—Bonnie Gangelhoff

Did I mention we're in the middle of the second round of judging for our Annual Art Competition? If it wasn't already apparent by my lack of blogging, we are totally in the thick of it.

To give you a little insight, here's how the competition works after you send in your art:

1. All the entries are processed by our competitions department (who have been working overtime once the deadline passed).
2. We send the entries along to our screener judge, who does the first round of viewing.
3. The screener judge's selections are sent back to the main office, where The Artist's Magazine's editors have the arduous task of cutting down the number of entries in each of the five categories from a few hundred to about 50, who are our finalists.
4. Then we send them to the final round judges—this year the "celebrity" judges are Nelson Shanks, Jane Jones, Susan Shatter, Jimmy Wright and David N. Kitler. They select the winning images from the finalists and send their results back to us.
5. Then we get working on the December issue, where we get to reveal the winners! (Here's last year's.)
   

I tell you, this is a grueling process. Right now we're still working on step 3. All of us have favorites out of the finalists, and I'm really excited to see if any of my personal picks make it to the top.

In August, Southwest Art publishes its annual Native American-themed issue. One of the talented painters featured is the award-winning Chippewa artist David Bradley. Bradley's intriguing images arrived this morning and made me smile. I found myself scouring Pictures at an Exhibition (click above to enlarge) looking for famous faces amid the art crowd at his imaginary Santa Fe opening.

In American Gothic (at right), Bradley's wry social commentary brings together television and art world icons. The Santa Fe-based painter sent me this statement about the piece:

"Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz meet Tonto and the Lone Ranger. Tonto and the LR are retired and running a B&B called the Silver Bullet. O'Keeffe & Stieglitz are tourists. Stieglitz is rolling his eyes after their encounter with Tonto, who sold them some curios from his stand."

What sendups. Bradley gives us much to think but softens his message with a dash of the ironic among the iconic.

Well, we want to know what you think about The Artist's Magazine. If you take our survey, you can enter a drawing to win a $50 gift certificate for North Light Books!

We'll draw one winning entry from the survey respondents on July 1. Click here to take the survey!

The Artists Network team trekked up to Middletown, Ohio, to meet up with artist Kevin Macpherson, whose "Reflections on a Pond" exhibit is up for another few weeks. Our publisher, Jamie Markle interviewed the artist. Check it out!



Learn more:

• Kevin Macpherson's Landscape Painting Inside and Out
• Macpherson's Fill Your Paintings with Light & Color
• Download an article on painting foliage with Macpherson

—Bonnie Gangelhoff

Joseph Raffael's Studio Bouquet (watercolor, 54x84)

Our friend Joseph Raffael got a great writeup in the Denver Post this week. The watercolor artist's gigantic florals are starting a national right now, so you can see them for yourself in your neck of the woods:

Arvada Art Center, Denver, CO

April 17 through June 1, 2009

Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, Fort Collins, CO
June 8 through August 20, 2009

The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
September 10 through October 26, 2009

The Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York City
November 5, 2009, through January 2, 2010

Polk Museum of Art, Lakeland, FL
January 23 through April 4, 2010

You can read more about Raffael in the June 2007 issue of Watercolor Artist and the May 2009 issue of The Artist's Magazine.

Cross the red line and begin thinking outside the box. Or consider the line a symbol of opening up your mind to what's inside, Laura Merage is fond of saying. The brightly lit red line Merage is talking about is embedded in the entry ceiling at a phenomenal new visual arts center in downtown Denver.

RedLine is Merage's brainchild. A local philanthropist and artist, she scouted out a 20,000-square-foot former auto parts warehouse and, with the help of a design firm, transformed it into a sleek contemporary art gallery with studio space for 13 artists. Next to the Denver Art Museum, RedLine is now the city's largest art exhibition space.

Merage began with a dream of providing affordable studios to talented artists and a desire to give them a leg up in their careers. Local artists were invited to apply for two- or three-year residencies. A jury selected 13, and today these artists inhabit a space for about $120 per month plus a bit of community service.

The RedLine artists hold regular critique sessions and have the opportunity to show their work in the sprawling exhibition space. In addition, Merage helps them find gallery representation.

By all accounts, the crowds are pouring in to the space during monthly art walks. Lectures by local painters, gallery owners and collectors are open to the public. And during my recent visit, volunteers were just breaking down a successful show of works by young students from the nearby Denver School of the Arts.

Many consider RedLine a gift to the neighborhood—it's located in a "transitional" area where parking lots meet homeless shelters. Merage's big hope is that the center can raise the level of the visual art scene in Denver. My hunch is that she's created an impressive nonprofit model that other cities may eventually imitate. 

Thanks to It's Nice That, I came across the work of Mr. Ian Wright, a playful illustrator/artist with a penchant for what I like to think of as large-scale, tactile pointillism.

The 72x72 Mao image at right is made of Chinese silk-covered 1-inch buttons stuck into foamcore. The ripped paper portrait of hip hop artist T.I. (above) is for his album "Paper Trail." Clever, eh?

From Cathy Johnson, in the February 1995 issue of The Artist's Magazine:

Donating your work is a good way to help a worthy cause and use your art for a noble purpose, but be prudent. Make sure it's to a cause you really believe in and an organization you trust. And don't donate your inferior pieces; if a work isn't good enough to sell, it's not good enough to give away, either.

And that reminds me of the Artist-Museum Partnership Act. Whatever happened to that? Well, it seems to have died in committee each of the last few years it's been introduced. The act would allow artists, writers and composers to use the appraised value of the donated work as a tax deduction. Right now, you can only deduct the cost of the materials. It's been introduced in the House and Senate again this year. Here's hoping the 111th Congress does something with it.

Ever wonder how artists get into magazines like ours? We're revealing how the publishing industry works in our live, online seminar, Get Published: How the Industry Works & How You Can Make an Impression. You'll learn:

• How publishers and editors discover artists
• What you can do to get noticed
• How to pitch an idea
• What editors expect
• How an article or book evolves
• How to work with book and magazine editors

Mark your calendars now for the live session at 1 p.m. Wednesday, May 27. Everyone who registers for this event will receive, in addition to a download of the seminar, submission guidelines for The Artist’s Magazine, North Light Books, The Pastel Journal and Watercolor Artist.

An online workshop—also called a "webinar"—is a lot like a live workshop or seminar, only it takes place over the Internet. That means you can “attend” the workshop from the comfort of home. All you need a computer and a broadband Internet connection—no special computer skills required.

You just log in at the special URL provided when you register, then listen and follow along as the presenter shares helpful tips and advice on the workshop topic. As you listen, you can pose questions for the presenter to answer during the Q&A segment of the workshop. A "host" will also be available to help if you encounter any technical issues.

Visit our Online Seminars page to learn more and reserve your spot!