CanvaSynergy, Revealed!

The Guild’s CanvaSynergy project was inspired by a question:

“What if 25 mixed media artists worked together to create a large-scale collaborative piece?”

Knowing how wildly creative and diverse our talents are, we were sure the result would be a fabulous thing to behold.

Here’s how it all unfolded:

Jerry’s Artarama graciously provided the 12”x12” canvases and the four base paint colors; Soho Urban Acrylics in Mineral Blue, Cadmium Red Hue, Burnt Sienna, and Cadmium Orange Hue, for 25 artists. Each artist was also allowed the use of black and white to round out their palette.
The overall layout was penciled onto the 25 adjoining canvases; a combination of swirling curves and geometric shapes, designed to give each artist an interesting variety of areas in which to create her own, special mixed media magic. None of the artists had seen the comprehensive, overall design--therein was another 'layer' of mystery!
The sky was the limit; artists could use fabric, metal, polymer, buttons, glass, feathers, photography, paint mediums, paper, clay and ephemera to complete their canvases.  The only 'regulation' was that they maintain the lines that connected their canvas to its neighbor.

Once all of the canvases were finished, wooden cross-bracing was constructed to hold them all together; a simple black frame was added, creating the expansive 5 x 5 ft. CanvaSynergy which was revealed at the 11th annual Art of the Carolinas last weekend. 

Our immense thanks, and a big round of applause go to:
Sharon DiGiulio, for presenting our idea to the fine folks at Jerry’s Artarama.
David Goldstein, of Jerry’s Artarama, for his consideration and approval of the required materials.
CMMAG secretary, Christine Candora-Hickey, for suggesting the CanvaSynergy title (because "the Collaborative Canvas Project" is not nearly as appealing!).
Stan Petelinz, for construction and joining together of structure and frame.
 And, to all the artists who contributed to CanvaSynergy, for creating something even more fantastic than we could've imagined!

Art of the Carolinas 2009

The Carolina Mixed Media Art Guild will be out in full force at Jerry's Artarama's Art of the Carolinas (AoC).  Scheduled to take place in Raleigh between Friday, November 13 and Sunday, November 15, it promises to be a fantastic event!  Here's a preview:

• Guild members will assist with classroom preparation, maintenance and breakdown, supporting the outstanding staff at Jerry's (including Guild members Christina and Sharon shown here)

• Our members will host a "Make and Take" event, encouraging everyone attending AoC to create Artist Trading Cards (ATC) to keep or trade.  Kudos and tremendous thanks go to Strathmore, Ampersand, Winsor & Newton, and Jerry's, for donating supplies for our Make and Take activities, including papers of various kinds; stampboards and clayboards; paints; pastels and glues.  Some of the ATC created during AoC 2008 are shown below. 
• Members' work in the World of Art Challenge will be exhibited in a boardroom in the workshop area. We encourage you to visit to see where it all began, with a canvas showing all the components of the kit, then to explore the vision of 25 artists confronted with the challenge of design with those components.  You'll be amazed at the innovation, diversity and creativity! 
• Guild members will also be demonstrating various art techniques throughout the weekend.  Check the schedule when you arrive to see who will be doing which demos including painting, stamping, clay and much more.
• And of course, there's the trade show area on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, where we'll shop till we drop! 

So, plan to join us for all the fun, art-filled activities...it'll be a great time!  For more information, visit the AoC site here.  See you there!

World of Art Challenge

In August, CMMAG accepted a kit challenge from our favorite art supply store, Jerry's Artarama, entitled "The World of Art". Our challenge was to create a piece of 2-D art on a supplied 16"x20" canvas, using at least a part of every item in a Jerry's Art Stuff bag, which included: a wine cork, a small piece of torn canvas, liquid graphite, playing cards, clayboard tiles, a piece of twine, foreign language magazine pages, origami paper, several pieces of balsa wood, a rubber band, and a very limited choice of paint colors. According to the rules of the challenge, two items may be added to the piece, which must somehow convey the "World of Art' theme. Twenty five members received their kits at our August meeting, and the completed canvases were due at our October meeting.

Here, thanks to Lucy, our official Guild photographer, is a photo collage of some of the completed World of Art canvases. All twenty five will be displayed, along with biographical information about the artists at Jerry's Artarama's Art of the Carolinas next month. Details about Art of the Carolinas are in the sidebar at right. Come see what we've done...they're all incredibly creative and as always, as different as the members who created them, which is amazing, considering that each was designed with the same items.

CMMAG at Art of the Carolinas 2008

Members of CMMAG participated in Art of the Carolinas, sponsored by Jerry's Artarama. We assisted the staff by preparing and maintaining classrooms for art workshops, operated a "Make and Take" area for people to create Artist Trading Cards (ATC), and welcomed trade show goers to our own CMMAG table which featured work from many of our members.

Kudos to our intrepid secretary Penny Arrowood, for putting this all together and making it all work in pre-show planning, and over the four days of the event. Our Guild was presented to a new audience composed largely of other artists, and we received many positive comments about the work we displayed. At our CMMAG table, we raffled off a one-year membership to the Guild, and made contacts with artists from near and far.

And, at our Make and Take ATC table, we displayed hundreds of ATC made by our members, and we encouraged artists to create their own Artist Trading Cards to keep or share. Creativity and originality abounded, and fun was had by all!