Now Showing: 3-D Art by Jan Sherrell Gephardt at Antioch Library

"3-D Art by Jan Sherrell Gephardt"

The reception's over, but the show goes on.  My artwork remains on display through March 2, 2011, at the Antioch branch of the Johnson County (KS) Libraries, as part of the "Art in the Stacks" program.

The show includes ten artworks, nine paper sculpture (mostly non-fantasy subjects) and one earthenware.  It is available for viewing during regular library hours.  Librarians at the location have selected some excellent books on paper-based arts and crafts, to accompany the show.

Please come see it, if you're in the area and haven't been there yet!

The Antioch branch of the Johnson County (KS) Libraries

Impractical Ideology Puts Arts Under Attack

Gov. Sam Brownback (R) 

The latest headline comes from Kansas today, where our new Governor Sam Brownback has just eliminated the Kansas Arts Commission. 

This comes right after a rules-change in the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in neighboring Missouri, that has made school arts programs voluntary, not mandatory—and anyone who’s seen what a beating school budgets have taken recently, knows what that means.

This is a one-two punch in my own back yard—but no matter where you live in the US, the arts are under attack.  Joyless conservative ideology is trumping practical reality in state after state.

Yes, that’s right—practical reality.  What the arts-cutters don’t want you to know is that the arts don’t cost.  They PAY. 

First Friday crowd in the Kansas City Crossroads Arts District

As we've proved in the Kansas City Crossroads Arts District, in Cottonwood Falls, KS, and many other local and regional examples, artists are often pioneers for economic regeneration.   Moreover, on nearly every scale of a community’s “livability” and desirability, a vigorous arts community is a “must.”

A concert in Cottonwood Falls, KS draws a crowd.

Missouri’s backward attitude notwithstanding, there also is considerable research to show that a vigorous school arts program can dramatically improve the chance of success for at-risk students.  Participation in music programs is positively correlated with math excellence, for instance.  I guess all that is irrelevant?

And how about the lament among those who worry about America’s global competitiveness that we need more creative thinkers?  Where do you think we’ll find the best training and practice in creative thinking?

Eliminating support for the arts is the lamest kind of false “practicality.”  We can’t afford to fall for it.  Yet in state after state, it appears that we are.

Images: Sam Brownback from Polichicks website; KC Crossroads First Friday crowd by Jan Gephardt; Concert in Cottonwood Falls from Kansas Sampler Foundation website.

New Artwork for the Mail Piece Project

I've been at work developing the Mail Piece Project, as described in the last entry, and I thought you'd like to see a bit more of the new art!

 

This actually will comprise two panels on the outside of the self-mailer, and the finished piece will be in color.

I am extending the deadline for subscriptions to February 1, 2011, because I'd like to add a few more names to the list.  My request is still that subscribers please help me with expenses if they can, by contributing $6. USD.  Send a check to Artdog Studio, 4318 Rainbow Boulevard, Suite #143, Kansas City, KS 66103, or use the PayPal "subscribe" button.

If the money is a problem, but you'd still like to subscribe, please email me at jsg4edu@gmail.com and we'll work something out.  In any case, I'll need a mailing address sent to the email.

I hope to hear from you soon!

Here is the PayPal option for a $6 (USD) subscription for "Mail Piece Project 2011":

An Invitation to Joint the Mail Piece Project

How would you like to help me with a new art project?

Over the course of 2011, I plan to create a 5-part, limited-edition work—with your help, I hope. I call it the Mail Piece Project (MPP).

I have been thinking about what I get in my mailbox: how impersonal the mass mailings are, compared with “old-fashioned” hand-written letters. The MPP is a conceptual art project that combines elements from both. It is a limited-edition multiple original (fine art print), neither “mass” in nature, nor a singular object.

There will be five designs, for different parts of the year: New Year, Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. Mailings will start on the Lunar New Year, at the end of January, and continue seasonally, after that.

Each design will be a two-sided, tri-folded self-mailer, and each will be coordinated with a particular commemorative stamp issue.*

I think of it as a three-part "collaboration."  The work will start with me, of course. I’ve included scans of a sketch and a finished panel in this post.

The U.S. Postal Service will continue, working on my beginning via postmarks, bar codes, or other marks added during processing. **

You can be the third part of the process, if you want to—by helping finance it, and also by viewing it, for I believe no art is a “finished product” until someone new sees it.  I mainly want to cover expenses, so I've set the price at $6.  To sign up, email me at jsg4edu@gmail.com.

When you sign up, you will be given a print number. Throughout the year, all your prints will have that number. By the end of the year you should have a complete set, personalized for you.

Before you pay me anything, I need a head count of who is interested in this venture. It is my hope to reach around 50 people, to keep the cost low. My sign-up deadline is January 22, 2011.  Send a check to me at Artdog Studio, 4318 Rainbow Blvd. Suite #143, Kansas City, KS 66103, or use the PayPal button below.

As you can see, I’m already at work on the first design. Sign up now, before all the art is gone! Depending on how hard this is, I might not do another project next year.

*Note: if you are not located in the United States, you still can participate. Email me at jsg4edu@gmail.com, and we’ll work special pricing out for you. As a bonus, so you won’t miss out on the commemorative stamps, I’ll mail the MPP to myself first, and then repackage it to send to you.

**Further note: people who know the work of the United States Postal Service know that it is not always kind to mailed pieces! I have a remedy planned, if your art arrives in a “body bag,” so please don’t throw it away.

Here are the other commemorative stamps I plan to use, for (L-R) Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.

Here is a PayPal option for a $6 (USD) subscription for "Mail Piece Project 2011":

 

“Work: In Progress,” Varied Subjects

My artwork was on view September 2-19, 2010, at the Johnson County (Kansas) Library’s Central Resources Center.  This post shares images and commentary from that show.

The "Work: In Progress" show spans several decades, and gives kind of a past/present/future view of my work. It included some of my 2-D work from my "first art career" in the 1980s, all of the current paper sculptures, and sketchbook pages, which show some of my works in progress--a glimpse of the future.

In my last post, I showed the work from the south-side display case, which focused on my fantasy artwork, and included 2-D pieces dating back to the 1980s, when I was showing and selling my artwork exclusively in the science fiction and fantasy genre.  In this post, I focus on works from the north-side display case, which address a variety of non-genre subjects.

The northern (right-hand) display case at the library was devoted to work on a variety of topics.

 Development pages for "Midwest Flora" Series, 2009.

In September 2009 I took a series of photos near the site of the Hidden Glen Arts Festival, Olathe, KS, which formed the nucleus for a new series. This sketchbook spread shows some of the studies I did for what I intend to be an ongoing series.

"Monarch Season" 2009-2010, mixed media paper sculpture.

This was the first piece I started, in the "Midwest Flora" series. It includes four species of plants, as well as a Monarch butterfly, created to scale.

 "Wind in the Grass" 2010, mixed media paper sculpture.

I used a "design approach" to create this small piece, floating a "cropped" rectangle of grasses against a textured background. It also is part of my ongoing "Midwest Flora" series.

"Windblown" 2010, mixed media paper sculpture.

In this piece I returned to my love of rendering leaves (see "Treetop Primaries" and "The Leaf Thing" in the Fantasy Subjects album for this show). My objective was to explore the expressive possibilities in making the leaves seem not only like they were blowing in a wind gust, but also to explore ways of "floating" them above one another so they would seem airborne. This piece is the third one completed so far, of my ongoing "Midwest Flora" series.

Development pages for Yemeni Architecture Series, 2010.

Ever since I first discovered the beauty of traditional Yemeni architecture, I've wanted to make art about it. Greatly aided by Google Image Search, and later by my treasured friend Zaid, I have been attempting to do justice to these amazing structures in the medium of paper sculpture. This is just one of many spreads from recent sketchbooks.

 "Sana'a Fantasy" 2010, mixed media paper sculpture.

 This was the first piece I created, based on the wonderful traditional architecture of Yemen. Unfortunately, some of the architectural features truly are "fantasy." When I showed it to my dear friend Zaid, he gently informed me that the windows are all wrong. I now am at work on several pieces that attempt to portray the windows of Old Town Sana'a more accurately—but in the meantime, I still felt the dimensionality of the buildings and mountains created an interesting design.

"House on a Rock" 2010, mixed media paper sculpture.

This piece is based on architecture from the mountainous northeast part of Yemen, though once again my extraordinarily helpful friend Zaid has alerted me that I've mixed different villages' styles. I'll try to do better in future works!  There were multiple challenges involved in cutting these pieces in perspective, in reverse (the construction lines are on the back).  However, the hardest part of making this piece has to be the rocks. I added the Prismacolor pencil marks before folding, so I had to do a lot of imaginative visualization to get them to come out looking right.  I now list "can fold rocks" as one of my super-powers.

 "Through the Arch" 2010, mixed media paper sculpture.

This small piece also is an architectural study, but it is not based on the buildings in Yemen. It was more an exploration of the ways I could combine the optical illusion of drawn shadows and highlights to create visual texture, with the actual dimensionality achieved by layering several depths of real texture.

"Four Seasons Courtyard" 2007, earthenware and glaze.

I based this piece on traditional Islamic garden design (as a microcosm for Paradise). Each corner references a different season—perhaps it is not the most subtle expression of the idea that we live in Paradise right here on earth, but I had fun with it.

 "Fields Like Patchwork" 2007, earthenware and glaze.

Aside from the pun in its name (the fields are laid out like a 9-patch quilt block), this piece also expresses my love for the beauty of the earth as seen from an airplane window.  I deeply loved working with handbuilt ceramic sculpture, and would like to explore this medium further in the future.

 Developmental pages for "Italian Greyhounds" images.

I've always loved the sleek beauty of sight hounds, so naturally when I came to own a pair of Italian Greyhounds, I knew sooner or later they'd show up in my artwork.  The tan-and-white dog in the photos on the left side of the page is my dog Jake. The little black one on the right is my Brenna.  As you can tell from my little "first prototype," I'm still working on how to turn them into paper sculpture. I've nicknamed this little guy "Oakley," because his color reminds me of a dog owned by my friends Brad and Jessica. 

I hope you have enjoyed looking at the artwork in my "Work: In Progress" display. 

“Work: In Progress,” The Fantasy Collection

My artwork was on view September 2-19, 2010, at the Johnson County (Kansas) Library’s Central Resources Center.  The "Work: In Progress" show spans several decades, and gives kind of a past/present/future view of my work. It included some of the 2-D work from my "first art career" in the 1980s, all of the current paper sculptures, and sketchbook pages, which show some of my works in progress--a glimpse of the future.

The left-hand (southern) display case focused on my fantasy artwork, and this collection is the focus of this post.  I'll focus on the other display next time.   

The fantasy collection included three images from my “first art career” as a science fiction and fantasy artist/illustrator in the 1980s, as well as my current, mixed media paper sculptures, many of which have been shown at the ConQuesT, Conestoga, and Capricon science fiction and fantasy conventions.  All of the paper sculptures were displayed in the “Paper Dragons” show, Roeland Park, KS, March 2010.

"Stormwings" 1985, acrylic on Masonite.

This painting took 6 months to create, from first sketches through final brushstroke. Back in those days, I had to rely on images clipped from publications, for reference material. It took a week to find a grainy newspaper image of ducks taking off from a pond, that I could use for "wing" reference. Nowadays, I'd have hundreds of images available with one image search!

"Harmony" 1984, graphite on paper.

I used this drawing for our "Christmas Print" in 1984, and displayed it at numerous shows.

"Enlightenment" 1988, ink on Bristol board.

This piece was used for a "Christmas Print" in 1988. The model for the little boy was my son Ty, who was two years old at the time. The titles on the spines of the books on the shelves behind him were all titles of books written or published by people on our Christmas mailing list that year.

"The White Dragon in His Cloud" 2007, mixed media paper sculpture.

This was my first piece of paper sculpture.  I'd been thinking about the possibilities of making dragons in paper sculpture for quite some time, and a few months earlier I'd spent a fun afternoon doing somewhat nonobjective acrylic paintings.  I wasn't sure what to do with them, however, until one day I sat down and began to make my little dragon.  This piece took an afternoon (and the better part of two years) to make.

"A Nest in the Wildwood" 2009, mixed media paper sculpture.

I used painted bits for the background that date back to 2007, but the rendering on the feathers is more sophisticated than my little "White Dragon."

"The Wild Thing in the Weeds" 2009. Mixed media paper sculpture.

This piece was completed not long after "Wildwood," and I drew my materials from the same sources.

"Bone Dragon" 2009, mixed media paper sculpture. 

Kindly lent from the collection of Karin I. Frank.

This was my first exploration of some of the more abstract possibilities of paper sculpture.

 

"Denizen of the Winter Trees" 2009, mixed media paper sculpture.

I spent several months developing the prototype pattern for this dragon form. You'll also see that I created variations on it for another piece, "Treetop Primaries." This artwork also incorporates a real silver maple twig.

Development pages for "Treetop Primaries," 2009.

The "Work: In Progress" show attempted to show something of my process for creating artwork. To that end, I included four sketchbook spreads, including this one.

"Treetop Primaries" 2009-2010, mixed media paper sculpture.

Completed in 2009 (see the "Development pages" that were displayed with it) and adjusted in 2010, "Treetop Primaries" is the largest paper sculpture I had created by the time of the "Work: In Progress" show. I developed the dragon forms from the pattern originally developed for "Denizen of the Winter Trees," and also incorporated several real silver maple twigs into the design.

"The Leaf Thing" 2010, mixed media paper sculpture.

I so enjoyed working with the leaves in the background of "Treetop Primaries" that I made some more . . . then wondered what kind of fantasy creature might inhabit trees where tiny dragons live. I kept calling this piece "my 'leaf' thing" while doing the initial development, and finally decided that the creature also was a "Leaf Thing."

The fantasy collection made up half of my "Work: In Progress" show.  In the next post on "Artdog Observations," I'll show the rest of it.

I know--I usually post a different sort of art. But this one's for a cause that's close to the ol' Gazehound's heart! Well-run animal shelters are community treasures, and they deserve all the help they can get. Please vote for your favorite, and maybe they can get some extra money! If you don't have a favorite, please consider voting for mine: Animal Haven in Merriam, KS.

Thanks!