This October I completed my second Florida Panthers Mural on the upper level of the BB&T Center in Sunrise FL.
It has been a great experience partnering with Browards only professional sports team organization to bring powerful marketing through art.
More to come this season!
Coral Springs Traffic Box art
My pastel piece “Facets of Freedom” has been selected by the City of Coral Springs to be wrapped around traffic utility boxes around the city for a public art install! The piece will be printed and vinyl wrapped along Sample and Coral Springs Drive next month. This original portrait was created for the Pompano art exhibit “Loosed” inside Blooming Bean Cafe at BaCA last April and represents seeing the world and its potential for beauty with refined vision and hope. It is my delight to add my touch of color and light to the beautiful and vibrant town of Coral Springs.
April 5th, from 5-8pm we welcome the exhibit “Loosed” to Bailey Contemporary Arts in the Blooming Bean Cafe. 4 artists & 17 students will display artwork exhibiting freedom and release onto the walls of this beautiful gallery space in Pompano Beach. Exhibit runs April 1-28, 2017.
The coastal town of Wilhelmshaven, Germany hosted its 5th annual Street Fest August 1-2 in its City Center along the Nordsee Passage. Over 60,000 people came to watch 40 international street artists chalk directly onto the paved MarktstraBe. Artists were divided into 3 categories: 3D, copyists, and free artists, of which I was apart of.
Here is the final result & meaning behind my 8×10 ft piece titled “Die Blaue Blume” or “The Blue Flower”
Die Blaue Blume
Close up of crown
“Infinite yearning”—this is how E.T.A. Hoffman summed up Romanticism. At the end of the eighteenth century, German poets, musicians, and philosophers spearheaded Romanticism. For the German Romantics one symbol summed up all their dreams—the blue flower. The image of the blue flower first appeared in Heinrich von Ofterdingen, a coming-of-age novel written by German romantic author Novalis in the eighteenth century. Rejecting the materialism of the bourgeois world around him, the young Heinrich searches for artistic and spiritual fulfillment, symbolized by a perfect blue flower. “It is not treasures that I care for” Heinrich said to himself, “but I long to see the blue flower. I cannot rid my thoughts of the idea, it haunts me.”
“After first gaining popularity during the Romantic movement, the symbol can also be found frequently in German folk songs of the last two centuries:
“If the golden sun laughs so bright, the world I must go roam,
Because somewhere in the earthly light, the blue flower must grow.
So I search the land and near the sea, to find this little flower,
And only where that blossom be, could I ever cease to wander.”
-“Wenn hell die golden Sonne lacht,” author unknown
The blue flower was adopted by both the German youth Movement during the Weimar Era and the Student Movement of the 1960s as a symbol of hope and regeneration after the world wars—the image could
be seen frequently on protests signs from both movements. Jim and Ruth Bauer, creators of The Blue Flower, were drawn to the image as it symbolized the complex world of the Weimar artists—searching both for artistic perfection as well as a way to rebuild the broken world that surrounded them.”
-American Repertory Theatre
“A blue flower is a central symbol of inspiration. It stands for desire, love, and the metaphysical striving for the infinite and unreachable. It symbolizes hope and the beauty of things.” -Harvard University Press ISBN 0-674-02455-1
Day 2 complete
I have the honor and privilege of being apart of an exhibit called “Courage”, a traveling art show with a purpose to showcase artists response to the question, “What does courage look like?” It is an exhibit based in Greensboro, NC and traveling to galleries, hospitals, and showrooms around NC and beyond 2015-2016. I am excited to see the impact of this series!
“Refraction”
“The face of courage burns brightly with light and vision. It’s course is victory, and conquers discouragement with the light of its strength.”
“Tiger Lilies”
“Lilies are a symbol of refined beauty and wealth. The tiger represents boldness, confidence, and regal beauty. We are all capable of royal, refined beauty as we move forward in our lives and blossom into our strongest self.”
I will be a featured street painter with the Coral Springs Museum of art this Saturday at Coral Springs Biz Art!
http://www.coralsprings.org/bizart/
Street painting event
FALL EVENT CALENDAR!
CHALK FEST 2014
October 10-12th was Marietta, Georgia’s 4th annual Chalk Fest, a beautiful street painting festival featuring many talented chalk artists from around the country.
Chalkfest 2014
BROWARD 100 Kick-off Party
On October 16th, 2014 downtown Fort Lauderdale hosted the kick-off party for the Broward 100 Project-a centenniel celebration honoring the history of our region through the performance & visual arts! I created chalk mural with ArtServe, Ft. Lauderdale from 5-8pm on Las Olas Blvd across from the Museum of Art near the FAU campus. http://www.southflorida.com/theater-and-arts/sf-lauderdale-broward-100-block-party-20141015,0,2105088.story
http://www.broward.org/broward100/Pages/default.aspx
Color the City Lighthouse Point
On October 19th, 2014 the Lighthouse Point Cultural Arts committee held our first “Color the City” fence weaving event, beautifying the city through public art workshops. I directed this one day collaboration with kids ages 7-14 in weaving vinyl strips of color into public park fences to beautify our local park! It was a unique, fun family event for the community to enjoy-just in time for the November 1st concert in the park event!
Offerdahl’s Gridiron Grill-off 2014
November 8th, 2014 is the Gridiron Grill-Off Event at the Pompano Beach Amphitheatre. A food, wine & tailgate festival presented by the Taste of the NFL featuring music, celebrity chefs & entertainment throughout the day. What does this have to do with art? I was asked along with a few other local artists to paint a Jack Daniels statue to auction off for charity. Proceeds of the purchased statues benefit John Offerdahl’s Hand Off Foundation, Feeding the Needs of Kids in Crisis.
From the 2013 artist auction for charity
http://gridirongriller.com/home/
BaCA Limelight Event Novemeber 19th
Wednesday evening, Nov 19th Old Pompanos newly renovated art space BACA will hold its monthly art exhibit. I will be creating & directing a large chalk mural collaboration with several of my art students from 4:00 onward! Come out and see some live art while enjoying music, food & entertainment in Pompano’s new revitalized art spot 🙂
bacapompano.org
As many of you know I do street painting festivals throughout the year & to promote events in the local area. I also had the opportunity to teach the art of street painting at the Coral Springs Museum of art this month to a few youngsters ages 9-11. They didn’t know what to expect in a chalk mural class, but they quickly learned this isn’t merely “draw on the street” time for 3 hours. We learned how to mathematically measure & grid an image onto a larger surface by carefully studying proportions & measurements of an image. We began indoors recreating this beautiful lion from Apple wallpaper images in google.
Each student received a 1×1″ cut square from the photo and magnified their square 4 times the size. We used chalk pastel to copy what we saw onto a larger square, then adhered each piece to a larger grid I drew for them.
The end result was beautiful! They truly had to maintain focus on what they saw in their tiny abstract squares, and had to trust it would add up to form this beautiful puzzle in the end.
Day 3-4 we ventured outside to work on our large scale temporary mural as a group. I found an awesome black and white owl illustration by Ben Kwok of deviant art online. We each measured and applied a 1×1″ grid to our 6×8″ images. We then multiplied the owl 20x bigger onto the pavement using chalked string to snap down the straight lines of our grid. We applied box by box, adding bright color to each so they had contrast. Here is our result!
The public arts panel at the Coral Springs Museum of Art is planning to display this piece as apart of a series of decoupaged light boxes around the city of Coral Springs! The girls are excited to see their work on a more permanent display! More to come….
The city of Lighthouse Point is getting some new public art this summer, thanks to our first City Summer Art Camp that ran June 9-13th, 2014. 26 kids kids ranging from ages 6-13 dove into bins of colorful tiles, designing personal mosaic creations and park benches for the city. We owe a HUGE thanks to local businesses Tiles of Pompano, D & B Tile, & Budget Tile for their generous contributions to our summer camp!
I first had the kids experiment with the “direct method” of mosaic making by gluing right onto 4×4″ tiles and grouting. (Wearing gloves of course, the fun part)
We proceeded to mosaic a larger piece to enter into Pompano Beach ArtHall’s student exhibit in August. By day 3 we were onto our bench designs, working in teams at our tables in groups of 5 or 6. I explained the “indirect method”” of mosaic making by laying out a cardboard template the exact dimensions of the bench backs, and having them plan and lay down the tiled design. Next, we carefully transfered the pieces onto 6″ sections of sticky contact paper by pressing them over each section of the design. I slathered on thinset cement carefully and had the kids press their contact sheets of tiles into the mortar until the bench was filled and they dried overnight.
Some groups created a mosaic of random colors & tiles, others an underwater scene, a lighthouse & a fish. The boys helped me stir up the grout outside after the tiles had dried in their bed of cement and we smoothed and sponged off the excess grout to fill in all the gaps. We even had a local reporter stop by to see our creations on the last day of camp! The kids had a blast & did some amazing artwork they will remember forever!
The following week I returned to sand the edges, seal the grout and prep all the benches for their public installation. I will post pics of the installed benches as they go up at Dan Witt park & other local spots in the city.
More city art projects to come! Great job artists!
mosaic trash bin at Dixon Ahl Hall, Lighthouse Point
ArtServe Fort Lauderdale hosted an “Art as Healing Therapy” exhibit Thursday evening to showcase art as a medium of healing in the community. It was a successful event showcasing 2 & 3D media, including my entry below, “Lead Me Into Spring”, acrylic on canvas.
ArtServe
