New Work - "The Circle" - Mixed Media Collage on Canvas

The Circle
By Tiffany Teske
Mixed Media Collage with Vintage Elements
16x20"
$150 (for a limited time)

I have been busy, busy, busy creating new work lately. It feels GREAT! I created this piece for a local art show called Home Grown. It is my 4th year being a part of this well attended show that brings together artists with our community.

This piece, like so many I create, started with a concrete plan that soon changed COMPLETELY. I love having a starting point, then seeing how far away from that it gets. I started with a 16x20" canvas that I bought at the thrift shop, already painted a nice springy shade of yellow-green. I have been wanting to try a new technique a week and for this piece I used bubble wrap as part of the layered background, as well as large stamping on just part of the piece. I like how both turned out.

The tree is made from a vintage map. The birds are illustrations from a vintage book. And the buttons... vintage (shocking, I know!). The title is The Circle. The text is from a vintage dictionary and it reads Life, Death, and Circle. It is about the Circle of life (and death). The tree represents death, the birds represent life, and the buttons, well, circles. The palette is not one I work with a lot but I grew to love the yellow with brown, black, white, and pink accents.

This piece is currently for sale in the show for $150. I plan to raise the price if it doesn't sell in the show since it is worth more than $150 but I wanted to give people the opportunity to buy this at a special price this month, in celebration of local art and the coming of spring...

Home Grown Art Show

Tonight we went to the Home Grown Art Show at the Banff Town Hall. It is an annual event and I submitted a piece for the month long exhibition. This annual exhibition "showcases the work of a wide variety of artists living in the Bow Valley. Some are professionals, while others are amateur artists who create art for personal pleasure." I believe there were even some works by kids and young adults.

It was also the unveiling of the maquettes (miniature models) made by the finalists in the 2008 Banff Public Art Competition.



It was both a well run and well attended event. I would say there were about 200 people over the course of the two and a half hours we were there. There was awesome food, and the town hall was a nice place to have all the works of art. It was a bit like an art treasury hunt as it was on walls, in cases, and in several different rooms all through out the building. I would say there were about 50 works of art. Photography, paintings, wood working, sculpture, mixed media. Of course because it is in Banff I woul say that 85% of it was landscape or wildlife based.



My piece was one of the more unique pieces, which is fun. It was kind of the joke of the night between my friends and family that my work was at the bottom of a wall case in a hard to find area but I took it in stride, since you win some, you lose some. I really entered this exhibit to get to know other artists in the community and I was content to sip some wine, gobble cheese, and watch my Quin play with the other kids, while socializing. We saw some familiar faces which was great. I also met a woman named Kelly, and her daughter and husband, and we hit it off and were invited to Motoring Munchkins tomorrow. Fun, fun!



After the exhibit we went to Sylvain and Mariana's for awhile. They will only be here for a couple more weeks, which is a bummer. "Ana" is Q's second mama. We will miss them :(



When we got home from their house, there was a voicemail message on the phone. It was someone, calling me from the art reception (earlier in the evening) who works at the Town Hall. He had seen my piece, Self Emerging, which is a gelatin plate monoprint incorporating one of my color images that I made black and white for the piece. He wants to purchase it! That of course was the cherry on an already awesome evening.



I have to say, that since I started creating work for myself (last February for the Erotica exhibit in Chelsea, Quebec)and not for its marketability, I have sold almost everything I have exhibited. That reinforces things for me, makes me more confident as an artist, and inspires me with possibility. And I am THRILLED that the two works that I have exhibited in Banff were both bought by locals. Awesome :)