I am exhibiting 5 selected works from my Sea & Sky Collection at J. Leon Gallery in Miramar Beach, Florida, from October through December, 2020. Below is the press release for the First Friday Sip’N’Stroll on October 2, 2020.
J.Leon Gallery + Studio Debuts Four New Artists at Sip N’ Stroll Event
“J. Leon Gallery + Studio Sip N’ Stroll event showcases four new artists, a live artist painting, and champagne for guests to enjoy”
Destin, FL – (October 2020)… On Friday, October 2, 2020, J.Leon Gallery + Studio, the area’s newest fine art gallery, hosted their second Sip N’ Stroll event and debuted four new artists. The gallery welcomes new artists, Estelle Grengs, Joan Vienot, Sereen Gualtieri, and Susan Lucas to their talented lineup of eleven featured artists.
"We are so happy to welcome these new artists. Each artist brings new life to the already vibrant band of artists featured at the gallery. We encourage guests to stop by and take a look at what these new introductions have to offer."
- Jason Lindblad, Owner & Artist, JLeon Gallery + Studio
(Artists From Left to Right – Sereen Gualtieri, Susan Lucas, Kathy Schumacher, Estelle Grengs, Joan Vienot, Jason Lindblad)
Artist, Kathy Schumacher
During the Sip N’ Stroll event guests received a first look at the gallery’s new Fall Art Installations featuring eleven talented artists from the Okaloosa/Walton area. Visitors took a tour of the gallery and the fully functioning ceramics studio while enjoying wine, champagne, and light eats. An evening filled with creativity, guests also experienced a live painting by artist, Kathy Schumacher. Upcoming Sip N’ Stroll Dates: Friday, November 6, 2020 | 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Friday, December 4, 2020 | 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.
With the safety of guests, artists, and staff as our top priority, guests have the freedom to wear a mask and social distance during the event.
J.Leon Gallery + Studio is open from Tuesday to Saturday, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The gallery is closed on Sundays and Mondays. For additional information, class and workshop signup, and to view upcoming events visit jleongallery.com and follow the gallery on Facebook and Instagram.
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J.Leon Gallery + Studio 13370 US Highway 98, Miramar Beach, Florida 32550 Phone: 850.842.3051
J.Leon Gallery + Studio is the area’s newest, fine art destination. Born with a vision to make high-end art attainable for everyone, J.Leon supports and promotes its artists while presenting guests with unique ways to engage with and uncover their next favorite work of art. More than a gallery, J.Leon is home to a working ceramics studio and offers a robust calendar of events and classes. Art is for everyone! Artists and art appreciators will not want to miss the opportunity to call J. Leon Gallery + Studio their creative home.
…for the prospect of an exhibit at Anne Hunter Galleries in Seaside, Florida in the spring of 2020 gave way to floundering aimlessly for a while. Did you get the COVID-Blues? I sure did!
Initially my world was turned upside-down by the abrupt closure of my just-opened exhibit and the resulting kibosh on my art marketing strategy. And then the nightly news turned ghastly, and I became a victim of what has been called “doom-scrolling” on my phone, hopping from one awful news story to the next, constantly searching for true assessments of how bad it all really was, a sure-fire way to kill your muse. My routines were disrupted completely. In a desperate attempt at regaining control over something, anything, in my life, I started having my morning coffee and doing my morning readings and meditation downstairs in my studio instead of in my quiet room. At least that got me into the studio every day. It was a start!
I have partnered with fellow-artist and friend Cheryl Ploegstra for monthly accountability progress reports on art production and goals. That helps a lot with pandemic survival – it requires a little bit of record-keeping, and record-keeping proves to me that I am not really floundering — I actually am producing a good deal of work. Sales are slow, so I am grateful to have completed a few commissions. I’ll show you a couple, later on in this post.
I’m using my more plentiful free time to to refresh my painting and drawing skills. And I continue to step outside of my comfort zone by learning new media. The illuminated letter “E” at the beginning of this post is one such effort, in which I learned how to apply gold leaf in a workshop taught by fellow local artist Elia Saxer, and I received an introduction to water-miscible oil paints in a workshop taught by Patti Overholt. Below are samples of those media.
Water-Miscible Oils Workshop taught by Patti Overholt at Artful Things in Niceville, FL. It works pretty much like solvent-soluble oils, but requires a different medium. Brush cleaning is a breeze!
The Illuminated Letter (gold leaf) Workshop taught by Elia Saxer at Artful Things in Niceville, FL
Palette-knife painting is a technique of applying paint which I don’t use very often, so I have been practicing on a few pieces. Below are some recent efforts using a palette knife, that I completed at one of my weekly plein air group sessions.
Kayaker, 6×6 oils on hardboard, painted en plein air using palette knife (click for larger version)
Heron, 6×6 oils on hardboard, painted en plein air using palette knife (click for larger version)
Gulf Coast Lupine, 11×14 oils on canvas panel, using palette knife and brushes (click for larger version)
Being grateful helps to ward off what I call the COVID-Blues. One large gratitude I have is for social media — I use it to stay inspired and to share my own work. I find Instant refreshment in the steady stream of awe-inspiring work from the artists I follow on Instagram. My account on Instagram is @JoanVienotArt. It includes my weekly plein air work, other paintings, commissions, demo’s, and workshop efforts. Posts on my Instagram account also post to my Facebook Page, https://www.facebook.com/JoanVienotArt/. Take a look — I’ve been busy!
Commissions, yes, commissions! I will paint the scene in person at your event. You can find more information about my live event painting on my Weddings page,30AWeddingPainter.com. Two months ago I painted at a garden party / birthday party, pictured below. The optimal lighting happened right after the sun went down, when there was enough contrast for the decoration lights to really begin to glow while the brilliant colors of late daylight still bathed the scene. Because the lighting effect was momentary, I ended up completing some of this painting over the next few weeks in the studio. This one was so much fun. Even the drink glasses had lights in them!
Denise’s Birthday Party, 20×24 oils on gallery-wrapped canvas
Fearless Girl and Charging Bull, Joan Vienot, 16×20 oils on canvas panel, from a photo by Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency and licensed for my use by Getty Images.
The piece pictured above was commissioned by my friend and retirement manger Shelley Albarado. It was based on a photo of the famous Fearless Girl and Charging Bull sculptures on Wall Street, as photographed by Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images. I did not paint an exact copy, but it certainly is obvious as derivative. I felt the people standing behind the bull in the photo did not contribute to the effect I wanted, so I re-composed it without them. I noted in the caption that I had purchased from Getty Images a license to use this image. That’s important to me, to always acknowledge and have the express permission of the photographer if I am using someone else’s image. After all, photographers are artists. I know that it takes a long time for a photographer to get the composition and lighting exactly right, and then to do the post-processing to enhance and improve the image. My preference is to shoot the photo myself if I am going to use reference photos, so that I have made all of the decisions about the composition, and have a memory of the atmosphere of the scene. But that would have entailed a trip into the past, because the Fearless Girl has been moved to another location.
One of the cartoons during this pandemic shows an artist at work, contrasted with an artist at work during a pandemic, and the two cartoon frames are identical. If only that were the case. Personally, I struggle to keep my spirits up. So much sickness and death! In my state alone the total number of deaths is 2½ times the number of people killed in 9/11. My hope is that I never become numb to this tragedy. If I were to become numb, then I would have to hang up my paintbrushes. As an artist, I feel it is imperative that I stay in touch with all of my feelings so that the art I produce does not become superficial. I wish health and safety for everyone reading this, and comfort in our losses.
This post is for everyone who has subscribed to my blog updates through the WordPress RSS feed over the years. (If you’re subscribed, it means that this blog automatically sends you an email each time I make a new post; it should be coming from “noreply+feedproxy@google.com” and look something like the screenshot below).
Over the last few months, I’ve taken some time to update and expand my website’s newsletter. As a result, I’m changing subscription providers. If you have been receiving email notices of new blog posts from “noreply+feedproxy@google.com” and want to continue to receive updates, you will need to subscribe to my new newsletter using the form below.
New Art Newsletter
I’ll be sending an email every month or so with blog posts from my site and the occasional show or art news update. I’m also offering all of my new subscribers a free download of my work “Grayton Fog.” This is a high-resolution image suitable for printing. I recommend ordering a print at your local print shop that you can display in your home or rental property. You can also use it as a digital wallpaper on your computer or phone.
Sign up to receive a free download of my work “Grayton Fog”
I regret the inconvenience of asking you to sign up a second time; unfortunately there is no way for me to access the database collected by the RSS feed. As a result, you may receive duplicate emails if you were signed up for the RSS feed and now enroll in my new newsletter. I cannot remove you from the RSS feed emails, but you can easily remove yourself. See instructions at the end of this blog post if this applies to you.
Welcome to all new subscribers, and thank you to my long-time readers for continuing to follow my journey.
Receiving duplicate emails? Here’s how to fix that.
If you’re receiving 2 emails each time I publish a new blog, it means you’re on both the new and old newsletter lists. Unfortunately, I can’t remove you from the old list myself – but it is easy for you to remove yourself from that old list. First, identify which email sent from the “old list.” It will be sending from noreply+feedproxy@google.com and look something like the screenshot below.
Scroll to the very bottom of the email. You’ll see the following text:
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Sometimes life gives you lemons. Or a pandemic. Such was the case with my Sea & Sky exhibit. On March 16, 2020, just a few days after my opening reception, the commercial district in Seaside, Florida, including Anne Hunter Galleries, began closing to help slow the initial spread of the Novel Coronavirus COVID-19. My sisters and brothers-in-law had come out from Colorado to have a beach vacation at the same time as my exhibit opening, and their being here during this confusion gave me some sense of continuity and stability. But within a few days, like so many of you, I felt like my world was tipped upside-down. All of my marketing plans for the last year and for the next couple of years were tied to this, my first exhibit of larger works. I had scheduled six Monday demos for the public and seven Thursday night Meet-the-Artist receptions to which I had intended to invite real estate agents, designers, realtors, and architects from my fast-growing community.
My talented niece, Briar Rose Consulting, my website and marketing consultant, quickly created a Virtual Exhibit on my website and I promoted it through social media and by resending cards and postcards to everyone I had initially sent announcements to. In May I moved the entire collection to Krista Vind’s Artists Warehouse on Hwy 393 in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, where it can be seen by appointment — call me at (850)259-8394 to view it; or use my contact form. Visit my Sea & Sky Virtual Exhibit page for a preview. That page also contains “Room Views” to help you visualize each piece in a home or business setting, and each piece has a purchase link. Below are a few images from the exhibit page, https://joanvienot.com/sea-and-sky-virtual-gallery-exhibit.
I have just returned from a weeklong artist retreat I shared with three friends at High Ridge Gardens near Charlotte, North Carolina. It was wonderful!
Several years ago I attended a talk by master artist Mary Erickson, and she had mentioned that artists are welcome to stay in the guest house on her large acreage near Charlotte, North Carolina. For a long time I had thought about going by myself for a week, having in the past taken marvelously inspiring and productive solo “art-vacations” in Nova Scotia and in Maine. I ended up inviting three artists to come with me to North Carolina for a week, three women for whom I have great respect as goal-driven emerging artists and as caring, sharing people: Brenda Osborne, Heather Clements, and Brenda Pinnick.
The first day, arrival at our artist retreat: Brenda O., Joan, Heather, and Sally the Goat. Heather’s photo.
Last fall Heather wrote about a solo residency that she gave herself in the mountains of North Georgia. Her personal creativity had dried up when a series of losses occurred in her life, beginning with Hurricane Michael in October, 2018, which devastated her community, damaging every single home, many beyond repair, and mowing down almost all of the mighty oaks in her neighborhood, one crashing into her house. Since the storm and until her trip last fall, Heather had been making a living teaching workshops and classes. Her trip last fall jump-started her personal production of art again. Reading it, I thought about inviting her to come with me on my artist retreat in North Carolina.
I had met Heather Clements many years ago. My fast-growing pool service business had my nose to the grindstone. The recession of 2007 brought that fast growth to a screeching halt, and that gave me time to look up and see what else was going on. I found out that Colleen Duffley was offering weekly Wednesday evening figure drawing sessions at her gallery, Studio B, in Alys Beach, Florida. Colleen invited Heather Clements to instruct the participants. Life drawing was one of my two areas of emphasis for my art degree, and I was thrilled for the opportunity to dust off my pencils, and to be guided by someone with as much command of the figure as Heather has.
I met Brenda Pinnick when I gave myself a trip to New Zealand to celebrate my retirement. Plein Air Magazine offers an annual Publisher’s Invitational trip overseas to tour, paint, and to experience the culture and cuisine, and in 2017 the destination was New Zealand. I think I only talked to Brenda a few times on that trip, but since then I have followed her on Facebook. She is incredibly productive, a wonderful plein air painter, her work easily competitive with some of the better artists I’ve seen. Brenda completed an artist residency for Blue Ridge Mountains Arts Alliance last fall.
Of the three, I probably know Brenda Osborne the best. Brenda served as the chair of our committee that arranged member art exhibitions for the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County where I live, and she also was the office manager for my business. A couple of years ago, shortly after I sold the business, Brenda sold me her car and took off sailing the eastern seaboard with her husband and her art supplies. Plein Air Magazine online wrote a story about her (https://www.outdoorpainter.com/itinerant-painter-on-the-waves/). Over the past year we have been getting together every month or two for progress reports as we work on our art goals.
So these three self-motivated and residency-experienced artists came to mind when I thought about including others on this artist retreat. Being self-motivated and residency-experienced turned out to be the recipe for success for our artist retreat.
I had had a busy year. I was the artist-in-residence for the 2019 Forgotten Coast en Plein Air last spring, one of the highlights of my life so far, combining my love of nature and natural science with my love of painting. I poured a lot of energy into it, so it was an intense endeavor, and highly rewarding. For the rest of the year, I worked on a theme of clouds and waves, my first effort at painting large canvases in studio, in preparation for a solo exhibit of 20 paintings this-coming spring. The trip to North Carolina was to be a concentrated break away from home, my personal intention being to paint en plein air (outdoors, in open air) the whole time I was there.
When I invited the two Brendas and Heather, the only structure I suggested was for each person to be in charge of a couple of dinners, with breakfast and lunch on our own, and that we would review and critique each other’s work after dinner each night. I left it to everyone to decide how much and what and when and where they wanted to paint or study or just relax. Mary’s sitting room has a whole wall full of art books from floor to ceiling, and the house has numerous paintings of her own and also by other wonderful artists, so there was plenty to study indoors too. Outdoors there were birds everywhere, and Mary has several feeders near the house which bring the birds close. I loved watching the birds, especially the male cardinals with their flashy red feathers contrasted against the golds and tinted grays of winter. A short walk past the pond and up the hill, there were two horses, Cherokee and Angel, and Sally the goat. Inspiration was plentiful. And if that wasn’t enough, the surrounding countryside and town nearby provided scenic charm. Plus Mary opened her studio to us, which allowed for more controlled study and also was a respite from occasional weather challenges. The furthest we ventured was to the Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge, about 20 miles from the house.
As it turned out, our artist retreat was more pleasantly social than I had envisioned. We all were early risers so we shared coffee time in the morning, and we bumped into each other throughout the day, sometimes sharing rides on a 4-wheeled cart called a Gator. Great conversations with a whole lot of laughter and an occasional tear, delicious food, and a shared motivation to become better artists, made for a wonderful, largely unstructured week of growth. Leaving the husbands at home probably increased our art production by at least double.
A picture is worth a thousand words, so enjoy these I am posting of the grounds and of each artists study, many of them sketches or incomplete works in progress. Message me if you are interested in owning any of the artists’ paintings shown here.
Brenda Osborne, Sally the Goat, Joan Vienot, and in the foreground, Heather Clements
Brenda Osborne, Heather Clements
Sally
Cherokee
Brenda Pinnick
Angel
Heather drawing a crowd
Mary’s studio
Interior, Mary’s studio
Sally, such a sweetie
Cherokee licking the back of a canvas. Photo by B.P.
Cherokee thinks he’s funny. Photo by B.P.
Brenda Pinnick
Heather and Brenda O.
Frosty mornings
The critters
Cherokee
Brenda on Day 1
Angel
Michele and Cherokee — she fed the critters
Brenda Osborne worked on a couple of exercises in John Pototschnik’s book on mixing color in oils, as well as painting en plein air. Brenda Osborne’s website is https://brendaosborneart.com.
Pototschnik’s book
Using compliments purple and yellow to create a painting, plus white
Using compliments red and green plus white
Plein air on the farm
Brenda Pinnick painted on property and also ventured out into the nearby community. Brenda Pinnick’s website is https://brendapinnick.com. She used oil paint.
Late afternoon sunlit trees
Checking values at critique
Clover covered fields nearby
The light in the churchyard nearby
Ross Pond, in nearby Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge
Heather loved the smaller branches, which are all broken off from the hurricane-ravaged trees at her home in Panama City, FL
Ross Pond, in nearby Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge
I suffered from over-choice, so many beautiful and interesting scenes on the farm. It was greener than I had expected, and the weather was mostly good, so I never got the snow scene I was hoping for. But we did have some nice, atmospheric, gray days. These are my oil paintings, all but one painted on the property at High Ridge Gardens. This page, of course, is my website, https://joanvienot.com.
The stable in the early morning light
Sky blue creek
Gate to the north pasture
At Pee Dee National Wildlife Refuge
Sally the Goat
Glass study – Yard art
Woodpile
As an artist, there is something different about being away from home that makes it worth missing one’s cats, dog, and family. Being away for short periods allows for concentrated focus. At High Ridge Gardens, it helped that the house had no TV. Whether solo or with others, I am convinced that an artist retreat gives me a little catapult forward in my journey as an artist. Many thanks to Mary Erickson for offering her beautiful property for such an affordable suggested donation!
Hurricane Michael’s surge breached St. Joseph Peninsula, Cape San Blas, Port St. Joe, Florida, October 10, 2018, flattening a thousand yards of ancient tall dunes and leaving behind a tidal channel between the Gulf of Mexico and St. Joseph Bay. I studied the breach along with other aspects of “Healing in the Natural Environment” as the Artist-in-Residence for the Forgotten Coast en Plein Air this past spring, making 17 paintings to exhibit and giving a presentation on May 7, 2019, at Cal Allen’s Coastal Art Gallery in Carrabelle, Florida. I subtitled the residency “Hope”, because throughout my studies and visits, I found the natural environment healing on its own at a rapid pace, as well as from the boosts it was receiving from mitigation efforts such as the students of Marquette High School in St. Louis giving up their spring break to plant sea oats and build living shorelines here thanks to Franklin’s Promise.
I found the breach to be the most fascinating “healing”. The first time I visited in early March, 2019, the thousand yard breach was a field of flat sand, and I estimated the channel to be maybe 100 yards wide. A dune-covered tree was now fully exposed on the island across the channel, and the relative size of that tree turned out to be my gauge for assessing the closing of the breach. When I returned in mid-March, my photos showed the tree to be relatively larger, due to my being able to stand closer as the sand filled the channel to a 50-yard width. Two weeks later in April the tree appeared even larger, the channel being about 20 yards across. When I returned in May, the tree was gone, the sand eroded out from underneath it, and only the tangle of old roots remained. The channel was about 10 yards across. Surveyors were there, fact-finding for plans to restore access to the island now that the sand was unstable. They told me people had been wading across the week before, although a storm had deepened the channel since then.
Florida’s Finest Ambassador and Artist-in-Residence
This is the final post of a 5-part blog (scroll down for earlier posts) about my experiences this spring as Artist-in-Residence and as a Florida’s Finest en Plein Air Ambassador for the 2019 Forgotten Coast en Plein Air, the invitational event held annually in the communities of Mexico Beach, Port St. Joe, Apalachicola, Eastpoint, St. George Island, Carrabelle, and Alligator Point, in Northwest Florida. These coastline communities together with Panama City and all points northward, encompass most of the area of Florida impacted by Hurricane Michael on October 10, 2018.
As Artist-in-Residence, my last tasks were to help hang my work at Cal Allen’s Coastal Art Gallery in Carrabelle, FL, and to give a formal talk about my work at the public reception on Tuesday of event week. I had the day off from my Ambassador duties that Tuesday, which allowed me to visit for the first time, St. Teresa and Alligator Point, at the easternmost edge of the Forgotten Coast. Alligator Point reminded me of the coastal communities of Seagrove Beach and Dune Allen when I first moved here from Colorado in 1980. Many of the roads of St. Teresa and Alligator Point are dirt, and the coastal live oak trees form a thick brush starting low to the ground at the top of the dune, the tops thickly arcing upwards to form a dome over the squatty, single story houses with low roofs, which is smart design for windstorm areas. One street in Alligator Point was closed due to erosion, and I had to detour for a few blocks. I could see more severe erosion near the “neck” of the peninsula, if you want to call it a neck, similar to the erosion at the Stump Hole on Cape San Blas. It is my understanding that barrier islands become islands when the peninsula is eroded through the “neck”.
Florida’s Finest en Plein Air Ambassador and Artist-in-Residence
The work I produced during the Forgotten Coast artist residency and the month following was hung at Cal Allen’s Coastal Art Gallery in Carrabelle, FL, last week with the help of the Carrabelle Artists Association. I gave my presentation at the event reception on Tuesday. Then the collection was moved to the event wetroom in time for the collector’s dinner last night and for the event gala tonight. The wetroom is at Ft. Coombs Armory at 66 4th Street in Apalachicola, FL. I have one space and all the rest is filled with the most amazing and beautiful works the 20 invited artists who painted this week. What a show!
A huge thank you goes to event chair Cheryl Ploegstra and her team of volunteers and the board of the Forgotten Coast Cultural Coalition, producers of the event.
Here is a raw, unedited video of my presentation – thank you Karen Weir-Jimerson for sharing it with me! And below the video are the image notes I posted with each piece, in a close approximation of the order in which I talked about them, if you play the 25-minute video as you look at each piece.
Florida’s Finest Ambassador and Artist-in-Residence
I have been back and forth all spring between my Santa Rosa Beach, FL, home and Mexico Beach, Port St. Joe, Cape San Blas, St. George Island, Eastpoint and Carrabelle, as the 2019 Artist-in-Residence for the Forgotten Coast en Plein Air, and finally the event has arrived. My paintings are hung, and everyone is invited! Many of my paintings are scenes you may recognize. The one in this invitation is from the wildfire area in Eastpoint. I will be posting my residency paintings in Part 4, along with a short description on each, as to why I feel it was on message for my assigned theme, Recovery in the Natural Environment, which I subtitled Hope.
Florida’s Finest Ambassador and Artist-in-Residence
“Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.” ~John Muir
I was honored to be invited to be the Artist-in-Residence for the Forgotten Coast en Plein Air this spring. My artist residency is split into two parts over three weeks. I spent 4 days on the Forgotten Coast of Florida last week and I will spend another 3 days there again next week, continuing to study and to paint the 2019 theme for Forgotten Coast en Plein Air, which is “Recovery in the Natural Environment” relative to the devastation wrought by Hurricane Michael in October of 2018. My personal approach to this project focuses on Hope.
I am hosted by a sweet couple, George and Maggie Jones on Cape San Blas, just a few miles south of St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. They didn’t see much of me while I was there last week because I was out every day, observing, painting, photographing, and absorbing, from first light until sunset.
Artist, Kathy Schumacher
