I’m referring to a metaphysical concept of big rather than about scale of artwork but I am striving to make paintings as big as I possibly can to really maximize the effect of the grandeur of art (and as they did in the Renaissance, the grandeur of mankind imbued by the gift of creativity from God).
Look at what happened when the Medici decided to take their personal love of creativity and invest heavily in it – The Renaissance, resulting in art that has dominated the art world for five centuries due to the saturation of mega-talent given a chance to flourish. For those of us living in the Peoria and Pekin Illinois area in the 21st century we have people like Todd Thompson to thank for a re-birth of culture in Pekin Illinois.
Todd and Steve Foster took a chance and invested in the building at 353 Court Street and with the help of Pekin Main Street Director Leigh Ann Matthews and the legendary artist and teacher Doug Goessman that investment is paying off in ways far beyond mere money.
Last night was the opening of the show for the artist’s that have a studio within the Speakeasy Art Center and the show will be up until Aug 28 2010 when another great group of artworks will be exhibited. See the flyer at the end of this post that I took from the Speakeasy Art Center Facebook page (please friend them!). I also borrowed this picture that they posted of the show to show how well they lighted my huge painting, which really made me happy! Thanks Doug! (he also made the Warhol-esque silkscreen on canvas painting next to mine in this pic)
Speakeasy Art Center Pekin Illinois 353 Court St. Resident Artist Show August 2010
Check out Ed Emmons’s blog http://www.ourtimesinpekin.com/ for some great photos of the show and just about every Pekin Illinois cultural event of the summer so far! Awesome artist’s like Alec DeJesus, Trinidy Patterson and Nikole and Eric Cooney (all of which have art at the show!) have really been putting in the time and effort to make this excellent for all of us and it’s a wonderful thing.
Below is a painting I have at the show that I will send to my friend Jane who was literally there when I decided to become an ‘great artist’, not to just do art for fun like I did but to make art my life and I have stuck with it ever since. Jane has become pretty famous under her alter-ego of Wynx Whiplash and is still the same sweet goth chick I knew back then. In fact, pretty much all the artist’s I knew from that time period have stuck with art and have really excelled. I will honor you all in a future blog post!
Goth Girl oil painting by Darren Daz Cox
I wanted to put the painting below in the show but the frame I had broke and it really needs to have a gold frame to make the blue really blue!
Time Traveling Dolphin oil painting by Darren Daz Cox
and here is the flyer (I didn’t make this so all rights reserved by whomever did) for the resident Artist’s show going on until August 28 2010 at 353 Court St. Pekin Illinois (across from the court house!).
Residential Artists show until Aug 28 2010 at The Speakeasy Art Center 353 Court St. Pekin Illinois
