artist market-farmers market

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

I have been going down to the local farmers market on Sundays to make art and meet people. On Sunday it is artists instead of farmers. If you come down you will see a lot of jewlery, hand made soap, wood crafts and colorful purses made from fabric scraps. The market is just down the street and around the corner so I load up our grocery cart we brought back from Brooklyn and walk it all down there. Lately I have been making wood cut prints on the pages of old books. I like what happens by accident with bits of illustrations and portions of text combining with the wood cut image I print on to the page. Some times the combination is very compelling. I have also been using old sheet music. I usually block out the middle portion of the page with acrylic paint that is vey close to the color of the paper so the woodcut image has a place to rest. All of those reading this some where close by, come on down this Sunday and visit us between 10:00AM and 3:00PM on Fulton Street near the corner of Fulton and Fuller Ave. There is something righteous about making art on the street, selling art in the open air with out the mediation of a gallery.

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aa

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

I did some sketch book play/work today while I was with Grace and Rain at the park. Making entries into my little book of the moment is one way to keep me connected into the place I am. It is also a studio on the go with me where ever I am. Some times I think drawing and prayer come together in these little drawings. I want heaven to come down while I go through my day.

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Rick Beerhorst

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

I have a show at a local bar called Quinn & Tuitie’s at the end of September. I am looking forward to this performance because we will be expermenting with some new things. I am planning on adding some visual art to our standard musical performance. I have a friend that will be running an old style movie projector with the sound off in the room to add a layer of visual experience and texture. We have a little olive green transistor radio that we will be bringing next to a microphone from time to time as a person goes randomly between stations creating noise and catches bits and pieces of radio transmitions. We will be wearing some kind of matching out fits as well but I can’t describe that because it is still too much in the works.
Our wonderful poster was designed by Grey Matter Group here in Grand Rapids MI using a wood cut of mine as an image. I have been a visual artist most of my life and as I make more room to perform music I am allowing what I have learned as a painter and printmaker to add it’s infuence to the mix.

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the golden bridge

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

This is on oil painting by Fred Stonehouse who is one of my favorite living painters. He lives in Wisconson and show all over the US and in Eroupe. I have met Fred a couple of different times, the last time being at the Howard Scott Gallery in NYC last winter at his opening there. His work takes me some where else. I don’t understand it and it confuses me which is whyu I like it. I like the way it looks as if it has had the shit beat out of it and the beating has just made it that more beautiful. It’s as if each painting wears an invisible crown of thorns.

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epiphany

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

I painted this last winter while living in Brooklyn. The image of a book has become a symbol for me of the potential of a doorway opening up to God through reading. I think it may also represent a connection with the past and the wisdom and stories that are passed along from previous generations through our shared litterature. Children loved to be read to even after they have learned to readfor themselves because they know that when a book is read out loud something happens to increase the potency of the story. It is as if the words take on more life when spoken out loud and shared with more than just one person. Perhaps we come a little closer to theater when we do this. Children seem to be like a geiger counter for what keeps us human and heart soft.

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fan collage

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

I began making collage maybe five years ago but is seems that lately it is growing to be more and more the center of my activity in the studio and at the dinning room table. I have a great source of old books through my friend Dave Shaw who has been collecting books for years and years and works at the library. I really enjoy the random accidents that happen when I work this way. It is my hope that God is some how iinvolved in the process and taking it beyond me.

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The Dreamer

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

This is a painting that has been develoing slowly over many months. It’s not that I am working on it every day but rather from time to time it gets up on the easel. I always have a group of pieces that I am developing and some times a painting can sit around un noticed for a long time. Or perhaps it is not that I am not noticing it but maybe I just don’t know what to do next. Some times I feel like I am a painting that is sitting in a forgotten corner of the studio and nothing is happening to me. I feel like I am languishing. I have felt that way a lot lately. These small portraits are very dense with details, the fruit of a long labor of love. I am putting them up on the web site to share them with you.

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collage card

Originally uploaded by bbmarie.

Brenda and I were making collage cards today with the idea of taking them down to the farmer’s market tomorrow in hopes of selling them there along with some of the other fun stuff we have made. We are a 5 minute walk from the market and have really enjoyed going down there though out the week and taking in the sights and smells as well as enjoying the conversations. So if you are in GR come down tomorrow and say hello.

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