Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 2


http://www.spectrumfantasticart.com/spectrumfantasticartlive/?page=sfal_hotels


Living in a small town makes being an artist isolating at best. Unless you paint the provencial items that are considered "acceptable"....and that list is frustratingly small, you are really out of luck. When your tastes range to the "fantastical", it can be a little, well, even more daunting.

Recently, upon hearing of a "fantastic" art show of the "out of town" variety, I couldn't pass it up. What a great excuse to not only get out of town, but to see some really great art! So, one fairly mundane roadtrip - which did involve the police - both very kind, but of the sort of meeting that left no evidence, a couple of tornadoes, and  - and one long night and a longer day, and Andie and I land in KCMO. Brilliant time and we didn't even land on any witches.

Let me start by saying that in my isolation at home, Spectrum Books are my one of the rare art joys I have, so to actually get to land in the middle of the Spectrum LIVE show, well, it made this old gal's day. It was amazing - coloring outside the lines, over the lines, with pallettes rich in colors that you'd never see in Dorothy's Kansas and creepy, crawly, crazy things that made you look, look away and look again! All beautiful. I was in full geek mode too sadly - I couldn't say a word without looking like a total idiot, but I still was so overjoyed to be there. So happy to get to actually GO to an ART event after 11 years of just doing "mom" stuff, that words fail me, yet again and the dork factor just keeps rising.

I hope that Andie will look around these shows and decide she wants to work on her own art (REALLY WORK) - when you see some of the best artists alive all around you, is beyond humbling, but also SO inspiring!

Another one of the many reasons for going to the Spectrum FA LIVE show was to see the work of Virginie Ropars from Brittany/France. Virginie is spectacularly talented and amazingly creative and a delightful lady with the most delightfully fantastic red hair. She was practically sold out by early the very first (preview) day, but we managed to score some prints of her awsome work and to be very generously gifted with a set of wonderful postcards by the artist herself (she's so nice) - and don't anyone ever expect to see one of these babies in the mail. MINE. Grrrrr!!! I'm keeping them all for my scrapbook.

But while we were there we ran across so many other artists that it was just mindblowing. Mr. Charles Vess, who is such a delightful fellow. Every bit the artist (from his flowing hair to the earring) but so gentle and generous with his time. He was gracious enough to illustrate a quick pic and sign a book for Andie - which she had already finished before we even left MO.

Then there are the Shiflett Bros. from the Lone Star State :)  - amazing and always amusing and their "dimensional" comic book characters are great - always unexpected and just great.

Scott Quick - so very witty and so gracious, talented and he just seems to be the most exceptionally nice fellow, my daughter Andie spent most of the trip home with her nose in his Camden Bottoms' Book, traveling in the imaginary world in nothing but her own bath towel and laughing and snorting for most of the trip, both real and imagained - until the tornado, but that's another story. Scott does the most amazing hand lettering and linework - we had a laugh about the tools of the trade back in the day (ruling pen, french curves, lettraset, lettering guides, t squares, compasses), but he and I both admitted we still have them tucked away for safekeeping. His are probably still getting a lot of use because he is wonderful at hand drawing unlike mine which are in the flat files.....somewhere.

Mr. Jean Baptist Monge, the wonderful Canadian artist and his beautiful wife - I was probably just an idiot because I loved hearing them talk and he was drawing too, so I could have spent the entire day right there! His world is inhabited by beautiful fairies, dragons and strange little dwarves or gnomes or I'm not exactly sure what their lineage or genealogy is, but they were wonderfully rendered in both line and color and always with a twinkle in their eye - I'm so wishing that JBM would illustrate a lovely faery tale princess story or three or four because his work is SO transporting. JBM said his favorite subject was animals, but I'm so glad that he also does the fantastical, because it has a sweetness that makes you want more and our wonderful print with the dour bulldog and his fae companion is a hilarious juxtaposition of reality and fantasy.

Andie (and me too) loved the work of Annie Stegg - she's such a sweet, southern belle and her work reflects that with the sweet portraits she does. That doesn't begin to do her work justice though - you just have to see it - needless to say, we picked up a couple of prints and I am so in LOVE with another one of her portraits from the Thumbellina series, that I would in all honesty, really love to own it, but the print will be lovely too. lol

Well, I could just go on and on and on. All the artists were so talented and having such a good time - the awards show venue was to die for...Downtown KC MO - at the Midland Theatre. It was perfect.



SFAL 2013 Exhibitors

Deanna Adona
D. Ryan Allen
Steve Argyle
The Art Department
The Art Institutes
Tohru Patrick Awa
Tom Babbey
Baby Tattoo Books
Drew Baker
Armand Baltazar
Michael Banks
Jeremy Bastian
Andrew Bawidamann
Jasmine Becket-Griffith
Steven Belledin
Kyle Bice
Tom Bishop
Paul Bonner
Andy Brase
Brom
Lydia Burris
Marina Bychkova
Lauren K. Cannon
Bill Carman
COOP
Ashley Corbello
Galen Dara
Thomas Davies
Peter de Sève
Sara Diesel
Frank Dixon
Alejandra Díaz de León
Dave Dorman
Dan Dos Santos
Dreamhaven Books
Felipe Echevarria
Craig Elliott
Steve Ellis
Robert Elrod
Jason Engle
John Esh
Brian Ewing
Toma Feizo Gas
Fantasy Flight Games
Jason Felix
Sam Flegal
Flesk Publications
Jon Foster
44FLOOD
Nathan Fox
D.A. Frizell
Ashton Gallagher
Randy Gallegos
Laura Garabedian
Justin Gerard
Kasra Ghanbari
Donato Giancola
Gary Gianni
Thomas Gieseke
Cory Godbey
Lisa Grabenstetter
Gris Grimly
Chris Guarino
Garrett Hanna
Diana Harlan Stein
Ethan Harris
Kelley Hensing
Christina Hess
Woodrow J. Hinton III
Joshua Hoffine
Karen Ann Hollingsworth
Matt Holtman / Eeks Art
Edward Howard
Michael Hussar
Tyler Jacobson
Jennifer Janesko
Evan Jensen
Garrette Johnson
Ian Johnson
Eric Joyner
KC Toy & Miniature Museum
Kevin Keil
Brian Kesinger
Rich Klink
J. Anthony Kosar
Vance Kovacs
Thomas Kuebler
Ken Kvamme
Timothy Lantz
April Lee
Dave Leri
Travis Lewis
Brenna Lindblad
Cory Loftis
Mad Tatters
Greg Manchess
Frank Mangiaracina / B-Bop
Michael Manomivibul
Stephan Martiniere
Tara McPherson
Fiona Meng
menton3
Leonardo Meschini
Brynn Metheney
Aaron Miller
Jeff Miracola
Jean-Baptiste Monge
Feliciano Mora
Muddy Colors
Sho Murase
Scott Murphy
Sean Murray
Mark A. Nelson
Colin Nitta
Eirich Olson
David Palumbo
Lucio Parrillo
Jim Pavelec
John Picacio
David Petersen
Shane Pierce
John Polidora
Mark Poole
RK Post
Jeff Preston
Vincent Proce
Scott Quick
Ragnar
Chris Rahn
Laura Ramie
Omar Rayyan
Wayne Reynolds
Joshua Rizer
Forest Rogers
Virginie Ropars
Matt Rota
Lauren Saint-Onge
Steven Sanders
Dominick Saponaro
Mark Schultz
School of Visual Arts
Dan Scott
Chris Seaman
Brandon & Jarrod Shiflett
James Shoop
Emi Slade
Greg Spalenka
Allen Spiegel Fine Arts
Christian N. St. Pierre
John Stanko
Matt Stawicki
Annie Stegg
Lucky Stradley
Justin Sweet
Renae Taylor
David Thiérrée
Matt Tisdale
Christopher Titus
Paul Tobin
Two Tone Press
Charles Vess
Roxana Villa
Raoul Vitale
Franz Vohwinkel
Piya Wannachaiwong
Mark Wheatley
Michael Whelan
White Cloud Worlds
Terryl Whitlatch
Allen Williams
Byron Winton
Christina Yoder
Steven Yoder

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