Join me at the Oh Canary Studio OPEN HOUSE
Saturday, November 18th, 1 - 3pm Oh Canary Studio, located at 513A Valley St., in Maplewood, NJ. Meet the awesome teachers Lacey Buccellato of OhCanary, Leana Lyons Lu of Sew Leana, and me (Jennie Traill Schaeffer of TraillWorks). We'll have sample student work, opportunities to make some art, and watch demos. Winter art lesson schedules will also be available. Stop by and find joy in art making.
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Next Thursday, March 31st, I invite you to stop by Trygve Lie Gallery for the Twitter Art Exhibit: NYC to take in and possibly purchase the works of over 1000 international artists, including my own 4" x 6" original watercolor postcard, "At Rest", seen above. This is a really awesome show that was created in 2010 by Swedish Americanized artist, David Sandum, who will captivate you through both his artwork and his efforts to help others while living with depression. Each year the exhibit is held in different cities and supports a local charity.
This year's #TwitterArtExhibit will benefit Foster Pride of NYC, which helps support kids in foster care through mentoring and the arts. Proceeds from Twitter Art Exhibit: NYC will go towards their program, Handmade, which provides teen girls in foster care the opportunity to learn about design, marketing, and small business skills, and develop personal and interpersonal qualities such as motivation, collaboration, and sustained effort that will be valuable to these young women as they age out of the foster care system. Wow, I'm thrilled to be able to help such an amazing organization's efforts. And, if that's not enticing enough, cards sell for $35 each or 3 for $95. I've seen a lot of intriguing works pop up over the past several weeks on Twitter. If you'd like to join me, the exhibit opens on 3/31 with a reception beginning at 6:00PM, followed by speaches from Isha Setia, Curator of Twitter Art Exhibit: NYC, Thor-Erik Fjellvang, Director of Trygve Lie Gallery, Lynn Schnurnberger, Foster Pride, and David Sandum, Creator of Twitter Art Exhibit. The reception and sales will run through 8:30PM. If you can't make it to NYC Thursday night, you can watch the exhibit opening LIVE on whatever personal device of your choice via Periscope. And you can view my postcard on the new watercolor portfolio page. Since my own wedding in 2004 to my sweetheart of, gasp, 12 years in December, I've been painting couples' sweetest wedding day memory . . . their cake. They are artistic, delicious (one hopes), and a visual symbol of a couples' special day. Once the day is over, so is the cake, unless the couple saves the top for the 1st anniversary tasting. A Wedding Cake Portrait savors your day forever by letting you eat your cake, and, have it too! And, for those last-minute gift givers looking for something extraordinary for your sweetheart, you can commission a Wedding Cake Portrait of your cake and I will send you a printable card to present on Valentine's Day.
My most recent works, the Red Carpet Icons, have been on exhibit at Hat City Kitchen in the Valley Arts District of Orange, NJ, for two months already! A couple of weeks ago, the restaurant hired a new executive chef and repainted the dining room. After the transformation, Jeremy Moss, local artist and operator of the gallery for Valley Arts, my son, and I spent an afternoon rehanging the show. The photo below speaks for itself. I'm both sad to see the exhibit close in a month, but happy to explore new venues for these pieces. If you haven't gotten to the restaurant to see the exhibit, the work will be hanging through March 9th, and Valley Arts, the host of the Orbital Gallery at Hat City Kitchen, is hosting one last Artists' Salon Monday, February 8th, from 6 - 8pm. I hope you'll either come out and join me, or explore the exhibit online from the comfort of your device. There's also something special on Monday for attendees and email subscribers. So hop on over and join my list and make it an #Artful2016! Happy 2016! I've taken a break over the holidays to shut down my production and focus on my family after a very intense end of year celebrating birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, hanging a solo show, last-minute holiday commissions, and online sales. I feel as if I'm starting to emerge on multiple levels. While I haven't yet gotten back to art making, I've spent the past week bookkeeping, reviewing and reflecting on 2015. While many artists I follow on social media are actively creating already, I have needed to take a step back and meditate on my successes and failures and BREATHE before moving ahead. Something people keep telling me I need to do, both literally and figuratively. So I'm heeding the advice.
Through that pause for reflection I discovered 2015 was a year of growth for me. I increased my overall student enrollment, began teaching adult watercolor classes at Work & Play in South Orange, offered a part-time summer drawing camp, created over 30 new pieces of art, exhibited at multiple venues including the Maplewood Art Walk, SOMA Studio Tour, and currently at Hat City Kitchen, participated in two public art events in South Orange, reintroduced my annual calendar, began making watercolor calendars for a free monthly desktop download, helped a student set up a private studio, and participated in an art challenge to create every day during the month of November. Whew! I am proud of my own accomplishments. But, I couldn't have done it without the following in place. As a working mom with young kids and a husband who spent a good portion of the year traveling for his job, I got help with my kids. My youngest is in part-time daycare and I added on a day where he goes to a neighbor's house. My oldest is in school, but I've reached out to friends when I need extra support after school. For keeping myself on task and organized, last year I invested in an awesome planner: the Passion Planner. It's a neat book that encourages me to goal-set and write things down, as well as offers space to work out ideas visually. I've noticed that days without my planner I feel lost, adrift, even more so than being without my technology. Both the act of writing out my goals and paying for time to create my work keeps me on target. I know that when the kids are in school, I am in my studio either creating, marketing or teaching. Yesterday, I had a phone call with an artist I knew from my former gallery in Newton, NJ, and he wanted advice from me on goal-setting and moving forward with his art. He was questioning where to sell his work and how to price it. Though I've been in business for ten years, my relocation and taking time off after having my 2nd child, has put me back in the same boat. I told him that I was in the exact same quandary: wondering about pricing my work, where to sell it, and what to make. Ultimately, my advice to him was to follow his interest in subject matter, keep making the work, do lots of research and networking on the best venues, and continue to create and test the waters. After all, that's what artists do. I'll be taking my own advice, and my goal this year is to attend one art-related event per month that is not my own so I can begin to network and see beyond my own studio. Whether you are an artist, student or hobbyist, what are you doing to move into 2016 artistically? How have you found success in your work and what does that mean to you? Share with me on my blog or on twitter with #artful2016. |
Jennie Traill SchaefferDeemed the Kitchen God's Artist by NJ Savvy Living for my sainted appliances, I'm now known more for my vibrant, meditational paintings of chairs set surprisingly in landscapes. Since relocating to NC from NJ, mothering my two sons, and caring for our rescue pup, Cider, took the lead. Now, that my Durham home studio is renovated it's open again for virtual art coaching and the resumption of my personal art and commissions. The work I make is inspired by my joy of teaching, exploring nature, and traveling. On The Teaching Artist Blog, I share my approach to teaching and educate my readers about my creative process. Join my VIPs for First DibsWORKSHOPSArchives
January 2024
Want to read more from the past? Click here to read archived blog posts from my previous blog on Blogger.
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