Hannaford bags for FoA!

Purchase these good deed bags at Hannaford on Hanover Street in Manchester and Friends of Art Manchester receives $1!
All of December 2017.
We are honored to have been chosen again this year :)

NAP Awards at City Hall

Anthony Williams received 2nd place award in watercolor from the National Art Program. His paintings were displayed at City Hall in Manchester, NH.

Anthony Williams Eagle Project

Anthony Williams painted a 4-foot tall fiberglass eagle for Easter Seals for Veterans Count "Salute Our Soldiers" (SOS). The eagle is located at CMC Hospital until December 7th (Pearl Harbor Day) where it will then be sent for auction with proceeds benefiting Veterans Count. Stop by to see it in person!
www.vetscount.org/nh

Photo by Kevin Nicoli.

Litchfield Lane murals

Painting is going well on the garage doors on Litchfield Lane in Manchester. This striking lion was painted by artist Christine Keenan.

Two paintings on one door. On the left an homage to Van Gogh by Linda Feinberg and on the right a painting by Ronnie Bourgeois. Title: Freedom.

This is an older painting that was refurbished by Deb Funk, Stephanie Byrd and Anthony Williams.

Our fearless leader, Anthony Williams, walked me further down the lane so I could take a photo of his older mural, "The old man of the mountain". It's still in good condition as is the next one.

This painting was organized by Anthony and many of the neighborhood kids worked on it. They signed their names on the right. It was painted in 2008.

It was sad to see so much graffiti on the garage doors and buildings there, but all the places where there were murals were not tagged and looked great.  Thanks to Eagle Eyes group and Anthony Williams for leading this project.

This is another older mural, painted by Deb Curtin, that is still in great condition.

Thanks to all the artists who participated in this project.  It is still ongoing and a few more murals will be up by the end of the summer.

Summer Projects

The summer painting murals project has begun.  There are several garage doors available for painting on Litchfield Lane. Linda Feinberg, our former treasurer, who is about to leave for Idaho, completed this one, an homage to Van Gogh.  Anthony Williams, our Vice President has other garage doors already primed and waiting for the artists who signed up. Of course, the weather is a factor since we have to paint outdoors.

Anthony Williams completed his eagle for the Veterans Count project. Looks like Sylvester stayed out of the way long enough for Tony to paint.

Summer Art

Please contact our president, Stephanie Byrd if you are interested in doing a group booth.  We have a tent.

Anthony Williams is painting this eagle, sponsored by Easter Seals for the Veterans Count group. Sylvester was checking the eagle out before Anthony started painting.  He hopes to finish the painting this week and says it was more difficult than it looked.

New work from our members

On a wintry spring day, it was great to receive these photos from Debbie Curtin. I asked our members to send in some new work and she was the first one to respond.  Debbie had prepared these paintings for a class she was going to teach, then her class was canceled due to snow.  I feel sorry for her students. These are great paintings to learn from. Thanks, Debbie for submitting. These paintings are done with exterior house paint on luan plywood sealed with polyacrylic.

Meanwhile, I was tired of painting landscapes and decided to have some fun with abstracts based on Chihuly's glass sculptures.  I had taken photos of his sculptures when they were on exhibit in Boston a few years ago. These are acrylic paintings on stretched canvas, 11" X 14", by Linda H. Feinberg.

If spring ever gets here to NH, we have several mural projects to work on, primarily garage doors on Litchfield Lane.  I am looking forward to that and have submitted a proposal based on another fun painting I did in a Van Gogh style.  There are many free videos online and I followed one to create this image.

I think this would look great on Litchfield Lane.  While I will be moving to Idaho at the end of the summer, this blog will continue.  You can submit your information to me as usual until I move, then to our president, Stephanie Byrd at any time.

Artist invitation

Annual Meeting

The annual meeting of Friends of Art Manchester will be held Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at 7:00 p.m. Annual dues will be collected at that time.

For location and directions, please contact Linda Feinberg at lhfeinberg@gmail.com

Agenda for the Meeting:

1.    Roll Call. Collection of $5 annual dues

2.    Reading of the Minutes of the preceding meeting.

3.    Election of officers.

4.    Reports of Officers.

5.    Old and Unfinished Business.

6.    New Business. Spring projects.

7.    Adjournment

We have a number of murals we are planning to do for the spring, so please consider joining us.

Garage Door Murals

Stephanie Byrd painted a garage door interior at EFX Fitness in Manchester.

The image was laid out in PowerPoint, projected onto the pre-painted door, traced, and freehand painted using indoor/outdoor black semi-gloss paint that the customer provided.

There are other walls in the gym that she has painted inspirational quotes on. Some walls are brick and others are textured plaster. The walls had also been pre-painted which made the mural very easy to complete. Working with the client to decide size, placement, and color of the approved artwork is part of the process to be sure of a successful outcome.

This is an example of work that Friends of Art Manchester enjoys doing!

Reminder: Our annual meeting will be held January 17, 2017. Details to follow in next post. Please consider joining us. Our membership fee is only $5 per year and we have some good projects lined up for the spring.

Garage Door Mural

Great mural by new member James Chase. He is an instructor at NH Institute of Art and submitted a proposal for this garage door on Old Granite Street. You can check out more of his work at his website: http://neverfading.com/

Anthony Williams also submitted more of his paintings and photos for this blog.

This is his version of surrealism. The painting is very large, about 4' x 4'.

The project for the city on the utility boxes has been completed. It was sponsored by Brady Sullivan companies and they get to advertise on the box.  Anthony painted Weston Tower on one side of the box at the corner of Amherst and Pine Streets.

These daffodils are on the reverse side of the seagulls painting.

 

Repairs of the mural are finished and look great. The two Debbies were happy to work on it.

Our next meeting is this week, Wed. October 26th. For details or if you would like to join us, contact our treasurer, Linda Feinberg.

Mural Repairs

Repairs have been completed on the garage door murals on Litchfield Lane. Unfortunately the substrate keeps peeling. This is the second time our group has repaired these murals.

Our artists at work, Anthony Williams, Deb Funk and Deb Curtin.

Great job, guys! Now we need to find some indoor murals to do for the winter months. :)

Fall exhibits by our members

Portsmouth Contrasts in Black & White

 

 

Photo artist Thomas A. Wright offers two contrasting series of Portsmouth images as you

have never seen this historic city before. Showing October 5 - October 29. Join us for the

opening reception Friday Oct 7, 2016 5-8pm at the New Hampshire Art Association’s Robert

Lincoln Levy Gallery, 136 State Street, Portsmouth, NH. Visit us at

 

www.digitalvistasimaging.com for more details.

 

 

These paintings are on display through the end of December. The bank is located in the same plaza as the Whole Foods market in Bedford. You can go in and view the paintings any time the bank is open.

 

Joe Smiga will be exhibiting his photographs at various craft shows this fall. Linda Feinberg and Joe Smiga will be sharing a table at the Holiday Market downtown Manchester (1000 Elm Street) on Saturday, December 10th.

 

Artist of the Month award for September by the Manchester Artists Association was given to Linda Feinberg for her mixed media  painting "Follow Me" which is about the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

 

This area memorializes the U.S. Army’s 7^th Cavalry and the Sioux and Cheyenne in one of the Indian’s last armed efforts to preserve their way of life. Here on June 25 and 26 of 1876, 263 soldiers, including Lt. Col. George A. Custer and attached personnel of the U.S. Army, died fighting several thousand Lakota and Cheyenne warriors.

Various tribes banded together to win this battle, but lost the war. The memorial is very spiritual and explains more than can be said in this short writing. 

This mixed media painting is 9” X 12”, matted and framed under glass, 13” X 16”. $125

Next FOA meeting is the last Wednesday of October, Oct 26th, 7:00 p.m. Contact treasurer, Linda Feinberg if you would like more information.  lhfeinberg@gmail.com

 

 



Looking forward to August

Monday, June 20th - free concert

This is a free concert at Victory Park (across from the City Library).  The organization is trying to buy or lease the building on Amherst Street to bring more art and music downtown.

The mission of Old Sol Music Hall is to establish, maintain, and operate a performance venue and community center aimed at leveraging the arts to create positive social and environmental impact. Old Sol Music Hall will provide a mid-size performance space and implement civic programming, including weekly pre-­show service projects, in-kind donation drives, and a More Than Music Fund, which takes a portion of every ticket sold to support the work of local non-profit organizations. Through these efforts, Old Sol Music Hall will reinvest a projected $35,000+ worth of social impact into the Greater Manchester community every year.

Old Sol Music Hall will be both a cultural and civic venue in the heart of Downtown Manchester. Led by its team of Concert Corps national service members, Old Sol Music Hall will provide opportunities for patrons to give back to the local community which, in turn, will build social capital and help New Hampshire attract and retain its Millennial workforce.

Honorable Mention

Judy Gelinas, pastel, "Fresh Clams"

 

Several of our members received Honorable Mention certificates at the Elliot Senior Center Annual Art Show. Congratulations.

 Anthony Williams, watercolor, "Early Morning at the Beach"

 

Frank Moulin, watercolor, "Gull Island"

Linda Feinberg, acrylic, "November Day"

 

Summer projects

Design awarded to our member and chief muralist Anthony Williams. Anthony will be painting this design on a utility box downtown. Congrats.

As a group we have submitted some proposals for summer murals, but we do not have any news yet. Our treasurer, Linda Feinberg, went to a Southern NH Planning Committee meeting on the millyard and did some networking.  Anthony and Linda will attend a meeting next week of Old Sol and try to get some interest in more public art downtown.

Member Joe Smiga received 30 copies of his new book "Blackest of Fridays".  This is his 8th book and is not available in stores yet. He already sold his first one to his chiropractor. Joe is a good salesman.  The novel is a thriller involving good police work and terrorism.

Please send in your news and summer updates to our blogger, Linda: lhfeinberg@gmail.com
Thank you.