Beginning An Art Campaign.

GREETINGS! We are well into September now and everything is drying up around Oregon. Fire bans in the forest have been in effect for some time and so there will be no more campfires up on our piece of woodland property. It's not that we've even been up there to enjoy the solitude and quiet - unfortunately - but we sure would like to camp overnight a couple more times this summer before our good weather is all gone.

I have been very busy and I have to tell Candace at EyeCandy that I don't know that I can continue the Javablu Award. I'm pleased she thought of me (more than she can know) and I see the good things that awards can do for blogs: More people connect with you, you pass on other's blogs, and they pass the blogs on to their friends and hopefully everyone finds some good thoughts or ideas that can help them along. However, I know the blogs I would nominate for a Javablu Award are probably in the same boat as I am. So I'm just going to ask Candace to understand and I'll let this one - and any feelings of guilt I have - go. OK?
As you can see by the photo I have posted I am undertaking an advertising campaign for Valley Art Association, the nonprofit gallery where I volunteer. Actually, the entire gallery's operation, since 1966, has been totally volunteer-run, which has to be some sort of minor miracle.
Each November the gallery has its Annual Artist Event and all members get in early to peruse the latest offering of Northwest artists. They have one night all to themselves to mingle, eat, laugh, drink, gab and buy the freshest stuff from really great artists. (Just in time for holiday giving, too!)
I was asked to produce advertising and the chairwoman's theme is "Vote for the Arts," since the day after the November event will be Election Day.
My thought was to have this American Lady striding through the fields (thank you, Candace, for alerting me to this painting by James Montgomery Flagg), carrying a paintbrush and a sign that says "Vote For The Arts." (The little box and scissors are only to hold down the matte gelled-image.) I was hoping also to somehow work in a "crop" of artwork "growing" in the fields.
I will do other collage on this piece and hope it turns out usable as a background for our posters and other advertising. I'm trying to combine art and advertising so I can do this in a little more "hands-on" way. I hope it works. I'll let you know.
In other news, we were saddened this weekend to lose a sweet man, a member of our extended family - Billy H. He was one of those men a girlfriend spoke of recently - a man like our own fathers, strong and brave. "Gone" is such a lonely, final word. Gone on a journey that others have taken before. Off to witness something magnificent, I truly hope - femminismo