It’s been an interesting seven months. How has your work been affected by the coronavirus?

I started working late last year on paintings with the theme of invasive species and their impact on the landscape. As we all know, in mid-winter an invasive species in the form of a virus appeared and suddenly the subject felt way too alarming. At that point I decided to pivot to something closer to home, since that’s where I was spending all of my time (like everyone else). I am fortunate to spend summers in Northern Michigan on the Lake surrounded by orchards, rolling hills and that incredible body of water.

It’s been an interesting past three months. How has your work been affected by the coronavirus?

MS: Janet and I had an exhibition on March 10th at the a+c architects gallery space and we saw it as a prelude to our exhibition at Vivid Art Gallery in April. Being that it was towards the end of the winter season, which is the time I work on the figurative paintings, I had a substantial body of work in the figurative style. I was still doing carpentry during those days and lots of painting at night and on the weekends. I was making great progress, pushing hard and burning the candle. When the pandemic came and my carpentry work stopped, I began to put all my energy into my figurative paintings.

It’s been an interesting past three months. How has your work been affected by the coronavirus?

The invisible but ever so real virus has had a devastating impact, and I have empathy for those who are suffering and will suffer until society can find a cure. My mind needs to be quiet when I paint, emptied of surface chatter. The impact of the pandemic initially was an inability to create. I love to draw with pencils on paper, so I started with drawing. Eventually the warmth of spring enticed me outside, called by the awakening sounds of birds. I took in the sun’s glow casting itself on the tops of trees not yet in full leaf. Then I was ready for painting, the task of making compositions and placing color on canvas.

Since opening the gallery, we’ve found that our customers have had questions regarding how to begin and grow an art collection. While there is not a “best” strategy for building an art collection, we have some thoughts to share.

Since we opened the gallery, we’ve found that our customers have had questions regarding how  best to light the artwork they have purchased. The simple answer is, there is not one “best” way. Below, we discuss some options for lighting artwork as well as some other considerations.

We’re back for our third and final installment on street art, in which we will be discussing current street art outside of North America. We have already looked at the history of street art as well as its expression in the United States, but street art is truly a worldwide phenomenon. We have based some of this post on our travels abroad, while other examples have caught our eye while researching our other blog posts. 

We first encountered extensive amounts of street art in Melbourne, Australia. Influenced by New York’s street art scene, the medium began to grow rapidly in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Stencil art became particularly popular in Melbourne during this time. In fact, Melbourne held the first ever Stencil Festival in 2004, which ran over the course of 10 days in late September and early October. 

“I don’t know very much about art.”  That’s a comment we frequently hear from customers. We believe that appreciating art does not require knowledge of art, but understanding some art history can enhance enjoyment. So, we would like to provide some context to our customers through our blog posts. Since they are brief, we hope that the blog posts will act as a springboard for those looking for more information.  Today we will discuss the Abstract Expressionist art movement, which informs so much of contemporary art.

In our last post on Street Art, we discussed a few places in the United States where street art was particularly prevalent or had a significant impact on the surrounding community. Today, we’d like to delve a little bit more into the history of street art and examine how it has evolved over time.

We’ve been putting a lot of street art images out on social media over the last year because, well, we love it!  We are interested in its uneasy relationship to graffiti and its links to gentrification, but mostly we are excited about its ability to bring art directly to the people.  We will take a quick dive here today into the current street art scene in the United States, with the idea that we will circle back to this subject from time to time as part of a series to explore it more deeply.