Tag Archives: shelly leit

05/15/12

Art A Whirl

I’ll be at Art a Whirl this year!   My location is Fitness Crossroad, which is located at 2912 Pentagon Drive, St. Anthony mall, NE Minneapolis.  The painting above is a watercolor titled, “Little Mound Lake” and you can see it in person at Art A Whirl!  Below are additional details about Art A Whirl:

- – - – - – - – - – - – - – -

Art-A-Whirl is the largest open-studio tour in the country. It’s a great opportunity to tour private artist studios and galleries, connect with the artists, and purchase original artwork.

Art-A-Whirl takes place annually in Northeast Minneapolis, the third weekend of May. This event is free and open to the public.
DATES and HOURS:

Friday, May 18th -  5:00-10:00 p.m.
Saturday,  May 19th -  Noon-8:00 p.m.
Sunday, May 20th -   Noon-5:00 p.m.
Tour more than 50 locations throughout Northeast Minneapolis, including studio buildings, art galleries, homes, storefronts, businesses, and restaurants.
Plan your visit with NEMAA’s Artist Directory and Guide, [there will be copies at Fitness Crossroad] which includes information about the NEMAA artists, a map of Northeast Minneapolis and the Art-A-Whirl locations, a dining guide, and more.

Continue reading “Art A Whirl” »

03/31/12

Variety of New Paintings

I’m finishing up paintings for the next month, then I’ll need a break just to try to sell some things. My inventory is building up to ridiculous levels! This is in progress:

Yes he'll be nude, but not entirely.


See below for ones that are finished.
Continue reading “Variety of New Paintings” »

03/14/12

Art Crawl March 16th

"Orange Resistance" Acrylic on Panel, 12" x 12"

Come to the Historic Downtown St. Cloud, Minnesota, Art Crawl on Friday, March 16th, 5-9 PM. Visit my studio from 5-9 at 701 West St. Germain, Suite 206, in the same building as StudioJeff. The weather will be fine and warm, so stop by. I have a lot of new abstract paintings in a smaller size than my usual more realistic acrylics and watercolors.

And while you are downtown don’t forget to buy something! Think of it as patriotically stimulating the local economy.

02/19/12

Oil and Dolphins


This is called No Way Out… for Dolphins and other Living Things. (Sorry about the low image quality as I took this with my phone, despite the fact that I own some great cameras.). This painting is small, 10″ x 10″, and part of my Endangered series. Next up: Canadian Lynx, Orangutans, and Grey Wolves. This series does not limit itself to officially endangered animals either, as the dolphin is not currently endangered. I’m also working on endangered man and woman paintings because even though there are a lot of us (7 billion, in fact) we may be endangered at some not too distant future time, too.

02/18/12

2012 Exhibits

New exhibit information for 2012. There will be more!  But for now:

(this one is over) Current group show until February 29, 2012:  St. Cloud Hospital, “Rio On Pools”

This painting is a watercolor for the Central Minnesota Watercolor group and is titled “Rio On Pools”.  It is a painting of a natural rock and pool area in Belize, where I was lucky enough to spend the day in 2007. The pools are called Rio On Pools and are part of a long river system.  The day I was there they were also being used by the British Military for jungle training exercises!  Note the top of many of the trees are bare sticks. The area was undergoing a beetle infestation when I photographed the area and it was killing many of the trees. I don’t know if the infestation has been stopped but it is one environmental effect of climate change.

≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈ ≈

WARM Show: Kinetic Connections

This is part of the WARM exhibition series. Kinetic Connections is the title. I originally called my portion of the show reclamation. It’s a word used for what coal companies do to mountains after blowing them up for coal. Essentially, they destroy the mountains and the natural ecosystem and when they are done they plant some grass and trees, making it an elevated golf course, essentially. It’s a word I like for other reasons though. The word reclamation is an empowering word of renewal when faced with, in this case, a lot of environmental devastation. Most of my paintings have to do with the effects of global warming and industrial effects on the environment. I will be exhibiting with another artist, who does mainly abstract watercolor paintings. The WARM exhibition is scheduled for April 30 through June 8th, 2012, in St. Paul at the WARM building. The address is: Women’s Art Resources of Minnesota @ the Women’s Building, 550 Rice St., St. Paul, MN 55103

 

01/22/12

Goodbye January, Hello 2012

My goal for this month was to complete at least 4 paintings, and I may get there, and I may not. Two are nearly done, two more are nearly done, and two are at least started.

Pictured above is one of the things that I did complete, a painting already half finished when I found it buried under other paper, and now called “Grizzly”.  It’s  part of my Endangered series I just started, and will be part of an exhibit this summer.  I won’t reveal the exact venue for this show just yet.

Already in 2012 I feel a bit over-extended.  I have promised 3 shows and want to be in at least 2-3 others.

So these are my three on-going series in 2012:  Endangered (endangered animals, including people) is the first,  and second is Image-inations, which is inspired by my fascination with the future, and all things steampunk and future-Victorian.  This theme was inspired by one of the greatest TV shows of all time (at least in my opinion):  Firefly.  Firefly was steampunk before it even really existed in the general consciousness, and though it was cancelled in 2002, it remains a bit of a cult favorite among its fans, to this day.  The fans of the show were called Browncoats, and I was, for a time, a die-hard Browncoat.  I even owned and operated a website devoted to Firefly art, called Firefly Graphics.  Alas, it is no more.  I am left with a more dystopian view of the future now, mixed with elements of a simpler life, driven by some fear for our climate, and inspired by different forms of travel than we use now, like steam power and airships.  This future includes people fueled by their wits, charm, persuasion, and maybe even some theft . . . . which brings us back to Firefly, which was basically a show about a band of space thieves in the future, after earth had been mostly “used up”.

My third on-going series is  called Imbalance, which will be the theme of my WARM show in May, 2012.  More on this later.  Imbalance is about the imbalance of humans in our relationship to our environment.   All of these themes are evolving and in development.  And by writing this out I just discovered that my 3 themes are from a past, present and future viewpoint.  Here they are:

Endangered — the past.  (creatures who are or who will soon only exist in the past)

Imbalance — the present.  The current situation of environmental destruction and our reactions to it.  (mostly helpless).

Image-inations — one possible future.

So there you have it, my 2012 art will be kind of like A Christmas Carol, without the ghosts.

 

 

 

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.

11/26/11

Visit a Local Art Gallery for Small Business Saturday

You have probably heard of Small Business Saturday. It’s a day when people are promising to visit a real small business (not a Mega-Mart) and buy at least one thing in that small business. I would like to extend this to include small local art galleries. Not the big Mega-Galleries, but the small galleries where local artists (small business people) are displaying their work. Hint: they want you to buy it. I, and a lot of other good artists, am in two local art exhibits at the moment. One is called Planet Earth (pics of that one in the next post) and the other one is called the Wrap Up show, sponsored by the Great River Arts Association in Little Falls, Minnesota. These exhibits are good examples of small gallery shows that lots of artists depend on to show their work and hopefully, some day, if the stars all align properly, make some art sales. So when you are considering which small businesses to give your business on Saturday, and other days in the future, consider the small local art galleries. Visit them, and maybe even buy something.

Below is a good preview for you of just such a small gallery, this one in Little Falls at the downtown art gallery. This is part of the Wrap Up show and it will last through December, until January 5th. I have four paintings in this exhibit.

11/20/11

Art Crawl St. Cloud

I didn’t take a lot of photos Friday night during the art crawl, but I did get a few. We had a much larger crowd of people after these were taken so I didn’t have time to take more. It was a good art crawl, though I was expecting more people. But there was a time period of about an hour when the building was very crowded with people looking at our work. The cookies and food were a big hit too, of course.

Inside Shelly's studio, Suite 206

Art Crawl November 18th -- before the bigger crowds came

The next art crawl isn’t until March 2012. If you saw something you liked and wanted to come by to purchase it later, just contact us using the contact forms above.

Next time I should have the ability to accept credit cards so that should make it easier for everyone to get the paintings they like and not worry about paying on the spot. We did sell a few things, but not as much as we had hoped. I talked to someone afterwards and suggested it might be because we don’t accept credit cards so finding a way to accept credit cards will be a priority for me for the next art crawl.

I also have a painting in the Planet Earth exhibit in Studio C at the Paramount. It’s titled “Erosion” and there is a photo on my website here. Please visit the Paramount to see the whole exhibit.

More of our artwork can also be seen in Little Falls at the GRAA art center downtown during their Wrap Up art show.

 

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.

Continue reading “Erosion for Planet Earth” »

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!

11/10/11

Climate Change Art

These are photos of some recent work related to my environmental series.  The first, above, is called Hotter Than Usual.  It’s a small painting, 16″ x 12″, showing people living in a warming world, (due to climate change) and it’s for my new series Imbalance.  Imbalance has been renamed from its previous name, Rebalance, due to a recent report from the IEA.  It seems obvious now that the world truly is out of balance, and our window to do anything about climate change is shrinking fast.  In fact, the report states that if carbon emissions are not drastically reduced in a few years, it will be too late to stop devastating climate change.  Worst-case climate change would be a tragedy not just for people but for animals and plants, and there will be mass migrations of people due to droughts in some areas and flooding in others.

Below is the recently completely painting Exodus, which depicts people on the move due to violent weather and the resulting unbearable living conditions — the blue suggests the conditions are flooding.  (I did another painting last year called Waterworld which depicts people in a flooding situation.)

Continue reading “Climate Change Art” »