Mo*Bee's Blog #8: The Art Show

Mo*Bee's Blog #8:  The Art Show

I entered my first art show! I love to do art, and as some of you know I started Mo*Bee's Class Finderbecause I was having such a horrible time trying to find a sculpting class. Months after my initial search on the Internet for a sculpting class, I finally found one the old-school way, in the newspaper. This was the first art class of any kind that I had ever taken since elementary school. Oh wait that's not true, I almost forgot, I took pottery in high school. Anyway, this class was at the Tryon Painters and Sculptors.

I had a blast in this sculpting class. Our teacher was the sweetest lady, Lalage Warrington who is also an incredibly good sculptor. She taught us a number of different sculpting medias: air dry clay, paper-mâché, paper clay, and some others.

 Lalage Warrington

After taking this class, I decided to do a piece of artwork made out of different sized small pieces of clay tiles, some with objects on top. For a long time now I have been collecting little odds and ends. Some of these things were objects people gave me. Some of these things were just things I found. My title for this work was “Little bits of me, and the bits I took from you.” Want to see it? Here it is.

“Little bits of me, and the bits I took from you.”

Each tile was hand made by me out of air dry clay. Each tile represents something that I did, or something that I like, or something someone gave me. It was my way of making a journal. I didn't have to spell words to make it. But I can read it to you like a book. I made it so that it would be somewhat like a grid. When you're looking at the piece, if you use imaginary numbers across the top, then, starting at the top left corner and going down, use an imaginary alphabet. You could ask me, “what is the tile on Q-6 of or what is the A-13 tile?”

The Fish hook

My Deputy Sheriff's Badge

 And I could tell you “Q-6 is a fish hook from one of my and crazy Ann's fishing trips over at Lake Lure. And A-13 is an impression of my actual Deputy Sheriff badge from back in my younger days.”(Like I said in an earlier blog, my sense of having fun mixed in with my desire to make a positive difference, when I can, sometimes clouds my judgment when it comes to things like oh let's say ...my personal safety.) Everything that is on this piece of artwork is connected to me in some way. There is a story that goes with each and every tile. These are a few of my favorite memories.

The tile with the wood shavings is from a woodworking project I helped Beth with at her house.(left,2nd down)

The tile with the #7 on it is a penny that Kelly put on a railroad track in Zirconia, NC behind the house I owned before moving to Columbus. We looked for that penny for weeks after the train hit it. As you can see we found it. Then I marked it with a #7 just because I like that number.

Theater mask is from Little Peggy.  It was made from one of her earrings
she gave it to me to use in an art project because she knows how much
I love the theater. To the right of that is baby shark teeth that Candice and
I found at the Outer Banks.

I love to do different kinds of art. My friend little Peggy who lives in South Carolina comes up sometimes and stays for a few days. We do different little art projects, just for ourselves, just for the fun of it. Like I said earlier, I have never entered a piece of art into a show much less a juried show. I had not planned to enter this one. Kelly is the one who brought it up. One day she said,” hey an art show is coming up and I think you should enter that artwork you did with all those little tiles.” While I never thought it good enough to go in a show, part of me thought how fun it would be just to go to the show and stand near my art and just listen to what people had to say about it. They would not know that I made it, so they would talk freely about what they thought about it. This intrigued me and I thought it would be fun, so I decided to enter it. Guess what?… It got picked!  “I know, shut up, right!”  I was just as surprised as you are. While my piece didn't win any accolades.(Well, other than the big one of being picked to be in the show in the first place.) I had a lot of people make really cool comments about it. One lady told another lady that my piece was her favorite of the show. This was a big deal to me because I happen to know that the lady who said that, used to own an art gallery in New York. I have seen a lot of her work and I am a big fan. My daughter Candice and Kelly went to the opening reception of the show with me. We all had a great time and a lot of laughs.

Opening Night.
My piece is on the back wall center of this photo

After the show to celebrate Kelly took us all to the Harvest House Restaurant in Landrum, South Carolina.

Oh my goodness, to anyone reading this, if you have never been to the Harvest House Restaurant in Landrum, South Carolina, then you must stop doing whatever you're doing right now.  (Yes, I know you're reading my blog right now. I don't care. ) Stop and get in your car to  go pick up all your friends and family.  Then take them to this restaurant for dinner, and they will thank you for it.

When you go in, don't be fooled by their laid-back atmosphere. While the dining area is relaxed and comfortable, the food is fine dining. If you are into fine dining, you must not let this jewel slip you by.  And if you're coming to try this place out, please, please, please stop by and pick me up on your way.

Man, I was really looking forward to what I was going to fix for supper. Now I'm just sitting here disappointed that I'm going to have to eat my own cooking, which is not bad by the way.  But it's in no way anywhere near as good as Harvest House. You know what... what I thawed out can wait until tomorrow night. Got to go now folks. If I hurry, maybe I can get tonight's special before they run out.

I'm out of here!

Dee
a.k.a. Mo*Bee

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