I look for the visually interesting. It can be something as traditional as the Cherry Blossom Festival with the thousands of photos that come from it or as overlooked as the pattern shopping carts make against a brick wall. Please visit my site for more of my work and contact me at karonf@gmail.com if you are interested in a piece.

I like taking the pictures with the camera thing.

The pictures are inspirational and tell the various stories of peoples' lives. I have developed this technique working as an intuitive counselor. The pictures show the resources and possibilities in peoples' lives and may for example inspire them to take new directions. During the exhibition I will demonstrate this technique and visitors will get the opportunity to have their own life story painted.

Since last ArtOMatic I have become passionate about glass: mostly bead making, but also exploration of the sculptural abilities of borosilicate and kiln forming glass. The only torsos I plan this year are ones that have been broken and reassembled...in others words, new work. That has yet to be made. I hope I am not being overly confident that it will be made. Also my 3D is not standalone, it hangs; however, that option is never offered as a choice. You can see the lates at http://www.TammyVitale.com or check in with me on Facebook.

I love looking for the extraordinary in ordinary objects, finding humor and visual contrast that may have gone unnoticed. I enjoy wandering around without a particular subject in mind. This keeps me aware of my surroundings, allowing the camera to capture great and unexpected moments in time.

These photographs are from a recent trip to Southeast Asia. It was an amazing experience to see how people in other cultures live their daily life. I tried to capture non-tourist images by concentrating on the people and not the sites. Despite lots of poverty and lack of infrastructure, the people seemed to maintain a positive outlook, something that is lacking in more developed and rich countries. Since the trip, I have been extremely interested in portrait photography. I want to continue down that road.

"Men and women have to put on mental armor every day to deflect the pointed barbs and subtle hints that we should wax away hair, lose twenty pounds, and have bigger breasts or a larger penis."
~Tammy Vitale & Heather Bartlett

My art is close to the life flow. I look within myself for growth, mysteries, and then my art goes through the conduits of the brain becoming an abstraction, a fiction, or a lie. For me as a woman, it is personified ancient ritual, where spiritual thoughts are made visible, enacted. This naturalness and spontaneity of things is not reached by intellection, but one's mind is awakened to it and it requires no artificial effort. So by non-interference the viewer will understand the colors.

Visual Photographer in Fine Art, Portrait, Personal, Actor Portfolio's. Available for events and weddings.

I'm a visual arts teacher in the public school system. I recently started taking graduate classes in acrylic painting. I graduated from college with an emphasis in watercolor, so it has been quite a stretch for me to work on small canvas with acrylic.

Here is a photo of me and the two Joes in a pick up.
(I'm on the right)

I have been thinking about art my whole life.
I like art. I like to make it. Sometimes I buy it.
A lot of my ideas are still in my head.

Some paintings that might be in the show:
Circus
Guatemala
Tibet

Toronto Islands, Ontario

Education:
B.A. Amherst College Fine Arts
Art in the Schools volunteer, GRACE art
Oil painting with Mike Francis at the Art League, Alexandria

Thanks
Dale McGrath
May 2009

I have been involved in the arts since the age of four. At an early age I developed a keen interest in color and composition. As a formally trained ballet dancer I have tried to incorporate my sense of movement and space into my artwork.
My work is largely abstract. I love using acrylic, caran d’ache, graphite, collage, watercolor, paper and canvas.

On Developing New Images.
My artworks link to a particular but unspecified presentation or location which could be in physical or non-pyhsical space. The artworks are composed both as a response to the question of how one might produce imagery for a particular kind of space, but also as work that is able to stand up to a large variety of environments and presentations.

The artworks come from a series of divergent strategies. One of building and extending - the other of reducing and minimizing. These disparate approaches are not a way to impose meanings on the work, but can be viewed as a metaphoric crossroads. This crossroads is about extending the relationship of these different approaches, while at the same time allowing the viewer the liberty of time for further reading of the work. The image making that comes from this strategic foundation will be clear, concise and rational,while at the same time allowing for a sense of community and/or contemplation to develop in and around the artworks.

The artworks are not linear narratives, this allows the element of time to be stretched or compressed to accommodate the viewer. This flexibility to time as well as environment allows the artwork to reveal itself in slower and calmer ways than an artwork that is based only on the relationship of drama and detail of the forms presented inside of it, while allowing those with a more compressed time line to react to the base elements of the composition and painterliness of the overall approach.

This open ended approach is central to the artworks I create and allows them to be developed with a nonspecific exactness.

February 2009

A writer as well, I paint in oils to convey a sense of narrative, attempting to instill a mood, a sense of the fragility, ephemera, and mystery of things and people--hence my frequent use of light and shadows. Nor do I shy away from color, while trying to skirt the hackneyed.

I come from a family with a strong story-telling tradition. Lacking the verbal skill of my elders, I use visual elements to create a scenario that invites the viewer to explore and speculate. My work is figurative, and it represents reality not only as it appears to the eye but also in a broader, more universal, human sense. If you can identify with a situation I’ve presented or see yourself somewhere in my work, it makes me happy; but it’s most important to me that you find yourself intrigued and engaged, and that every time you come back to one of my paintings you discover more, and begin to create your own story about the content.

I have a multi-faceted life, and this shows in my paintings. I am currently developing three series of paintings: flower & flora, travelscapes, and parenting editorials.

My flowers are compositions that pop into my head while I am gardening or looking at flowers. I crop the flowers and get up close to really showcase the beauty and complexity present. I paint the flora from life in order to get close up observations accurate while conveying what I find interesting about the flowers.

For my travelscapes, I have lots of inspiration. I have been lucky enough to travel extensively with my military husband. A favorite region of mine is the Southwestern United States. The undulating red rock interrupted by tenacious, but beautiful, wildflowers never ceases to inspire me. I try to feature the flora of these desert-like places because they are somewhat overlooked when competing with the grand vistas.

My third inspiration comes from being a mother of two wonderful children. But being a mother is a tough job, sometimes physically, but always mentally. This series explores all the contradictory, and perhaps negative feelings that I have. It also explores some issues middle-class moms face such as nutrition and pushing our children toward success intensely at too young an age. I am using my painting as an outlet for frustrations I face both with society and personally, while trying to raise my children to being caring, healthy, and happy.

When an artist participates in Art-o-Matic, installation almost always begins with the artist painting their partition wall. Sometimes the wall is painted a simple white; other times a more outlandish color. Either way, a critical decision has been made: the construction-grade plywood wall is not an adequate ground for presenting the artist’s work. The painted wall, bright colors, mounted works and other embellishments compete for the viewer’s attention. Among the hundreds of installations, artists seek to not be drowned out by the visual noise. But by doing so, are they just creating more noise?

I am interested in dealing with the environment I have been given on its own terms. For me, wood – whether it be cheap plywood or exotic hardwood – is inherently beautiful. My goal as an artist is to create a space for contemplation and appreciation. By process of negation, I remove material until I have less than when I started. The gesture of the hand-drilled holes arranged in a specific composition strives to bring the viewer’s attention inward, to the beauty of the wood. In effect, my work only serves to bring forward that which is already there. For me, the provided wall is more than enough.