updates, new member of the Etsy Visual Arts Team

I'm a new member of the Etsy Visual Arts Team (VAST team for short). I'll be posting recent works on their blog as well as this one, though the rule is only wall art, so I won't be posting greeting cards, tags, CDs, pottery & music updates.  But you can still count on those posts here.
The link to their blog on blogspot is here. I already have a new post up.

I am planning on putting some of my pottery up in my Etsy on-line store soon. I have been slowly draining out my pottery inventory from brick and mortar galleries to sell on-line. I'll be emphasizing drawings, paintings, greeting cards, prints, tags and journals for brick and mortar galleries and shops, but will no longer be selling pottery in a brick and mortar gallery unless it is for a specific art exhibit.

I will also be phasing out my "gift shop" pottery unless on-line sales are amazing.

If I do work in clay again in the future, my plan is to make only art pottery & sculpture.

But before I can post my pottery here, first we have a performance coming up at a folk festival in the Lake George area and I am entering a piece into a juried exhibit. So, those things take precedence before I can start the long process of picture-taking, listing and configuring shipping. I'll post as soon as I've figured out all of the issues with listing on-line.

link to

Etsy Visual Artist's Team Gallery

other links

My Website

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Sepia Dragonfly with Border, oswoa

This is another oswoa, another sepia ink drawing of an insect, this time a dragonfly. As mentioned before in another one of my blogs, an oswoa must be a 4" x 6" original work of art.

This one is available at the moment in my olde on-line shop (Etsy on-line storefront).

Note: edited on 12/16/11 to say that since this was written, I also have an Artfire shop that has a lot more product in it than my Etsy shop. If you do not find what you are looking for on Etsy, then click here to be taken to my Artfire shop. 

My Website

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing CDs and some of my art

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Oak Tree in Autumn, art tags

This is my latest. The design was taken from my most recent ACEO painting (I widened the border a bit to square it off). It is available for the first time in ye olde on-line shop (Etsy on-line shop)!

Note: edited on 12/16/11 to say that I also have an Artfire shop with a lot more product in it presently than my Etsy shop. Also at Artfire you don't have to sign up as a member to buy. If you are interested, click here to be taken to my Artfire on-line store.

My Website

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing CDs and some of my art

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Sepia Butterfly, art gift and product tags

I took my latest ink drawing (which is on this blog post) and made some tag art. My newest for sale in the olde shop (Etsy on-line store)!

Note: edited on 12/16/11 to say that I also have an Artfire shop with a lot more product in it presently than my Etsy shop. Also at Artfire you don't have to sign up as a member to buy. If you are interested, click here to be taken to my Artfire on-line store.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Window Shopping at Etsy

PURPLE!

You might have to click the above image to get the full effect!

The first one is by Emici Bridal (see the item in its entirety here)

The second one is by Quilt Lover (see the item in its entirety here)

The third one is by Sharlotte (see the item in its entirety here)

Oak Tree in Autumn, original ACEO painting

Here is my latest attempt at another original painting ACEO. An ACEO is trading card size at only 2.5" x 3.5" (a challange especially because the tree inside the border is so tiny).

Check the availability of this piece at my ETSY STORE or ARTFIRE STORE. 

I am planning on finishing more ambitious projects in the near future, but hot days in the summer seem perfect for mini paintings. 

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Sepia Butterfly with Border, oswoa

This is my latest oswoa. Oswoa stands for "Original Small Works Of Art". All oswoas must be 4" x 6" to qualify.

This one was done with sepia ink on bristol board. It reminds me most of carving pottery (which is what I used to do).

I am much more comfortable with the oswoa than the aceo (2.5" x 3.5"). The aceo is just so tiny and with one little distraction, the composition can falter easily. But I am determined to keep trying!

I have this one for sale at the moment in my Etsy shop, but may take it to a gallery at some point if it doesn't sell at Etsy and I get a theme going.

Note: edited on 12/16/11 to say that I also have an Artfire shop with a lot more product in it presently than my Etsy shop. Also at Artfire you don't have to sign up as a member to buy. If you are interested, click here to be taken to my Artfire on-line store.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store and Artfire on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips) 

Sara Milonovich's Daisycutter

Every Spring and Summer I have a favorite CD that I like to take with me on my jaunts to art galleries to deliver work.

This year’s favorite is Daisycutter by Sara Milonovich.

It was released last year (2009), but this year was the first time I got around to listening to it. She recorded it at the same studio that I recorded Wing’d With Hopes and The Goldenrod (Scott Petitio’s NRS Recording Studio).

I love this album! It is an album that grew on me (there is a lot to listen to in the lush production and I wasn’t used to the genre).

 My favorite is Willie Taylor (just because I like new interpretations of old songs done brilliantly), but the most powerful songs on the album are probably Country Life and Insanity Street.

The album kicks off with Country Life by Steve Knightly of the British Isles. It’s a powerful song about the loss of farms in the English Countryside:

For a taste, here are some of the lyrics:

If you want cheap food well here’s the deal, family farms are brought to heel

Hammer blows of size and scale, foot and mouth the final nail

The coffin of our English dream, lies out on the village green

Where agri-barons CAP in hand, strip this green and pleasant land

Of meadow, woodland, hedgerow, pond, what remains gets built upon


No trains, no jobs

No shops, no pubs.

--- © Steve Knightly

The original Knightly version is here. But, Sara did it great justice with an angry vocal delivery, a blazing fiddle track and a haunting dobro by Abby Gardner. You can hear what Sara did with Knightly’s song on her MYSPACE here.

The next track is Under the Weather (written by K.T. Tunstall and Tommy Danvers). It starts out sounding political:

Under this national raincloud
I’m getting soaked to the skin
Trying to find my umbrella
But I don’t know where to begin

A couple of lines later, it still seems to be in a political vein with these lines:

‘Cause I’m under the weather
Just like the world
So sorry for being so bold

--- © K.T. Tunstall and Tommy Danvers

But then it turns into a love song.

The song is sung in a soft meandering spirit, like the lyrics.

Fiona’s Breakdown is written by Sara and arranged by Sara, John Doyle (who also plays acoustic guitar on the track) and Greg Anderson, the producer of the album. Viktor Krauss, Alison Krauss’s brother, plays acoustic bass on the track. This piece shows she is in the same league as any of the great fiddle players of our time (including Natalie MacMaster). The composition is in tribute to her car, a blazingly fast piece.

Northern Cross is a longing love song written by Leslie Smith. The gist of it is in these 2 poetical lines:

Oh meet me on Red Mountain, lace of laurel, bed of moss
Where the wind's forever howling beneath that Northern Cross

--- © Leslie Smith

Sara’s vocal delivery is plaintive on this piece while 2 fiddles (one played by John Kirk) drone on in the background.

Pleasant Valley Sunday is one of the nice surprises of the album and sets it apart from being another folk album. It has a zydeco rhythm and is just as fun, frolicking and “zippy” sounding as when The Monkees did it. However the Monkees look like a band born in and comfortable with suburbia and their Beatlesque version fails to convince when they sing this anti-suburbia song. Sara’s version does a much better job of persuasion. Here’s a taste of the lyrics:

See Mrs. Gray she's proud today because her roses are in bloom
Mr. Green he's so serene, He's got a t.v. in every room

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday
Here in status symbol land
Mothers complain about how hard life is
And the kids just don't understand

Creature comfort goals
They only numb my soul and make it hard for me to see
My thoughts all seem to stray, to places far away
I need a change of scenery

--- © Carole King/Gerry Goffin

Perhaps the writer, James Howard Kunstler, and the painter, Eric Fischl, would be happy to use Sara’s version as their background music.

The sixth cut, Insanity Street shows Sara’s vocals at her best. The vocal delivery here is soft and melancholic with Sara’s beautiful baritone violin, Abbie Gardner’s stunning dobro and Greg Anderson’s tasteful arrangements on electric guitars, electric piano and organ. The anti-war lyrics by Lillie Palmer pack a powerful punch:

We live on Insanity Street
Where the ends and the means seldom meet
And we walk and we talk while the four horseman stalk
The stones of Insanity Street

And we talk of the coming of peace
Of a time when hostilities cease
But we make and we store all the weapons of war
‘Cause we live on Insanity Street

And when in the turning of years
The market for war disappears
Should we meet on the street with the dust at our feet
And stare at each other through tears

--- © Lillie Palmer

Another favorite is The Last Snowfall, a tune reminiscent of Jay Unger’s sweetest pieces with Natalie Haas on cello, Abbie Gardner on dobro, Scott Petito on bass, Greg Anderson on acoustic guitar and Andre Brunet and Sara on violins.
Right after that is the romping traditional Willie Taylor with a creative arrangement by Sara, Greg Anderson and John Doyle which takes a bit of folk, zydeco, rock and Celtic and melds them into one. As mentioned earlier, it is my favorite on the album.

Here Comes the Flood by Peter Gabriel is probably the most vocally challenging piece on the CD. It enigmatically refers to an apocalypse.

The Lake Arthur Stomp is how I remember Sara before Daisycutter, as part of a fiddle ensemble which included John Kirk, Trish Miller, Ed Lowman and Cedar Sanistreet.

To conclude, this album is one of the best that I have heard in a long time. The fiddling is as good as the fiddling of more well known names in the field, her arrangements are often stunning, her choice of material shows concern for the world that we are building and her vocal chops are as good as any of the better known folk singers on the circuit today.

However, for her next album, I’d like to see her push her vocals to the maximum, reach beyond and below the comfortable range that she shows on Daisycutter because she'd run past the lot of us then.

Sara's Website

Sara's CD Baby store

Sara's MYSPACE

My Website

Autumn Tree ACEO

This is my latest attempt at painting an ACEO (my 4th try). An ACEO is a mini work of art at 2.5" x 3.5". As stated before, I am not entirely comfortable about painting anything smaller than a 4" x 6" painting, but I enjoy a challange and I thought I'd try one with my usual border (which made painting the tiny tree that much more painstaking!). 

The designing took much longer than I expected for such a mini piece. It is part of a series I have been making about trees with knotted borders and knotted roots.

This is for sale (for the meantime) in my Etsy shop. (note: edit on 12/16/11: this piece is presently available in my Artfire shop, but can be requested in my Etsy shop if you have an account on Etsy -- Artfire has a guest check-out, so no need to have an account).

More mini paintings coming soon.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)

Windswept Doves and Hearts II

I thought I'd give another one a try using different colored watercolor paints. This one is 3" x 5" (and is on Arches Watercolor paper like the last one).

This will probably be my last in the series as I've run out of this size paper. It is available right now in my Etsy shop, though if it doesn't sell, I may be bringing this to a gallery.

Here is the preliminary (I draw it out lightly in pencil & ink, then add the watercolors):

Windswept Doves and Hearts

This painting is a miniature 3" x 4.85" watercolor and ink. It belongs to a series of pieces I have been making which feature doves including Angel Patrice of Peace, Menorrah and Doves, Pull Me to the Sky, Portal and others. It is available in my ETSY SHOP.

This is a much more comfortable size for me to paint than the aceo (2.5" x 3.5"), but I haven't given up on the aceo. I hope to tackle another one soon!

I recently learned about the OSWOA size (4" x 6"). But the OSWOA must be an original work of art, unlike the aceo. So, I painted another tree with knotted roots and that is also up in my etsy store if you want to take a look. I like the one I posted here a bit more than that one (personal preference). I would have made this painting conform to the OSWOA, but I wanted to leave a white border for framing (I was stuck with the 4" x 6" paper size).

It has been an unusually hot summer here in the north country with a lot of time weeding in the garden (I grow a lot of my own food to insure that it does not have pesticides). There is no air conditioning where I do my art and music, so I am taking a respite from big ambitious projects and painting miniatures and teeshirts and practicing only the music that I know well for awhile.

The teeshirts aren't available on-line, but if you are in the area, I have them up for sale at Valley Artisans Market in Cambridge, NY. There are also other artists who have teeshirts available at the same shop.

My Website

Music MYSPACE (hear clips)

My Etsy on-line store for purchasing some of my CDs and some of my art

My band site: Saratoga Faire

My Renaissance band MYSPACE: The Spirites Consort (hear clips)