Art Fair, ArtPrize, and a Solo Exhibition: From Ann Arbor to Grand Rapids and Beyond

It has been an intensive summer and fall since I last posted on here, with my portrait series making it into several venues as it has grown.

Here are 15 of them at The Necto Night Club in Ann Arbor in July for Art Fair:

And 18 of them in ArtPrize.

Now 30 of these little encaustic encased drawings hang in a solo exhibition at the NCCA-Artsplace in Fremont, Mi.  I'm waiting for the gallery to send me images of the final installation.

This work was also featured in a few articles: 
The Rapidian in Grand Rapids
And The Voice in Ann Arbor

I really enjoyed ArtPrize, it is a professionally run event that has gotten my work more exposure than anywhere.  The venue I had was great to work with, and just down the street from the Grand Rapids Art Museum.  I can see why it is becoming an internationally-known event.  I think tens of thousands of people saw my drawings, and I have had several requests for sales!

So far I have created 30 of these 15"X16" drawings representing a regiment of identities, and this feels like a good benchmark to shift into new directions.  Interestingly, I'm just getting warmed up on this project. Bigger is where I'm heading next, and I've learned so much from the little ones that I cannot wait to see what happens when I scale up!  The levels of abstraction I have been playing with, the textures in the surface (which cannot be experienced through the web), and the sense of all the shifts in identity I have been working with all hold great promise for bigger work.  Once midterm grading is over at the colleges, I think the creative floodgates will open!