Fun-A-Day Art Show: Creative way to start the year

Panels of photography and text by Bonnie Schupp. (Anthony C. Hayes)

What did you do in January, besides freeze your buns off and shovel snow?

If you’re a Baltimore area artist, your answer might be that you spent every day of the month happily nestled in your studio – creating art.

This past January, some 80 local artists committed to a daily art exercise for the Baltimore Fun-A-Day project. With Fun-A-Day, artists may work on either a number of different pieces, or on one big project. But they work on it every day. For the opening, there was also performance art, not just visual art. The exhibit opened Thursday March 5 at Gallery 788 in Hampden.

The Baltimore Post-Examiner caught up with five of the dedicated professionals last week at Gallery 788 and asked for their reflections on participating in the Fun-A-Day project.

Bonnie Schupp

“What a great way to start off the New Year! Knowing that a bunch of you are doing this gives you purpose.

“My display in this show is actually part of a 365 project, so I will be doing this everyday for a year. I wrote an introduction the day before my birthday on December 10. I decided that every day I would find a gift that the day brought to me. Right now I have about 300 words, illustrated with photographs. There is nothing preconceived. I’m open to what evolves. I think artists have to step forward without knowing, in order to create. If you know what’s going to happen every day, there’s just no room to create. You’ve got to go in expecting something, but not knowing what that something may be.”

Cole Shacochis-Edwards

“I’m a nurse, so my art is just a hobby. My husband is the real artist in the family. But I have always enjoyed working with watercolors. It’s hard to live with someone who is creating all the time and not feel inspired.

“The 30 pieces I did are small watercolors on found cardboard. Bingo cards and phonics cards; all things I found with the intention of doing small paintings. I had some other pieces that I put in. I started making some paintings a little before the holidays and sold some as a fundraiser for the House of Ruth. All of my artist proceeds from this show will also go to The House of Ruth.”

Donald Edwards

“I attended the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, and moved here when I married my wife Cole. I also work in the food service industry.

“My work is a series of small sculptures. All found objects. I do a lot of wrapping and tying things together.

“Mostly I wanted to make small pieces; something I could do as a series because I wanted to create something every day. I like the concept behind this show.

Tawny Oram

“I signed up for the Fun-A-Day project as a way to motivate myself to make art a priority. (Laughing) I actually teach art in Baltimore County Public Schools). This is only the second time I’ve ever exhibited anything. I’m older, and I raised a family and that was very time consuming. I’m at a different stage of my life where I can make art a priority in my life. I’m trying to reclaim myself. That is the plan moving forward.

“I started out thinking, ‘what could I manage every day for 31 days?’ I cut up a bunch of paper 5″ x 5″ and just started experimenting. It sort of evolved as it went and turned out completely different than how I started out. And I came up with some stuff which I probably wouldn’t have otherwise done!

“For inspiration, I love to hike, and have spent a lot of time in Alaska. I have done some plein air painting out there, but obviously I wasn’t going to that in January. But I have a lot of photographs I never do anything with, so I just pulled them out and started painting from there. It was very meaningful for me to put myself back in that space.”

Lorraine Imwold

“Each year for Fun-A-Day, I try to do a project that will make me grow and take me into a realm of art I’ve not done before. The medium that I use most all the time is print making. I carve my own blocks out of a rubber compound which is super soft and super fast and allows me to get very fine detail for what it is. It’s close to wood, though I don’t get the additional wood grain which shows up in the print. But I like the stark contrast between dark and light in my work.

“This year I did illustration. I paired up with a writer! He wrote for the first 10 days and then I illustrated. And we ended up with a book! For the display, I chose 4 of my favorite panels, plus I have the book on display.

“Every time I do something for Fun-A-Day, it informs me and talks back to the print making process. What I didn’t realize in printmaking is I fill my entire space with activity and interest and I very rarely leave space for words; space for text. In illustrating, I needed to leave space for the textbooks and I didn’t think about that, so in some of the early images it’s very clear there is less space for the text. Later, my brain started taking in where the text was going to be in relationship to the images on the page. It’s interesting that, within Fun-A-Day, I see different periods of growth. I can take this back to my printmaking. It’s cool to see how one little activity can inform everything else I do.”

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The Fun-A-Day Art Show runs now – March 28. The closing reception is Saturday, March 28, 7-11 pm. Gallery 788 is located at 3602 Hickory Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland. For more information, visit Gallery 788 online.

On April 4, Gallery 788 opens an all new women-only art show – Venus Envy.

Also running til April 4 at Gallery 788 is the captivating Sci-Fi drama The Dum Dums. Information about that show may be found by visiting Glass Mind Theatre online.

 

 

(All photos by Anthony C. Hayes)