Tag Archives: artist

Day 4: View from the Road

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Follow the Midwest Artist Studios on Instagram

We are about half way through our last road trip to North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. This has been such a great experience thus far. One of the things we enjoy about this project is that we have no idea what the artists’ studios look like. We sure have seen quite a range from a studio housed in garage, basement, art center, warehouse, university, attic, barn, former bookstore, house, and a one-bedroom studio apartment from the past two years. Regardless, these are magical places in which artists create their vision. 

“A studio can be anywhere” – Emma Anderson, freshman

Our first day started with a visit with MAS artist, Karri Dieken in her studio at Valley City State University to driving to Rapid City, SD where we visited MAS artist, Sharon Grey at her home studio the following day. In Rapid City we stumbled upon Art Alley, where the alley was covered in graffiti. We have never seen this in my life. It felt as if we were part of the artwork. Such a neat experience. Today we visited two studios in Omaha. In the early AM we drove to MAS artist, Jody Boyer‘s home studio and then to the studio of MAS artist, Lori Bartle Elliott at Hot Shops. 

During our 1800+ miles to our destinations we were able to take detours to see some amazing sights such as the Badlands in Interior, South Dakota to the Old Market Business District in Omaha, Nebraska. We still have three more studio visits with MAS artists, Rachel Mindrup, Joe Bussell, and Larry Thomas to do before we head back to Wisconsin. 

Listen to what MAS artist, Karri Dieken has to say about being part of the Midwest Artist Studios Project.

Here is a snapshot of what we experienced to date. 

Studio visit with MAS artist, Karri Dieken
On the road
Art Alley in Rapid City, SD
Studio visit with MAS artist, Sharon Grey.
Art Alley in Rapid City, SD
e_a_s_t_1 spray painting a mural at Art Alley
Studio visit with MAS artist, Jody Boyer
The Badlands in South Dakota
The Badlands in South Dakota
The Badlands in South Dakota
On our way to Omaha, Nebraska
Studio visit with MAS artist, Lori Bartle Elliott
Let me take a selfie with Jonathan Fritsch, Karri Dieken, Frank Juarez, and Pat Ryan
Welcome to South Dakota
The MAS krew: Jonathan, Pat, and Frank. Not pictured: Erika.
Sunset to Omaha, Nebraska
The Badlands in South Dakota
The Badlands in South Dakota

This project is supported by a grant from the Kohler Foundation, Inc. 

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Midwest Artist Studios Project in Ojai, California

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This spring break MAS founder and art educator, Frank Juarez, is participating in a visiting artist program at The Thacher School in Ojai, California. He will be working with Mrs. Liz Mahoney’s beginning to advanced art students. He will be introducing students to the Midwest Artist Studios Project through a series of art lessons, which highlights artists living in the Midwest. In addition, he will be Skyping the artists into the classroom so that they can have the opportunity to interact with them via a critique and/or Q & A.

Some of the artists introduced are Year 1: Todd Mrozinski (WI) and Jane Ryder (IA) as well as Year 2: Jessica Anderson (IL) and Jenniffer Omaitz (OH). 

Timeline:

Please note – images will be added each day of the residency. 

On March 25th, he spent the day getting to know the art students. Mrs. Mahoney’s students are fabulous, talented, and eager to learn more about art.

Day 1

On March 28th Advanced Art students and Intro Art students were  introduced their respective artists, process, and media. Artists discussed were MAS artists, Jenniffer Omaitz (OH) and Todd Mrozinski (WI). After the presentation, students began to either set up their still life for Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space lesson or deciding what the subject matter would be for their Shadows: Enter the Light lesson, respectively.

Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)

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Day 2

On March 29th, Studio Art students were introduced to the work of MAS artist, Jane Ryder (IA) followed by planning out their composition on paper. They are asked to create their own ecosystem based on observation, personal ideas, and using technology. The Intro Art students began working on their shadow paintings. Colors chosen consisted of a limited color palette with a dark tone, mid tone, and highlight of their choosing. 

Studio Art students planning out their compositions.
Studio Art students planning out their compositions.
Studio Art students planning out their compositions.
Intro Art students finishing their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.
Intro Art students painting their shadows.

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Day 3

On March 30th students continued to work on their assigned projects. Some students used today to catch up while others began to add color to their projects. It is interesting to see how they take the information presented and make the work their very own with their own ideas and interpretation. 

 

Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Advanced art students working on Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space
Intro art students working on Shadows: Enter the Light
Intro art students working on Shadows: Enter the Light
Intro art students working on Shadows: Enter the Light
Intro art students working on Shadows: Enter the Light
Intro art students working on Shadows: Enter the Light
Intro art students working on Shadows: Enter the Light
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrouding
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrouding
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrouding
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrouding
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrouding
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrouding

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Day 4

On March 31st, the art students had its first Skype session. Intro art students had the opportunity to talk to MAS artist, Todd Mrozinski (WI) about his work, process, and a brief critique/ Q&A with the students. Below is an excerpt from their session. 

 

About Todd’s work

The shadow series started on the one year anniversary of my father’s death. Wanting to connect with him, Mrozinski started to paint his portrait based off of a black and white photo from when he was a young priest. He had not painted a traditional portrait in years and soon was frustrated. Disgruntled, he laid on the couch until his wife entered the studio. She saw the large amount of dark acrylic paint mixed on the palette and asked if she could cover the canvas so it would not go to waste. He agreed and took a nap. When he woke up, he noticed the warm light coming in through the front door. He looked out at the tree shadows and realized, in that instant, what he needed to paint. He took the dark canvas off the working wall, laid it on the ground, knelt down and traced the tree shadow directly onto the canvas. He realized as life is to light, death is to shadows, one cannot be without the other. His dad was showing himself in a different form and he felt his presence profoundly. The shadow series began.

Mrozinski’s work is a record of what is going on around him in the present moment. His subject matter is his family, friends, house and yard which he records and adorse on a daily basis. The beauty and power of shadows, the mysterious and ever changing light that creates them and their ambiguity and implied meaning continue to inspire me and infuse my work. Each painting begins by tracing the object’s cast shadow directly onto the canvas and is an actual size record of time and space. He is constantly amazed how a single outline can capture a gesture, mood and personality and how color and edge can create space, focus and mood. Each painting becomes a light infused container that preserves a moment, painted directly though the malleable and flowing medium of oil paint. Through drips, skeins and piles of paint, the surface becomes activated and glows with a light from within.

Intro art student skyping with MAS artist, Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Intro art student skyping with MAS artist, Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Intro art student skyping with MAS artist, Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Intro art student skyping with MAS artist, Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Intro art student skyping with MAS artist, Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Intro art student skyping with MAS artist, Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Intro art student skyping with MAS artist, Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Intro art student skyping with MAS artist, Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Intro art student skyping with MAS artist, Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)
Shadows: Enter the Light – Todd Mrozinski (WI)

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Day 5 (Final Day)

On April 1st, the week concluded with Studio Art students skyping with MAS artist, Jane Ryder (IA). Students asked about the artist’s approach to her chosen medium (gouache), ways to stay motivated, artist’s current work, a brief critique between students and artist and a Q & A. The Advanced Art students kept working on their project, “Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space”.  I can’t wait to see the final outcome from the Intro Art, Studio Art, and Advanced Studio art students. I would like to end this post with a huge thanks to Mrs. Mahoney (art teacher) and The Thacher School for having me and for their hospitality. This experience was fabulous and memorable. 

About Jane’s work

Jane’s paintings are a right-brained approach to observing, dissecting, and recording the objective subject matter found in the lakes, rivers, prairies, and forests of south central Iowa. As her intimacy with the land surrounding her evolves, so does her approaches for depicting the complexities of varying terrains and the plants and animals that occupy them.

Each of her gouache paintings is a fictitious ecosystem that has been broken down into a series of vignettes. Each vignette describes the decay, growth, and interaction between the flora and fauna of that imagined place. Although bold colors, re- peating patterns, and flattened space make the paintings appear fantastic in nature, each scene is based off an observation.

She is constantly inspired by the complexities of the natural world. Her work is an ever evolving narrative about the interconnectedness of all things and the functions of an organism in a community of plants and animals.

Studio art student skyping with Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art student skyping with Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art student skyping with Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art student skyping with Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art student skyping with Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art student skyping with Jane Ryder (IA)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Folded Gestures: Playing with Form and Space – Jenniffer Omaitz (OH)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)
Studio art students working on Be One with Nature: Painting your Surrounding – Jane Ryder (IA)

Midwest Artist Studios™ Lesson Plans Released January 2015

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A limited run of our Midwest Artist Studios™ Lesson Plan Workbook will be printed later this month with our release date being early January 2015. These lesson plans come with the National Visual Art Standards, Literacy, differentiated instruction, technology, artist-Skype critiques, and so much more. These lesson plans are inspired by our studio visits with our MAS artists.  

We will also be printing a limited run of our Midwest Artist Studios™ Catalog featuring Josh Wilichowski (MN), Vincenzio Donatelle (MN), Jane Ryder (IA), Jamie Bates Slone (MO), Catie Miller (MO), Todd Mrozinski (WI), Paula Schulze (WI), Josie Osborne (WI), and Suzanne Torres (WI). 

Below is a snapshot of our 2014 lesson plans. 

MAS LPs 2014

A note from the founder, Frank Juarez

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Photo by Irma Roman

Photo by Irma Roman

It has been a week since the Midwest Artist Studios (MAS) Team arrived back in its home state of Wisconsin. We met a great group of artists, Josh Wilichowski (MN), Vincenzio Donatelle (MN), Jane Ryder (IA), Jamie Bates Slone (MO), Catie Miller (MO), Todd Mrozinski (WI), Paula Schulze (WI), Josie Osborne (WI) and Suzanne Torres (WI). These artists were a pleasure to work with and you will be reading more about them as the project moves into its editing/production phase. Each brings something special to this project.

During our trip we were able to visit the Des Moines Art Center, Red Star Studios, and Belger Arts Center. We were so inspired by the people we met such as Mo Dickens from the Belger Arts Center, the art we saw and the conversations we had with people along our route. We were so inspired that we started to make work of our very own. This is the response that I hope our readers will have when they see our full-color catalog highlighting our MAS artists and read excerpts from our interviews and seeing how we took the works of these artists to develop lesson plans to compliment their studio practice. These lesson plans will be developed to inspire, communicate and challenge students to continue to pursue originality and to foster their creativity.

Visiting Suzanne Torres at Arts Lofts n Madison, Wisconsin

Visiting Suzanne Torres at Arts Loft in Madison, Wisconsin

The MAS artists are living proof that making art and living in an art-centered life is rewarding; emotionally, mentally, professionally and financially. The next time someone asks the question, “can someone make a living in art?”, think of the people you know that are doing it and say, “yes”.

This project is aimed to create a platform that connects a contemporary art studio practice with art education. As an art educator, I often ask myself if what I am doing in the classroom is enough to broaden my students’ perspective on art, art education and living a well-rounded life. You know that the answer is no. There is so much out there that can benefit students and this project is one way of doing so. The MAS Project was created to give educators, administrators, library specialists, curriculum coordinators, school board members, access to artists who contribute their success to their art education experience. 

The MAS Team is working very hard to bring you the MAS 2014 catalog and workbook by mid-October of 2014. The best way to stay up-to-date on this project is by either subscribing to our blog, Midwest Artist Studios, or by following us on Facebook at facebook.com/midwestartiststudios.

If you like to be added to our MAS Email List all you have to do is email Frank at the address below and type in the subject box: Interested in the MAS Catalog/Workbook.

Visiting Jamie Bates Slone at her studio at Red Star Studios in Kansas City, Missouri.

Visiting Jamie Bates Slone at her studio at Red Star Studios in Kansas City, Missouri

All questions can be directed to Frank Juarez, MAS Founder, at midwestartiststudios@gmail.com.

This trip would be not be possible without the support of the Kohler Foundation, Inc, Wisconsin Art Education Association, Sheboygan North High School and Sheboygan Area School District. 

Josie Osborne and Paula Schulze from Wisconsin

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Today we visit the studios of Josie Osborne from Milwaukee and Paula Schulze from Shorewood. Josie is an assemblage artist and Paula is a printmaker. 

Josie Osborne

www.josieosborne.net

J_Osborne_Studio_Portrait_1Solace and quiet contemplation provide an antidote to our busy daily lives. We must seek out a balance between our fast-paced exterior lives and maintaining that rich interior life that brings together memory, imagination and a more poetic understanding of our daily experiences.

In Osborne’s assemblage boxes and print collages the elements used and the organization or treatment of space references dreams, poetry, memory, architecture, and a neo-modernist language of color, simplicity, process, materials and mark-making. The works bring together various aspects of my experience (both internal and external) and reflect a pondering of the relationships of those two realities as they place the necessary openness to intangible experiences in parallel to that which we physically and more directly experience in the world.

About

Josie Osborne is an artist and director of the First Year Program in Art and Design at UW-Milwaukee, Peck School of the Arts where she has taught for 6 years. She served for 12 years on the City of Milwaukee Arts Board and has received Mary Nohl Suitcase Fund support for an international studio residency and exhibitions of her work. She has curated and co-curated numerous exhibitions including Quiet at Walkers Point Center for the Arts, Miller and Shellabarger: Hiding in the Light at Inova Gallery and many others. For ten years, while serving as Director of Community Outreach at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, she co-founded and oversaw various award winning programs including the Creative Educators institute, Future Designers and the MOST Pre-College program. Osborne received her Master of Fine Arts in Graphics (printmaking) from the University of Wisconsin – Madison and her BFA in Painting and Drawing from UW-Milwaukee.

She has exhibited her work regionally and nationally. Select exhibitions include: Texture at Fredericksburg Art Center (VA), Fabulous Women Show and Top Drawer Prints (at Peltz Gallery in Milwaukee), In the Balance, (Walkers Point Center for the Arts), Thread (invitational at UNC-Charlotte); 5IVE (traveling exhibition: Walkers Point Center for the Arts, Milwaukee and Flagler College Carrera Gallery, Florida); Art Chicago (Hotcakes Gallery); Art Basel Miami (Hotcakes Gallery); Things Avian and Architectural (solo exhibition at Sharon Lynn Wilson Center for the Arts); Proscenium (solo exhibition at Wisconsin Academy of Science, Letters and the Arts), Wisconsin Painters and Sculptors Biennial, A Decade of Wisconsin Art (invitational, James Wattrous Gallery, Madison Overture Center), Diabolique (curated by Fred Stonehouse); UWM and MIAD Faculty Exhibitions. Osborne’s work has also been reproduced in literary journals and professional magazines, including The Cream City Review and the Madison Review.

Paula Schulze

www.paulaschulze.com

image_2Schulze explores notions of space and order in my work. She works in a reductive manner, drawing in charcoal or utilizing the printmaking technique of mezzotint. Over the past several years her work has moved from explorations of architectural space towards abstraction and flattened space, with an interest in maps and in pattern, geometry, ornament, and economy of form. She has been inspired by pre- and early-Renaissance art, with its ornamental detail and its elegant use of geometry as a backdrop to a larger narrative or devotional setting, and by traditional Islamic principles of geometry and design. In all of her work, through isolation and examination, she investigates formal elements and their ways of ordering space.  

About

Paula Schulze is a Milwaukee-area artist and printmaker. She has a BA in anthropology and Ibero-American studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a MFA in printmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has participated in artist residencies at Anchor Graphics in Chicago; Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin; Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice, Italy; and Fundación Valparaíso in Mojácar, Spain. She has also collaborated on temporary public art projects with the organization IN:SITE in Milwaukee. Images of these projects and her drawings and mezzotint prints are available online at http://www.paulaschulze.com.

All images copyright of the artist and used with their permission. 

The Midwest Artist Studios Project is officially launched

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In less than 2 hours we will be on the road for the first part (of a 3-part project) of the Midwest Artist Studios Project.

Here is our schedule for August 3-10, 2014.

Featured studio artists are:
August 4 | Josh Wilichowski, North St Paul, MN
August 4 | Vincenzio Donatelle, Minneapolis, MN
August 5 | Jane Ryder, Oskaloosa, IA
August 7 | Jamie Bates Slone, Kansas City, MO
August 7 | Catie Miller, Kansas City, MO
August 8 | Todd Mrozinski, Milwaukee, WI
August 9 | Josie Osborne, Milwaukee, WI
August 9 | Paula Schulze, Shorewood, WI
August 10 | Suzanne Torres, Madison, WI

today is the day

We will be sharing updates and photos via facebook.com/midwestartiststudios.