"Tarot" an Exhibit of my oil paintings

 There will be an exhibition of my paintings at The Genesee Co-op credit union here in Rochester NY. The show will be hung on Jan 8th and will be on display in the lobby of the Credit union. The paintings will be visible during normal bank branch hours and there will be a reception on Sat Jan 21, 2012 from 7-9.

In addition to the hair things and polymer clay things I make I also love to paint.I paint with acrylic sometimes at home but I have also been taking advanced classes in oil painting at  The Memorial art Gallery for a few years now. I began working with oil paints in 2000 while studying Arts for children and a studying as a sculpture minor at SUNY Brockport. My initial experience with painting for years had been only working with acrylics and my instructor there insisted on me using oils. Since the process of working with and disposing of oil paints in so hazardous I refuse to use them at home but have been happy for the chance to work with them at the MAG and use up the old paint remaining from my college days.

I have been working on a series of canvases based on imagery from the Deck of Tarot. As a teenager I became intrigued with the cards and wanted to get my cards read. I then took classes and studied bought myself a few decks. The symbolism and what we make out of it the personal connection to these images is what intrigues me most about the cards. Some people see them as evil but really they have suites just like playing cards but use wands, cups, coins, and swords in exchange for  hearts, spades, diamonds,and clubs.Their are also kings and queens in a Tarot deck just like in cards. Their are Pages in Tarot and Jokers in playing cards.

I have currently created roughly 25 out of the 78 cards that are in a Deck and hope to photograph these canvases and turn them into a deck some day that could be sold.

So I went through Sept, with few sub calls. I was worked on grant applications and looking into sole propreteiorship of my arts business. I have also looked into teaching artist opportunties. S o I was working on those and also applying for work at grocery stores, craft stores etc. All this while also completing my parttime teaching and coordinating work at the Museum.I was then called to fill in for a long term middle school sub assignment. I had alot of fun with this kids .I got to try some new projects and combine some new ideas as well.

The sixth class completed several projects such as: T- shirt designs, creating recyled paper,line deisgns, they also worked on the Mona drawing assignment and made leaf collages.

I orgianlly came up with the leaf collage assignment while teaching in Arkansas. I made take my dog to walk in the park and was anmored with the colors, shapes and textures of the leafs.

I collect the leaf while I press them between my books. Students then create four varitions of the leaf. They make a drawing og the leaf with oil pastels, then make a second samll drawing with colored pencil of the same leaf. when the drawings are completed they brush paint onto the back veins of the leaf and create a leaf print on white paper.The students then take all four variations of their leaf and the actual leaf and collage them onto paper.


I have doen this assignment with sixth and seventh grade and found that most students had sucess with it.

7th grade students completed half magazine images. Students had a chance to choose an image form the internet that they had printed as well. They cut the image in half and glue one hlaf to paper then draw the other half.

Drawing by 7th grade student Rachael.

Drawing by Haley



Eigth grade students like to show off for one another so I figured "Why don't we use this to our advantage?" The students modeled for each other and created a series of simple gestural drawings based on the others students poses.
They then look at their drawings and choose eight poses that they liked. They postioned those three figures toghether and drew tehm again vertically on watercolor paper in permenent marker. After drawing the three figures they paininted the background with watercolors using water color techniques:salt, scratching, layering and resist.