Making and Taking Pictures

The past four weeks the art scene has been relatively quiet. There have been several openings, but nothing compared to Season. I’ve been extremely busy, however, so I dread when things fully gear up. I’m hoping that I can keep up, but I feel like a juggler. I’ve already starting preparing for my two Father/Daughter solo exhibitions this winter – small works mid-November to mid-February in the Manalapan Library and large works January in FAU.

The two shows inspired me to self-publish a book “The Schreibers: The Apple Doesn’t Fall Far From The Tree,” a compilation of the paintings in both exhibits – 21 of my oils and 20 of Dad’s pastels. David Willison, a photographer, printmaker, and fellow member of the Artists Association of Jupiter has made several books for A Unique Art Gallery – a portfolio of members’ works with artists statements, a catalogue of the art in our “Small Works” exhibit, and one for “The Gray Area,” our black and white photography exhibit. He convinced me that I could use Book Smart on Blurb.com to do my own book.

To get decent photographs of our paintings, I treated myself to a Nikon D3000. Next I bought a tripod, and for the last couple of weeks I’ve been taking pictures, putting them into the computer, and working on Book Smart. Thanks to David and my friend Carrie Pasquale, I learned about things like settings, aperture, and ISO, all previously unknown to me. I still have a ton to learn. David is teaching a class on photographing your artwork at the Lighthouse ArtCenter. The class meets from 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. on Saturday mornings. The class started in September, but I imagine people can still sign up for it.

I wish I were more excited about using the camera since photography is currently all the rage. There’s been one interesting photography exhibit after another for months. In September “Photo Now” opened at the Lighthouse ArtCenter, and just this week I wrote about “Wild Florida” in the Examiner. It’s a wildlife photography exhibit at the Boynton Beach City Library. I keep meeting really talented art photographers and artists who are doing fascinating digital work. Again, I wish photography would inspire me as a medium because I feel like oil painting may go the way of frescoes. Murals are still happening, but I doubt they are done using damp plaster. People are painting digitally now rather than with paint. Still, I love using a brush to draw, and I’m just not ready to give up my oils.

Above are the paintings I’ve chosen to put on the cover of “The Schreibers.” On the left is Dad’s pastel of Rockport and on the right is my oil painting.