August 29, 2009 | Posted By: Chris
Filed Under Annie, Art Shows, Chris, For Sale, Friends + Family, Our Artwork
Drawn Together - Exhibit Opening
Thursday, September 3rd 7-9pm
at The Showroom at HUB-BUB
149 S.Daniel Morgan Ave.
Spartanburg, SC 29306
Please join us from 7 to 9 pm at the Showroom for the opening reception of this exhibit featuring the work of three couples, Ashley Holt & Melissa Earley, Annie Koelle & Chris Koelle and JJ Ohlinger & Darlene Fuhst. The exhibit features a variety of mediums, from beadwork and digital illustration to pastel and oil painting.
*Admission is free.
*Beverages and hors d’oeuvres will be available.
Click here for Google Map directions to The Showroom.
August 26, 2009 | Posted By: Annie
Filed Under Annie, Art Shows, For Sale, Like + Love, Our Artwork
The other day I discovered some old reference photos I had taken of the giant clover patches scattered across our overgrown yard. . . they have such wonderful shapes I just had to draw them, I mean paint them, I mean both. . .the “new” Annie technique of art making. I guess I can just refer to it as mixed media. . .though somehow there rings some odd connotations with that term, too many glimpses in tacky collage books at Barnes and Noble.
I also picked up some Golden metallic copper paint, much easier to use than the metal leaf sheets that always seem to spastically waft around them room in the breeze of every slight movement. You need to be a champion holder-of-breath to successfully master gilding, I think I’ll stick to paintertape stencils and paint tubes for my glittering. Anyways, these will be appearing at the husband-wife show we have coming up soon at The HUB-BUB Showroom in Spartanburg, SC. I confess I really love these, I love the copper and the slight turquoise glaze and the drawing that wraps around every side. Honestly, I can rarely say I love the outcome of my paintings, I love these. If they don’t sell at the show, you can eventually love them in our Etsy shop.
August 20, 2009 | Posted By: Chris
Filed Under Annie, For Sale, Our Artwork
I wanted to post more pics of Annie’s “I Want Cake” zine. Deliciously black and white with just a pinch of colour. And chocolate. MMMMMMM. If you want a recipe for the most awesome chocolate cake ever, pick up the zine at our Etsy shop and you shall have the hand-written recipe from Annie herself.
August 13, 2009 | Posted By: Chris
Filed Under B+W Wednesday, Friends + Family, Life, Like + Love
With a special place in my heart for good-music-meets-good-design excellence, I’ve been really appreciating the aesthetic of 12k for the past couple of years. Founder, creative director, designer, sound artist, and photographer, Taylor Deupree appears (to me) to have The Dream Job. Tapping in to the seemingly infinite beauty of sound, bringing more of it to the world, and presenting it in a consistently beautiful way, through elegant photography, typography, and design. Man, I’d like to have that job.
Of all my records from Mr. Deupree, Northern, which might be his most highly-praised album (with good reason), is by far the most-cherished and most-played in my 12k collection. I first heard it a few years ago in the early stages of my newfound fascination with minimalist electro-acoustic music, when I was downloading every “ambient” album I could as soon as my monthly eMusic downloads refreshed. Being from Chicago myself, the fact that someone had created an electronic / electroacoustic record inspired by northern-ness was enough to make it immediately resonate with me, and I soaked up every delicate sound, every muted wintery color, every quiet image the music evoked (I’m pretty sure I first listened to it in the cold months of winter, which, even here in South Carolina, can get bone-chilling).
From 12k:
The inspiration behind Northern (including its music, title and photography) comes from Deupree’s recent relocation from the heart of urban activity in Brooklyn to the tranquility of the forest in upstate New York. Inspired by nature and the winter during which it was created, Northern, like much of his recent work, explores Deupree’s interest in stillness and a slowed sense of time. Through quiet textures, subtle movements, faint loops and echoes, it was his goal to create the type of music that comes naturally to him while also highlighting the input from his dramatic new surroundings.
In contrast to the brazen repetition found on Stil., Northern’s more ephemeral approach to Deupree’s theme comes from looking at the stillness found outside of his studio windows: large, looming boulders, the softness of snow, and the hushed whisper of wind and fallen leaves; it is a world of countless tiny movements so active that an implied stillness results from the din it creates.
Deupree has dedicated Northern to his closest friend of his teenage years, Bryan Charles Strniste, with whom he first started experimenting in electronic music over 20 years ago. Deupree’s relocation to a nearby area much like the one where he grew up spurred memories of those days of early musical playfulness. Thus, Northern became highly personal and nostalgic while at the same time breaking into new territory for Deupree, echoing the changes in his personal life.
* * *
So I was thrilled when, a little over a year ago, I discovered Deupree was re-issuing the album, with exquisite new packaging and with re-mixed and re-mastered audio:
Not content to merely order a re-pressing of the same masters on hand at the CD manufacturer, Taylor Deupree set out to create what he calls the “director’s cut” of one of the most important CDs in his catalog. The idea was to open the now-2-year-old computer files to re-mix and re-master the tracks. Of course over the course of years computers change, formats change, and Deupree found himself faced with missing plug-ins, errored sound files and other oddities that made working with the files difficult. What first seemed like roadblocks turned into a mission to work with what was there and re-do what was not. The result is a Northern that will, on the surface, seem quite similar to the original, however listeners will hear new sounds, extended endings, shortened endings and most of all, an overall mix that presents these works with a new clarity and spaciousness. Mastering in the analog domain has given the work a new found sense of delicacy and detail.
The packaging: a heavyweight cardboard wallet with debossed typography on the front cover. Inside are two pockets, one for the CD and one for a 24-page booklet of photography, credits, and lots of white space. All printing, as with the original, is in black and white.
I’m well aware this is the hottest time of year (almost unbearable here with the South Carolina humidity), but, with a little help from the AC, Northern can take you to a cooler place.
Buy the album here. And if you’re really into this kind of thing, I highly recommend downloading the original release as well.
See some of Taylor Deupree’s Northern photograph series here.
August 10, 2009 | Posted By: Annie
Filed Under Annie, For Sale, Our Artwork
A while ago a local artist, Paul Flint owner of Suburban Paint (I covet so many of his paintings, someday hopefully one will be hanging on my wall) recommended some latex wall paint by Benjamen Moore, the new Aura brand. Well I finally tried it as a base coat and as a drawing surface for graphite and white china marker and I am absolutely in love. These pieces that you see below are some cedar waxwings that frequent my fruit filled yard. They are really lovely birds, I’m not sure that I have done them justice, but I really enjoyed drawing them. After I finish the drawing I fix it and then apply several acrylic glazes, several coats of varnish and then mask in the pendants on the sides. I credit the recent fetish for pendants to my Royal Buffet days, I just can’t seem to get away from them. . .
I’m sure you will definitely see a lot more in this style and medium combo, it is very artist-with-toddler friendly, low mess and can handle many interrupts. Besides the fact that I just love everything else about it. Thanks Paul!
August 5, 2009 | Posted By: Chris
Filed Under B+W Wednesday, Chris, For Sale, Our Artwork
Did these probably a year ago and thought I’d post them for today’s B+W. Does that make me lazy? Maybe. Probably. And also freaking SLAMMED with the graphic novel work. Page a day. No rest for the weary!
