February bits of information!

Today was one of the best days of the year thus far. The weather was perfect to attend a walk on the Beltline Project in Atlanta GA. For those of you who haven't heard yet, Atlanta will be opening up a new pedestrian trail, light transit and art corridor starting this summer. It's been a dream which has been on the drawing board for quite some time now and yes it will finally start becoming a reality starting June 5th of 2010. I for some odd reason I have lived no more than 50 feet away from the project since moving into the city 5 years ago. So as you might imagine I'm excited by the possibility of accessing such an available resource. You should as well, since this corridor goes through almost 50 different neighborhoods and is totally level with no hills up or down. When completed I'll be able to walk to Piedmont part in about an hour at a liesurely pace. The complete loop is 22 miles total and stretches from Lindberg Station on the north end down to just outside my front door (literally) at the corner of Allene Ave. and Avon Avenue in south Atlanta.


South of City Hall East along the soon to open Beltline.




Looking Down North Avenue toward BofA building.


Lofts along Ponce de Leon Ave.


View of Midtown behind Trader Joes on Monroe Ave.

For much more information and ways to get involved please go to www.beltline.org. How will this effect my personal little economy? Well, I am getting involved in the opening of the project by submitting a proposal for an arts project along the walking paths.



I've been working toward creating public art projects for the past 5 years and this will give me a fair chance at having one funded. I'm a painter as most of you know and would love to create a mural to install. Public art has its problems though such as vandalism so I personally would be nervous about creating something as fragile as a painted surface. My solution is to propose a mural made of ceramic tiles. Please see the sample of my concept tile above to get a feel for what I'm proposing. The final size would be somewhere in the area of 6' X 25' and be made of 12" square tiles. It would be more durable in the long run and could be cleaned if tagged. I'm also thinking there are 3 more supports that could use some art on them as well, possibly later as the project develops. I have also asked Jack Meachum to help me on the mural project as he has the sculpting and drawing skills required for this project and it may be too big for me to produce by myself.

This is a sketch of my friend Jack Meachum who sat for me last night after we went to the movie Crazy Heart with Jeff Bridges, Robert Duval and other great actors in what has to be a heavy contender for an Oscar. If you get a chance, go see it. It's money well spent.


Beyond that I've been busy with several opportunities and fine art projects. There will be a show of artwork created entirely with graphite to be held at the Rose Lane Gallery in Decatur GA. The show will open in March.

Irenka, one of the many wonderful models now working in the Atlanta area. The model list has gotten much longer from when I came to Atlanta 22 years ago. A sign that the art community is growing and evolving to a much better place.

Peonies, this is a graphite drawing of a vase and flowers around my loft. I've adopted peonies as one of my favorite flowers because of their beauty as well as rarity. They are only available in early spring which gives me another reason to hope for a change in the seasons till I can see them bloom again. It's kind of a promise of a new beginning!

The Bond, Someone asked me to come up with a wedding gift for a couple they know and this is a concept I developed. Taking two different people, represented by the glasses of wine, one red one white and tying them together to create something sweeter and more lasting than themselves alone. A bit sentimental I suppose, but I'm a romantic and I don't apologize for that.



Speaking of romance, "The Muse" is on display in a show at the Atlanta Artists Center and has taken an honorable mention. The model (Irenka) sat at my friends Shane McDonalds studio for this quick little study. I was quite happy with the result.

I've also taken on a portrait commission for the Arts for the Heart project sponsored by the Atlanta Fine Arts League. The project provides portraits of American Servicemen and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'll update you as these projects progress. Thanks again for your interest and pass my blog address along to other art lovers, creators and patrons.

Blessings!
Chazz

Your invited to Dinner on the SouthSide.

Ah, what a wonderful way to spend a Friday evening. Great group of people, good food and yes just a few adult beverages to help ease us all into the weekend. I had invited about 25 people down for a casual dinner at my loft on the South side of Atlanta. Nine showed up for dinner with a bit of an offering toward dinner and some even brought some Art. Dinner was set for 8pm and most of us were here by 8:30pm. I planned a special menu of Iranian dishes, salad, fruit which seemed to be well appreciated.

For the next 5 hours we ate, drank, laughed and shared stories and news from around the neighborhood and world around us. Of course the discussion turned toward art, our work and a whole host of subjects. I'd like to thank all of those who came out and hope we can do it again soon.

Charles

2010 begins, a new year, a new decade!

Happy New Year to all of you who follow this page, I hope you all find the next year and decade one of prosperity, hope and grateful blessings.

The end of 2009 whizzed by and I have since completed several work of art I'd like to share with you. I'm in the process of moving toward having a clearer and stronger voice in my art. I'm seldom working on commission these days which gives me the freedom to express my personal views with out fear of offending someone. Having a nearly full time job with Fulton County limits my time to do my creative work, yet affords me the opportunity to explore while not worrying about selling my work. I'm thankful for this and hope to grow in ways I can't even fathom yet.

So here are some of my latest offerings:



Stewart Scogins, age 21

This is a quick sketch of my son, I did from life on my last trip to Chattanoogha to visit him.




Cavalia Sunrise, Atlantic Station, Atlanta GA
Oil on canvas, 9X12

This piece was painted plein-air on a morning which was 28degrees just after the New Year. I completed the details indoors in an environment more concussive to completing a painting.




This is a 9 X 12 figure study completed at Shane McDonald's Studio one recent Wednesday evening. It's always fun for me to paint with that group and this model is becoming one of my favorites to paint. I've considered going back into the piece to achieve a more finished look, but I've come to the conclusion that the painting is already complete and to go further with it would only risk losing some of the feeling it already has.




This is a little sentimental piece I've recently completed as a wedding gift that someone requested. It's yet to be purchased or viewed but I feel the concept is correct and I'm looking forward to showing to the person who requested it.



Mermaids have preoccupied my thoughts these days and I have expressed them in clay. The image to the right was a small vessel I created which inspired me to explore the figure mounted on a wave to the left. Each have the same green finish which is more accurate in the image of the vessel. Funny what light will do on a surface! I've enjoyed the process of creating them which has lead me to try new things this year in ceramics as a media. I want to explore not only the forms but also the surface and colors I can get. I'll post more as my explorations continue.

So, go make some art and have a bit of fun!

Wake up call!

It's the last few days of the year and I have to say it's quite a change from last year and the dismal holidays I had after the break up with my loved one. The wounds seem to be healing and yes I can smile and laugh at life most of the time these days. A big part of the healing process was just getting busy with a new job this year. It gave me some positive hope in my life and the sense I could work through most of my problems. Being around some good people, finding new friendships and widening my social circle helped a great deal as well.

The point I'd like to make is that I feel blessed to be exactly where I am today! I've had a few wake-up calls these past few days with a fender bender on Hwy 400 and then today I helped get a friends dad to the emergency room with a heart attack. He will be alright once he has his double bypass sometime in the next few days. This event has set my mind in motion and brought up some fears I personally have. The parallels between myself and the heart attach victim are just too similar to miss. I haven't digested the experience properly yet so haven't come up with any concrete ways to express my feeling about it. I can feel things churning inside though and know this will lead me down a path to express myself about the condition I choose to live with.

As a rough passage of paint, I'd say what I'm feeling is some fear around being in the same boat.
I live alone as a middle aged male with a limited number of close friends who I don't stay in touch with on a daily basis. I suppose I would be missed at work or if I didn't check in after 3 or 4 days. I also have some deeper scars around whether I'd blow off my symptoms until it was too late. I have a way of rationalizing my pains and odd sensations as well as a healthy dose of skepticism about the medical profession.

I'll pick this conversation up later as my visual ideas emerge. Till then, I want you to think over your plan B and what you might do in the face of a medical emergency!

Where has the year gone?

OK, I've had that song by Rod Stewart running in my head all evening, Maggie May! It's way past late September, in fact creeping up to mid November already and I'm already in school almost everyday. The great thing is that I'm the teacher and get to choose how I'm going to spend time teaching people the art of making a mess in mud or paint! I love my job!



This lovely little piece was done at Shane McDonalds Group. I've been painting with that group for the past 15 years. This was a particularly lovely pose and the addition of the mask added a sense of mystery.

So where have I been the past month plus. Well to catch you up I've traveled a few times to paint, bought a new car, went on a couple of dates, saw the Da Vinci show at the High Museum and installed a scar crow my class at the Benson Center made at the Atlanta Botanical Garden to just mention a few things. I've also pushed a little paint around myself and would like to share some of the images with you now. Please take some time to look over what I've made lately and feel free to leave a comment, encouragement or just go ahead and throw money at me. I'll need it for the new car payment "yikes"!




Finally finishing this portrait study I started several months ago.


This is Ellaine who sat for the first week of my painting from life class. This Demo shows that you can move paint around quickly and still get a good likeness.



This lovely little piece was done at Shane McDonalds Group. It still feels incomplete to me but I have little interes in bringing it to a finsh.



This lovely woman stepped in to take a models place after she missed her appointment. What a wonderful surprise.


Driving up to Highland I finally ran out of patience and had to pull over to paint this misty scene. I and everything I was wearing or using got soaked but it was worth the effort.



A month ago I stopped just outside the gate of Fort McPherson on Lee Street in Atlanta to paint this scene at sunset.
the brilliance of the light was fantastic and as the light shifted to the reds and pinks at sunset and the whole scene came alive.



I call this piece "Out of the mist". It is by far my favorite I accomplished on our trip to Highlands. The layers of trees and the subtle changes of muted colors made this a particularly challenging painting. One which I feel is completly successful.



This was the view from the cabin I stayed at in Highland NC. It was a rainy cold foggy day and a few of us decided to stay at the cabin and paint off the covered porch. Happily I got two paintings done and both were pretty strong representations of the atmospheric conditions we encountered on our trip.


This old barn sits on the road to Sky Land GA. from Hwy 106 between Dillard and Highland NC. I couldn't pass up the early morning light on the roof and the autumn colors of the trees.


I've looked at this barn for years just off Wiggly Road on the back side of Sweat Mtn. in Cobb County. I painted this Saturday morning along the roadside.


This is a quick little painting done along Abernathy Road in Sandy Springs GA. I stopped one Friday afternoon after work to capture the light on the trees last week.

Work from some of my students and some new pottery from me!

I wanted to post some of the work being done by my students in the art classes I teach both at the Benson Center in Sandy Springs as well as the Woodstock Community Center. I had 3 students enter work in "Art of the Golden Age". This was a juried show for people over 50 and is being shown at the Cobb/Marietta Art Museum. Go by and check it out!


Juana Giles
Juana has been painting with me for the past 5 years and does pieces along the line of this painting of places and people. Most of her subject matter is about other cultures or the blending of foreign with American culture.


Joy Potter
Joy has always been interested in painting portraits and slice of life scenes like this one. She has become a very solid painter and taken on some commission work.





Cate Dodd

Cate got two pieces accepted to the show, each of which are wonderful on their own. Her work has also gotten some very favorable responses from all of you on Facebook. I'll make sure to pass on your comments to her.


The following portrait sculptures are from my class at the Benson Center in Sandy Springs. I had a small class of 7 to start with and each student produced an almost life size bust of someone close to them. Each bust took quite a bit of time and I feel each of these students were successful in capturing their subject. Not bad work for the first piece of sculpture any of them had made!


Doris Brassfield. Bust of her niece.


Rosemary Dashiell, "Wilson" her nephew.



Mugsy Cole "Penny" her husband!

I've been having fun teaching the classes at the Benson Center but I've also had the opportunity to work in clay for the first time in over 30 years. I've always loved and collected pottery as well as sculpting but haven't kept it up due to space limitations as well as time. Finally I get to play in the mud again! The following are pieces I've made in the past month or so.


This group of pottery are pieces I've produced as samples for my hand-building class. My skills need a bit of work still but it's coming back to me slowly. The pieces to the right were made using the coil method and the ones on the left were made using the slab method. I teach techniques like creating stamps and textures for surface decoration as well as combining glaze methods to create interesting and organic forms and surfaces.




Sculpting has always be of keen interest to me and in particular figurative and portrait sculptures. This is a small demo sample to show students how to model a bust and finish the surface. The look is rather classical so I added a dark bronze finish to the surface of this clay sculpture to reinforce that idea.



On the far less traditional side is this fellow! I teach students in the Adult Day Care Program at the Benson Center. I was asked to head the project of creating a scarecrow to be shown at the Atlanta Botanical Garden this October. The participants suffer from a wide range of cognitive and physical limitations but by working together were able to complete this very involved and extensive project. I created the face out of clay by draping a slab into a bowl till it set up and was rigid enough to be worked on. I added the features of the face by building clay up on the surface and where needed cutting openings in the clay shell. I then drew in the lines to show were the color breaks would be. The participants painted the face and even added glitter. Glitter always makes everything better, right!

Creative Projects at work!

Today I'd like to share some of the projects I've been working on at the Dorothy C. Benson Center . It's been a bit busy the past few months and I've had a great time teaching art classes there. For example the collage piece which was done as a sample demonstrating several techniques in my Mixed Media Class or the vase which I made in my Hand-Building Class.

Collage

Hand-built Vase


I've been teaching oil painting, drawing, clay hand-building and mixed media classes which have given me the opportunity to explore and work in areas I haven't for some time now. Teaching gives me the chance to get outside my normal realm of painting and stretch myself into areas not often traveled. I've just completed my second session of classes at the center and people are finally coming around after seeing some of the work being produced in my classes. The students are great to work with and recently the center had sign-ups for the next session, where I filled all of the 6 classes I'm teaching. I'll be teaching 2 painting classes, one in oils from life and the other in acrylics. I'll also continue my mixed media class as well as drawing. Two new classes I'll be teaching are sculpting in clay which will cover both representational as well as contemporary abstract sculpture techniques and an open studio class on Fridays where I can help students on a more personal level with their class projects. I'm looking forward to the start of the new session which begins on October 5th.


The following photos are of a scarecrow in progress being entered into a competition at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens. I uploaded the drawing yesterday so wanted to add the following shots so you could see the real thing. It was delivered to the Atlanta Botanical Garden on Friday of the week.


At last he came together, time for a well deserved beer at the Botanical Gardens! This is Judy who helped sew the hair pieces together and myself


He stands about 8 feet tall and 5 feet wide. Not a small undertaking! The project took about two months to complete with the participants working on him about 6 hours a week. In total about 30 people added there hearts and hands into the making of this fellow.

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This photo shows the participants and staff who contributed to the project. I'm the rather large fellow dressed in black with the hat on to the right side of the photo.


This is a composite of several photos showing parts of the project.



The happy fellow above is a concept for a scarecrow I'm helping to create with my students at the Adult Day Care facility. One of the students came up with the concept which the group then took and developed further. We are calling this a psychodelic scarecrow but the theme is really more about the 60's and the peace and love movements which were so much a part of that time. The scarecrow will be part of a display at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens starting next week. I look forward to seeing him there and would encourage you to go and check out the gardens before the weather cools off.



Above is a wall graphic I developed for the Benson Centers 10th Anniversary. It provides a map of the facility and an outline of the responsibilities of the three entities who share the complex. I designed, photographed and produced the piece using Adobe software on my mac laptop. This was pretty run of the mill stuff in my past advertising life but seems well appreciated with the people I'm working with currently.