blog.edmarion.com

November

I'm honored to have a painting in CSMA's Mainly Blue group show which runs through the end of November.  The show -- curated with great care by local artist, Rebecca Godin -- is an exploration of the color blue by several well-known artists from our area.  It's well worth a visit.

I'm also very excited to have donated a painting to the Cornell School of Hotel Administration's Charity Auction on the night of Saturday, November 21, 2009, starting at 6:30pm.  This is a fun annual event.  For information on how to donate or attend the auction, click here.

Check Out the Self-Portrait Issue of Poets & Artists Magazine

Open publication - Free publishing - More poets

I'm lucky enough to be featured (p. 60) in the September issue with some artists I admire.  You can find this issue and back issues of Poets & Artists at www.poetsandartists.com.

I need your help

So, Ithacans and those who just want to be Ithacans, I need your help.

Ithaca’s Community School of Music & Arts is hosting the CSMA Post-It® Art Show as part of the Arts for All Marathon from September 28^th to October 24th.

Here’s the idea. All of Ithaca is invited to make art on sticky notes (or more familiarly, Post-Its®). Folks bring (or mail) in the Post-It® art, CSMA displays the art on their gallery walls. Big opening/closing/purchasing night at CSMA on 10/23 when we sell these great miniature works of art for $5 per Post-It. Undercurrent: everyone (ages 1 to 92) is an artist and everyone can collect art, especially at $5 a throw.

On 10/23, crowds of people will jockey before thousands of works of art to be the first buyer of the next big (ok, small) thing. Basically, organized mayhem. Prior viewing hours & days will get people into the CSMA gallery to stake their claims, and, at the appointed hour, we need tight organization on sales.

So, locally, who wants to help me organize this baby? There are so many ways to say "yes."

We’re envisioning thousands of submissions and hopefully hundreds of sales on the night of 10/23. Immediately, we need help in:
– getting the word out starting August 18^th (blogs, e-mail distribution lists, twitter, facebook, Flickr; and
– commitments to staff the purchasing party on the night of 10/23.

Additionally, I (and more importantly, CSMA) needs all your ideas and help as this great Marathon raises scholarship dollars for students who could not otherwise afford the great arts programming that CSMA offers. Please e-mail me with your thoughts, ideas, and offers to proselytize/staff the event at ed@edmarion.com.

Thanks.

The CSMA Post-It® Art Show for the 2009 Arts for All Marathon (Sep. 28 - Oct. 24)

I'm very excited to be participating again in this year's Arts for All Marathon (2009 web update coming soon) to benefit the Community School of Music and Arts in Ithaca, New York.  In 2009, the Marathon will run from Monday, September 28th through Saturday, October 24th.

As part of the Marathon, CSMA will be hosting a Post-It® Art Show inviting all Ithacans to make, view, and buy art on Post-It® notes for a gallery show and opening which will take place on Friday, October 23, 2009.  So here's an easy and great chance to have your art displayed at CSMA for all your neighbors to see.  Take Post-It®, make art on it, get it to CSMA.  Up on the CSMA gallery walls it goes to the first buyer at our opening/closing celebration on Friday, October 23rd.

It will be a great chance, too, for you to see the art of all of your neighbors (hopefully, thousands of them).  Further details to follow.

I'm also assisting in curating the first floor front gallery for CSMA during the Arts for All Marathon.  During the Marathon, a score or more of artists will display their craft and hold mini-marathons of their own in CSMA's first floor gallery.  Interested artists wishing to participate are urged to visit the Arts for All Marathon web site for more details.

Art at Ithaca's Moosewood Restaurant

So my art show at the world-famous Moosewood Restaurant is finally up and running through the month of August.

I called the show Multiple Personality because I tried out a few new different series of multiple paintings, including original oil and acrylic paintings of pineapples, skateboarders and a guitarist.  The exhibit of 32 paintings basically encompasses much of my work from 2009.

Now that the show is up, I'm gearing up for CSMA's Arts for All Marathon which will again run from September through October of this year.  As part of the marathon, I'll be the head cheerleader and motivator for a community-wide "Post-It" sticky note art show that will be a featured fundraiser for CSMA.

Our goal in raising money for CSMA scholarships is to bring out both the artist and arts consumer in each of us.  The Post-It show will culminate in a great one-night gallery show at CSMA where all of the art submitted on Post-Its will be up for sale to raise funds for CSMA's art scholarships.  If you visit Moosewood during the month of August, I'll try to keep the restaurant stocked with some Post-It art of my own to give away during August -- if only to whet your collective collector's whistle.

CSMA Portrait Drawing & Painting class cancelled

Oh well.  Bad news from CSMA.  The Portrait Drawing & Painting class I was scheduled to teach this summer has been cancelled due to low enrollment.

Art in Binghamton this weekend: First Friday at The Cube

On Friday, July 3rd, from 6 to 9 pm, I'll be at The Cube in Binghamton to host an opening and show of my paintings in concert with the great First Friday art crawl that is held in Binghamton on the First Friday of every month.

The Cube is an LGBT community center in Binghamton that has offered to graciously host my art work for the month of July.  Come visit me this First Friday night in their welcoming reception lounge to view some of my older (though still recent) paintings, all of which feature Blue Skies.

Art in Ithaca this weekend: Americana Vineyards & gimme! T-Burg

Starting Friday, July 3rd, my painted barrel will be on display at American Vineyards in Interlaken (see, post below) and starting Sunday, July 5th, I'll be hanging a new show of portraits and people at the gimme! Espresso shop in Trumansburg.

So if you're in the mood for a nice drive, some driving capuccino, and a great bottle of wine, it may be the ideal weekend to take in some of my art along with some of the best food and beverage our region has to offer.

Visit my painted wine barrel at Americana Vineyards in Interlaken and online at PaintedBarrels.com

This week I finished painting a wine barrel for Americana Vineyards in Interlaken which will be part of the Painted Barrels exhibit of some 27 wine barrels located throughout the Finger Lakes wine trails on Cayuga, Seneca, and Keuka Lakes.

Part of the excitement for me was being assigned to Americana Vineyards. They are one of the closest Finger Lakes wineries to Ithaca and also one of the most fun to visit.

I was all revved up to do a typical oil painting of Americana fireworks themes when I ran into my first experience painting with exterior oil-based paints. Part of the rules of the game were that the barrels had to be painted for both indoor and outdoor use. While I’m used to working with very malleable and controllable oil and acrylic paints, these exterior paints excelled at dripping, running and not mixing well at all.

Thus, in a flash, my goal of painting New York City fireworks along with the American flag on the moon and at Iwo Jima, quickly turned into inspiration to do a red, white and blue Jackson Pollock-homage drip painting that was more appropriate to the medium.

You, dear viewer, now get the pleasure of touring all of the wineries of the Finger Lakes listed at the Painted Barrels web site to check out these barrels, check out the wines, and bid to purchase the barrels of your choice (here's a link to mine). While I’d like to think my barrel is reason enough to visit Americana Vineyards, you’ll also want to visit their tasting room, perhaps dine at the Crystal Lake Café (sample menu), and take home some of their great wine with those great Americana-themed wine labels.

so Facebook is working for me again

www.facebook.com/edmarion

June 2009

Whoa.  So June finds me awash in exhibits up to my ears.  My show of NYC cityscapes will be up at the Starbucks on the Ithaca Commons until June 30th.  Then, it's 2 shows in July -- some older works in Binghamton at the Cube and some new works at the gimme! Espresso Shop in Trumansburg.  Finally, I'll be hanging a show of new larger paintings at Ithaca's Moosewood Restaurant in August.

Despite the shows, a few items have rocked my own little art world recently.

I am just jazzed to be painting a portrait of a mother and son over the Internet using Skype.  It helps that my 2 particular sitters are very captivating and interesting people, but the experience of working with portrait sitters in another part of the world is downright exciting.

I was also privileged to be included as a legal consultant to the New York Foundation for the Arts' MARK Artist weekend in early June.  Lucky to be part of the 2008 inaugural year as an artist, I had the benefit of seeing the work of some great and talented New York State artists from the 2009 class.  Follow this link to check them all out and then just google the heck out of them to find their work.

 I know this may seem trivial, but someone in the UK bought a necktie of mine from my zazzle page (and/or the "swag" link on the navigation bar at www.edmarion.com).  How cool is that?  Answer: tres.

 
And, oh yeah, I went a little self-portrait crazy in the last week in preparation for teaching a class on Portrait Drawing & Painting at the Community School of Music and Arts in Ithaca.  Seriously, it's not narcissism, it's just practice with a free model.  The 4 portraits done in June were each from life and took under an hour to complete.

Facebook is not working for me at the moment

So I closed my FaceBook page for my portrait painting business.  Personal page on the way when I can figure out how to create a personal profile without FaceBook continually bouncing me from the system.

Art as a Business, and Skype as a way there

Having spent 15 years of my life as a practicing lawyer, I'm always fascinated by the dichotomy of treating law as a business or as a profession.

Art is no different.

Quite often we think of artists as starving artisans who do what they do for the love of it.  My recent take, however, is that any artist working full-time is essentially running their own business so that any time I try to tweak my practice of painting, I like to think of myself as a business owner first, and artist second.  If nothing else, it helps me define my market and further helps me assess the viability of my art going forward.

Which leads me to tell you about Skype and theportraitpaintingproject.com.

I've decided to start painting oil portraits via webcam and a Skype video feed.  Why, you may ask?  Well, using webcams and free Skype video software, I get to paint people all over the world from the comfort of their home while they get to visit with me in my rural art studio in Ithaca, NY. On the one hand, while painting by webcam is limited by lighting conditions and the quality of an Internet connection, it also opens my art studio to the world and avails me opportunities to meet and paint people I would never have known otherwise.  It's also rather cool that, using Skype, the portrait sitter gets to see themselves on their monitor so they actually collaborate on portrait composition.

Also, if you're a collector of emerging artists, looking to get to know artists and their work, what better way to spend time with someone whose art you admire?  As long as you have a webcam, a Skype account, and a reasonably good Internet connection, I can paint you from Barcelona, Macedonia, or even nearby Cazenovia.

So the next time someone asks you for a recommendation of a local portrait artist, if they live on planet Earth, please remember me and theportraitpaintingproject.com.

The Switchboard ~ an Ithaca art blog

Recently, I commented on a post at a new Ithaca blog on art and art criticism called The Switchboard.  The Switchboard describes itself as "written by a group of Ithaca artists, art critics, and art historians.  It is a place to have conversations about art in Ithaca and elsewhere.  Posts are intended as the starting points for these conversations, so please, if you’re reading, join in with comments!"

While my post comments sought to raise the issue of the identity of the authors, the site itself remains an excellent addition to the Ithaca art scene and a necessary and viable part of any art community that is seeking to be treated seriously.  It is not only good writing and good reading, but is a place to actively participate in the conversations that occur there.

I highly recommend it.

Ed Marion is now on Facebook

I know it sounds ridiculous to be writing about myself in the third person but I'm doing so only so search engine spiders will pick me up.  I was at a workshop today where Facebook for business was part of the presentation so I started a business Facebook page and can't figure out for the life of me how to use it or access it.  Hence, I'm posting a link to it here.

So I . . .

. . . put my legal career on hold because I was tired of typing 10 reports a day and tired of words.  I focussed on being an artist because I was of the firm belief that a picture spoke a thousand words and that the last thing that was required was writing of any kind.

I mean, really, why bother with an artist statement.  Imagine if John Lennon or Paul Simon wrote something independent of their songs to tell us what the songs meant.  We'd hate it.  It would dilute the art, no?  Why do people love artist statements, then?  Dunno why.

So I started this blog to write about my art and now realize that for some months I haven't written a thing about my art.  I think that is an accomplishment.  Let's leave it at that.

The CSMA Drawing Marathon

Day 26.2 . Oct. 26 . Hayley (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 26 . Oct. 25 . Just a Dog (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 25 . Oct. 24 . Gothic House (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 24 . Oct. 23 . Dinner at Brad's (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 23 . Oct. 22 . Bad Hair Day (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 22. Oct. 21 . Ezra Cornell (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 21 . Oct. 20 . Starry Starry School of Business (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 20 . Oct. 19 . Centre Street, NYC (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 19 . Oct. 18 . Bank Clock (available)

To claim this drawing, just follow the rules.

Day 18 . Oct. 17 . Coffee Crossing (available)

To claim this drawing, just follow the rules.

Day 17 . Oct. 16 . Crossing College Avenue (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 16 . Oct. 15 . Music Men (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 15 . Oct. 14 . Brooklyn Bridge (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 14 . Oct. 13 . 42nd Street (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 13 . Oct. 12 . Big Yellow Taxi (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 12. Oct. 11 . Two TalkToMes Are Better Than One (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 11. Oct. 10 . Collegetown Ivy (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 10 . Oct. 9 . Fiddle Music (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 9 . Oct. 8 . Suspended (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 8 . Oct. 7 . Farmer's Market (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 7 . Oct. 6 . Bailey Hall (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 6 . Oct. 5 . Cornell Arts Quad (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 5 . Oct. 4 . Felicia's and gimme! (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 4 . Oct. 3 . Gallery Night Ithaca (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

This drawing is after a photo I took of Gallery Night at CSMA some time ago.  I used the photo, and this drawing, as a basis for this painting.

Day 3 . Oct. 2 . Walking in Collegetown (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 2 . Oct. 1 . Tompkins County Public Library (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.

Day 1 . Sep. 30 . The Johnson Museum of Art (claimed)

This drawing has been claimed.