Celebration of Fine Art

It’s been a fabulous nine weeks of art lovers and artists coming together under our big white tents! The show will come to an end on Sunday, March 27 at 6 pm. There is new work being made every day.

A visitor from Austin, TX recently shared in our comment book – “Awesome like every year! The artists are so amazingly nice. So much incredible talent.” Well, we must say, we agree – we have the nicest and most generous artists and the talent is off the charts! It is abundantly evident when you walk through the door that that artists love what they do and they share that passion through their works and their words and interactions!

We invite you to come out one last time to share in this incredible experience. We are so grateful for the opportunity to bring the art lovers and artists together!

The Celebration of Fine Art celebrates a diverse range of artists and artwork including photography. And there are a few artists at the show taking the medium to the next level through fine art. Two of which, have not only mastered the keen ability to find beauty in things most of us overlook, but also the challenging technique of photo transfer.

Tiffany Mulherin, who has worked as a professional photographer in Los Angeles and Denver, specializing in high-fashion and fine art photography for more than five years, found her way into fine art through a unique process – Polaroid emulsion and image transfers.

“I taught myself how to do the Polaroid transfers in school for a project,” Tiffany said. From there a passion was born.

“What drives my passion is the final outcome, but it’s also being able to go out and shoot then turn the photography into something completely different through this process.”

Tiffany’s art is created using a dwindling and rare process of Polaroid emulsion and image transfer, a time-consuming technique that requires an adept touch because of the fragility of the medium. One misstep can mean the difference between a failed work and a one-of-a-kind masterpiece.

“Collectors are drawn to my work because of the soft peaceful feeling that it gives,” she said. “I think it fits really nice in a home environment because it gives that soft feeling.”

Sondra Wampler, a 6-year-show veteran, is more than a storied professional photographer. As she sees it, and her collectors would agree, she is an artist who simply uses photography as her medium like a painter who uses oil or acrylic.

“It’s the making of art, the process of creating original pieces that makes me excited about this,” Sondra said. “The process of photography can be a very technical thing, but I’m more about what can I create using photography as my tool?”

So Sondra began photographing botanicals and taking the time to study each of her subjects individually.

“I photograph them in black and white, because without the color you are left with the architecture of the plant,” she said. “I’m also looking for the personality in each plant, so they’re a lot like portraits. I spend a lot of time trying to find that personality and if it comes through then I photograph it. If not, I don’t.”

Sondra also recently began creating photomontages, using her original photographs and the photo transfer process to create the pieces.

“These montages are more in the realm of surrealism,” she said. “I’m able to create these fantasy-like places. A lot of these are inspired by my own dreams, fantasies or thoughts. I dream very vividly and I always have had very surreal dreams.”

“For my collectors, there is an emotional response to the work. They say the work has a lot of feeling in it. It stirs an emotional response in them.”

Every year an eclectic mix of “show” dogs accompany their artist parents to the Celebration of Fine Art. Though our version of show dogs may not be on par with the Westminster Kennel Club’s, we love these little characters all the same. Since many of them report to work on an almost daily basis, we thought we would take a moment to formally introduce a few of them.

Matisse – Bruce Marion’s 7-year-old Pekingese. Bruce said Matisse essentially grew up at the show.

Zipper – Belongs to Sue Averell and can usually be found perched in front of one of her city scapes.

Tinker – Tom Lucas, western and wildlife painter, is often found with Tinker perched on his arm.

Lucy – Is Shanna Kunz’s “studio dog.” Though Lucy is still just a puppy, the sweet girl is usually parked under Shanna’s easel.

Emma – Ken Newman’s yellow lab, when not playing fetch in the garden with the other artists, she rests on her special platform and watches Ken sculpt.

Bandi and Meme - Randy Berkeley and Robin Branham met their rescued dogs at the show (running around outside the tent) and have been together ever since.

More dogs to come…

Last week’s blog post touched on the art of abstract, some of the common misconceptions that surround it, and why it is such a freeing art form. This week, three more artists at the Celebration of Fine Art artists shared their thoughts on the art form.

Adolfo Antonio Girala:
Q. What is your background? Have you always worked in abstract?
A. I’m self taught. For me painting has been sort of like a gift, but I worked as a technician for 17 years. I’ve been doing this since 2000. I’ve always painted fish and that brought in some abstract. (Though he doesn’t label his work abstract – it’s just what he knows.) I love the ocean. I’m from Cuba and like the underwater colors and shapes, so it’s in a lot of my work.

Q. What about your art resonates most with your buyers?
A. The colors for sure. That Zen feeling. It’s very restful.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your work?
A. When I get up in the morning after I left something drying at night and coming to see what happened to it. And being surprised.

Q. What is a common misconception you’ve come across surrounding abstract?
A. Being an outsider I never really focus on that, but many people do think abstract is just throwing paint out, but you have to have an understanding of light and dark and depth. Abstract work takes as much work as any other work out there.

Q. There are many forms of abstract, what do you classify your work as?
A. To me it is just what I do, I don’t really have a name for it.

Robin Branham:
Q. What is your background? Have you always worked in abstract?
A. I’ve always done abstract art. I learned how I didn’t want to paint in college, but everything I learned about painting I learned from my father. People think there are no rules, but there are so many rules in abstract.

Q. What about your art resonates most with your buyers?
A. The texture or the fact that it’s really different or unique.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your work?
A. It’s the process that does it for me. You do all these experiments, go to bed and wake up and see what happened in your process. I like to invent different ways to paint. It’s the mystery…you don’t know what you are going to get.

Q. What is a common misconception you’ve come across surrounding abstract?
A. That there are no rules and that you just splat paint down. I would say it’s more difficult than many forms of traditional work. You have to figure out what it’s going to look like.

Q. There are many forms of abstract, what do you classify your work as?
A. It’s just what I do, but I don’t have a term for it. I think it’s really important to experiment and find your own way. That’s my strongest belief…go somewhere else every time you paint.

Jossy Lownes:
Q. What is your background? Have you always worked in abstract?
A. I started drawing academically because in the beginning you want to draw something that people know what it is and let it evolve from there. You have to know the basics and the more you know the better you are able to do abstract work.

Q. What about your art resonates most with your buyers?
A. I think it resonates with buyers because I am doing universal themes of people, emotions and relationships.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your work?
A. What I’m enjoying is having a consistent theme which deals with relationships, but also deals with the expectations we have in life that sometimes work and sometimes don’t. When they don’t work, a person has to be totally honest in their solutions to life and its problems. That’s what my work means to me. And all of these groups of people (in her pieces) are indications of the commonality that we have as humans…we are all in this together. I’m enjoying having a specific theme to express in different ways. Though the theme is consistent, the materials and colors I choose are always different.

Q. What is a common misconception you’ve come across surrounding abstract?
A. Abstract is a huge word. Any painting is abstract, because it’s not the real thing. To me non-representational is a more fitting word.

Q. There are many forms of abstract, what do you classify your work as?
A. Right now I’m calling it contemporary symbolism. I’m trying to come up with words that are not so easily misconstrued (like the term abstract).