Post-It...That's The Tick-it.

Today I got serious. I have a show coming up. How on earth do you choose to mount a show from the 365 Days of Drawings you did in 2010?

I tried to cancel the show, very seriously. Didn't want to go there. The challenge was DONE, my public art soul out there for a whole darn year, day by day. Not so easy.

Why put it out there anymore?, I said to myself. My family agreed. Don't do it, my husband said. However, Ms. Mary Perez, owner, curator, of The Vita Art Center in Ventura, CA, mounting the show, (committing to it quite early on in the drawing challenge last year, b.t.w., which kinda kept me going at some points) , calmly talked me out of it. She said she had never seen me so jittery. Ms. Perez also said I would really regret it if I didn't do the show. This is exactly the type of curator an artist needs. Gets it!

I thought of the super successful "American Idol" TV show in the USA. You have to reach, right? Consolidate the hours of performance/learning/training into a three song set sometimes? You gotta be in it to win it, whatever 'win' is, right? And I really did frickin' draw every day no matter what for 365 days. One needs a conclusion to a year like that. A finale of sorts.

So self edt. Get the blue 'Post-Its' out. Tonight I laid out the selection of drawings I liked the best and became an 'American Idol' kind of TV judge, although not so Paula Abdul, if you know what I mean.

Consistency overall. Pick the 'art spirit' that propelled you forward in 2010 for 365 days. Amazingly enough, it seems to me there was a current, a theme of sorts. SO I PUT BLUE STICKIES ON THOSE, just like an A. I. judge. However, I do have to put my art ego aside to show that 'current' in the show. Not always the best drawings showed the current. No-one can help me with that it seems.

I now share with you my journey of putting on this show. Do you wish you could vote me off my version of American Idol perhaps?

365 Days of Drawing By Johanna Spinks

Opening Reception Friday April 1st 2011, 6 to 9 pm

Vita Art Center

Ventura, CA.

More details will surely follow

Edwin Barron, A Gift To The Arts.

What better way to spend this Saturday afternoon than paying tribute with a portrait unveiling and special afternoon honoring a wonderful man, Mr. Edwin Barron, a talented  former professor of drama at Ventura College, who on his passing left his entire estate to Studio Channel Islands Art Centre (SCIART) in Ventura. www.studiochannelislands.org/

SCIART  hosts many artists studios including my own in downtown Oxnard where I have been working for almost a year now, SCIART-WEST. It also boasts magnificent galleries hosting terrific shows.

These days it seems there is so little funding for the arts, especially in public schools, where parents have to pay for private art/music lessons. I certainly had to for my kids in public school and I was appalled by that fact. Where are we without our children being exposed to the arts at a young age? Nowhere.

So I wanted to take a moment to publicly give thanks to Mr. Barron. I hope  he would like the portrait I did of him, 22"x28". I am told I made him look kind. Well, he was. VERY. And many artists, and their shows, will benefit from his kind spirit for a long time.

To read more about Eddy, as he was known, go to the SCIART website.

Pictured top at Eddy's event: LtoR: Gerd Koch, artist, and one of the founders of SCIART, Karin

Beer-Koller (www.discoverarts.com/karin_beer-koller.html) SCIART president , and Johanna Spinks