Thursday, August 12, 2021

August 2021 Business Meeting

Welcome and New Member Introductions

Linda Poche opened the Zoom meeting with a welcome. Emma Landman is our newest CMMAG member.  She had been in an artists guild in Georgia before moving to North Carolina and was looking for a local group to allow her to spend time with other artists.  She has done oils in the past but now mostly acrylics, but she is like many other members who is willing to try new media.  

Creativity Exercise

Katherine Stein led a drawing exercise of sketching a statue from various angles.  

Upcoming Events/Outings

  • Zoom Open Studio Playtimes

    • Playdates or Open Studio times, which are free to all members, are scheduled for the Saturday before the business meetings at 10AM and a Sunday afternoon later in the month.  The upcoming dates include the following:

      • Sunday, August 22 at 1PM.

      • Saturday, September 4 at 1PM.  

  • NC Museum of Art Sketching Outing

    • Katherine Stein is organizing a trip to NCMA on Saturday, September 11, from 10AM to 2PM.  If the weather cooperates, the group will focus on the sculpture garden.  If it is too hot or raining, the group can visit one of the buildings.  Entrance to the museum is free; however, since Covid you must get a ticket online to enter.  

  • Duke Gardens Outing

    • Marcia Streithorst has planned a trip to Duke Gardens to be inspired to sketch or paint.  It is free to enter the gardens, but there is a $2 parking fee.  This event was organized for Saturday, October 16 at 1PM.   

Art Shows (Virtual and In-Person)

  • Wilson Arts Center’s Artist Call 

    • Lisa Yerby outlined the application process for the show via the Café site: www.callforentry.org.  

      • Lisa’s entry was selected into the show.   

Social Media Update 

Creative Challenges

Amy Roswick reminded the members of the prompts for the Third Quarter 2021 Picked Prompts Challenge.   The results are to be shared at the meeting on September 9.  The prompts are as follows.

  • Medium:  Paint 

  • Texture/Mark Making: Solid (i.e., Wood, Metal, Glass)

  • Theme: Shapes 

  • Color: Blue

  • Bonus Technique: Continuous line drawing

Announcements

  • Denice Celley discussed that she had recently finished her project that has been pending in her studio for some time, and it is just in time for her to be able to pack up everything for her year abroad.   

  • Denice has several of her recent pieces available on her website denicecelley.art.  Sales from these pieces will help fund her trip to London for her 1-year masters program in Art History.  

Demo 

Denice Celley shared the drawing exercise she has been planning for the past few months...when we were to get together in-person using mat board scraps she has been collecting for guild members.  The demo involved each person following one instruction, and then passing along the piece to another person for the next instruction. 

Sunday, August 1, 2021

Member Spotlight August 2021: Maureen Seltzer


Maureen Seltzer is a mixed media artist based in Wake Forest who specializes in hand-printed paper collage art. Maureen grew up in Garner. After graduating from high school, she went to school in Boston for Industrial Photographic Science and later went to work for Polaroid in research and development. Before the digital world took over, making traditional photography obsolete, Maureen worked as a darkroom tech at SAS and The Wake Weekly.

Maureen has always enjoyed creating art and focused on watercolor for 20 years.  A few years ago she was looking for a way to add more texture and meaning to her work, and it all started by accident. While researching mono printing techniques to teach to middle school students she learned that unflavored gelatin could be used as a base for holding paint. She was convinced it would never work but soon found herself with a trash bag full of printed, abstract papers.  These papers lead to her collage work.   

Maureen’s collage pieces start with a fast under-painting to mark out the colors onto a canvas. She then mono prints onto old papers using paint, a gel plate, and found objects to create texture and dimension.  She then tears these very textured, abstract mono prints and glues them onto the canvas much like an artist lays a brush stroke.  From far away it is hard to tell that the artwork is made of tiny pieces of history of everyday life, but on closer observation you may see bits and pieces of a music sheet, a crossword puzzle done by a friend, or a map.  By using old papers, Maureen feels that her pieces have a history and somehow the people that once owned them are now a part of her art. 

Maureen is a much sought-after teacher of children’s art classes in the Triangle.  She also teaches adult workshops in mono printing at her studio, a dream she held in her heart for quite some time.  She has been a contributing artist for Gel Press® and served as a guest artist on a live broadcast with Jerry’s Artarama of Raleigh. Maureen has received many accolades as her pieces have been chosen for shows across North Carolina. Her piece, If Mother Nature Could Dance, was chosen for the Spotlight on Wake Forest Artists event. The piece was digitally reproduced as a large mural in brick vinyl and applied to the façade of the Wake Forest Renaissance Centre in downtown Wake Forest.   

          

Maureen has been a member of CMMAG for four years.  She recently served as Board Member at Large.  When Maureen is not working in her studio she enjoys watching a good movie on TV or playing with her dog, Charlie.  She is on Facebook at Maureen Seltzer's Art Studio and on Instagram at maureenseltzersart.  Her latest works and classes are also detailed on her website at www.seltzersart.com.   A few examples of her pieces are included in this story, but you can see Maureen's art in person at Extraordinaire at Triangle Town Center and at Wake Forest Coffee in downtown Wake Forest.