I’m honored to announce that two of my paintings have been selected for the Opulent Mobility 2023-24 show in Los Angles, curated by artists A. Laura Brody and Anthony Tusler. I’ll announce which ones closer to the date and as publicity for the show goes out.
On the Menu by Patricia Fortlage
From Curator Laura Brody: “Online artist interviews will air in November, a sneak peek at the online show goes up in December, and the in person exhibit at the Los Angeles Makery will be in January 2024. Stay tuned! So excited to share the wonderful art and artists with you all. In the meantime, please enjoy all the past Opulent Mobility exhibits.“
Please check out their opulent website https://www.opulentmobility.com/. There’s a great online interview with Anthony Tusler, too.
I’ll be posting updates as things get scheduled and let you know about online artist interviews.
In a world often disabled by destruction and cruelty, I love being among artists that understand the beauty of mobility aids and transformed bodies. This show will be a bright light in the world.
Laura Brody making the future more opulent.
The Fairy Mulusie by A. Laura Brody, 2023
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This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways.
If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal
Cards and prints of some of my art is available on Redbubble. Also T-shirts and stickers and other odds and ends. When you click an image, in the lower right hand corner you’ll find a link to all the various products that these are printed on. If you have any trouble finding what you’re looking for, let me know. joyzmailbox@gmail.com
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I am reading the fall section in Diane Ackerman’s Cultivating Delight, A Natural History of My Garden, which was published in 2001, and goes through the seasons in her garden. I read a section when the seasons change because she has such a vibrant style and reminds me of all that is magical about reality. Also, I can’t garden like I’d like to, so I let this book give me that sense of delight I no longer cultivate directly. She has a bigger garden than I’d ever have, and is besotted by roses, so it’s nice to have a tour of her garden regularly.
On fall, she says, “We’ve always called the season ‘fall’ from the Old English faellan, to fall down, which leads back through time to the Indo-European phol, to fall. The word hasn’t really changed since the first or our kind needed a name for this seasonal metamorphosis. Then there is that other fall, the one in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve concealed their nakedness with a fig leaf, remember? Leaves have always hidden our awkward secrets.” I love watching the leaves fall, the sudden appearance of all the color the chlorophyll in the leaves had covered. The slant of fall light. The way fall weather and changes make me question, and make peace with, my own awkward secrets.
Ackerman lives in Ithaca, New York, where it gets cooler quicker than here in Memphis, where we can expect summery weather for most of October and maybe all fall, the way weather patterns are changing.
I have painted quite a few paintings about fall over the years, and have put the images in my Redbubble shop. If you’re looking for a unique greeting card or print to send to someone, or buy for yourself, to celebrate the seasonal change, take a look at my shop.
Redbubble prints artists’ images on a lot of different products, but many of my images are only available as cards or prints. I haven’t quite got the hang of sizing photographs so that they can be printed on larger items, but everything in the shop is available as a postcard or a greeting card. And some are available as many more pretty things.
There’s much more to see in my shop. Thanks for your support. Happy Fall!
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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.
This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways.
If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal
Cards and prints of some of my art is available on Redbubble. Also T-shirts and stickers and other odds and ends. When you click an image, in the lower right hand corner you’ll find a link to all the various products that these are printed on. If you have any trouble finding what you’re looking for, let me know. joyzmailbox@gmail.com
You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.
If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.
Artist Gwenn Seemel has just finished a series of paintings called Everything’s Fine: Surreal Paintings about Mental Health. She is now in the process of making a coloring book and curriculum to expand the perimeters of the exhibit. She’s started a Kickstarter campaign to get it done. Here’s here blog post and video explaining the project.
This summer, it seems like we’re in a tennis match between severe heat warnings, and severe storm warnings. I’ve been safe from the most severe problems, but the heat seems to be taking more of a toll on me this summer. But at least I’ve not lost any power due to storms. My apartment hasn’t had any trees fall on it. I’ve stayed clean, cool, and my water has remained uncontaminated. (Germantown, a suburb of Memphis, had diesel fuel leak into their water pipes.)
I read a great article on NPR on how heat impacts mental health. You can read it here. It helped me deal with my own mood swings and lethargy. I already knew that when we have weather extremes and I’m confined more to my house, I start getting more moody and stressed. The stress of world-wide weather extremes adds to that. Extremely.
I’m lucky to live in an area where we have abundant water and can tend my small porch garden. In the evenings, when the sun dips below the oaks to the west of my house, I water the plants and even go for a walk around the block, if it’s under 95 degree. We’ve had a few days in the 80s and they are delightful.
Even in the worst heat, summer nights are pleasant to me. As the sun goes down, I can see dragonflies flying around in the dimming light, their wings golden from the reflected the sun. I know they are chasing mosquitoes. Crickets and cicadas and frogs start singing. It’s lovely to have an ice cold drink on the porch as the heat abates a bit.
I finished a commissioned painting that I’d been working on since last year. I didn’t work on it daily. I hope to get that kind of energy back, but for now, my health and other circumstances continue to keep me slow. But slow is okay. The point to me, now, is to go at a pace I can enjoy.
I’ve started working on my visual journal again, and have written some poetry, which I’ll be sharing with you soon. I’ve also been illustrating a book of poetry by another writer, which has taken up a lot of the year. It’s got me working in watercolor again. I’m enjoying drawing and painting on paper, and the easier clean up and prep for watercolor. Watercolor can be a difficult medium, but I’m looking forward to working more with it.
But this painting, Moonflower Feast, is acrylic on stretched canvas – stylized moonflowers and a humminbird/hawk/imaginary moth. Flowers that bloom at night starting this time of year, when the nights are starting to lengthen. The weather’s been hard on my own moonflowers and often the buds fall off before they bloom. But other gardens are blooming abundantly. I hope as we get closer to September, I’ll have more success, but now I get one or two every few nights. They seem more precious as they struggle open and sweeten the night.
Moonflower Feast, by Joy Murray, 2023, acrylic and ink on stretch canva, 20×24″
Here’s a dusk photo of a moonflower on my porch with miniature petunias.
Moonflower at dusk, photograph by Joy Murray
I hope your summer is going well, and if not, know that many of us are holding space for you and hoping for better days ahead.
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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.
This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways.
If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at paypal
Cards and prints of some of my art is available on Redbubble. Also T-shirts and stickers and other odds and ends. When you click an image, in the lower right hand corner you’ll find a link to all the various products that these are printed on. If you have any trouble finding what you’re looking for, let me know. joyzmailbox@gmail.com
You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.
If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.
joy murray art~stories~life 