sunday aug. 7, 2011
Every serious photographer needs to look at as much art as possible!
That is why when I went to art school in NYC early in my career we had
to study ART!  I did pick up a paint brush too but my skills aren't that
great even though I LOVE WATERCOLORS!  Blending colors, watching them"melt" into each other is a TRIP!  It is also good therapy for any of your woes. So try it, you will like it!  Sooo.....I volunteered this week at Frank Bette Art Center in Alameda.  This is a gem of a Victorian building that is a hub of activity in this small town.  Workshops, classes, and very high quality art and photography for
show and for sale adorn the blue and yellow high walls. 
So check it out!   Now the process of preparing a show from start to finish is NOT easy. How to jury work? What pieces go with each other?  And how can someone ever pick best of the show and grant awards when there is so many really good pieces of art???  Difficult decisions to say the least!

The volunteer staff at FBC have it down to a science and yet the little
time I spent helping out was a good peek at seeing how they plan, measure the sizes of pieces on paper and then hang up salon style in rows to fill what seems like every bit of wall space!  Geeze, now that is an art! Someone even invented a clever wooden peg hole device to hang the paintings (fishing line wrapped around a pencil!).  How ingenious!
Hours and hours later, it was hung with the help of a score of volunteers.
Now that is not it, there is getting the food for the reception, the postcards, the flowers,  and the judge has  to spend hours picking his choices of winners (he also chose the work...thanks Seamus Berkeley).
Gallery volunteer Genie seems to have a buzz on everything in the gallery,  knows her stuff and has the answers or at least knows where to find the answers. Genie is invaluable to this  volunteer center for the arts.
I came to help out the day of the reception.  I arranged the flowers and set out the food which was donated.  Good food too, thanks!   About the art.... GREAT!
 It is very good and inspirational to me as a photographer and teacher.
I always take my photo students on a field trip to a gallery or to a museum.  Believe it or not, some people haven't been to an exhibit ever and it is literally an eye opener and cause for discussion, critique, and inspiration.  I tell my students to look, study, flip through magazines and figure out how the photo was taken, its composition and  perspective, color, light, and angle.   Art is about seeing and observing, interpreting
translating, and conveying......just a few things of many things.
Good painters know this, most painters make excellent photographers because of their studies and execution of the painting process.
Here are a few pictures I shot while I was in the "process" of the art hanging experience.
Great job, Frank Bette Art Center and all of those wonderful painters and volunteers! Please do  come and join me at my future class at
FBC and please stop on by and purchase some art work. 
See link below! 

http://www.frankbettecenter.org/
En Plein Air: Alameda and Beyond  Aug 5 - Oct 1
Gala Opening: Friday, Aug 5, 7 - 9 pm
1601 Paru (Lincoln) Alameda, CA

PLEASE SIGN UP FOR MY CLASS(tba below) 
http://www.frankbettecenter.org/Ancestral_Roots_Workshop.html

 


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