January. Working on the next steps for Face to Face - The Exhibit 2015

Isabella - April 26, 2014*

I am currently working on printing the portraits for everyone who had participated in Face to Face:
Drawn to Saranac Lake. Also finishing up several childrens' portraits whom I did not make sit for the 2 hours necessary as older participants have done. I have had to time myself, because it is so easy to get involved and perfect the work when I have a couple of reference photos.

BUT. I am timing myself - as I had done with everyone to get to the same stage of doneness.  Then working on each file in the computer, then printing each one. It is the first time I am seeing them in a group since I started stacking them in my studio a year ago.

The Stack as of October 11.

With over 180 portraits,  The Stack is now as tall as the portrait in the background. I did put one under glass, but I do not have any frames to finish.

So here is the money story for 2015: I've been notified that I will receive partial funds for my 2015 Decentralization grant request but that will cover about 20% of the framing - when it comes. Remember it is over 180 one-foot-square portraits.

Yeah Yikes. So now I am switching gears from the fun stuff - meeting people and painting their faces, to the Artist-as-the-Fundraiser/Framer/PR Person. I am asking everyone I know to help pitch in on the framing. I have arranged a couple of win-win-win options to help.

To help contact me: deleifheit@gmail.com 

Tomi - December 11,2014

Mark - December 3, 2014

Bob - December 4, 2014

This project will be a large work in progress for the foreseeable future.

To keep up sign up for updates.

To receive your print call and we will set up a time to pick up regardless of when you sat. Just don't do it all at once! It is only one of me. No Intern. No Secretary. No Board. Just me.

Thank you for checking on the project.

Artliveslong, D

My studio is in beautiful downtown Gabriels. See you soon.


* PS. My Grandgirl Isabella volunteered and showed my how to do kids. 

Countdown

December 1 Carol

The last faces are coming into being.
Of note, when I began Face to Face on January 21 the sun was returning. Now it is vanishing or not even making an appearance in the afternoon. Even though the faces have been made inside they have always been affected by the vagaries of light. A lot like plein air painting - light could be strong and bouncing around the Compass Printing shop or vanish in clouds then faces are illuminated by a florescent  light. 

Stay tuned.

The End Game

Andrea and her sweetie

Tomorrow is December 1. Only two more weeks to finish the capture of Saranac Lake faces.The easel gets packed up for the last time December 12, then Judi will attack the corner with the vacuum and begin to pull the art dust out of the corners of Compass Printing.

Roy

I am still not sure exactly how many faces will be included. I do know that as many as there are, it is a lot of individual prints that I am coming up with. Pick up of portrait prints can begin on my open studio weekend December 13 and 14, at my studio in Gabriels.

The other end game is:
I am retiring from Adirondack Artists' Guild as of the first of the year. I have been with the gallery for twelve and half years. The Guilders are my extended family. I will miss the process of working with others, leaning on friends when in need. The coop is a fine structure for learning about human nature. The framing of Face to Face and other commitments will make being a coop member too stretched for me. I will be focusing on my studio work, fundraising and framing for Face to Face. I will still be showing off my work on my studio/gallery wall so do check it out.

Lynn

Not very different is the departure from Compass Printings front corner where I have been learning about Saranac Lake, people, new and old friends and my self. Being allowed to capture Saranac Lake faces has made me a better artist. That sounds mushy but it is true and for that I am am grateful to everyone. Where else but Saranac Lake could I have pulled off asking about 180 people to sit down for a couple of hours while I made every effort to find and show the person sitting in front of me? What a privilege.

Chris - Yes I did get him to sit!

It still scares me every time I sit down and look at a person. It is not like the landscape painter who says "I can move mountains." Noses belong in a certain place as do eyes, smiles, ears and foreheads. Not everyone is ready to sit, for the process is just as unnerving for the sitter. Eye to eye! When was the last time anyone asked you to do that? It has been a big deal for all concerned.

For volunteering, for sitting still, kinda sorta, and participating in the process, I can not say thank you enough to all of those who sat. Thank you.

See you in Saranac Lake! and Gabriels.

Onward,  Diane

Rounding the turn…

Kathy - August 18, 2014

Here is number one hundred three in the Face to Face: Drawn to Saranac Lake project. Kathy was the very first person who contacted me in January. Why not til August? Life has its turns and it was having turns with Kathy this year. But when I say I hear stories from each person I paint, I strongly suspect Kathy hears more stories. Kathy is a florist. Think, "These roses are to be delivered where?"

Another sign of rounding the turn is finally – after 8 months – the funding has landed in my bank account, clearing up some things and allowing me to replenish colors that have worn down to mere nubbins of color. The grant from NYSCA covers only materials, not time, not travel, not the many hats that I have found myself wearing for this project. Costs are higher too than when I first estimated a year ago. It is part of doing business, but in my mind so unnecessary to have had to wait.

As I prepared more square boards for this months paintings I realized I am over halfway towards what is solidifying into the final number in the 160 to 170 range of participants. Folks are making appointments to sit in October and November – it is September after all. I finish up December 12.
Email me.

All of which means I need to knuckle down and begin the printing process for those who have sat for me so far. I am aiming to have a good number of Face to Face portrait prints ready for pick up during Artist at Work Studio Tour, September 27-28, 10 to 5 each day at my studio in Gabriels.

Fresh Paint, on the St. Lawrence

During Studio Tour, there will be lots of paintings on my gallery wall made this year en plein air in the Adirondacks near and far. Yes, I have been busy. Between faces and the landscape I may have made more than 150 works so far this year.

Visiting my studio is a great opportunity to see the work and fall in love with a piece. A purchase of my work does help the project. Consider buying a painting as giving a mini grant and you get to take home a piece of the Adirondacks. It is a whole lot less bookwork for me than applying for a grant too!

First Color, Great Camp Sagamore - Sold

Stay tuned. Though I say I will make the effort to post more often, life does take its turns.

Artliveslong, D

Ketchup!

Mia: Vincent, do you still want to hear my Fox Force Five joke?
Vincent: Sure, but I think I'm still a little too petrified to laugh.
Mia: No, you wont laugh, 'cus it's not funny. But if you still wanna hear it, I'll tell it.
Vincent: I can't wait.
Mia: Three tomatoes are walking down the street- a poppa tomato, a momma tomato, and a little baby tomato. Baby tomato starts lagging behind. Poppa tomato gets angry, goes over to the baby tomato, and smooshes him... and says, Catch up.
Thanks to Pulp Fiction I will try to Catch up.

Six months into Face to Face, I have made 73 faces.  Six more months to go - I suspect there will be at least that many again by mid-December. July spots are all booked. Only a few left for August which I hope will be teachers and kids. I am very happy with the response to the project. It will be a true snapshot of the variety of people drawn to Saranac Lake in 2014.

One feature of Face to Face was the opportunity to record both actors who are in Pendragon Theatres production of RED by John Logan. Burdette, who is Mark Rothko in the show, wanted a before and after. Tyler graciously sat during Saranac Lake's first Third Thursday Art Walk. There are only three performances left then Burdette will gratefully return to to his hirsute self.

Burdette aka Mark Rothko and Tyler

But that's not all. No, not an info-mercial but – Ketchup.

I am participating in two shows which opened this week. Plein Air: An Adirondack Perspective with myself (pastel), Janet-Marie Yeates (oil), Sarah Yoeman (watercolor) and Frances Gaffney (graphite). Four women, four methods of making plein air images in the Adirondacks. It is in the Widlund Gallery at the Tannery Pond Community Center in North Creek NY. Our local public radio station (NCPR) will have a small sampling of the work on line. But nothing takes the place of seeing works up close and live, so head down to North Creek and check out a beautiful visual taste of the Adirondacks while it is up through July 31. We have a reception from 5-7 July 12 to meet the artists. Do come.

The other show is an invitational to explore Lines and Colors. About a dozen North Country artists are exhibiting at Pouring Light Studios in Malone NY. The theme was a retro jump start to produce work that touches on what got each of us involved in making art in the first place using color and line. It is a fun and yummy exhibit. From Karen Davidson's personal explorations in collage to Geoffry Cobb's sly comment on line and color, there are eye opening pieces that engage and challenge the viewer. The exhibit is up until August 9 and is well worth the trip.

That should be enough for one month but there was also an opportunity to help Eric Rhoads' Publisher's Invitational Plein Air Camp in mid- June. I was able to show groups of painters a couple of places to paint close to home, one not on Eric's carefully plotted painting location maps.

Here is finished piece which is hanging in the North Creek exhibit.

Beware. Mosquitoes be here. Plein Air - Pastel -11x14

Then there is the garden, but that would be another story. 

Number 64!

At Compass printing with Karen B.s Face to Face portrait.

#64!

Karen B. sat this week and sent me this shot of her portrait at Compass Printing. Karen is number 64 – two more today.

I will be taking a break next week to participate in a plein air event here. You may see me around and you will see plenty of easels about.

I will be back at Compass Printing the following week, to continue Face to Face. Call, write or email to book a sitting, or stop in at Compass while I am there.

The Mirror Image

Diane - Spring '14 Selfie

Yes this is me. One of my sitters had asked early on if I was doing a portrait of myself. The question jolted me like sticking my finger into an electric socket. I had not given it a thought. Then another sitter – a scientist – asked when I do it, would I turn it around? Another zap.

Here is the answer, with some musings. No I wouldn't turn it around. That would be two mirrors and asking for 14 years of bad luck if I proved less than graceful in my studio, which could be entirely possible. One mirror was enough.

The musing. When I see myself in the mirror what I see is a reverse of the real world. Sure it is what people see in a general way, but the reality is I do not see myself ever the way others do. I look and think of how I look from the moment I first peer in the mirror in the morning to the last time at night, brushing my teeth, as a mirror image.  That is a lot of time working on the reverse image in my head, don't you think? We all do that.

When I make a Face to Face portrait of a person, I am not seeing what their own perception of their own face is, what their mental image was from that morning.  I am working from what I see, not a mirror image.

Does that change how someone reacts to seeing their portrait after being worked on for two hours? I suspect that is a bit of it.

There are other factors. 

Making a portrait in a couple of hours with talk and other distractions is akin to live theatre. Kids want to wiggle, people want to talk, the body wants to be in motion. Some have other things on their mind and are not in the moment. It can be me too, not finding the right color, a bad start to a morning, "a piece of bad potato." Live theatre is no different, every performance is a little different,  timing on or not; a dropped line or all in perfect sequence.

After a couple of hours have gone by in the process of making a portrait, I feel like the person is looking at me from two places – the work and the person. About that time I feel I am real close to the raw but finished piece and I let the sitter look at it. Sit where I have been sitting and look at the image, I say.

This is the moment of truth for me. For the most part I have worked hard to catch the person in the painting, the essence, not every flaw or wrinkle (not enough time), but the person who has chosen to share a couple of hours with me to talk, listen and let me see them.  

I am learning, it doesn't always work. Sometimes that person just doesn't "see" themselves in the work. Hear the sound of the pin prick in the balloon?

I think some of that reaction, is the reality of how we see ourselves, mostly in reverse. Then maybe too I just haven't quite gotten who is there. That will happen.

I promise to always do my best to capture the essence of the person across from me. From there, I work on making best better.

How many do you know?