TOP: Temptation 12″ x 16″ Oil on Linen {framed}

BOTTOM: Tempted 12″ x 16″ Oil on Linen {framed}

Worthy of Love 13″ x 14″ Oil on Linen {framed}

]]> http://amylind.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=929 0 http://amylind.com/blog/?p=909 http://amylind.com/blog/?p=909#comments Wed, 21 Mar 2012 22:54:59 +0000 admin http://amylind.com/blog/?p=909

I’m a little late posting this, but that doesn’t mean I’m not super excited and honored to be one of Oxford American’s “100 under 100 New Superstars of Southern Art”!  Each year, this fantastic magazine puts out a “visual south” issue.  This year, I was nominated by a fellow southerner and VERY talented artist Cedric Smith.  Both his paintings and photography are equally wonderful.  On top of selling his work at galleries in Paris and NYC (to name a few places), he has recently started a successful and amusing blog consisting of his photos documenting stylish people in everyday life around town.  Check it out: yourewelcomesavannah.com.  And here is his website of paintings: cedricsmith.com

The printed magazine includes the first 40 of 100 “stars” and sadly I am much closer to 100…  Here is what the bit about me looks like online.  I cannot express enough how grateful I am to the very talented and dear gentleman, Cedric Smith, for thinking so highly of me and saying so.  Your words are truly too kind but much appreciated.  Click here to see the other 41-100 stars!

Here is a blurb from the Oxford American’s website regarding their Visual South Issue (February 2012, Issue 76):

“This new “Visual South Issue” is the result of joggling a massive crew of curators, critics, established artists, and “Art Insiders” to nominate THE NEW 100 SUPERSTARS OF SOUTHERN ART.

The FINAL LIST is overwhelming in its quality and collecting all this great new art left us kind of numb—in a good way.”

Marcel the Shell With Shoes On: Things About Me (the children’s picture book that I painted) has made the rounds – from various online sources to more notably being featured in Entertainment Weekly, People Magazine, and TIME Magazine.com.  As if that all isn’t exciting enough, I just found out that the book made last week’s New York Times Best Sellers list!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I’m absolutely over. the. moooooon!!!

Congrats to all involved in making the book so spectacular – especially Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp (co-creators of Marcel and authors of the book)!!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

ROBERT LANGE STUDIOS, Charleston, SC – “Fortunate” November 4 through Thanksgiving weekend

{ Put all your unhappiness aside, life is beautiful, be happy 36″ x 24″   oil on belgian linen  }

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WATERHOUSE GALLERY, Santa Barbara, CA – “Great American Figurative Show” opens November 19

{ Be Still 30″ x 24″  oil on belgian linen  }

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JEREMY LIPKING OPEN STUDIO, Agoura Hills, CA – “Exhibition of paintings by Jeremy Lipking and Friends” opens December 3 and lasts for a week

{  Unveiling Grace 24″ x 28″  oil on belgian linen  }

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I promise that all of these shows are worth checking out.  Lots of fantastic work by some amazing artists!

I don’t know what I did to be a part of something so spectacular, but the children’s book I had the honor of painting images for was just featured on TIME.com!  TIME magazine, ladies and gents.  That’s right.  And the co-creator of Marcel the Shell, Jenny Slate, actually mentions MY NAME!  This is all a bit surreal… Watch the video above for a good glimpse inside the pages of the book, and then follow this link to read the article that accompanied the above video in the TIME feature.

Some screen shots of the article headline and video on TIME.com:

A few blog posts back, I mentioned that I had the pleasure of painting images for the upcoming Penguin Children’s Book “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On: Things About Me.”  The book doesn’t come out until November 1, but just to butter you up they have pre-released five spreads from the book alongside an interview with the co-authors and creator of Marcel.  Check out the link to the exclusive by Whitney Jefferson on Jezebel.com, and see the content below as well.  I couldn’t help but highlight the parts about me in red.  : )

First Look: Marcel The Shell’s First Children’s Book

Marcel The Shell is making the leap from overnight viral sensation to the subject of a new children’s book, Marcel The Shell With Shoes On: Things About Me (on sale November 1). We spoke to Jenny Slate and Dean Fleischer-Camp, authors of the book and creators of Marcel, and found out that there as so many more things we’ve yet to learn about the little shell. And we’ve also got ten lovely pages from the book.

Jezebel: Marcel The Shell’s debut was an extremely successful viral video, racking up over 11 million hits on YouTube. What made you decide that the character would make for a good book?

Dean Fleischer-Camp: Well, Jenny and I both have a real love for children’s literature; we actually read a lot of kids books. We always wanted to do something with children’s literature. We did not make Marcel specifically for kids, but once it sort of got popular with young people it seemed like it would be a nice next step.

Jenny: I think although Marcel originated in film, the character can be put out there in many different forms of art. When it was suggested that some people were interested in it being a picture book, it was an immediate yes just because it’s a world we wanted to be involved in, and also we read a lot of picture books. Like ones that we liked as kids and new ones, they’re really refreshing and a like a peaceful, playful thing to read kids books as an adult.

Jezebel: So you read a lot of children’s books as adults — what are some of your favorites?

Dean: I always loved anything by Roald Dahl, and I really loved Shel Silverstein. Oh! Harold and the Purple Crayon is like one of my all-time favorites.

Jenny: I really liked books like the Ox-Cart Man and Miss Rumphius, which are Barbara Cooney books. But then I also books that were more like me as a kid, like kids that had problems. There was one book called like I’m Telling You Now that was this beautiful watercolor book about this boy who did all these things that he wasn’t supposed to do … but he was only curious, I love those. I loved the Courduroy books! There are so many.

Jezebel: One of the things that really stands out in the book is the artwork, by Amy Lind. Did your publisher hook you up with her or were you familiar with her work beforehand?

Dean: Our publisher set us up with a bunch of different ideas for artists and [Amy] just had a really great sense of light. We really wanted that photo realist oil painting style and that’s not really a style that’s practiced as much as it used to be.

Jenny: It’s also really the only way we felt comfortable with making the art for the book. We didn’t want it to be photographed because we felt that would just accentuate that it wasn’t a film … We just thought, if we wanted to take it further and still make it Marcel, how would we do that? It’s sort of honorable when someone has an oil painting of them. There’s an oil painting of my grandfather in his Marine uniform hung in my grandparent’s house and he was so handsome, and such a rich, beautiful painting of a time where he was really proud of himself. We thought it would be a really nice way to honor Marcel.

Dean: I thought it was really funny. Because oil paintings are such a proper way to honor someone with a rich history it’s so funny to take this little scrappy guy who’s a shell with one eye and sort of pay tribute to him [that way]. It’s kind of like that oil painting of kramer.

Jenny: I think that’s a media quote that you’ll regret saying. It’ll be all over the internet that our book is like a big, hardcover oil painting of Kramer? Who wants to read that?

Dean: That’s the reason it’s funny to me!

Jenny: Yeah, it’s true. I think Amy did a great job on the paintings. They’re based off of photographs that Dean took with our friend Dave Erickson and I feel like he doesn’t say it, but he did a beautiful job on the photo shoot and actually lit it so that you can see the day transitioning to the night. What it came down to is that he’s compulsive and Amy is so talented…she just did such a good job adding a richness to something that was already so special.

Jezebel: When I read the book, I have to admit that I read it in Marcel’s voice, a credit to you. Was his distinctive voice part of why you decided to include it in the audiobook?

Jenny: Sure; especially [since] there are so many kids books have an audio component, we should. Plus I always wanted to read an audiobook.

Jezebel: I can already tell kids are gonna love Marcel; by now you must have been approached to turn him into a TV show.

Jenny: There’s definitely more Marcel coming and yes, we are in the development process of a TV show. The future’s open for him. I think we’ll do as much with him as we can until either he changes for us or there isn’t anything more to say. But for now, there’s so much more to say. There’s so much more about Marcel that we haven’t even told you yet. I don’t even know if I can say it! Marcel has some pretty amazing talents that he’s really proud of and there will be a lot more.

Jezebel: Does he have friends? What are these talents?

Jenny: Marcel is really a good singer, but he doesn’t think he’s a good singer. He he knows that he’s good for his shell but he doesn’t think that he’s good for, like, a person. He makes up a ton of songs.

Dean: He’s enrolled at the academy with kids and he’s the best in his class. So, he goes to school, he’s being classically trained.

Jenny: And he has kind of like an opera voice but he does covers of Seal and No Doubt. He loves Seal. He gets so excited when he sings “Kiss From A Rose” that he can’t even remember the words.

Jezebel: Do you think we’ll ever get to see a live version of Marcel The Shell? Perhaps around Halloween at a Big Terrific show, singing “Kiss From A Rose”?

Jenny: (laughs) I don’t know! I’m not opposed to it. My dream is to go on [NPR's] Terry Gross and be interviewed as Marcel, and be the voice so you wouldn’t have to see me doing it. I’m kind of afraid that if people see me that they won’t see Marcel anymore and they’ll just be like “That Jenny Slate makes a weird face when she does that voice!”

Jezebel: Oh, never. Anything else we should know about the book before going out to buy it?

Dean: There’s another one coming!

Jenny: If you look in the book, there are pictures of me as a little girl sort of hidden within the painting. The movie [in the book] has got Marcel and his Grandmother, whose name is Nana Connie. [She] will have a big part in the television show and in is in the second book, hopefully.

Dean: We shot it in our apartment in Brooklyn so there are lots of props that are from our real-life apartment

Jenny: Yeah, it is nice that it’s our house. In the first picture you can’t even really see Marcel, it’s from afar, and that’s looking into our bedroom. Also, Dean lettered the entire book. It’s not a font, he physically lettered all of the inside pages!

See link on BuzzFeed.com for larger images.

And the story goes…

Amy Lind’s painting of a show girl titled “Star” appeared in November’s American Art Collector as part of a group show Robert Lange Studios hosted called “Women Painting Women.” Lyle Sarnevitz, a Charlotte collector, fell in love with the piece but when he visited the gallery website discovered it was over five feet tall and four feet wide. His large collection of over 80 contemporary realists meant he had little wall space left. Even though the piece would not fit in his collection, he tore out the image from the magazine and kept it. The next month Lind’s paintings were again in the magazine and one of the works even graced the cover.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about the piece,” says Sarnevitz, who six months later had to see the painting in person so he drove down to the Charleston, South Carolina-based gallery. “The second I walked in the gallery I knew she would be coming home with me, even if I had to rearrange my entire house to make space.”

In addition to this, the October issue of American Art Collector also highlighted my wonderful gallery, Robert Lange Studios, where I have been showing my work at for five years in a new feature called “Gallery Watch.”  Congrats to the fabulous gallery owners Rob and Megan Lange and gallery director Carri Scwabb for growing such a gem of a gallery!  I’m so lucky to work with y’all and call you good friends!  (If you look closely at the photo below, you’ll see two of my paintings on the left).

My painting “Jazmine Profile” was one of five paintings to win an Honorable Mention in the Figurative Category in the prestigious Art Renewal Center 2010-2011 Salon!  Also, two of my paintings “Profile of Annie with Dreadlock” and “Profile of Tarren” were among 100 Finalists in the Figurative Category.

I am more than honored to receive such wonderful accolades and to be in such great company alongside masters and amazing paintings!  The work they selected for this year’s salon is definitely worth checking out!

Profile of Annie with Dreadlock 18″ x 24″   oil on linen

Profile of Tarren 24″ x 18″   oil on linen