#myshittycommute Art Show Opens Tonight

Saturday, April 2, 6-9pm.
Show runs until April 30

SPACE CLAREMONT
254 West Bonita Ave
Claremont, CA 91711Tu-Sat, 12-6pm

Meanwhile, peruse the book:

#myshittycommute

By anne m bray

Or visit the trucks on Tumblr, I am still adding to the collection.
The most recent addition, from yesterday:

Hope to see you in Claremont tonight!

#myshittycommute, The Book

I made my first Blurb book, I'm so excited!
Here's a preview:

#myshittycommute

By Anne M Bray

I ordered a copy to have on hand at the #myshittycommute show in April.

You, however, can click on the link, preview the book, and order yourself a digital or printed copy right now!

Yart Sale, Sunday, May 17

What, you ask, is a "Yart" sale? Yard + Art! 

The Mar Vista series is emerging from storage and will be featured in my front yard.

left: #15 [sold]                                        right: #31
Digital photographs printed on paper, 4x4" ©2006

Here's my statement about them:

From Mar Vista

I moved to Mar Vista six years ago into a suburban tract developed in 1953. I noticed that many of the homes have roofline embellishments that look very much like birdhouses. (The architectural term for them is dovecotes). I began photographing these as I walked around the neighborhood. Upon further study, I discovered there were six major styles of dovecote that could be subdivided into placement on roofline, coloration, orifice quantity and shape. My area of study was bounded by the following streets: Walgrove, Rose, Beethoven, and Palms. The photographs were shot from February 2003 – March 2006.

Photography is an integral component of my work process but I do not consider myself a photographer. I use the medium more as a creative tool to record scenes that interest me and to help organize my thoughts. When I shot these images (with a digital Nikon Coolpix 995), I was concentrating on getting as centered and symmetrical a composition as I could. My subsequent digital manipulation in Photoshop was minimal. I deliberately desaturated the colors to evoke a nostalgic feel - suggesting the look of old faded snapshots. I cropped and sized to mimic old Polaroids and to keep the encounter intimate. The final output is Epson inkjet on Epson Fine Art paper. 

Serial themes are a constant in my work - no matter what the medium or subject matter. Perhaps this arises from my work as a printmaker during my formative years as an artist, or perhaps it's my nature to organize + categorize things in multiples. Artists that work in this manner inspire me greatly -- from Monet's haystacks to Ed Ruscha's images of LA apartment buildings. I also have been influenced by Ruscha’s slyly humorous deadpan approach in his photographic work.

Many of the homes in Mar Vista are undergoing remodeling as new owners require more space. The 50's ranch homes and their whimsical details are steadily disappearing. I've recorded a few of them here -- for when I think of my neighborhood, the fake birdhouses are the first thing that come to mind.

Anne M Bray
April 2006

Shop Me: Road Art Retrospective

CREATED/ LINKS/ 

Winchester, @2014, digital watercolor, size varies

I use Society6 for printing larger sized digital paintings and reproductions of my older pastels. I'm thinking this might be the best place to post the digital watercolors as I get them done. The above image was shot last month, driving from Temecula to Palm Springs, using my Panasonic point + shoot, then uploaded to my iPad and processed. A test run for the upcoming trip, so to speak.

Society6 is currently running a sale that gets you FREE Shipping and $5 Off Each Item in my Shop only available from this link. The promotion expires March 9, 2014 at Midnight Pacific Time.
*Offer excludes Framed Art Prints, Stretched Canvases and Throw Pillows with insert.

They run these promotions from time to time, but this is the first instance I've seen the free shipping/$5 discount combination. If you want something on a particular substrate (like a landscape on a mug) send me a request via email. I have to upload specifically sized files for the specialty items and I haven't bothered to do that for everything.

Here's a preview of what can be found there:

Geez, what a mish-mash! Don't ask me what that fashion sketch of Cameron Silver is doing in there -- it got uploaded to the wrong shop! (I have three: art, fashion, and patterns).