OZ & The Ruby Slippers

As I journey down the yellow brick road, exploring the tales of Frank Baum's OZ, I discovered that in fact the "ruby slippers" were silver in his original tale. When MGM released their film version of this story in Technicolor, they changed Dorothy's slippers to ruby for greater visual impact. In the studio, I've been moving the various components of my OZ pieces around and coming up with some surprising pieces. To the right I've combined a small section of Dorothy at the crossroads,  which is the small painting with the X with the mannequin piece with the yellow brick road, which used to have the ruby slippers pictured above. Journey Down the Yellow Brick Road, the hands beckoned viewers to journey down the road with me.

Liberty & The Snake

For over 10 years the Statue of Liberty has been confronted by the Snake in my artwork. Liberty is my muse and the snake represents many things, evil or transformation.. This is a detail of a 3D painting I've been reworking this week in the studio. A friend commented after viewing this piece "She (the Statue of Liberty) looks protective and almost most hopeful, or pleading for hope." Hmm, I like that and also the fluidity in this piece. After focusing on printmaking for 3 years and running two Biennials, I'm enjoying the solitude of working in my own studio and doing what I love best... painting.

Pioneer Women & Biennial

Susan Montgomery, detail of Pope Johanna

There were two openings this week of two Pioneer Women artists who also were selected for the latest Amherst Biennial. First, Susan Montgomery's Pope Joanna enlightens APE Gallery in Northampton. A timely installation addresses the possibility of a woman pope in the 9th Century. Susan first presented this body of work at Pioneer Women & Wonderland in Holyoke at Paper City Studios in 2010.
One of the large watercolors in the exhibit evoked Richard Yarde's work, who passed last year and had once told me, Susan was his favorite student.
On the other side of the state, Rosalyn Driscoll continued her exploration of the fragility of skin/body with a large sculpture at Boston Sculptors Gallery which plays a large copper covered cubed with light and hide evoking water.
I highly recommend both exhibits of these extremely talented local artists.

Studio Installation

It's been wonderful to be "snowed in" for the last 3 days, making a lot of progress on several pieces from the Statue of Liberty and OZ series. These pieces seem to be talking to each other also. Mixing up several components of the OZ series and they areworking quite well in this new format. The center piece is an OZ totem combining Dorothy at different stages of her life and the mannequin from the piece offering the "ruby slippers" to join me on this journey. The Liberty series includes a piece on 9/11, Church & State- some timely contemporary topics.

Liberty Revisited

As I'm slowly getting back to a rhythm of working in the studio again, I'm amazed how taking a break for almost a year while producing the Amherst Biennial has cleared my eyes. Recently I pulled out some older paintings from the racks which had stymied me years ago. But now I'm looking at them with fresh eyes, They are speaking more clearly to me. Here's a detail of one of the series of the Statue of Liberty, which I started in 2004. The title for this painting is Newtown.

Cable TV Interview with Me & Tony Maroulis

Julie Lapping Rivera, In the Garden, mixed media collage

This interview took place in the Spring of 2011 with Tony Maroulis, Director of the Amherst Chamber of Commerce & Co-Curator of the first Amherst Biennial 2010, former Director of wunderarts.

After this program was recorded, Town Manager John Musante announced that he was giving the East Street School to Amherst Media, ACTV. So plans for the Amherst Arts Center have been put on hold. Terry has now just produced a second Amherst Biennial with all 3 colleges, 5 museums, 4 galleries, a nature preserve & storefronts. Presently, she is focusing on her own work & considering various projects for the future.

http://blip.tv/amherstmedia/amherst-neighbor-to-neighbor-terry-rooney-5121944

For the Love of Art

It has been so gratifying the response to the latest Amherst Biennial and that the Town of Amherst is making Matt Evald Johnson's sculpture a permanent installation in Kendrick Park  More good news, the Amherst Cultural council just awarded the Amherst Public Arts Commission a $1,000 grant towards the purchase of this sculpture. This brings the grand total raised to $7,000 with only $3,000 left to raise to make Portal a permanent installation for our community park.We will be launching a fundraising campaign on Valentine's Day. Check out Amherst Biennial webpage for details and gifts.:
<www.amherstbiennial.com>

Also I've continued updating the Amherst Biennial website with recent accomplishments of the Biennial artists, exciting things being created by Nancy Winship Milliken in Boston' and wonderful collaboration with Rosalyn Driscoll & Sarah Bliss coming soon.  The Biennial also recently received a nice review in Big Red and Shiny

http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?article=2013-00-25-125050660194288713