me to say that. I’m just thrilled I finally have a good camera after years of dinky point and shoots (not that you can’t get a great point and shoot camera). I like all the manual controls a DSLR has and I could see becoming serious about photography with this camera. I just wish I’d had it when I went to Costa Rica last November. Instead, I was taking most of my photos with a little pocket sized Kodak.

Below is a sample of one of the photos I took today with the Pentax, of an older painting. It’s of my grandmother as a 15-year-old girl. This painting won an award in a local art show, and it looks pretty great even as a quality-reduced photo for the web.
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