Category Archives: Uncategorized

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À la Côte d’Azur

À la Côte d’Azur = At the Azure Coast, more commonly known as the French Riviera. No, I am not enjoying the beach in a foreign land, but I did paint one such beach I did enjoy. This spot is on the southern coast of Île Sainte-Marguerite, which is essentially the title: À la côte sud d’ Île Sainte-Marguerite. The island about half a mile and a short boat ride across from Cannes of film festival fame. I visited both places in the summer of 2009 when I traveled to France on a short abroad program in college.

An intriguing tidbit: Île Sainte-Marguerite houses a fort and museum, Fort Royal; the historically elusive man in the iron mask made famous by literature and film was transferred from the Bastille in Paris to one of the cells here.

I worked on this painting in 2 stages; I started it in January (but had to pause–end stage 1),

 

Resumed it mid-April (and tried a different configuration for my studio space),

kept working on it in May,

finished it a few days before June,

and am posting about it in July. Go figure.

C’est fini!

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July 2018 Art Show

Several months ago, I was charged with planning an art show for a large open house my workplace was to do for the greater Princeton community. As you might recall from my previous post, the event happened fairly recently (July 1), and, as the photographs below will attest, the show went on!

Really, this show came together from the ground up. I researched, found, & purchased the metal wire display panels for the organization, put out a call to artists, made signs & labels with matching designs, coordinated artwork drop-off & pick-up–all sorts of things. Big tasks right down to the details. I’m very grateful to the set-up and take-down crew. 3 of us did set-up–the perfect number for this, really–and it was quite easy to put the panels together. It took little more than an hour to set them in formation (rather like a boat shape).

It’s remarkable what good teamwork and working from a sense of completion can do. We also had a fortuitous surprise: the square pattern on the rug ended up being very helpful for aligning the bases–a discovery made by one of my teammates, who just so happened to have selected that rug for the chapel 30 years ago!

The panels were set up on the Friday morning before the event. Art drop-off was that afternoon.

14 artists and 35 pieces in various styles were showcased, including paintings, drawings, photography, quilting (note the gray quilt in the back right of the top photo — we draped the quilt over the organ console), woodworking (stool), and sculpture. You might notice a certain 4-legged helper in the background — he gave good moral support and made sure there was lots of room for doggies to run around the art show without knocking anything over.

If you are curious about any of the pieces (“Who’s the artist?” etc.) let me know. Glad to share. Here are my pieces. You might recognize a couple of them. (L to R, Bubblegum Pop, Asher, and Rescue Dog)

The whole event was well attended, and the art show very well received. Success! Ready for the next one–whenever that may be.

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July News

First, happy Independence Day! Hope you had a good one. Mine was spread across 2 days — I threw an ice cream float party for people at work on the 4th and went to a concert & fireworks on the 5th. (If you’re looking for a refreshing alternative to a root beer float, try an orange float — orange soda with vanilla ice cream and/or orange sherbet.)

Second, I’ve made a few changes to streamline this website & make navigation a little easier. The first change you might notice is the sidebar menu. It’s now shorter and has interactive options. Every menu item on the left is a link to its own page; several of them also display sub-pages when you mouse over them. I’ve also changed a few pages names, which I think will be clearer for people navigating the site: 

  • “For ‘Sail'” is now “Ship Shop.”
    • I’m in the process of making a subpage for art sales. The main Ship Shop page will be for books, note cards, etc.
    • I researched more about monetizing my website and adding e-commerce functions (shopping cart, check out), but at this time, it still makes more sense for me to keep it as is. If anyone wants to purchase something, just contact me. Payment can be completed through PayPal & check (or cash if we’re in person). 
  • “Port of Call” is now “Home Port.”
    • This change is to make the home page more apparent. Plus, as much as I enjoy the mystique and adventure of  the phrase “port of call,” as far as definitions go, “home port” makes more sense. 
  • “Otaku Corner” (basically a landing point for anime conventions) is now “Comics Corner.”
    • Fans of anime & manga will recognize the term otaku, but “Comics Corner” is more understandable to a wider audience. (“Otaku Corner” was a working title until I came up with something better anyhow.) Bonus points for alliteration.

I’m making some changes to individual pages as well. Some sport a nifty function to hide & show text. Next time I’ll share a little bit about how I put together an art show for a huge community event my workplace gave on Sunday.

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Presidential Cabinets: Part V

Welcome to the final installment of the Presidential Cabinets series.

The last thing to work on was the 2 large refrigerator panels, which I did solo. At this point, I think you have the basic process down–basic shapes, basic values (light & dark), development, details–so just enjoy the evolution without excessive explanation.

And a close-up of the robin.

Here are snapshots of the final panels all around the kitchen.

Plums, Genevieve Bergeson; apples, Marissa Bunting.

Peaches & figs, Marissa.

Persimmons & pears, Genevieve; strawberries (top right), Marissa; lavender & fridge (grapes, roses), Genevieve.

If you have any questions about any part of this endeavor, please leave a comment below. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing this project progress.

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Presidential Cabinets: Part IV

What’s more exciting than another post about the cabinet project? Using my new WiFi router & speedier internet to post the post!

Last time, I wrote about starting to paint the fruit by blocking in the basic shapes. This time, you see more development and details.

After starting my persimmons & plums, I worked on a pair of pear panels. (One of the pear panels portrays a pair of pairs, and the other a pared pear.

I promise that not all my panels began with the letter p–but it came close. One panel has a sprig of lavender, but it used to be a pussy willow. I also painted the 2 fridge panels, which has roses and grapes. It might be argued that they are purple grapes and pink roses, but at least the plants themselves don’t start with p. (But “plant” does — alors!)

The president’s wife specially requested that we paint some “surprises”–little animals and such, which I did. First two little birds among the plum branches.

 

Then I painted three paper kite butterflies on the persimmon panel. As you will see in the next & final post in this series, I incorporated the same species of butterfly and another bird into the refrigerator panels to help unify the kitchen.