Sunday, November 16, 2008

Opening






The opening reception went really well. There were a lot of people interested in the subject of Victory Gardening. Many pointed out that maybe Obama will reinstate it. The bands were also really great and it felt good to give this body of work some focus. I will take parts of this for my thesis show.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Solo Show at Launch Pad Gallery





In November, I will be showing my current project, Local Victory at Launch Pad Gallery here in Portland. I have been working on a lot of new approaches for the show: plywood cutouts, resin, colored pencil, and poster printing. Some of the processes have been difficult, but it has been great pushing some limits for myself.
For more information, please follow this link: Launch Pad

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Second Year MFA Show


For the month of September, the second year MFA students have installed work that represents what we have been working on this past year. I decided to hang the first of four seed order paintings and create an installation of my "Local Victory" projects. This summer, I spent a lot of time in my yard. Being able to watch the growth of your food can be really satisfying. I wanted to include these plants in the show because they are also part of my work this summer.
Since I plan on having lots of plants in my thesis show, this was great to see how the plants do in this space. I put a sign on the tomato plants saying that people can eat them and it is rare that a red one sticks around. I think that people like the opportunity to interact with work in a gallery space because so often they are not allowed to.
Currently, I am working on connecting with some other organizations to see if some of these posters can be useful. On my "Local Victory" blog, there are many links to websites that are pushing the idea of contemporary Victory Gardening. This project has really been thought provoking for me and I hope an influence with others as well.

Saturday, August 30, 2008

New Poster


I have been having fun reworking my drawings. I came up with this image.

New Drawing



I have enjoyed working on my current paintings, but I somewhat miss being more abstract. I like the combo of recognizable with abstract. So, I did a little drawing from a glass, paper cutout collage that I had created. This is a 6"x6" watercolor pencil drawing on paper.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Seed Orders 1997


I finished the first of four seed paintings.

Sunday, July 6, 2008

The Round







Last sunday, I was part of an event called the "Round." Here, three musicians, a poet and two artists were on stage together. There was a good crowd of people and the atmosphere was really interesting. I have never drawn in front of people before, but I found it fun. The musicians were Nick Jaina, Michael Apinyakul from Shoeshine Blue and Sean Flinn from Invisible City Rockets. Poetry was from Trvino Brings Plenty. The other artist was Hillary Berry.

Drawing on the cover of the "Portland Review"


My drawing called, "Repression" is on the cover of the Portland Review. It can be found at Powell's Books. The image is reversed on the other side so that it mirrors itself when you open it.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Local Victory Posters...


There has been some interest in these posters. I would love to get these out to people and their communities. I am currently brainstorming on that aspect of the project.
For now, if you are interested in them, send me an email I will get in touch when I have that part completed.
Thanks for all the excitement with this project!

Friday, June 20, 2008

Painting in process


This painting is part 1 of 4 seed paintings. Every year of our family garden, my father kept track of seeds that were ordered, the plants started and the growth of the garden. I borrowed four of his journals and have been trying to find the exact varieties that he ordered. I have found that even though the earliest year was 1992, there are many seeds that are found with different companies or no longer available at all. I decided that this might make for some interesting paintings.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Local Victory Blog


I started a blog for my "Local Victory" project. I am going to collect stories and images of people and their home gardens. There are a lot of people deciding to grow their own food and I think that it is very inspiring.
Here is the link:
Local Victory

Thursday, May 29, 2008

The End of Food


As I have been doing research for my thesis, I came across an article that really talks about the reasons for a contemporary "victory garden" poster. I will talk about it in my presentation, but if anyone is interested in reading about our current food climate, here is the article.
The End of Food article

Friday, May 23, 2008

Free Tree Start Project




As I have been working out what my thesis project is going to be, I have been thinking about a few aspects of it. One part involves giving people vegetable starts to get involved in creating a garden right away. Before that though I wanted to experiment with the act of giving starts. As I was weeding, I came across a bunch of Maple Seedlings that seemed to be in good health. I decided to make them into a project. I gave them little tags and put them in water on my corner. I put a free sign because I wanted people to know that it was a gift of sorts. I felt that something that could be tossed might actually become a use for someone. I encouraged people to contact me with pictures of where they planted their starts.
I really do not know if anyone will take them or just toss it off as some "hippie" tree hugging thing. This made then realize that for my show, I really want it to be more thought provoking. As I write this, I am watching a documentary on Andy Goldsworth. I could really do something interesting here with design and interaction.

If you would like to contact me with pictures, my email is: rebecca.shelly@gmail.com

Artwork at Crema


I hung some work up at Crema on se 28th and se Ankeny. The show will be up till July 1st.

Thursday, May 15, 2008



This is what I was picturing with the images. I think that I will add the text directly onto the drawing. At this point, I could go either way with the work.

Friday, May 9, 2008

First Drawings for Posters




These are watercolor pencil/paint drawings on paper. They are 27.5"x 35".
These images came from photos of my childhood growing up in the garden. I plan on interacting with other people and making these images not just about my childhood but more of a way to talk about home gardening.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Future of Food!


I recently watched a movie that really upset me. It upset me in a way that I want to do something about it. It involves my current project, so this gives me another element to push. It is called the Future of Food and it talks about Genetically Modified Food and our government.
Future of Food Intro
and,
Future of Food video

Friday, April 25, 2008

Contemporary Victory Garden Posters




For part of my project, I am going to be recreating the use of the "Victory Garden" posters.
As I am doing more research into this, I am wondering how these could be relevant today. What I am learning, is that due to the war right now and a build up of other issues, that gas prices have been affecting our transportation of food products. It makes sense then, to buy local or start home gardens. This also would mean supporting the local economy and eating fresher, healthier products. So, my slogan for these posters will be, "Local Victory." Portland is already a place that supports the local farmer and even the small home garden.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

new york trip...

New Museum

Local Portlander, M.K. Guth's piece at the Whitney Biennial

White Columns

Chelsea

Painting?

Saturday, April 19, 2008

New Project


My new direction has been inspired by some journals that my Dad wrote in my childhood. While home for spring break, I spoke with my parents separately about their experiences with organic gardening. My mom doesn't know what first interested her with organic gardening. She feels that it was just something that was typical of the era. In the seventies, she attended the University of New Hampshire and studied plant science. Her and some other students pushed to get one of the green houses to be purely organic. They were not able to do this then, but today this is now available for students there. When my parents met, my father was interested in gardening, but it was my mother who introduced him to choosing to grow things organically. I grew up working with my parents in the gardens, but I have not focused before on why they chose to grow certain things. My father chose to grow things to maybe influence growth of other plants or to distract insects. Some varieties worked better than others and with organic gardening there isn't much time to make mistakes. Once something worked, he would keep working that or try something different the following year. His journals were a way to look back and document what worked and what needed to be changed.

What I am anticipating for my project is as follows:
Part 1:
4 5'x5' oil/acrylic paintings for each year of the journals.
-These will be based off of each year's seeds. (1991, 1993, 1997, and 1998)
I have been researching each company and variety of seed that he chose to buy that year. It is really hard to find some of these seeds now. The paintings will be composed of images of these varieties. I will have each diagramed also to show what still can be found with these companies, if it can be found through another company and then if it is no longer available. It is really interesting to think that these varieties that I grew up with I can no longer eat.

Part 2:
6 3'x4' watercolor pencil drawings on paper
-These images will be what I consider "backdrops" for the body of work. These will be drawings taken from photographs of me growing up in the garden. These are what I consider documentation of my childhood rather than just a nostalgic image. I am not commenting on how wonderful it was, but more how interesting this was for a child. At an early age I knew how things grew, and the work that needed to go into this. With a combination of the other work, I hope that this will be more apparent.

Part 3:
Projects based off of excerpts from my father's journals. These might be purely text based or maybe even a document that people could take with them. My father has been interested in something happening with these journals so I would like to work with him on maybe even making them available for the public.

Part 4:
Exploration of organic gardening via growing my own vegetable garden. I will be working with my roomates to grow our own organic garden and document that. Through my father's and other's advice, I will be exploring concepts with gardening. Through this, I will collect imagery to potentially use for new work. Also, I am hoping to come up with an installation of sorts that will go with this other work.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Latest piece in "Alphabet Soup" show

This is my latest drawing. It is a watercolor pencil drawing on museum board. It is called "Repression." It will be at the Mark Woolley Gallery at the Wonder Ballroom.

Alphabet Soup at Woolley at Wonder
A Group show about Gender Identity, Sexuality and Labels

128 NE Russell St.

The show will run March 8-22, 2008

SHOW OPENING/DANCE PARTY WITH DJ GLOBALRUCKUS & OTHERS:
Saturday, March 8th 2008, 5pm - Late

SHOW CLOSING/DANCE PARTY WITH DJ'S:
Friday, March 21st 2008, 5-pm - Late

Thursday, February 21, 2008

New Painting


Here is a piece that I made from a trip I took with my sister and her fiance this past christmas to Yosemite.
I am not sure yet what to title it. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.
Thanks!
wow. someone used my comment space to spam me. it wasn't that it was a bad title, just a little unwanted advertising.
spamming is lame. i now have had three spams on this one post. is that necessary? i will have to delete this image soon just because of this. that is interesting, but more annoying than anything

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

funny painting project



I was told recently that I should check out Komar & Melamid's collaboration. I found this site and it is hilarious! They interviewed people from selected countries to find out what people enjoyed or hated about paintings. They then created paintings for each country to show the differences. Most of the countries like a bluish landscape with a tree and hate brownish abstractions.
To check them out:
The Most Wanted and the Least Wanted paintings
For more info:
the website

Thursday, January 24, 2008

New piece


I tried to finish this piece for the Children of the Revolution show, but it was still wet. It is called, "I am Sorry." It is oil on canvas.

Children of the Revolution Show

This was from the Portland Mercury



My piece is to the right. It is called, "Adolescent Exploration via Nancy Drew"

This year started off with being asked to be part of Children of the Revolution. It was an event where 35 Portland artists had work up along with two nights of Portland bands. There are so many Portland artists and musicians that it was really great to see them come together for a show. Ususally, it would be one or the other, so this made it an intersting opportunity.