Emeryville Market Reception

 The reception went great!  Nicky and I came up with a last minute dark theme as we were shopping for goodies.  As you can see in the pic below it was mainly dark colored treats including chocolate chocolate chip cookies I made, red wine and black plates and napkins.

We got their early to eat, set up and, as I figured, people started showing up about an hour and a half into the beginning of the reception time.  It was nice to have a friend their to chat with until people started to make their way in.  Once people started showing we had a great group.  The reception was spent talking about our art, eating, drinking and just spending time with our friends.  I also auctioned off a small piece of art in which a friend and fellow Hipliner Laura Andel won!

My muse Andrea posing with her portrait

 The market closes at 9pm so we were nicely kicked out a little after that time and a smaller group of us decided to keep the fun going with a few games of pool at a pool hall next door.

What a great group of goofballs!

 All in all it was a great night!  If you haven't stopped by the market yet our art will be up for a few more days, the last day will be either Friday the 2nd or Saturday the 3rd.

Art Show at the Emeryville Public Market

 New art up at the Emeryville Public Market!  The reception is July, Friday the 19th 6-9pm, come check out mine and my friend Nicky's art!  Check out the facebook invite for more details!

Okay now that I've advertised here's the story on how this happened.  I previously had an art show up at a bakery called Sweet Adeline, which I'm behind on blogging so I think I missed the boat on that blog... Any who, I was having a little reception in which a few of my friends showed up to, thank you friends!  I was talking with them about the series and this couple came in who started looking at my work.  I approached them and introduced myself as the artist and we spoke about my work, how I did it and that they enjoyed it.

They then told me their names, Julia Lazar and Tom Franco, which if you know who his brother is props to you, I'm so bad at celebrity names I had no idea until Nicky told me later.  They work together in managing the Firehouse Art Collective in Berkeley and also curate work that goes up at the Emeryville Market.  They gave me their card and asked to contact them if I was interested in hanging my art there with a friend.  They have a lot of wall space so they always have two artists work up at a time.

I asked my artist friend Nicky, she said yes, we connected with them, set up a month and we hung our art up with the help of Tom on June 30th.  It was all very exciting for me because it was the first time I was approached and asked to hang my work somewhere, where as usually I'm seeking out places that will let me hang my work.  Made me feel like a real artist and I'm very excited to have my work up at the Emeryville Public Market.

You can check out our work at the market any time this month.  We are also featured in their blog and July NewZine!

Art for Partition Event

This was an amazing event!  The view was lovely, the food was super tasty, I learned a lot and met some great people!  So let's start from the beginning.  I find the location, squish into a tiny elevator (I mean tiny!), and went up to the Berkeley Sky Deck which was a super nice  location, here's a pic of the view...

There were large windows surrounding the whole place, it was amazingly calming seeing as I was a little nervous to be in this place where I knew no one and many had personal reasons for being there.  I definitely felt like an outsider.

I soon found my piece hanging near the entrance with its fancy title ;).  I also enjoyed looking at all the wonderful art that was donated to the event by various artists.

My donated art: Britt from Love, Paint & Dance

They then served some super tasty Indian food and we took our seats for the speakers.  I sat with this lovely family, they were super friendly and had two adorable children.  The little girl kept asking me questions about being an artist and that she likes to draw but she really wants to be a writer, adorable!  One of the women at my table also spoke to me about her work raising money for scholarships and asked for my contact info.  She asked if I was interested in donating my work to one of their fundraiser events.  It's always great to make new connections!

There was a special speaker, an author, Dr. Bapsi Sidhwa, who has written various books, one being Cracking India which is based around the events of the Partition of India.  She was a lovely speaker, I learned a lot about the dreadful things that happened during the Partition of India, how many lives were lost and how many families separated.  Their goal is to gather an many life stories from those who went through the events first hand and to document them for future generations and to hopefully learn from it so that it doesn't happen again.

View from where I was sitting of Dr. Bapsi Sidhwa

This was a wonderful experience I was happy to be a part of and has inspired me to look into future donation possibilities.  It's a great way to support a good cause, network and learn something new!  I greatly value growing and learning in every way we can so this was a wonderful and valuable experience I wont soon forget.

Sweet Adeline Art Show

My 4th art show is up and ready to go!  I hung my art series "Friends & Strangers", Thursday evening which was super easy seeing as Sweet Adeline is only a block away from where I live.  I went and did a bit of measuring, went back to my apartment, prepared the wires, walked my art on over and hung everything up in only 15 minutes.  It was awesome!  Oh the little things in life...

Even better, only a few hours latter I received an email from a man who works there requesting to purchase one of my pieces!  That is the fastest I have sold a piece of my art after putting it on display, it was a very pleasant surprised!  When I went by the cafe for him to purchase the piece he told me he's writing a book about a girl named "May" and the piece he purchased titled "Briana" reminded him of his character.

Above is the image he purchased.  It is one of my newest pieces and also one of my favorites.  The woman in the image is actually one of my long time childhood friends, Briana.  She has been one of my muses for many years, as you can see from this previous blog post "Goddess Watercolor Print".  I'm so glad someone can enjoy the piece as much as I do.  "Briana" will be available in my etsy shop as a print soon.

For those in the area I am having an art reception Saturday the 13th!  It is 3pm to 5pm and if you're around and nice enough you can join in the after party at my place down the street.

Art for Partition

In my last post which you can read here, I wrote about my very first art donation to a good cause.  Now it is two weeks away from the event.  I have dropped off my piece and it is now on their website ready for bidding on.

If you'd like to check it out or even bid on it you can do so here.  Bidding ends at 6:30pm April 6th.

There will also be an event that is open to the public and free at 2pm!  If you happen to live in the bay area and wish to come I'd love to see you there.  Here is a link to the facebook invite.

I'm excited and nervous about this.  I'm excited to do something new and for a good cause, to meet fellow artist at the event and I'm sure I'll learn a ton.  I'm nervous mainly because I'm hard on myself, and my work and hope people enjoy the piece I have donated and bid on it.  My fear is that not a single bid will come in... But again, that's just my fears coming coming to the surface, which I am trying not to focus on.

Wish me and my art luck!

Art Donation

I have another first coming my way, I will be donating a piece of my art for auction!  The proceeds will benefit the 1947 Partition Archive, helping them discover shared histories and preserving the last remaining memories of Partition of India which led to the creation of Pakistan, where a lot of human rights were violated.

About Partition

1947 was the year that marked the end of the British Raj in South Asia as well as the birth of India and Pakistan. The newly Partitioned boundaries and self-governance came at a cost however. Over a million lost their lives and many millions more were displaced from their ancestral homes as Muslims migrated to Pakistan while Sikhs, Hindus and others migrated to India, making it one of the largest mass displacements in history. During the ordeal, over 100,000 women were abducted and countless children orphaned.
 
Arjunels, the event coordinator contacted me, discovering my art from my etsy shop Elven Grove.  He expressed that he was impressed with my art and asked if I would be interested in donating to their cause.  I had never donated a piece of my art before and thought it could be a great opportunity to see how much my work might auction for.  It's also another way to get my work out there, the event will be featured in the New York Times, radio press releases and other various publications and of course it'll be great to do some good in 2013.

The event deets:

• When: April 6, 2013
• Where: Berkeley Skydeck in the Penthouse Suite, directly above Downtown Berkeley BART Station
• What: The event is an auction and lunch where donated works would be auctioned off .
• Who: High profile audience, who will be charged $100 a plate, and later be opened up to the general public.  High profile members include world famous professors and archeologists, corporate sponsors and Steven Spielberg is also one of our possible attendees. (I get in for free for donating)
  

If you happen to live in the bay area and want to come to this event, during the open public section which is 3pm-4pm along with lectures and food after 4pm, come on out!  I'll be there ;).

Piece I am donating, Titled: Britt

Heartbreak

I feel a little funny writing about this for all the interweb to see, okay maybe not all, my blog isn't quite that popular, but odd putting it out there none the less.  I'm going through some heartbreak right now, my boyfriend and I of two years are no longer.  It's called "break" for a reason, you feel the shards inside you, it may heal overtime but I believe if you truly love/loved someone there will always be a scar.  You are never quite the same.

Why put this out there?  Because we can't have the good without the bad and I think it's important to say hey, we're all human, we've all been through this (unless you're 5 and have yet to experience a relationship), we've been in deep dark holes... Why hide it?  Though it must be remembered there is a fine line, it's good to let it out, feel what you need to feel but don't let it overcome who you are.  Instead learn from it, grow from it, take something good away from the bad, lemons into lemonade as they say.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not suddenly leaping through flowery fields splashing lemonade on my face, I'm still healing.  However I have been able to squeeze one lemon, with emotion comes inspiration.  The artistic gears in my brain are turning, my emotions are wishing to come out on the canvas... My next art series is a brewing.

Feel the pain but turn your tear filled eyes up to the sun, this is not the end, there is more to come.