Saturday, May 06, 2006

Topanga Art Studio Tour Auction



I have participated in the Topanga Art Studio Tours all 4 years since the inception. This will be our 5th tour and it is a wonderful experience. Studio tours are usually the second week of June for 2 days. You start out at the gallery, each artist will have one piece of art hanging , one silent auction painting and you purchase a book for $25.00 it has a description plus a bio of each artist with a map of how to get to their studio. For 2 days you can visit as many studios as you would like. At least 50 artists are involved. Last year they started a silent auction. They provide you with an 8" x 8 " canvas and if you finish it by May 1st it is photographed and included on the promotional invite they provide for the artists, they also make an e-vite using the art too. This tour is the perfect show for me because I am pretty reclusive and this way I don't have to leave my house! The people usually come in small waves so the art lovers get to have one on one time with the artist. People that enjoy coming to Topanga and seeing the houses, gardens and life here enjoy the tour too. Here is my auction painting that I made last week it took 3 days because I made a little mushroom house and resined it so that added more time. I decided to use my theme of the forest as a room along with this little mushroom house growing out of the grassy carpet. The bidding will start at $50.00 and I will donate all the proceeds to the gallery. The invite hasn't been printed yet so I used last years invite to show how it looks with all the 8x8's. The show this year is Saturday, June 10, 10:00 am-6:00 pm and Sunday, June 11, 11:00 am -5:00 pm. Reception: Saturday, June 10, 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm at the Topanga Canyon Gallery.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Good luck with the tour.
I am beginning to really like these wrap around canvases. they look awesome

andrea said...

What did you make the little mushroom house out of and how did you attach it to the canvas? Very charming. And how many people do you end up seeing come through your studio? I live in a cultural wasteland so it would be almost impossible to organize something like that in my neighbourhood, but culture crawls exist in many other Vancouver neighbourhoods.

steve said...

Cool little piece here. I love the three-dimensional aspect of it too. Good luck with the bidding!

Doodlestreet said...

Dood!! Way cool...you have a lot of really neat things going on where you are at. I need to move, I tell ya. Nothing ever goes on in Irvine...(except a whole lotta leaf blowers going off). :)

Nice work. You are so dang talented.

AscenderRisesAbove said...

that sounds like a good time; cute little 'shroom.

Unknown said...

Congrat! The mushroom house is lovely!

CRISTOSOVA said...

Sounds like a real great thing to do. I love seeing artist´s studios and I imagine you all live quite apart in Topanga so one would get to see a lot of the surrounding as well. Ideal! Although I think I always would be so tempted to try out all their materials and equipment as well ;)

Do you get asked a lot of questions at those occasions? What do people want to know about most?

valerie walsh said...

Thank You for all the sweet comments and sorry, I'm horrible with my reply's.
Andrea I made this little house out of wood but I use anything and everything I can think of to make stuff out of. There is a modeling clay that is light as a feather by Crayola that I love to make stuff out of and I use foam, clay, board. I think I get a lot of visitors because I am easy to reach compared to a lot of the places here. The streets are one lane, really winding and steep and difficult so getting to some of the destinations can be a challenge.
Probably had about 70 people through the weekend.
Cris: They usually want to know how much it costs to paint their house? How long does it take to do my paintings and dimensional pieces and #1 question is Why do you paint houses?

tiffini elektra x said...

What an gorgeous peaceful painting/assemblage. Absolutely wonderful Val!