If there’s one thing I LOVE to do, it’s give gifts. I love to give people presents, and its all that much more exciting to give something I’ve made with my own hands. My love asked me months ago (a couple times) to make her a Rick & Morty painting, I thought her moving to my city and calling it home was the perfect opportunity to surprise her.
There’s something about being asked to make a piece of art for a little soul. For a little baby that will get to look at something I made for, years. It makes me so happy, it’s truly inspiring. Marcy, a friend of mine needed art for her sweet angels room, she said she wanted elephants, blues, and golds. This is what I came up with;
I hope her sweet girl looks at this for years to come, and maybe even feels inspired from them. They were made with all the love and good vibes.
You’re going to be in a book.
http://www.artistsinjackson.com
One of the coolest, weirdest, proudest, just amazing things I’ve ever experienced. I am so unbelieveably blessed and happy to be a part of David Lawrence’s portrait project.
Once I started booking artists at the winery my wheels started turning. We needed to have a reception for artists in Jackson! David and I had lunch, threw around ideas, picked dates. I was excited.
Theres something so statisfying in planning something with all of your heart and soul and just watching it fall perfectly into place. For the reception David and I asked each of the 15 artists to make one or two pieces of art to accompany their portrait that he took. Along with some still life shots David had as well, it came together perfectly. Almost all the artists from the book came, it was great to meet everyone in the flesh and to watch everyone mingle. I felt so proud, proud of the wine I was serving, proud of my fellow artists and their work, so proud of David and all his hard work in bringing together some of these people that never knew the other existed. It was a beautiful day. Artists in Jackson is something I will always be overwhelmingly proud to say I’m a part of, and helping to put on this event to put David’s project on a pedestal was the least I could do.
My painting, under my portrait, simply titled ‘Her’ inspired by an inspiring human in my life. An eye opening, Life changing, beautiful soul. I wanted her to be looking into the sky at the moon and the stars. I used greens and yellows by her body. I wanted the painting to feel how I was feeling, very whimsical, a daze, settling for a moment to take it all in.
Photo By: Ashley Smith.
I’m blessed with a day job I enjoy going to everyday. I work at Sandhill Crane Vineyards, and we are apart of the Southeast Michigan Wine Trail. This wine trail puts on events to bring customers to all the wineries on our trail over the course of a weekend- Pioneer Wine Trail, Art Along the Trail. My idea for this was to rangle all my talented staff and their art to show for the entire month of April, and what do you know it worked! Not only were my bosses cool enough to let me run wild with this idea, but they also ran a people’s choice award where our customers could vote for their favorite piece of art, and they awarded the top two a $50 prize. The day I took down all the art, I also got to tally the votes, it was wild how many participated, myself and one of my co workers won, and three of our staff members tied for third.
My pieces ‘Wounds in Spring’ inspired by all the new I felt coming into my life. Accompanied by Rumi.
I also had two smaller pieces ‘Live’ and ‘Feel’ we live by the sun and feel by the moon. I never get sick of this concept, and painting sun and moon inspired pieces. I used the flowers from my big piece to tie it all together.
I saved this window pane from my aunts barn, along with a couple others. This was the first one I painted on. I wanted to represent day going into the night of darkness, then while researching ‘creepy romance’ I came across this poem by Cosondra Sjostrom. It fit perfectly. ‘Your absence would release all of the darkness inside of me’
‘Princess’ A Moment in Time. I always like to mix it up a little, and add a collage or some other form of mixed media that isn’t paint. I found these bits and pieces from the array of magazines I save, first finding the night piece on top, and then the girl, everything kind of flowed together after that. I love how it turned out.
‘The Witch’ the first piece I painted for the show, I love the female figure. I’m not sure what struck this inspiration, I knew I wanted a witch, and just ran with it.
‘Her Compass’ while researching what kind of witch I wanted to paint, I came across across a witches compass, I thought it was super creepy, and cool. I also saved this old frame from my aunts collection of stuff she didn’t want, and it fit perfectly.
Halloween is easily my favorite holiday, I was beyond excited when I was contacted to do this show, and it was a great turn out, with impressive creepy art. I just hope every year there happens to be a show I can be a part of. I love seeing what this side brings out of artists.
special thanks to Kaiti McDonough for all her hard work in making this happen, and to Grand River brewery for hosting.
We’ve all seen it, or own one, a generalized piece of ‘art’ from here or there, whatever store it is, someone else surely has it too. Well not this piece, well not anymore that is. Before and after.
Some fun little pieces, what can I say I love craft beer!
Nan!!! She is a super cool regular at the winery where I work, always keeping me up to date on cool new places to go or new beers to try, an all around full of life, rad lady. She also happens to be one of the biggest Marilyn Monroe fans I’ve met, so I surprised her with this painting! Hope it looks good in the Marilyn room. ❤️
So I got to do something really cool I’ve always wanted to do…Whenever I buy wine, or when I’m drinking a beer, I’m constantly looking at the label, thinking how would I design this, what would I create? I’ve dreamt about making one, & here my chance provides itself!
A Michigan maple sap dessert wine, aged for a year in a traverse bourbon barrel. It’s amazing, I hope what I painted for the label lives up to the taste!
We connected because of our favorite band, we grew, and she graduated.
colleenmpeterson 