Wood You

The Moss Preforming Arts Center at VA Tech has in the galleries a show called From These Woods. It is up till September 1st, if you get the opportunity, go see this exhibit. The artist have transformed pieces of wood into flowing shapes, that utilize burls, termite eaten pieces of wood, raw bark edges, willow bark  and paper. The paper comes from printed books that have been transformed into sculptural works. There are musical instruments made from wood: banjo's and mandolins. The hallway in the upper level is filled with photographs of trees. Transforming sustainable sourced materials into furniture, vessels, bowls, and more. Displaying techniques in wood-turning, carving, basketry, furniture and instrument making. These artist transform natural resources into art.

Moss Performing Arts Center, Blacksburg, VA

Phoenix Hardwoods, Floyd, VA

Melissa Engler

Art At The Taubman

Butterflies, birds, shadows, up-cycling comprise the art created by Paul Villinski. He studied butterflies, researching their behaviors along with an interest in regeneration of used materials. Metal, record albums, plus additional interest in flight makes up the sculptural works in this exhibit.

Aerialist is made up of knives, steel and wood. It is approximately 6 feet wide maybe more. Pretty impressive, especially when you walk up to it and see the knives make the shape of the feathers in the wings.

Burst is created from vinyl LP's - birds flying but still at the same time, mounted on the wall.
With my Birds In Art class just around the counter I was intrigued by the shape and structure of the birds.

Butterflies are repeated in several pieces in this exhibit. Here are just a few.

I almost forgot about the birds made using recycled paper.

Art of Technology

This Thursday - Friday and Saturday I spent trying not to lose everything on my computer. I had some kind of corrupted file virus thing. I spent two of these days backing up files, the 100,000 pictures I have plus document files in hopes of now losing everything. I was able to do that. I tried to do the thing where you can set your computer to an earlier date/time but it would not let me. So, I got really upset at it and said okay let's just start all over...I found the recovery disk and did a clean wipe of my computer. I did get rid of the corrupted file thing and was able to restore my basic, very basic computer settings. I ran into a problem trying to connect to the internet. I was missing adapters. Hmm, I found a disk called Drivers and Adapters, so I gave it a shot. It was not working.

Rick came to my rescue and found a guy. I called this computer geek company and they came out Sat. what I did saved them a lot of time and work. Plus, as Rick was going through his files he found he had my drivers/adapters disk and I had his. If I had that maybe I would not have called the computer guy but I am happy I did. He got me back on line, all my files that I saved are there and he updated my system because Windows 7 is no longer supported, so I now have 8. My computer is too old for 10 but with all the new bells I should get through another year or two with this one.

As an artist being without a computer puts a stop to doing things like my blog, submitting to shows, printing out pictures for my workshop and creating a step by step demo sheet for my students. I have written the blog on my phone, not my favorite thing to do and I do have pictures of my art on my phone but they are at 72dpi not always what a submission for wants. We are back up and running, sometimes it is good to be a fearless artist.

The only thing I have discovered so far is I did not save a backup of my Photoshop program. I have my old Elements but with the move from VA to AZ I can't find the disk to reload or documentation if I did it as a download, very unlike me to not have one or the other. If anyone has a extra download of I think Photoshop CS1 and would let me download it in exchange for maybe a piece of my art work. I would be oh so happy to barter. If not I will work with what I have for the time being. To get in touch with me email please: lharrisonparsons@gmail.com

Art and technology do go hand in hand and this weekend made me so aware of how much I depend on my computer. Oh, just to let you know this all started trying to download the link to connect my new little printer that I got for my workshop. I was having problems so thought let me try Internet Explorer, as soon as I click on it to open it, pop up's started asking me to run or save programs by the thousands. The tech guy say Explorer is not a very safe server, tends to be subject to problems, just a FYI in case you use it over other servers.

What I use when I don't have a computer...

Whoo Came To Visit

Over the weekend our Great Horned Owl was back for a visit. There are many predawn and post sunset moments that we hear the owls. This was just as the sun was going behind the mountains, still light enough to get a couple of photos.

I thought it particularly timing as I have been preparing for the Raptors workshop at the end of the month.

Here is a photo from the other night of the owl in a tree in our front yard. Plus, here is a teaser to drawing raptors.

Art Overload

This spring has been very busy and moving into summer it does not look to slow down. No complaints here, it is good to have projects and adventures.

My recent exploration was submitting work to the Light Space & Time on line art gallery. They have themed competitions, the month of June is "Animals". It seemed like something I should do so I did. The results: I receive 7th place in painting category and special Merit Award in drawing. The works I entered are "Who Knew" one of my owl pieces and "Ram" graphite on coffee stained paper.

Nice way to start the month. If you would like to see all the works on exhibit you can go to You Tube or the web site: http://www.lightspacetime.art/animals-online-art-exhibit-june-2017/
Hope the link works I am writing this blog on my phone has my computer has crashed. More on that later.