Greetings and salutations from Houston, Texas.  I understand you utilize flies and other flying insects in several of your current art series and would like to apprise you of the availability of a previously overlooked insect.  We here in Houston and the outlying regions of Texas are enjoying this season’s crop of lovebugs; a scandalous small flying black and red insect most often seen engaging in coitus, hence the name.

We are eager to extend to you the invitation to come and collect as many lovebugs as you may need.  I am unsure if you will desire entire creatures or an assemblage of parts.  Assorted parts will be quite easy to procure.  Even now I am certain to have many grams of wings and detached bodies crusting the grill and windshield of my truck.  You are welcome to come remove them at no fee.

Should you desire entire love bugs you only need bring a net.  Merely puncture the air with strong swipes of your net to gather 25 to 50 lovebugs at a time.  A goodly number as I am sure you will agree.  The lovebug is currently un-endangered so you can collect as many as you would like.

I do not know if the organization known as PETA has caused you any grief regarding your previous treatment of insects for art.  Here in Texas you have no need to worry of such people as they are a relatively rare occurrence.  Utilize whatever means of capture, methods of storage, and instruments of death you choose.  No one has any empathy for these crude creatures.

Incidentally, how do you bring about the expiration of your insects for art?  Do you have a little gas chamber you drop cianide pills in to or do you just slather them with enamel and spread like icing live?  Alas I have drifted.

A copious crop of lovebugs awaits your harvest.  While there are many now, lovebug season won’t end soon enough so you will need to act within the next few weeks.  Please feel free to contact me should need any help with making arrangements and locations for collecting lovebugs here in the Houston area.

Sincerely,

Bayou Dawn

p.s.  I hear you have a large number of unsold works, should you wish to thin the backlog I’d be happy to accept one of your butterfly wing windows.  I promise not to sell it any time soon.

Make the ceramics round by visiting Houston Center for Contemporary Craft “The Legacy of an American Potter,” the O’Kane Gallery and UofH downtown “Ishmael Soto, From Clay to Metal,” and “A Letter from Warren” at 18 Hands Gallery.

New photography at FotoFest with “Mechanical Perceptions” and Anya Tish presents “Passage” by Begona Egurbide (Passage is at the top of my list to see).  Several other new shows happening as well at 4411 Montrose; Wade Wilson, Barbara Davis.

Paul Kittelson at NauHaus is all the rage this season.  I can’t decide what to think about Carter Enrst “Wildly Domestic” at G Gallery.  That one will require viewing.

Some of next week’s opening are quite eclectic.  “Radar Eyes: A Survey of Hallucinogenic Printmaking” will open at the Art Car Museum.  Hallucinogens probably won’t be included.  The Houston Museum of Natural Science opens “Body Worlds 2” for those who didn’t get enough disected and plasticized bodies the first time around.

Go to the Texas Biennial website for more information and also to see the artist list after the announcement if you are unable to attend in Austin.

Give the folks over at Aerosol Warfare a call to help you set up a submission process for public service posters promoting recycling.  Choose the best few and print the snot out them.  Send the posters out to every business in the targeted area asking them to put them up somewhere.  Make the posters freely available to the community to hang in public (legal) communal places, whether it be around their home, community bulletin board, or front lawn.  Why should election campaigns be the only ones that get to stick posters in front yards?

Make a concerted effort with a clear, focused message and see if that doesn’t improve recycling rates before you spend a million.

As always, if you do it half hearted you’re going to waste money and end up with a bad taste in your mouth.  Open the contest to the community and say you’ll grant $3500 to the top three chosen posters.  Have the sanitation department pick 2 and let the community vote on a third.  Spend the remaining 39,500 on printing and distribution.

The event is a three day affair, kicking off on Friday night from 6:00 p.m.-10:00 p.m. with pre-shopping, a DJ, food and drinks. Saturday the sale will begin at 12:00 p.m. and continue until 8:30 p.m., food and libation will be provided for happy hour. The final day, Sunday, the market will be open from noon to 5:00 p.m. with a Champagne brunch. Sponsors for this year’s art market include Silver Eagle, Red Bull, 002Houston, Barefoot Wine, Beaver’s Ice House, and El Patio.

The deadline is September 19, 2008.  More information at Spacetaker and electronic submission is here.  (And Electronic Submission sounds like a great art piece/exhibit theme.)

The 21st annual Dia de los Muertos/Day of the Dead exhbition at Lawndale is currently calling for entries.  Lawndale invites artists to create a retablo or ex-voto inspired work for the auction using a small sheet of metal or “tin”, that is provided by and can be picked up at Lawndale Art Center. Tins are limited to one sheet per artist and are issued on a first come, first served basis.

More information and entry forms can be downloaded via this .pdf, or you can check out the Lawndale site.

Artists must submit an application with a statement and rendering of their proposed work (colored pencil, watercolor or marker) to the Art Colony Association. The floating art must be waterproof, non-biodegradable and weighted with plastic weights.
Materials may be anything that floats, such as plastic, inner tubes, pool floats, cloth, or boats, for instance. The maximum width of the base is six feet with no height restrictions. Use of any materials that will disintegrate, dissolve, or in any way damage the reflecting pool or stain the water or concrete, is prohibited. In addition, no advertisements or name recognition is allowed on the artwork.
Independent jurors will judge the 15 pieces in the Art on Water competition. The prizes are $250 for first place and $100 for second place and $75 for third place. Festival patrons will vote for the People’s Choice Award ($50 prize.) Each winner receives a Festival poster and T-shirt.
Applications, available at www.bayoucityartfestival.com, must be completed and mailed with renderings to: Bayou City Art Festival-Art on Water, 1418 Sul Ross, Houston, TX 77006, or e-mailed to info@bayoucityartfestival.com.

Creating Escher inspired trompe l’oeil drawings Hillberry created “A Work in Progress,” a trompe l’oeil self-portrait where the subject. J.D., is drawing on a blank piece of art paper. In the image, the J.D. figure wears the official Bayou City Art Festival Downtown T-shirt, which showcases his self-portrait drawing his own hand. It’s an image within an image. On the original artwork, available for sale at the Festival, the paper is intentionally left blank so that it may be customized for the patron who purchases the piece. i.e. to add the art collector’s name, for instance.)

“M.C. Escher has been a big influence on me and my work since my childhood,” said the Westminster, Colorado-based Hillberry, who describes the noted 20th century woodcut and etching genius as his hero. “I’ve studied Escher’s ideas of 2-D versus 3-D and have expanded them to include trompe l’oeil aspects. Escher never tried to convince the viewer that his work contained three-dimensional objects. I’ve tried to combine some of his basic ideas with aspects of trompe l’oeil,” he explained.” Coincidentally, Hillberry shares Escher’s birthday, June 17.