VERVE Showcase was Wonderful!!!

      

Verve Showcase on August 25th was a lot of fun! Thank you to everyone who came out - so good to see you all! The art in the room was fantastic; everyone was so friendly; the musicians rocked; the fashion runway show at the end was darling. It's hard for me to gauge how my performance went, but I seemed to have the attention of most of the people in the room, about 300-400 people at that point. It was an amazing experience to be performing on a runway in a mask and a headdress with my Split Mask and book trailer videos on three screens! (I stripped the sound in the videos and performed poems.) I sold books, raglan tees and a painting, which made it a lovely evening. The last photo in the row above is from the end of the night looking down on the floor from my artist's spot upstairs. On the aftermath of Verve, yeah, I'd say, a beautiful evening.

Cate McKim wrote a fab article on RAW Artist's Verve Showcase  highlighting some of the artists and offering a slideshow from the evening. Check it out. Thanks Cate! [Cate gets the photo credit on the 1st two photos of me on stage. Mucho gracias.]

The next night I was back at Verve Showcase to celebrate my niece, Tara's showcase! Took a double selfie... and we were lit up by purple lights!

As I made my way around the venue, enjoying every artist, the whole shebang of everything, what a great venue, Strike Boogie struck in the midst of transformation (that's him in the photo below), oh wow, wow! And Philip Cairns came, and, yes, he got some fabulous bling!

[A friend took video of my performance and I was waiting to meet and get it before posting. So I will be posting more photos later and possibly video, depending on how it turned out.]
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Charcoal Sketches of Close-ups of Three Women

      

Looks like I have a spot at Verve, put on by RAW Artists, on Thursday August 25th in Toronto, if, that is, I can sell 20 tickets for the show. I will have a 15 minute Performance Artist spot on stage and will project some videopoems while I perform the poems, as well as about 7.5' of wall to show and sell artwork. My book, Tidal Fury, will be published by then and so I will perform from it as well as have copies to sell.

Naturally, I am doing some new work. These are small (for me!) - 16" x 20" x 1.5". The sketches are charcoal on primed canvas and will be painted in oils. One is a self-portrait, the other two are women I know. I thought to do close-ups of women, and found these in my collection of photographs, so, yes, they are from photographs - but my knowledge of all of us, and earlier drawings I've done, informs the sketches. No idea what will happen when I paint them in oils - I love watercolour, but I had these canvases lying around waiting.
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