Embroidered Collage

On Monday night I went to a party to launch the first art directory put together by the Arts and Cultural Council of Bucks County.  I took a business class with them last year and am glad to be a member to support the opportunities in my area.  It was a nice event with appetizers and live music, but it was a little claustrophobic.  If some of us, myself included, had realized there was a third room back there then it would not have been so tight.

I attended with the goal of picking up my directory and meeting some new people in the local arts community.  It was pretty cool to see myself listed as an artist in black and white.  Pushing myself to approach a stranger to start a conversation is still work for me, but I think I did a pretty good job.  I received a few brush-offs, a few short exchanges, and a few longer ones.  Everyone I talked to was related to the visual arts, but there were sponsors and people involved in the performing arts there as well.

I chatted with Robert Seufert, a recognized artist who's been creating oil paintings for forty years.  He and his wife, a watercolor artist, teach and exhibit.  I mentioned how I had been doing this a short time and was still experimenting and he replied with how he was comfortable in his skills and just enjoyed his process. 

Carla Klouda and I exchanged comments about our work and I learned something new - that infrared photography on trees makes interesting white against black designs.  When she used the term I was thinking about the scientific images used for information analysis from college.  She is an art photographer who is also part of a nearby collective gallery.

My most involved conversation of the evening was with Deb Hoeffner, who primarily does illustration in a "soft realism" style.  I was amused when I told her that I had to get over the idea that I had to draw well to be an artists and she replied by sharing that when she was studying art drawing realistically was not considered part of art.

She's only been in the area a few years and asked me if I belonged to any local organizations.  I told her about GNAL and that I'd been to a couple of the Doylestown Art League meetings but that the lack of timely information on their web page just turned me off of that idea.  I just spend so much time online...  She had had the same experience and it was one of the reasons she joined Artsbridge, across the river in New Jersey.  Apparently Deb conducts a great deal of her business and comissions through online channels, but many of the artists she has met are not connected in any way, which still boggles my mind.  She also gave me some information about a site I'll share with you in a few days, when I'm set up on it.