Artwork By Martin Nelson

Basquiat | Block Print On Paper | 2009

The Three Eyes Of Man | Oil On Canvas | 2009

Untitled (Figure Study 1) | Acrylic, Mixed Media On Canvas | 2009

Yellow | Acrylic, Mixed Media On Canvas | 2009

Head, Not Foot | Acrylic On Canvas | 2010

FAC Gallery Holiday Art Show

Franklin Arts Center

Sculptures By Martin Nelson

Jar Heads | Ceramic, Mixed Media | 2009

Barnabas (Figure Study 2) | Ceramic | 2009

Samuel (Figure Study 1) | Ceramic | 2009

FAC Gallery Holiday Art Show

Franklin Arts Center

Artwork By Mitchell Cory Nelson and Martin Nelson

Gallery View

2010

FAC Gallery Holiday Art Show

Franklin Arts Center

Here are some recent photos from the FAC Gallery holiday art show which is going on right now. Both my dad and I have some artwork in the show along with some other artists in the building. A lot of these pieces of mine were done over the last two years in college, and the sculptures were created during the mentor protege program that I was involved in through the school. Enjoy the couple of slideshows to come and if you are in the area stop by and see the gallery and show in person. 

Yes, I forgot to mention one thing which was supposed to go in the previous post.

You may be wondering why today, the day that I return, the name of the blog changes.

Well, the reason that it was changed from STUDIO 11 to STUDIO 117 is because the classroom number that is next to the door in the hallway says 117. I thought that it was only fitting to call the blog and the studio in general STUDIO 117. 

So, now you know. 

Hello again. I have returned to Tumblr and my blog after a very long time which has been filled with many exciting adventures, life changing events, and promising new beginnings. As I look back on older posts it looks like I last posted on February 25, 2010, WOW, thats a long time.

 So, I am sure you are all wondering what the heck I have been doing for nine months, right? 

Well, lets start back in March of this year. At that time I got the chance to go to both Italy and Greece for school. I spent about a week and half exploring these wonderful countries and indulging in amazing food, culture, and sites. It was a huge eye-opening experience as far as art goes for me. I have been to many art museums in the United States as well as the art scene in Paris, France a couple of years ago, but this trip was different. Actually being able to stand in the Sistine Chapel and look up at the masterpiece painted by Michelangelo is beyond words. I stood there for about a half and hour trying to take it all in until my group was told to move on so more people could come through. Defiantly something that everyone should see at some time in their life no matter what. Continuing with Michelangelo and his beautiful creations, the Pieta, which is also at the vatican, is a stunning marble sculpture of the body of Jesus in Mary’s lap after the crucifixion. 

Also, If you go ever go to Italy, Florence is a must. Only about an hour or so on the train, it makes a great day trip tho I would have loved to of stayed their much longer. It is a nice city with a lot to do and the nice thing is that it is quite and and very relaxing. It is kinda crazy how when we got there it seemed that time had stopped, compared to Rome with all the hustle and bustle and people everywhere. So, onto Florence and the main attraction, The Statue Of David. Another piece where I don’t even know what to type right now because for someone who has seen it in real life this sculpture is so mind blowing. He is 17 feet tall, and his hand alone is like the size of me (almost). 

So, as you can see, along with the many memories I also gained a great deal or inspiration from art history and just art in general for projects of my own back at home. Many of these projects are still in the works, as in on paper or in my head, but will hopefully come to life soon. 

Moving on. I happened to move this summer/fall. My parents and I moved up to Northern Minnesota, Brainerd to be exact. My dad and I currently have a studio space in the Franklin Art Center. It is an old Jr High School that is divided in half, one side has open studios and commercial businesses, and the other side has apartments for working artists. It is a pretty cool place to work and be able to have these other artists around in the same area. The art making has been a little slow for both my dad and I as we are still trying to find time to organize and get things ready in the studio along with the many other things going on. Hopefully soon we will be ready to have an open house and all.

Here is a link to the building with some more information. 

Franklin Arts Center

My dad and I currently have some work in a holiday show in the FAC Gallery, which is in the building, along with some other artists.

So, thats what’s up, that is what my life has been like the last couple of months, stay tuned now that I am back with more posts to come soon. 

Things to come:

Photos of the NEW studio

Photos of the FAC Gallery holiday show

New Artwork/ Artwork in progress

BLOG POSTS - Hopefully everyday, at least when I can

Foot In The Door 4 | Video

Here is the video that was showing on opening night of Foot In The Door. It was video of every single piece of artwork that was on display and a time lapse video of the show being installed. I recorded a little bit of it to show here, it was pretty cool.

Foot In The Door | MIA

I am sure you have all been wondering how in the world can the MIA do something like this. Here is a small photo montage of everything that went in to get Foot In The Door to look the way it did on opening night. From delivery, photographing, data entry, ALOT of hanging, and finally the opening reception. Thanks MIA and MAEP for a great show and an awesome reception!

So, the other night was amazing! One of the best nights ever and a great opening gallery reception. I went down to the cities this last Thursday with my family for the Foot In The Door exhibition at the MIA. It didn’t start until later that night, but we spent the whole day down there which was a lot of fun. We got to visit some friends and family and went to the Northrup King Building, which is a four story warehouse that was renovated into a couple hundred artist studios, all before the show that night. Some of the artists were in their studios working and we were able to talk to them and see their work. It is a pretty cool place, here is a link to their website, it is worth checking out.

Northrup King Building | Arts District

Ok. Now to what we have all been waiting for, the important stuff. Foot In The Door 4. I am going to tell you all about the show. So, when we got there right when you walked in there was a video being projected on the wall, it was still images of every piece of artwork (all +4,800) going really fast along with time laps video of the week long installation. It was a pretty cool video to watch, and I actually video taped part of it so I will post that later on so you can check that out. We were lucky that we got there fairly early and got right into the galleries without having to wait, it was still a little tight shoulder to shoulder, but we got through just fine. It took some time but we found our pieces and our friends pieces and took pictures by them. There were three gallery spaces that were filled with the artwork. Almost floor to ceiling along with huge tables in the middle for sculptural pieces. We went around about two or three times looking at everything, first to see everything on the wall, second to see all the sculptures on the tables, and third to see what we missed and things we liked again. Wow, I still can’t grasp how much stuff there was in there, it was so overwhelming. I am looking forward to going back in a month or so with some friends to see the show again, the crowds should be a little smaller around this time. When we finally left the galleries there were still people pouring in. There were two lines to get in, one was through the lobby down the stairs going outside and the other wound its way through the museum towards the front entrance. Some of my friends came a little later and had to wait in line for awhile. It was nice to be able to see them and talk for with them while they waited in line. Three of them, Marisabel Bautista, Travis Kleve, and Joanna Green all had pieces in the show that we had brought down with our own paintings. We hung out on the third floor above the Foot In The Door galleries listening to the band Lucy Michelle and The Velvet Lapels and took some pictures on the red carpet before we left for the night. When we left the line was still very long and many people were waiting to get a chance to see their artwork on the walls of the MIA. The show was supposed to go to 9:00 that night, but my friends said later on that they stopped the end of the line at that time and everyone that was still in line got to still view the show. I am sure that they were open very late that night.

Here is the link to the MIA Foot In The Door website. It tells everything you could ever want to know about the show, you can see every piece that is in the show, and also view the video submissions that were added this year.

Foot In The Door | MIA

Foot In The Door Update | Video

Meet some of the artists who submitted work for Foot in the Door 4, the once-a-decade wide-open exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The number of artists was unprecedented, as the registration line wound around the rotunda and out the door February 4 through 7. Minneapolis Artists Exhibition Program staff and volunteers took in nearly 5,000 works of art by an amazing array of Minnesotans, whose one requirement was that their art fit within a 12-inch cube. Listen to them talk about their experience. Then come to the museum for the exhibition, February 19 through June 13, 2010!

Happy Presidents’ Day! Celebrate George Washington and Abraham Lincoln’s birthdays today and all week along with remembering all the presidents that we have had.

Stop by your local art museum and/or your local place of government to view some great works of art that honor our many presidents.

I put together this small group of images that show some of our presidents and some very different art styles.

Traditional oil paintings of George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Drawings of Jimmy Carter and Thomas Jefferson.

Robert Rauschenberg’s “Retroactive I” depicting John F. Kennedy in the center.

Shepard Fairey’s poster of Barack Obama.

And many more are featured here. So, get out there and celebrate our presidents and artwork this week. Have fun and enjoy!

“The Singer In Green” (1884) By Edgar Degas

Pastel on light blue laid paper

23 3/4 x 18 1/4 in. (60.3 x 46.4 cm)

The model for this pastel of about 1884 resembles Marie von Goethem, who posed for Degas’s sculpture The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer. Degas’s use of vivid yellow, turquoise, and orange is characteristic of the saturated hues and complementary colors with which artists in his circle began to experiment in the mid-1880s.

Met Museum | Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas | (1834-1917)

(born July 19, 1834, Paris, France—died September 27, 1917, Paris) French painter, sculptor, and printmaker who was prominent in the Impressionist group and widely celebrated for his images of Parisian life. Degas’s principal subject was the human—especially the female—figure, which he explored in works ranging from the sombre portraits of his early years to the studies of laundresses, cabaret singers, milliners, and prostitutes of his Impressionist period. Ballet dancers and women washing themselves would preoccupy him throughout his career. Degas was the only Impressionist to truly bridge the gap between traditional academic art and the radical movements of the early 20th century, a restless innovator who often set the pace for his younger colleagues. Acknowledged as one of the finest draftsmen of his age, Degas experimented with a wide variety of media, including oil, pastel, gouache, etching, lithography, monotype, wax modeling, and photography. In his last decades, both his subject matter and technique became simplified, resulting in a new art of vivid colour and expressive form, and in long sequences of closely linked compositions. Once marginalized as a “painter of dancers,” Degas is now counted among the most complex and innovative figures of his generation, credited with influencing Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and many of the leading figurative artists of the 20th century.

Beginnings

Born in Paris just south of Montmartre, Degas always remained a proud Parisian, living and working in the same area of the city throughout his career. Though detailed knowledge of his middle-class family is limited, it is known that they maintained the outward forms of polite society and that they were related to minor aristocracy in Italy and to the business community in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. The family was also prosperous enough to send Degas in 1845 to a leading boys’ school, the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, where he received a conventional classical education. Music featured prominently in the Degas home, where the artist’s mother sang opera arias and his father arranged occasional recitals, one of which is represented in Degas’s painting of 1872, Lorenzo Pagans and Auguste De Gas. The artist’s mother died when he was 13 years old, leaving three sons and two daughters to be brought up by his father, a banker by profession. Knowledgeable about art but conservative in his preferences, Degas’s father helped to develop his son’s interest in painting and in 1855 encouraged him to register at the École des Beaux-Arts under the supervision of Louis Lamothe, a minor follower of J.-A.-D. Ingres. Surviving works from this period show Degas’s aptitude for drawing and his attention to the historical precedents he viewed in the Louvre. He also began his first solemn explorations of the self-portrait.

In 1856 Degas surprisingly abandoned his studies in Paris, using his father’s funds to embark on a three-year period of travel and study in Italy, where he immersed himself in the painting and sculpture of antiquity, the trecento, and the Renaissance. Staying first with relatives in Naples, he later worked in Rome and Florence, filling notebooks with sketches of faces, historic buildings, and the landscape, and with hundreds of rapid pencil copies from frescoes and oil paintings he admired. Among these were copies after Giotto, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Titian, artists who were to echo through his compositions for decades; the inclusion of less-expected works, however, such as those by Sir Anthony Van Dyck and Frans Snyders, hinted at wider interests. The same sketchbooks include written notes and reflections, as well as drafts for his own figure-based paintings in a variety of eclectic styles. Together they suggest a literate and serious young artist with high ambitions, but one who still lacked direction.

This information was taken from the biography website. This selection of Edgar Degas biography is just the beginning, I encourage you to visit the website to learn much more about his life and art.

Biography | Edgar Degas

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone, I hope that everyone had a great day. Here is some LOVELY art from the MIA collection for you all on this Valentine’s Day. Enjoy!

MIA | I Love Art!

Foot In The Door | Picture Link

ART, ART, ART! A third gallery had to be opened to hang more artwork for the Foot In The Door show at the MIA. Over 4000 pieces were entered into the show.