- Contents © 2004 - 2012
Edward R. Marion
Interview/Slideshow re: CSMA Arts for All Marathon
This was a fun interview in the context of my participation in the CSMA Arts for All Marathon this year.
Interview/Slideshow
Article
Ed goes Pop! at Americana Vineyards & Winery
This month at American Vineyards & Winery in Interlaken, NY, I've hung a show of 16 self-portraits embedded in QR Codes. Readable with a smartphone, each painting/print takes the viewer to my online web site -- edmarion.com -- to see the art, including portraits and self-portraits, behind my painting practice.
The show at Americana Vineyards & Winery's Crystal Lake Cafe, 4367 E. Covert Rd., Interlaken, NY, runs through August 31, 2011.
Eddie, Eddie, Paul, Chuck, Remy & Vinny
Seriously, if I'm going to compare my self-portrait to Edward Hopper, why stop there?
Just having some fun.
The Power of Music
Six of my paintings of musicians will be featured in the Power of Music art show, opening this Saturday, July 9th, at Adirondack Audio & Video in Queensbury, NY.
If you find yourself near Lake George, New York between opening night, July 9 (6 to 9pm), and August 27th, stop in to see some interesting music-themed art, along with some fine sound equipment.
Red Pineapple Prints: the perfect feng shui housewarming gift
I've updated my "Pop Art" online print gallery at imagekind to include my series of "Welcome" paintings of pinepapples from 2009.
The red pinepapple painting particularly makes a great housewarming gift to accentuate the feng shui to the entrance of any home. The pineapple is a universal symbol of welcome and hospitality and red is a wonderful welcoming power color to highlight the entrance to any home.
These prints can be ordered as stand alone prints, framed prints, or as prints on stretched canvas with deep gallery wrap borders (in black or white) as featured at left. Prints (7" x 11") alone start at $23.72 with gallery wrapped stretched canvas maxing out at $222.50 (+ applicable tax and shipping). All items usually ship within 5 business days.
All prints are shipped to your door through my wonderful partners at imagekind. And if red is not your color, check out all the pineapples, ice cream cones and coffee cups in the gallery, in an assortment of colors.
A Night in the Kitchen . . .
. . . preparation, perspiration and inspiration.
This past Tuesday night I painted live before a audience of 130 interior design bloggers from across the U.S. in the Manhattan showroom of Sub-Zero and Wolf as part of BlogFest2011. The WineDown ArtLive evening was hosted by the formidable Liquid Assets Consulting team of Michael Green and Andrew Levine. Supporting us all throughout the night was the wonderful Tessa Gallo.
I first painted live with WineDown ArtLive at last year’s Food Network Atlantic City Food & Wine Festival. This night I would be painting for interior design bloggers and hoped that just a few of them would interrupt me to introduce themselves. Many of them thankfully did.
Appropriately enough, the setting was a kitchen, and what a kitchen. The first thing I needed to do was get my mise en place in order. I brought along a box of oil sticks and a bag of lemons. Accompanying my preparation was much perspiration as the ovens and burners were fired up and I could smell extra virgin olive oil wafting throughout the showroom.
I gave myself the goal of painting three canvases in only 90 minutes. My inspiration: a bag of lemons brought down on the bus from Ithaca and purchased at reliable old Wegmans. I had only the idea of painting the lemons in a bowl and hoped I’d find one in the Sub-Zero showroom. Chef Coleman was incredibly helpful and provided me not only with a colander but with 3 extra lemons to give some height to my assembled still life.
As the bloggers arrived, most gravitated to the food and various corners of the room to tweet and watch those tweets on various HDTV screens throughout the kitchen. These were writers after all. I should have predicted that most would be shy and not interrupt and engage me like I prefer during these events. Nonetheless, as the painting began and sparkly was being poured, several bloggers did come up to greet me while I worked. For that, I was most grateful.
After all, the point of the conference was sharing great design ideas and I can wax prolific about design, art and the confidence that all of us should have in decorating our lives with the things we love.
Lemons in Colander was the first painting of the evening. As the paintings were being gifted to tweeting bloggers in attendance, I did not have the opportunity to photograph the completed works in ideal lighting conditions, so I’m chalking up the lighting of these paintings to memory and PhotoShop. Happy with this painting after about 25 minutes, I went to work on the next canvas.
Lemon: Four Ways was not a painting I had planned at all. Somewhere between set-up and half-way through the first painting, I thought I might slice a lemon in half and just paint it’s large mid-section on the 24" x 24" canvas. But as we all know, I love Warhol too much to let an opportunity to do a quadrant painting pass me by, so I simply held a lemon in my hand and painted four variations of it, finally slicing it in half to complete the last quadrant on the lower left side.
Three Lemons on a High-Wire can only be chalked up to end-of-evening exhaustion and my attempt to channel Basquiat in the last half-hour of live painting. I had this idea to paint 2 or 3 lemons in isolation and invent a table and slim board on which they were balanced. As it was, as I was painting, I was looking right into the Bloomberg building and Le Cirque from the 5th floor of 150 East 58th Street across the street. So, I decided, once I painted the 3 lemons, to put them on a high-wire over the facing Bloomberg building. The lemons could easily have represented my paintings and the high-wire could easily have been the experience of painting in oils, in a hot kitchen, with very little lighting.
So there you have it. Thanks to Michael, Andrew and Tessa; my compatriot in painting – Sangita Phadke – who painted the most beautiful pear imaginable; Paul and the great team at Sub-Zero and Wolf; Chef Coleman; Ben; designer Andie Day; blogger Mae Hacking, and the waiter at the end of the evening who kindly complemented my work. A great night was had by all.
New Hockey Paintings in the CAP ArtSpace Gallery
To see the hockey paintings which are part of the CAP ArtSpace Gallery show, currently hanging at the gallery at 171 Center Ithaca on the Ithaca Commons, click through.
Please join me at the Gallery on Monday, March 21st from 6:30 to 7:30pm when I'll be speaking about my passion for creating figurative art, especially works centered around local scenes and commissioned portraits.
Good Evening, Hockey Fans! opens
this Friday, March 4, 2011, 5 to 8pm
Please join me at the opening of my new art exhibit -- Good Evening, Hockey Fans! -- a show of paintings inspired by many years of watching Cornell's Big Red Men's Ice Hockey team at Lynah Rink in Ithaca, New York.
Feel free to click (and print) the poster, at left, to share with your friends and coleagues at work. You can also help me spread the word of the show on facebook -- http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=130509040338444 -- by inviting your hockey-loving facebook friends to the show.
I hope to see you at the opening this coming Friday, March 4th, from 5 to 8pm and also at my artists's talk on Monday, March 21st, from 6:30 to 7:30pm. All events to be held at the CAP ArtSpace, 171 Ithaca Commons (right in Center Ithaca on the downtown Ithaca Commons).
Acrylic Painting Classes at Michaels Arts & Crafts Stores
Here are two examples of recent landscape paintings I've taught for Grumbacher's Educational Program at Michaels Arts & Crafts stores in Vestal and Camillus, NY as part of the acrylic painting courses I am teaching for them. It's a great pleasure to work with both Grumbacher and Michaels. The students are great, the Academy Acrylic paints work beautifully, and the classrooms at Michaels are a great place to stop in for a painting class on your own schedule. I keep a link to my upcoming acrylic painting classes at Michaels on my website at edmarion.com. The next class is scheduled in Vestal, NY for Tuesday evening, December 21, 2010 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. We'll be painting a beautiful floral arrangement and I'm feeling inspired by poinsettias this holiday season. Sign-up is at the respective Michaels stores. Store contact info can be found at this link.
Painting from today's podcast
Today's podcast was a self-portrait demonstration.
You can watch how this was painted at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/11227068.
Cornell School of Hotel Administration Auction
For the last 3 years I have had the privilege to donate a painting to the annual auction held by the Cornell School of Hotel Administration's Catering and Special Events Management Class taught by Professor Rupert Spies. It is one of the finest evenings of every year and, lucky enough, it's tonight at the Statler Hall Park Atrium from 6:30pm to 9:30pm. As a warm-up to my March 2011 show of hockey paintings & drawings to be held at the CAP ArtSpace on the Commons (opening reception: March 4, 2011, 5 to 8pm), I donated this painting of hockey players facing off and anticipating the drop of the puck.
If you love art, sports (Mets, Giants, Devils tickets!), travel, wine and food, I encourage you to attend the auction benefitting the work of EGBOK Mission, Onondaga CASA, and Loaves & Fishes. Tickets are $20 at the door.
Art Collecting
All you wonderful art collectors looking for pineapple paintings,
ice cream cone paintings,
and guitar paintings,
come check out what's available.
late May . early June
On Friday, June 4th, from 5 to 8pm, Good Works Gallery will be open for Ithaca Festival Friday. Come visit us, consume some great art, and know that a percentage of all purchases (8%) are donated to the charity of your choice.
early May 2010
Thanks to all who came out to celebrate the opening night of Good Works Gallery, a monthly collaborative gallery that I started with friends and artists, Paul McMillan, Carlton Manzano and Ryan Curtis. The gallery is located in the Ahimsa Yoga Studio, just opposite the kitchen door of Moosewood Restaurant on the ground floor of the DeWitt Mall in Ithaca, New York. On every first friday of the month -- as part of Gallery Night Ithaca -- we'll be displaying and selling new works of art with a philanthropic bent.
For every work of art we sell, we'll donate 8% of the sale price to our patrons' charity of choice. So not only can you buy good (and great) works of art, your art patronage will support your charity as well.
During the month of May, I'll have a display of new paintings at the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York. My new paintings feature large ice cream cones and coffee cups, so if you're into large (or small) Andy Warhol-like multiples, come check out the new work.
My first Vincent van Gogh cover painting
I had some anxiety before tonight about what I should paint. I mean what madman came up with this event. Oh, it was me some 3 years ago. But this was the first time I really participated in the event as a painter. I was toying with several different images and really didn't know until about 10 minutes before the clock started what I was going to paint.
What really sealed the deal was that I googled this painting some time last week and later that night, my wife and I tuned into a Jake Johannsen concert on television which had this painting as the stage backdrop. The die was cast.
A couple of things. Sitting there tonight and painting gave me the greatest opportunity to just eavesdrop on the conversations of the people behind me. Some of the more interesting comments? I really like his brushwork. Well, I hope so, Vincent was one of the world's masters. I got a kick out of that one. Better still, a young child with his mother: Frogs, right? That made me laugh.
I did the painting on a kitchen cabinet door that I got from a building supply business and then gessoed the interior panel. I copied from a black & white photocopy of the image and took about 50 minutes to paint it and used the rest of the time to take the blue painter's tape off from around the edges.
At some point in the evening, I had the feeling of privilege of walking in the shoes of the man who originally painted this scene and that made me happy.
March
This March, I have a show of paintings on display at Collegetown Bagels in East Hill Plaza. Collegetown Bagels is one of my very favorite places in all of Ithaca to eat, get a coffee, meet friends, relax, the whole shebang. I also have a double self-portrait (above) hanging in CSMA's Post-Decade show and I'm working on a new series of works that will be on display during the month of May at the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca.
I am so proud of the work that Luke Fenchel and company is doing over at theithacapost.com. I have always thought that Ithaca and Tompkins County represented possibly the best cultural destination in all of New York State outside of New York City and now many of our creatives are coming together to write about the cultural treasure trove that we make, experience, and live every day. For news on the musicians, painters, dancers, playwrights and actors who make, display and perform their art on a daily basis, check out The Ithaca Post.
As April approaches, I’m gearing up to do a one-hour live painting with 24 of my fellow artists at the Fourth Annual Ithaca Festival Paint Off which is being held on Friday, April 2, 2010 at 7:00pm at Center Ithaca on the Ithaca Commons. The Paint Off is a fabulous event in which 25 artists paint their respective masterpieces in 60 minutes before a live crowd. It’s Gallery Night, so they’ll be music, food, a chance to win all of the Paint Off paintings via raffle or auction, and me! So come down to Center Ithaca, support the Ithaca Festival with your $15 admission fee, and watch great art being made in real time.
And just in case you forgot how fun the Paint Off is, here's a video snippet of last year's event to remind you.
January . February
On Friday, February 5, 2010, from 5:00pm to 8:00pm, Collegetown Bagels at 203 N. Aurora Street, Ithaca, NY will graciously host an opening reception for paintings I will be hanging there for the month of February. All of the paintings on display, both old and new, will feature some person or place from our great town. If you're out and about for Gallery Night Ithaca, please stop in to say hello and consume some great art and food.
And I've finally turned my pineapple paintings into some nifty greeting cards over at http://www.zazzle.com/edmarion99*. (I know, odd URL address, but unless you include that little asterisk at the end, I don't get my full commission.) These pineapple cards are great for any occasion, particularly as thank you cards, housewarming cards, and greeting cards. The pineapple is a universal symbol of welcome and hospitality, so if you'd like to purchase and give my art on a small scale, here's a great way to do it. Mahalo!
