I met Toni Turbeville approximately 15 years ago in a class at the University of South Carolina. We weren’t incredibly fond of each other at first but had many of the same friends and ended up together on a regular basis.

I thought she was a big mouth; she thought I was a, well, a bitch. Eventually, all of our friends had other classes, and it was just the two of us–alone together.

The friendship stuck in a manner I never thought imaginable. We have been on hideous road trips to Union, SC (don’t ask), been through both divorces and re-marriages (and the bridesmaid dresses that go with them), co-owned a business (with a partners desk) and co-managed multiple rock bands.

We have survived the bitter ugliness of truths that cannot be unsaid. We have shared art, too much wine and enough nicotine to kill a horse. We have fought the bulge– both winning and losing depending on the year.

She is the god-mother of my child.

She is talented and funny and way off center in a delightful way. Why should you care? In addition to being a great artist, designer, and public relations maven, she has a talent for the written word. And finally, after years of stops and starts, she has published Toni’s Treehouse–a blog capturing the whimsy of childhood, the necessity of laundry, and all the vittles you can whip up in a hurry while life passes you in a blur.

Art & Art Deadlines.com is proud to be the Featured Sponsor of Toni’s Treehouse for the month of February. It is about babies and motherhood and television and cooking and everything and nothing. It brightens my day and inspires me to get off the couch…if only to put on clean pajamas. The Everyone has Garbage post almost made me wet my pants. Visit and Enjoy!

Have you ever had a piece of artwork stolen? Me too…more than once. Within the past two weeks, “Sally,” part of a triptych called “Sue . Sally . Sara .” was stolen off a gallery wall.

I received both a phone message and an email from the Director of the organization and the Director of the gallery–frought with professionalism and concern. My response? “Stuff happens,” and “Hey, I take it as a compliment…I’m theft-worthy.”

For me, the theft poses questions like…“What was wrong with the other pieces in the triptych”…not “How could this happen.”

As a gallery owner and then director for many years, please take my advice on this one. Do not have a hysterical fit that reinforces the idea that all artists are crazy and irrational.

Yes, I understand that you may be attached to the artwork. “Sally” is a part of my masthead at RLGibson.com, but you’ve got to let it go. Galleries and their owners and directors do the best they can; do me a favor, and give them a break. Most of them are insured.

Do you have a story of art theft and intrigue to share? Send me an email or leave a comment on this post. Have Happy Holidays!

I recently posted an update about my being juried into the Arts in the Airport show.  On Thursday November 5th, I got to attend my first show opening and reception located in an airport.  Click Here to see all of the work in the Arts in the Airport show.

First, my kudos go out to the Knoxville Airport Authority’s devotion to the arts and willingness to put their money where their mouths are by offering $1000 in awards and NO ENTRY FEE.  Secondly, I want to applaud how well the reception and viewing were handled considering all the security issues surrounding any event held in the airport.

My husband, son Oscar and I drove approximately 1.5 hours to attend, and I had a great time.  Here are some pictures of the event:

Don’t forget to send your artwork and result to www.ArtandArtDeadlines.com.

The media in which I work is Xerography.  And I’ve spent years trying to find the technique that works best for me.  SC Artist Kim Lemasters introduced me to Xerography and showed me his method.  His method didn’t work for me…my first methods didn’t work for me.  Years later, I’m comfortable with my own process and find that it is still changing.  As my aptitude increases, my results change in unexpected ways.

For years, I worked on wood.  And honestly, I still prefer to work on wood.  However, I had work on wood that in my gut I knew was good that I couldn’t get shown.  I reworked some of the pieces on canvas and sent them to the same galleries as juried entries for different shows…and voila!  They were juried into the same galleries where they had previously been rejected.  It was at that point that I had to confront the issues of satisfying the marketing and realizing that it was not all about my process. 

I began producing ALL of my work for show on canvas while producing a few pieces on wood here and there because I loved them.  The result was a long resume of national shows and a secret belief (held by all artists I suspect) that some galleries and jurors simply have better taste and fewer biases about what constitutes “art” than others.

I decided to enter the Arts & Culture Alliance National Juried Exhibit of 2009 featured on the September Deadlines Post of ArtAndArtDeadlines.com.  As an experiment, I entered two pieces on canvas and a triptych on wood…just as a last hurrah for my sadly rejected wood pieces.  Only one piece could be juried into the show.  Wouldn’t you know… the wood triptych (pictured below) made the cut.

So, the moral of the story?  Oh hell, I don’t know…never give up on a piece you believe in?  have faith that eventually a juror will get it?  there’s no rhyme or reason to taste? 

Pick one.  Your guess is as good as mine.

Are you inspired every time someone’s 5-foot cake doesn’t go splat on one of those cake bake-offs? They make it look like anyone can do it. I find that knowing someone else has achieved results helps me distinguish between the opportunities I should seize and the ones that simply are not worth my time. I recommend giving emerge midwest art zine a try. I was honored to be juried into the April 2009 issue.

emerge is a specialty art zine, created by Sarah Earle, that is open to artists nationwide and is distributed quarterly to over 100 Midwest galleries (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin). Each issue features nine artists whose work is hand selected by a rotation of guest jurors.

The next issue should be January 2010. The deadline has not been released as of this post, but you don’t have to wait until the last minute. No really–you don’t. Send your submissions today.

All professional artists, ages 18 or older, working in all media are encouraged to apply. Created by artist and graphic designer Sarah Earle, emerge is a powerful exposure tool for any serious studio artist in the country. The cost to submit up to 10 images for consideration is only $15. you can complete the entire process online in 15 to 20 minutes, or you can send your payment and submission via snail mail. If you are juried in to the zine, here’s what you can expect:

Art Layout

Pictured right is an example of the spread provided to each of the six accepted artists. The left page is dedicated to the artists work, featuring several full-color images of their current pieces chosen from your submissions. The right page has the artist’s contact information, educational background (if applicable), show history, a Q&A section and more.

Distribution

emerge is an art zine that is open to artists nationwide and is distributed quarterly to over 100 Midwest galleries (Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin). When I asked emerge Editor/Designer Sarah Earle for the distribution list, she happily emailed them–an invaluable asset for marketing my work in the midwest.

Pictured left is Pieces of Me: Atlas, one of featured works in the April 2009 edition.

Take a chance–$15 and a chance you’ll be rejected is about as gentle as the art world gets.

And remember, successful artists don’t cook or dine alone…

so invite emerge into the kitchen with you.

It has to be said…I love Shakespearean literature. I confess to being a Romantic.  I confess to loving Hamlet.  I confess to having committed to memory endless passages of hackneyed lines so as to have them on the tip of my tongue at just the right moment.  I confess that I derive inspiration from the cadence of every line.  I confess.  I confess.  I confess.

In 2004, I lived in a tiny town in South Carolina with a lovely community theatre called the Pine Tree Playhouse.  Its players are still among my dearest friends.  In the summer of 2004, we decided to do Shakespeare in the Park in hopes that a handful of the 3500 residents would come and watch.

About 100 people saw the show over 2 weekends, but we were not discouraged.  Shakefest was born–a day long Shakespearean festival to be held outdoors…a festival dedicated to fresh, and often odd adaptations of Shakespearean literature–from a mobster version of Julius Caesar to a black and white TV sitcom version of The Three Witches scene (see pictured left).

I saw the festival through its first two years before I moved, and I still can’t stay away.  I’m not on stage anymore, but I attend every year.  Well, the time for Shakefest 2009 has come–Saturday and Sunday, October 17th and 18th.  I’ll be there for my dose of inspiration.  Join me.  It is only $5 for adults and $3 for children for the full day. You can enjoy the performances as well as a turkey leg, a few baked goods and lots of costumed performers.

Come in costume… the Queen is waiting!

I’ll see you there!     R.L. Gibson

I find myself working on Gluttony for the Psychomachia series today. Gluttony is represented in a Biblical sense by the bite of the apple.  Thematically, gluttony is being represented by the sideshow freak “World’s Fattest Woman.”

My subject is the world’s fattest woman only metaphorically, of course.  And then I began to wonder how many women live as the world’s fattest woman everyday–wallowing in guilt over their own perceived Gluttony, often false or imagined.  I wonder.

Okay, I added a blog category today–Links I Love. I trip across them and have them sent to me all the time.  Here’s one that made me smile–the Alphabet Soup Work Generator.  Thanks to Toni Turbeville for this one.

Send me the links that YOU love!

–R.L. Gibson

As many of you know, this blog as well as ArtAndArtDeadlines.com are produced via a wordpress.org platform.  I am a wordpress devotee, and I successfully made the transition from wordpress.com to wordpress.org despite my limited knowledge of CSS and such.

I still use wordpress.com for my work blog www.ADayInTheSmokies.com, and today I ran across a official wordpress.com logo contest that looks like alot of fun.  There is nothing like a side project to get the creative juices flowing.  I don’t believe my blogs qualify because they are wordpress.org platforms, but I’m going to participate anyway.   Click Here to visit the full post.  Here’s a cut and paste version of the Wordpress Logo Fun post:

While we’re away, we’ll be running a contest to see who can use the WordPress logo in the most creative way. Take advantage of your camera, graphics applications, crayons, and anything else you have at your disposal. Create a post on your WordPress.com blog, upload your image or images, and leave a comment here with the URL of your post. Please make sure to leave the URL to your post in the comment text or the entry will not be accepted.

We’ll get you started by providing some official WordPress logos, but the rest is up to you. I’m sure you can do better than the photos I’ve included here. We’ll keep an eye on submissions and post some of them to the @wordpressdotcom Twitter account during the week.

The deadline for submissions will be 4 p.m. EST on Monday, October 19.

We’ll create categories based on the best submissions and run polls to let you select the winners. Prizes will include WordPress.com upgrades, swag, and maybe other surprises. Good luck!