Its Up and Hanging

The exhibition is all up, yay. The lighting is done, everything is numbered, catalogued and ready for the preview on Friday night with the official opening on Sunday afternoon. These aren't the final pictures. Julia has taken some with her wide angled lens and I will post these as soon as I can. The gallery staff and volunteers have been such a help. A special thank you going to Ian, Dennis, Julie, and John who have really helped to make the exhibition look so professional. Gallery M is a wonderful gallery. It has movable inner walls so you can partition off little intimate areas in which you might display a particular theme. We used two movable walls to create a family area where the artwork is mainly portraits of our family and another area where Julia has more of her staged photographs where she worked with models on a particular theme. I will also be taking plenty of photos of the opening to share with you.

F I N I S H E D

I have finished my goal of 30 pieces for the exhibition with one week to go!!! No photo yet as the medium is still drying. It took roughly 8 months (not counting December as Christmas prep gets in the way). That's an average of one piece per week. It actually feels strange. I feel happy and lost all at the same time. I am going to give our place a much needed clean. Catch up on all those things I've let slide while I concentrated on my art. And then what??? What am I going to do all day??? What am I going to think about??? What am I going to talk about??? This hectic pace has become normal now hehehe. Tuesday and Wednesday next week will be spent hanging the exhibition. Luckily the gallery has someone who is an expert on hanging and making the whole exhibition look good so I will be listening to his advice for sure. Here's the link to the gallery if you want to check out what it looks like. http://www.gallerym.net.au/ When the next newsletter comes out there will be a write up about our exhibition which is on the website as well. I am going to make a cup of coffee now and put my feet up and see how that feels.

Exhibition Invitation

The exhibition 'Peeking Through Someone Else's Window' runs from May 24 - June 14 at Gallery M, Marion Cultural Centre 287 Diagonal Rd, Oaklands Park, Adelaide, South Australia. Its an exhibition of mixed media/collage, photography and paintings by Uta Mooney, Julia Thomas and Zoe Thomas. The official opening is Sunday May 24th 2pm. Come and have a glass of wine and some nibbles if you are in the area. Gallery times are Mon-Fri 11am-4pm, Sat 12pm-4pm, Sun 1pm-4pm, closed public holidays.

The artwork is a collaboration between Julia, Zoe and me. The window and collage is from a previous painting of mine called 'Walk Past the Open Window'. Julia, who is a magician on photoshop, changed the window to accommodate the photo she took of Zoe peeking. She changed the text to the title of the exhibition. I think its worked out great and I want to get a large copy of it framed as a memento of our exhibition.

We have got to start approaching some publications for some publicity. I think its quite a unique human interest story; three generations of females from the same family exhibiting together. Zoe might only be 7 years old but Julia and I feel she is an artist in her own right. We dislike it when people say to children "you are going to be a great artist when you grow up". Aren't they already artists? Aren't they already expressing themselves with art and craft? Why do they always have to wait 'to be' until they are grown up? Children's art is so free, expressive and innocent. We lose that when we grow up. Even artists like Ken Done can't really recreate exactly the way children capture things.

If you can't come to the exhibition or if you want a sneak preview of our work you can go to Julia's and my RedBubble sites www.redbubble.com/people/utam
www.redbubble.com/people/jewelstorm

Domestic Bliss

As I was waiting for this image to upload I realised that I actually have a few series of work on the go. This latest one is part of the domestic series where I celebrate the sacredness in the everyday. It also explores the notion of home and the importance of once called "women's work". Its funny that I work in series and that all the different series all fit into one theme.

Starting a new piece today. I have to keep the work going in a nice constant flow so I have enough new work for exhibition next year. We received formal confirmation that our exhibition proposal was excepted by Gallery M. So our three generations of women exhibition is finally a realisation. Its called Peeking Through Someone Else's Window, opens on May 22nd 2009 and will showcase not only my work but my daughter's and granddaughters as well.

Domestic Bliss

collage, acrylic paint and conte on canvas

60.9x50.8cm (24"x20")