Mariella's projects this season

Mariella's Projects, November 2008


I am so grateful to all of you who have written to me about your thoughts on Vermont's waterways. You are inspiring. You are challenging my previously help beliefs about what people hold dearest in such memories.

A couple of people have asked me if I am doing other projects this season along with the Art of Action. Here is a sampling of studio projects currently happening:
ANYBODY LIKE CHOCOLATE????
I am an ART BARS artist this year!
They are including an image of Listen to the River, 2007, a collage/mixed media work 60 X 40"
in the packaging of the most amazing fair-trade organic chocolate bars. A group show of all the year's artists opens in Ithaca, NY on Dec. 6. The piece is available through IFC or Gallery North Star at $8200.

www.Ithacafinechocolates.com




Group shows for the holidays are being hosted by
1. Gallery North Star in Grafton, Vermont
You can always see a varied selection of my work here. Edward and Kim Bank show collage works and paintings in a spacious gallery in the historic small town of Grafton in the southern-central part of Vermont. Gallery North Star organized a solo show for me last summer. Edward Bank created a fun 10-minute DVD showing my working process outdoors and in the studio. I love the original music he and Joe Terlizzi wrote and performed for the soundtrack available for download from their site
http://www.gnsgrafton.com
"Forces of Nature" (Plattekill Falls) 2007, Mixed media collage on wood panel 50 X 38" $7500.

This collage is a piece based on several paintings and drawings of this much loved location. My collage technique allows me to explore texture and color using papers I draw and paint on them both before and after gluing them, so the surfaces are quite active and layered. Finished pieces are sealed and framed like paintings rather than shown under plexi. This work in on a wooden panel. I work now on stretched Belgian linen as well.


2.) Elena Zang Gallery where I am thrilled to be showing with Judy Pfaff, Joan Snyder and Mary Frank who are all my heroes and mentors. Elena shows my collage/mixed media work in Woodstock, NY. Pictured below is Falls in Talullah Creek, 2007 22 X 30" POR


http://www.ElenaZang.com

3.) Chace-Randall Gallery in beautiful Andes, NY
Gallerist Zoe Randall is showing a selection of watercolor/gouache paintings on paper. I am pleased to show with printmaker Rimer Cardillo and artist friend Inverna Lockpez and others.
http://www.chacerandallgallery.com

Pictured here is a watercolor/gouache painting made on-site at Plattekill Falls. A painting that is not retouched in the studio can be called premier coup. So this is a plein-aire premier coup.
Matted and framed, it is priced at $2000. at Chace-Randall.

This work is a perfect example of my reaching towards visual abstraction based on the geometry of observed nature. I feel it is one of my best paintings-- and I have done MANY- of Plattekill Falls. I kept it in my own collection for a few years, but there's another one I'm keeping now.
I go to Platte Clove and paint there often. I also serve as chairperson of the artist friends of Platte Clove Cabin at the top of the Falls for the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development. For further information about the Artists & Writers cabin residency in Platte Clove:
http://www.catskillcenter.org/programs/arts/arts1.html#platte

4.) and now for something completely different.... for a thought-provoking show called "MEND" at the Proteus Gowanus alternative artspace in Brooklyn, I am restoring a "Widow's Quilt" from the depression era. Found in Vermont in tatters, this amazing intricate Log Cabin pattern will require the replacing of almost every piece within the 80 fabric blocks. Obsessive??? Me??? You think so??? You can check in for updates as the mending process unfolds.
http://proteusgowanus.com/main/current-exhibit/mend-project-mariella-bissons-quilt-mending-project

Teaching plans:
Four Fridays in February, a Drawing and Painting Skills Workshop at the Woodstock School of Art in Woodstock, NY I'll be back again for two summer workshops on outdoor painting and art-making hand skills.
http://www.woodstockschoolofart.org

Adirondacks! A 3-day plein-aire intensive in July celebrates the beautiful northern lakes district. We'll work on water surface and how to translate geological forms into paint.
http://www.artcenteroldforge.org

Special thanks to the spiritually charged and politically active people who invited me along with 13 other writers and artists for a 5-day intensive November residency at The Blue Mountain Center in Blue Mountain Lake, NY. This is one of America's leading artist colonies and the only one to have a social justice component in their mission and programming.
http://www.bluemountaincenter.org