Membership Meeting - Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Greetings Fellow Artists and Art Aficionados:

Thankfully the end of the long, hot, memorable summer of 2011 is drawing to a close, and that means that the Williamson County Art Guild's monthly membership meetings will commence starting in September!

Nick, our Program Chair has put together a fabulous line up of guest speakers for the 2011/2012 season, so please mark your calendars for next Tuesday, September 6th when our guest speaker will be Robbie Ortiz. Robbie Ortiz is a cubist artist based in Austin, TX. Robbie participated in the 2009 edition of the banner project. For a preview you can check out his website.

The WCAG Board is very excited about the coming year in art, and we hope to see you at 6:30 p.m. on September 6th for social mingling and chit chat, and then the program and short business meeting will start at 7:00 p.m. The challenge for this meeting is "Tools."

Hope to see you there!

Cindy Tauer-Eckart

WCAG Publicity Chair

Personal Choices - A WCAG Members Exhibit

We are just about a week away from the start of the new year... Even before we start our monthly meeting on Tuesday, September 6th. the annual WCAG members exhibit at the Library opens next Friday, September 1st. We would like to remind everyone, that the drop off date is this upcoming Wednesday, August 31st. It should be a great show. Thanks Marianne for all of your hard work. I am attaching the poster art for the upcoming exhibit.

Finally!

Ok, I am finally posting! With all my health issues and busy schedule I just haven't had time or felt like getting on the computer. I finally figured out how to post so here it goes. These are two paintings that I put in the Central Texas Pastel Society's Annual Competition and Exhibit. I won the Merit Award for Still life's for "The Little Mexican Hats"

I also won People Choice Award for "Ponderin' CowPoke". They are both pastel. The cowboy was from a photo I took at Up the Chisholm Trail Drive. They had a chuck wagon cook off and this cowboy won about 8 awards. I took many pictures of him as he waited to see who would win the next award. I thought his face was very fascinating. Each time his name was called his grin got bigger and bigger. Each time in between awards he waited with anticipation.

Walt Whitman, pencil drawing by Kirk Witmer

Pencil portrait - 9x12" on 100lb Bristol
American poet Walt Whitman (1819–92) Author of "Leaves of Grass"
I posted last month that I'd taken up pencil drawing. I've done five portraits so far, with this being my fourth. If you'd like to see the others they're posted on my blog.
The source photo for this is known to be one of several taken of Whitman at the time, but he chose this pose as his favorite.

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Visit Kirk Witmer Fine Art

Email the artist at: khwitmer@juno.com

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Click here to see more comments about this work from artists world-wide.

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If you'd like to get advance notice of my upcoming works before
they're even listed at auction, click here to submit your email.

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May 2012 - Guest Speaker

Okay! So, we only have a couple of weeks before our 2011-2012 year stars. I am happy to announce that artist and printmaker Amy Guadagnoli will be our guest artist for our meeting for the month of may next year. Amy is an Austin based artist and currently serves on the board for Georgetown Art Works. May might seem like a long time from now, but this year we are making a bigger effort to be organized, so that our members can plan in advance for our meetings and invite others to attend. We want to make the guild more exciting and make it grow in 2011-2012. To check out Amy's work, you can visit her website.

Nan Brown and Sue Gray @ North Hills Gallery

Mix'N'Mash

Mix ‘N’ Mash 2011 Exhibition
December 2, 2011 - January 3, 2012
Contact: Claudia Zapata, Mexic-Arte Museum
Tel: (512) 480-9373 x83, exhibitions@mexic-artemuseum.org
Registration Deadline: Wednesday, August 31, 2011


Dear Artist,

Mexic-Arte Museum is pleased to invite you to participate in our Mix ‘n’ Mash Exhibit and Art Sale, which will open on Friday, December 2, 2011. This festive fundraising event fosters Mexic-Arte Museum’s goals to increase awareness of art collecting in the community, in addition to raising much needed funds for the Museum’s 2011-2012 Season of exhibitions and education programs.

We are inviting over 200 local and regional artists to create and donate works of art on 12” x 12” eco-friendly and archival quality Gessoboards generously donated by Ampersand of Austin, Texas

You may create a work in any style (figurative, conceptual, abstract, surreal, folkloric, etc.) and media (sculptural/relief, painting, printmaking, photography, and more) on one Gessoboard. The Gessoboards can be picked at the Mexic-Arte Museum Store during regular business hours (Monday – Thursday 10 AM-6 PM, Friday and Saturday 10 AM-5 PM, and Sunday noon-5 PM) as early as August 22, 2011. We ask that all completed submissions be delivered or mailed to the Museum by Saturday, October 15, 2011.

As a participating artist, you will receive a one-year membership to Mexic-Arte Museum. Membership benefits include free admission to all exhibitions and select events, invitations to Member Preview opening receptions, subscription to the Museum E-Newsletter, and 10% off Museum Store purchases. You will also receive 2 complimentary tickets to the opening night festivity on Friday, December 2, from 6:00 – 10:00 PM (there will be a $25 admission fee for the public). Art works will continue to be sold through January 2, 2012.

We hope that you will agree to participate! The Mix ‘n’ Mash Exhibit and Art Sale project is an exciting event that will make art accessible to the community, promote the artists, encourage art collecting, raise funds for Mexic-Arte Museum, and create a special evening of holiday festivities!

Thank you for considering this unique collaborative opportunity, and please fill out the registration sheet with your contact information and send to exhibitions@mexic-artemuseum if you are interested in participating (please let us know by August 31, 2011). Feel free to contact with any further questions at (512) 480-9373 x83. If you live out of town (no international mailings) and are interested in participating, we may mail you a Gessoboard.

Sincerely,



Claudia Zapata Sylvia Orozco

Director of Programs Executive Director

Georgetown Friends of the Arts - City Council Presentation

Last night, at the City Council meeting, the Georgetown Friends of the Arts, made a presentation last night at the City Council Meeting. Georgetown Friends of the arts is a grass root, community group that is working on getting the City of Georgetown to agree to turn the current Police Station into a Cultural Art Center. We need all of the artists to participate, to write their City Council Repsl and so on. Please check out this video of the presentation. Thanks!

February 2012 - Guest Artist

Peggy Weiss calls herself a digital collage artist... You just might have to take a double look at her work, in order to really figure out everything that is going on in her artwork. Photography, mixed media and a lot of technology at work. All very creative and quite wonderful! Please check out her website for more information.

April 2012 - Guest Artist

I found Barbara Lugge's hand-stitched portraits and landscapes quite innovative, but yet very traditional. It's all very fascinating, how she manipulates thread to create such beautiful art. She'll be presenting her work at our Tuesday, April 3rd meeting. You can check her website to learn more about her.

November 2011 - Guest Artist

The programs for the upcoming year is lining up quite nicely! Denise Fulton, an Austin Artist and member of the Austin Art Garage Collective, will be joining us for the November meeting. Where she'll talk about her work and inspirations. To take a sneak peak, or to learn more about her, you can visit her website.

March 2012 - Guest Speaker

I hope that I am not overwhelming our members, but I am working very hard on lining up all of our guest artists for our 2011-2012 year. I think that it will be a great one. I am happy to announce that Sarah Wilson has just confirmed that she'll be coming to our March 2012 meeting. I know that it sounds far away, but it will be hear before we know it.

Here's her brief bio that appears on her website:

Photographer Sarah Wilson explores issues of community and culture through environmental portraiture. After nine years of studying and working in New York City, Wilson has returned to her hometown of Austin, Texas. Using Austin as home base, she works regionally as an editorial photographer for magazines such as The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Time, The Atlantic Monthly, Marie Claire, Texas Monthly, Mother Jones, and others. Work from Wilson’s personal projects has been acquired by the permanent collections at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas, and the Lishui Photography Museum of China

So mark your calendars everyone and tell your photographer friends that they should not miss her talk.

To learn more about this great photographer, please visit her website.

Jennifer Balkan Video

I thought that it would be great to share this little video about Jennifer Balkan. It was filmed during the E.A.S.T tours in Austin.
I am sure that it will be a very exciting presentation!

October Guest Speaker

I am very excited to announce that Jennifer Balkan, one of my favorite Austin Artists has agreed to come out and speak to the Guild for our October 4th meeting. Personally, I am very intrigued by the characters and the stories behind her artwork. She's represented by the Wally Workman Gallery in Austin. To learn more about Jennifer Balkan, you can check out her website.

ART HOP 2011 - Deadline Extended

Hello Everyone!
I just want to let you know that the deadline to submit artwork for the Art Hop 2011 has been extended to August 15th, 2011.
For more information, please visit the Georgetown Art Works website.

Art Exhibition

Everyone is invited to come and see the latest "Spiritual Series Paintings" by Micheal Hammons of Round Rock. His artwork is hanging at The Daily Grind Coffee Shop - 16238 Ranch Road 620 - in Round Rock (Brushy Creek area) for the month of August. Please come on in and enjoy!! The painting "Twelve Disciples" is one of the paintings.