GBSS is celebrating two years of operation with a reception and open house on Saturday, March 27, beginning at 7 pm. Come see what we've been up to and mingle with fellow artists from around the area. It's an exciting time for La Crosse's art community right now, and we'd like to have you over to meet, share, converse, partake in beverages and hors d' oeuvres, and just have some fun in our studio.
We will have art on display by studio members and friends including Jenn Bushman, Erich Boldt, Matt Duckett, Lisa Ulik, Sarah Piper and Alesa De Jager.
Green Bay Street Studio is located at 1500 Green Bay St., along with the Family Resource Center. We're around the back, in the southeast corner of the building. For directions click on our contacts page.
Jenn won the Best-of-Show award at the annual Summer
Exhibition sponsored
by Walls of Wittenberg. She
exhibited her painting of cabbage brussels sprouts, below. The oil
painting measures 4' x 3', and is quite an impressive work of foliage.
Be sure to congratulate her the next time you see her!
In related news....
Over the weekend, we decided to try to spruce up our back lot. Since we all live in apartments, we don't have the opportunity to grow a garden in our yards. So we decided to build a few raised bed gardens outside our back door. We figured it would beautify the rather drab area, while also providing ourselves and friends wih some healthy (and delicious) food over the summer. Come to an event at the studio in a month or so and you'll hopefully get to try some GBSS veggies!
We wanted to use materials we already had on hand. This included some old, worn 2-bys and a bit of chipboard. There's some of our chillies and tomatoes up there, and below Jenn is watering our bell peppers and cucumbers. I can't wait until some of our other plants are visible.
Now read on, please, because there is a ton of news from the last couple weeks!
The studio has been bustling over the last couple weeks with artwork and students.
Mrs. Metz brought her 3rd through 5th grade artists from Harry Spence Elementary over for a workshop. The young artists enjoyed three different stations of art-making, including Still-Life Drawing with Matt, where students got use make mixed media images of various still lifes with the mess of materials and drawing tools available to them at the studio. With Jenn, the students got to make a real monotype print, using various inks and oils, watch as the plates were run through the press, then see the prints pulled right in front of them. Erich took his groups outside for a fun-filled Splatter Painting free-for-all!Plenty of wonderful art was made, and the works were put on display for the whole city to see in the GBSS Storefront Gallery! Check the blog for more info and pics>>
The Second Annual Visions of Youth Juried Exhibition is up at the La Crosse Public Library. This year was amazing. We had almost 100 entries–four times that of last year! The jurying process was difficult, and Guest Juror Mike Martino helped us make some tough decisions. Check the blog for more info and pics>>
Last night was a blast. Thank you to everyone who came and helped make the night a success. Our studio and hallways were filled to capacity with new and old friends, who kept us laughing and talking until long after we lost an hour to Spring. It was great to have so many people warming the place up and enjoying the company of the art community and the art appreciators in La Crosse and beyond. We're still in a bizarre state of stunned encouragement by the showing we had last night, and we can't thank you all enough. Here are some pictures from the amazing night (once we could finally find a camera and snap some pics!). Click on the images for a larger version. Don't forget to check our blog for more images.
If you didn't get a chance to come out last night we hope that you can still drop by at a future event. If you did happen to make it last night, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
On Saturday, March 7, we will be hosting a studio visit and reception to celebrate our one year anniversary. Last year we had a great turn out for our Grand Opening, and we would love to have you back to see what we've been up to since. There are so many things that we'd like to share with you, and we will just touch on a few of the latest items here in this newsletter. At our reception, we can share more of them with you over some hors d'oeuvres, recent artwork, good company and...our new press!
We just completed an ironman roadtrip to the wind-whipped frigid expanses of central Michigan, where we picked up a Wright combination press, for intaglio and lithographic printmaking. We'd love to have you over to help us break it in and pull some prints from it. How about our reception? Check our website or blog for more on our press and our roadtrip, and for directions to our studio and other contact information.
GBSS Artists Erich Boldt and Matt Duckett were invited to participate in the La Crosse School District's Career Day for eighth graders, which included students from Logan, Lincoln, Longfellow, Onalaska and Holmen Middle Schools. Erich and Matt represented the Fine Artist profession, discussing with students the path that they have taken in order to live a life of art. They discussed what it takes to establish a foundation for a career in art, some of the market trends and forces on artists, and some of the many ways a fine artist can carve out a living. Remember: sketchbook, sketchbook, sketchbook!
Announcing the GBSS Spring Break Art Workshops! Designed for younger students, either middle or high school-age, this four-day set of workshops covers the various processes involved in creating paintings, both realist and abstract. Included will be discussions of creativity and motivation. It will be packed with information that even adult artists strive to find out, and will be an invaluable experience for young artists as they enter high school or college. Put together by artists who have examined their own pre- and post-secondary experiences and shortcomings, the aim is to provide young people with a knowledge and understanding of art that is often provided too late--after the development of necessary skills that takes place in our teenage years. We look forward to having fun and sharing our knowledge with young artists in an exciting stage of their lives. Check back soon or email us for registration form and more information, including schedule of events.
Workshop cost is $100 for four days.
To register, email us at: info (at) g b s studio (dot)
com.
(Just take out the spaces and put the symbols where they need to go--we don't
want any spam attending these workshops!)
The classes will be taught by Erich Boldt and Matt Duckett. Erich Boldt is a substitute teacher for the La Crosse School District, and has taught in five school districts in Wisconsin. He graduated in 2007 from UW-Stout with a B.S. in Education and a B.F.A. in Fine Art. He has exhibited work across the state. Matt Duckett is a recent UWL grad with a B.A. in Fine Art and a B.A. in English. He has already won numerous awards and commissions during his young career, including being commissioned to create a portrait of new UWL Chancellor Joe Gow for his inaugural ceremony, and being the only UWL student commissioned by the UWL Foundation to create a new piece of work for their collection. He is also the two-time winner of the Dale and Betty Kendrick Award for a Painter, the highest award available for a painting student at UWL.
Matt Duckett will be teaching a figurative drawing class at the Pump House Regional Arts Center starting in February. The Pump House just announced their next year of Arts Education classes and workshops. The four-week session will cover the basics of rendering a figure, from proportion, to musculature, faces, and line and tonal techniques. The class will be working in charcoal, but can accommodate your medium if you'd like. Students will work from a live model, so this is a grand opportunity to tighten up your figure drawing abilities in an instructional, structured environment.
The class is a four-week session, either Wednesday afternoons or Thursday nights. That's:
February 18, 25, March 4, 11, 2 pm - 3:30 or
February 19, 26, March 5, 12, 6p - 7:30.
The cost is $95 ($85 for Pump House Members).
Head over to the Pump House website for more information, the materials list,
to see the other shops offered, and to register.
La Crosse has just created the new City Arts Board. This is great news for the art community of La Crosse, since it means more representation and attention from City Hall. This should mean more opportunities in the near future for both young and older artists, and the Board will be working to cement La Crosse's reputation as a fertile arts city. Matt Duckett recently received a mayoral appointment to serve a two-year term on the Board. It is an exciting opportunity for him to be able to represent the young artists of the area in such a critical forum for their growth and futures.
The first figure drawing session of the year went great. Thanks to everyone who made it out despite the ice and cold. Everyone must've been starved of drawing, becasue we filled the place up. We look forward to seeing you all next week!
Thanks for your support and interest in independent art in La Crosse,
The Green Bay Street Studio
