Happy 2nd Birthday Wine Art Wednesday!

It's hard to believe that the first official Wine Art happenings were two full years ago! The first paintings went up on Etsy in October 2011 and we had no idea then how successful things would get from there!

I remember the first time I heard about this concept from my mother who mentioned that Alex and Joan wanted to start a painting night at their house. I was skeptical at first thinking to myself that I barely knew how to paint, I didn't even like wine, and what if I felt like I didn't fit in with this group whose kids all grew up together and who had known each other for years? At the time, I was living between about three different houses while I struggled through my first job out of college and didn't have much of a sense of place or community. I didn't know how much I needed Wine Art at the time but boy did I ever need it!

Two years later I can't tell you how proud I feel when I paint something I really like and then someone buys it on Etsy. I always think "seriously someone wants to pay money for something I made???" Two years later I have a recycling bin to prove that I've gotten over my dislike of wine. Two years later I am eagerly awaiting next weekend when the WAW ladies come to my house! Birthdays are a great time to reflect on personal growth so I can't help but smile at how far Wine Art and the artists and cooks who take part have come from two years ago.

I think my experiences with this group of wonderful women is a great testament to the power of trying new things. My small fears were so easily forgotten as soon as I tasted Joan's amazing curry and was handed a glass of wine that I realized wasn't so bad after all! Many of us began as novice painters and felt so encouraged by the great painters and warm friends around us that pretty soon it stopped mattering because we were just having fun!

I've had plenty of experiences trying a new class or going out with co-workers that seemed to fall flat on their face. Each time I would come home defeated thinking that maybe staying in at night and watching TV is the way to go. What made Wine Art different than the other things I tried is that is almost came about as an intentional community. We all had enjoying the arts and eating artful food in common and the rest just fell into place! Why start a book club if you are snoozing after the first chapter? Why join a jogging club if you have to be dragged out the door each time it meets? Some easy advice on how to start or participate in a social group is to base it around something you love. Even if you start the endeavor with strangers, the shared passion and shared learning experience can be a great way to start friendships! I am so glad that two years ago I didn't let a couple things deter me from taking part in what has become one of the most enjoyable things I do. Now I can say I work a boring office job but in my spare time I'm a budding painter and a lady of Wine Art Wednesday!!

Please enjoy a few pictures from our September art market:

This fellow with a large nose and jaunty hat came from the produce stand next to us. I bet he will show up in a painting in the future!

Set-up time!

Oodles and oodles of art!

We learned a few valuable lessons like that this setup will act like a sail when the wind blows!

Plan B was much more stable!

ART SHOW! This Sunday (9-29-13) in Cheshire, CT

It's here!  Our first live Art Show!

We will be selling our paintings this Sunday (September 29) at [RE]new Furniture's (534 West Main Street in Cheshire, CT) first ever West Cheshire Village Marketplace from 2:00 - 6:00 pm.

Come out join us.  Meet the artists and see what's being made and sold locally.

Address :
[RE]new Furniture
534 West Main Street
Cheshire, CT 06410

Date : Sunday, September 29, 2013
Time : 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm

We hope to see you there!

Email WineArtWednesdays@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
the Wine Art Girls

Check out some of our current art at http://www.etsy.com/shop/WineArtWednesdays.
(Please note that we will put our Etsy shop in "Vacation" mode on Sunday during the show, since each painting is unique and we don't want to create any confusion or double sales.)

colored pencil earrings

i think i will *mostly* let the photos speak for themselves, but i will definitely list our delicious menu!  (and yes, it included pez...)

 

 menu :

bellini's + wine

prosciutto-wrapped greens w/ a dressing

lamb coconut curry over rice

spicy daal w/ naan

roasted vegetables

handmade fried fishcakes

*various sauces + chutneys were passed*

carrot cake

(the ramekin contained a little dairy-free version that robin made for me and benj - so sweet of her and delicious, oh my gosh delicious!)

cola, raspberry-lemon, + strawberry PEZ

(because why not? and gabrielle visited the Pez Factory in Orange, CT, haha!)

. . . c o l o r e d   p e n c i l   e a r r i n g s . . .

 matboard lovingly cut and punched in pairs

 gina's creation begins

 gabrielle's whole process is a work of art

 robin's faces were showstoppers

 my photo does not do justice of jessica's ombre work

(see finished photos at bottom)

 joan's landscape on one side / faces on the other...i love seeing the inspiration next to the work

 denise's beautiful pair were inspired by venetian glass
. . .

and here they are!!!

 i am newly addicted

 (see what i mean about robin's faces?!)

 

another wildly successful wine art wednesday

a big thank you to rita for teaching the workshop and preparing all of the materials - it was a blast - and i'm terribly sorry about speaking over you that time, haha, what was going on?! and also to donna for hosting, all of the chefs and you girls for being you girls...i love you!

and in the conversation that i *can* repeat :

- check out quarterly.co because jessi is subscribed to cool hunting (and their website here) and just received an awesome bag in their latest shipment. donna has just subscribed to "food + home" and we are all excitedly waiting for their first shipment.

- the arts council of greater new haven is accepting submissions for their "to the t" exhibit

- and i know i missed a bunch of great conversation when i brought benj home for grandpa to babysit him, but maybe you girls can remind me in the comments.

i especially loved all of the new ideas flying around for what to do next.  we will never be at a loss for what to do and that makes me happier than anything else.

oh wine art, how i have missed you.  it was great to be back!

xoxo,

alex

p.s. : dear kind visitor, if you have made it this far, please let us know what you are enjoying (or not) in the comments below!  also, would you like us to sell hand-painted earrings on etsy?  thank you in advance!

Chicken Feet

“One of the best things about art is the wine and friends that I always share it with”

-Kielty W.

“A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires”

- Hedy Lamarr

I have no doubt that the artists of Wine Art Wednesday could run the world. These individuals work impossibly long days while still finding time to paint amazing artwork and meet up with friends on a weekly basis. And not to mention, they cook the best food I’ve ever had!   

After a holiday hiatus, it was wonderful to see everyone full of their usual positive energy and great stories.

The dinner menu:

Wine

Toasted baguette with Sicilian sea salt, olive oil, red pepper topped with goat cheese

Wine

Slow roasted Brussels sprouts

Sliced sweet carrots

Cauliflower kofti

Coconut fish curry

Wine

Risotto

Braised chickens feet

Freshly baked apple crisp

Homemade Baileys

The menu is creative. It sets the stage for the original silly conversation(s), and eventually, the actual painting. This week we ate chicken’s feet. Why? Well, why not? We eat liver, breast, wings, legs. Why not the feet? They were delicious and I cannot wait to have them again. The Thai coconut fish curry had large pieces of cod and slices of  avocado. If you don’t think you would like it, think again. In fact everyone loved it so much that there was literally nothing left in the green Le Creuset. 

The picture that you are seeing below is the official inventory of the paintings from the past year. About 10 or so paintings were removed to be painted over and another 10 or so were sold. As we edited our stock of paintings, conversation turned to potentially traveling as a group to Paris and new topics that inspire us to paint.

In each blog post we like to showcase a little about our artists so here's a little bit more about me, Gabrielle:

Currently reading:

-          Ecology abstracts and reports

-          5^th grade homework and laboratory packets

Seriously. Those are the only things that I have time for. Either I am spending my energy on various ecology papers to keep myself as informed as possible of my field. Or I am grading various assignments from my 90 students on their science comprehension. To be honest, I really would not want to be doing much else. I love learning about new field work/research and the progress of my students. Both are quite gratifying.

Art that I love…

-          http://www.etsy.com/listing/56021969/5x7-pen-and-ink-original-zebra-drawing?ref=usr_faveitems

I am having a bit of a love affair with ink right now. There is something so beautiful about just seeing the shape in each piece. Yes, yes, the pictures that usually catch my eye are animal related, but look at the detail in that zebra!!

-          http://www.etsy.com/listing/115428064/a-dozen-eggs-2013-letterpress-calendar?ref=usr_faveitems

I actually have these. I bought them for myself, well for my mother buy I kept them, before Christmas. I love the simplicity and functional art aspect of these little egg calendar pieces. I am excited to figure out how to use them when the year is over.

-          http://www.etsy.com/listing/99079498/postcard-wood-6-sheepcards?ref=usr_faveitems

Wood sheep postcards? Yeah. This is whimsical and ecofriendly. A great way to reuse postcards AND the wood is from a sustainable cedar forest. The only reason why I have not purchased these items is because I have no use for postcards! I wish I did.

I often times have my students set daily, weekly and monthly goals for themselves. To make myself vulnerable for a second, I am going to share with you my (resolutions) goals for 2013:

1. Paint higher quality work at WAW

2. Tell people consistently their importance in my life

3. A serious relationship

4. Be (even more) adventurous with my recipe making

With the support from the WAW crew I am excited to take on 2013 with homemade liquors, beautiful art and our fall trip to Paris.

Summer Hiatus?

Hello!! My apologies to the world for not blogging recently. The WA girls have been busy! Summer is coming to a close and we will be back on our weekly schedule very soon. I look forward to seeing the girls more often, working on projects and of course eating yummy, yummy food! But first, let's rewind to the beginning of August. It was a rainy Wednesday night and we were glad to be inside listening to a variety of classic tunes such as Ella Fitzgerald, Cole Porter, and Billie Holiday.  Joan made a delicious Curry dinner with a coconut sauce. Donna made home made lettuce wraps to go with. Let's just say, they didn't last too long! "Life is so GOOD at Wine Art!" We decided to take a short break from painting and try something new - felting! One of our fellow WA ladies, Robin, brought all the supplies and taught many of us how to felt a creation.  To my surprise it's rather simple but very time consuming. Also quite addicting!! The results were fantastic.

Start with....

Poke a lot, form, add colors and it can become...

Wish to purchase any of the beauties? No need to worry - they will be up on Etsy soon! 

Mothers, Daughters, and Phoenixes

By Rita

You might not know this but Wine Art Wednesdays was started by 2 sets of mothers and daughters: Joan & Alex and Audrey & Jennifer and later garnered two more sets; Gina & me and Donna & Jesse. And the funny thing about this is that of the eight of us, none have the same last name. Either through marriage, re-marriage, or divorce, none of our last names are the same!  (Fun fact.)  In other words, Life ….. its shifts, dips, rises, and eddies, affects us all. We change, we re-invent, we adjust, and we move forward. WAW began sort of as a phoenix that needed to rise from some ashes.

Over the past two WAW’s, one at Donna’s home and the next at mine, we talked of our usual concerns such as … where is the best flea market to buy (no kidding) bugs.  Note: please see our new line of “bug paintings”.  Or, what is the best way to launder an expensive, intricate tutu. Oh, I won’t make you wait for the answer … in a Jacuzzi of course! Donna is a costumer extraordinaire and is full of erudite knowledge about costumes. Or the perils of being an aging butterfly. Or whose corn chowder tasted better.

But there is a theme that runs through many of our multi-color conversations and that is how special mother daughter relationships are.  We are all daughters, some of us are mothers, some of us have daughters, and some of us have the amazing fortune to become so close to the younger women in the group that they have become our surrogate daughters.  Within the WAW group we have begun a special bonding process between one generation and the next. Of course, many in the group go way back and that process began when our younger artists were infants.  But there are many new, cross-generational friendships and close relationships growing in the fertile soil of WAW.  We share our stories (sometimes uproarious stories) of child-rearing and they share their stories of apartment hunting or dating disasters and sometimes finally let us know about something that went on at college that they now feel it’s ok to tell us.   It’s really never ok. You guys wouldn’t want to hear our frightful college stories. But I digress.

During our dinners and our famously fun painting sessions, there is an amazing magic happening.  We are developing a caring for one another, we’re learning each other’s stories, and we’re supporting and mothering any one of us who needs a little bit of mothering.  We are becoming closer to our own daughters and quasi-adopting other daughters who grace the WAW tables. It’s a safe place for us to discuss ANYTHING and there is always positivism and a sense that our creativity transcends and heals anything that Life may place in our path.  As I looked around the WAW table this past week, each of us has had a pile of ash to rise up from. Life has a way of dumping a pile of that grey stuff on all of us.  These small canvases we paint …. whether they are sumptuous, whimsical, primitive, or pure design …. they are the colorful feathers of our Phoenixes. We are giving each other the safe place we need and the open hearts we all crave. The kindness of friendship, the laughter, the understanding, the sharing, and the love we give each other are the wind, the air, and the color we all use to create our plumage …….

….. and our Phoenix rises.

This WAW was pretty small, it was at my house, Melanie, with Joan, Audrey and Jen. I made lasagna with a salad and some Italian bread. And Audrey and Jen brought fresh fruit and cream for dessert. I’ve been attending WAW for a few months now and there are a couple things that have kept coming up and I thought I would mention some of them today.

Under Paintings

I don’t typically do under paintings. I don’t have the patience; I just want to dive right in. The only under painting I sometimes have is when I paint over a previous painting I didn’t like. Some members always paint under paintings. Some of their under paintings I LOVE and want them to stop painting and just leave it how it is. Joan and I had a whole conversation about this, one of her under paintings I loved and told her to leave it alone; she said I would like it better when she was finished. When she finished, while I did like the end result, I still preferred the under painting to the finished version. I think this comes down to personal aesthetic. I liked the colorful, semi-abstract under painting. I think it’s expressive and colorful and loose.

Less is More

Sometimes you just have to know when to stop. Painting in acrylic is difficult because you can keep changing and repainting and fixing every little detail of your painting until you drive yourself crazy. It’s very important to be able to realize when to stop. Most people in the group are professional artists so they have mastered this art of when to stop. However, sometimes it’s still hard and in our group painting setting it’s great to have other artist’s there to get a 2^nd, 3^rd or 4^th opinion on whether you are truly finished or not.

Trying to Figure Out What to Paint

 Every week once we finish dinner we face the task of deciding what to paint! One time Audrey came with a finished painting she had done earlier in the day, just so she would have a finished product at the end of the night, and it wouldn’t be as stressful to decide what to paint. Typically we look around the host’s home to see if there are any interesting objects to paint. This week in particular Audrey painted some tomatoes on the vine I had on my counter, Joan had brought a photograph she took to work from and Jen drew inspiration from a magazine I had laying around. I always feel stressed out when it comes time to decide what to paint. The possibilities are endless. I also want to be able to finish the painting within the night or at least within 2 weeks. Lately I’ve looked at WAW as a way to test out my ideas for other art work I want to do. It helps to execute the idea in paint to get an idea of the end result. I am not a painter. Yes I can paint but it is not my preferred medium, printmaking is and glass (fused and stained). Both are very process based and you have to go through many steps before you get the finished product so I find it very helpful to experiment in paint with my ideas I want to execute in printing or glass.

The Importance of Good Food

 Enough said.

Being Exactly Where You Should Be

Two weeks ago (sorry this is so late!) WAW was at Donna’s house, complete with delicious gumbo, string beans, rice and salad. Donna made the best chocolate chip cookies with orange zest in them! I can’t wait try that next time I make cookies.

This post is hard to write because I had so many thoughts after I left Donna’s house but I didn’t know how to say exactly what I was thinking. So here’s my attempt at that… This week in particular we talked a lot about lives and about different paths and choices and where they lead you. Everyone had different opinions and it was interesting to listen to their paths. This is more relevant to a few members of the group and me because we graduated college a year ago. What I got out of this evening was how important it is to feel like you are exactly where you should be.

Mother Artist

Driving home from WAW this week I began to think about what the heck I was going to blog about this week. I made the same mistake I always do of enjoying myself so much that I couldn’t even remember what we had talked about. The tastes of whole roasted chickens, rich and nutty quinoa salad with brown rice, apples, tomatoes, and fennel, and blueberry crumb cake kept swimming back into my memory. The colors on my palette, the wine in my glass, and that feeling of the week’s stress melting away were still vivid, but what had we talked about?

A Joni Mitchell song came on the radio and suddenly I knew exactly what I wanted to write about: my mom. This topic couldn’t be more appropriate this week with the birth of Alex’s baby (maybe we will start him on Milk Art Wednesday…) and with Mother’s Day coming up this weekend. I thought this was a great time to think about how our mothers have shaped us all in one way or another. Like great painters, our mothers laid down the base colors, provided us with a background, and then hopefully handed the paintbrush over to us to finish for ourselves.

But back to Joni Mitchell…Mom had always listened to Joni and it was a part of her that never held much weight with me as I was growing up. Her songs were light and pretty or dark and brooding and were little more than familiar sounds that I often heard coming from the stereo in the living room. It wasn’t until I started college freshman year that I finally got it, I understood why mom had been listening to Joni for so long. I experienced my first real brushes with independence, loneliness, and heartbreak and suddenly realized how desperately I needed all of Joni’s songs on my ipod. I was homesick and wanted my Mommy so Joni was the next best thing. Her songs were beautiful and heartbreaking and meant so much now that I was actually listening to them and singing along with the understanding that came with life experience. My mom had been onto something great for years and I had no idea what I was missing.

We learn such amazing things from our mothers even if you can’t always agree with her taste in music. I learned sensitivity, love of seeing and experiencing beautiful things, and how difficult but important it is to keep reinventing yourself when life isn’t going your way. When we were kids, my sister and I used to beg mom to draw pictures of ourselves doing whatever we wanted. She would draw me as a nurse, a ballerina (I’m glad that one didn’t work out) or as a chef (slightly more realistic) and we would fiercely color them in. I didn’t realize it until now, but she was illustrating the fact that we could be anything in the world and it did wonders to develop our imaginations and sense of adventure about life. I don’t pretend to be anywhere as good of an artist as Mom is, but she fostered that creativity in me from a young age and I’m endlessly thankful that she was interested in the arts and not sports.

Ok stop tearing up now, we also learned a lot of how not be from our mothers. Our conversation about Madmen reminded us that some of our mothers unknowingly smoke and drank during their pregnancies and if nothing else perpetuated ridiculously uncomfortable undergarments for wayyyyyy too long! Garter belts? Girdles? No thanks! But my thoughts about my own mother did make me think about how every one of the WAW ladies is a product of their mother somehow, good or bad. We are so happy for new momma Alex and new grandmother Joan and hope that soon we can have three generations of artists at a WAW, probably expect some finger painting!