Opening this Wednesday

Hello!

I am back from my honeymoon and now it is crunch-time: I am getting ready to set up tomorrow at Galerie Port-Maurice. The opening is at 7:30 on Wednesday. I hope that at least a couple of people I know will make it all the way out to Saint-Leonard... or I guess I will get to meet some of the Galerie Port-Maurice regulars, which should be great fun as well. 

Then on Friday I move to Edmonton to begin my MFA. Life is going by so quickly these days I can hardly keep up. I will try to post again on Thursday with some images of new work!

Time to get the ball rolling for a crazy week.

Already July!

It feels kind of funny, being back after so long... but there has not been a whole lot to announce over the last few months, in terms of art or illustration.
I have had a couple of pieces in group shows, including the Red Bird Studio's "works on paper" project (see above). The Red Bird is the studio on Van Horne that I've been at since May last year, and they have just opened a brand new gallery. It's a gorgeous looking space... and I'm excited to see what will come of all the hard work that people have been pouring into getting that place started up.
This spring and summer are turning out to be some of the busiest months of my entire life: simultaneously working (as a teacher at the Visual Arts Centre summer camp), planning my wedding, getting ready to move to Edmonton in September, and preparing a whole batch of new artwork for my upcoming exhibit Façade Arrière at Galerie Port Maurice which opens September 2nd. My big hope is that having so many projects going at once will not result in all of them turning out to be total disasters.
Anyways, if all else fails at least I can rest easy knowing that I am skipping town in a month and a half to begin studying for my MFA at University of Alberta. Actually, forget resting easy, I still need to find a place to live there.

Well, here goes nothing. Better get back to the studio to get some more collages done.

Change of Course

Hello!

It is March now, and so my show at the Maison de la Culture NDG is down. It was quite an an adventure taking all the work home... by foot! Luckily Colin and my brother were there to help, so we spent an intense couple of hours carrying sheets of plywood around the neighbourhood. I went on some more walks by myself to bring some smaller pieces to their buyers, and it was actually kind of wonderful to conclude my show (which was all about NDG, after all) by spending a few hours strolling all around town.

Anyhow, the main reason I am writing today is to say that, although this blog was originally set up as a place to post my illustrations (leading up to the SCBWI conference in 2008), it's looking like illustration will be put on the back-burner for the next little while. Why is this, you ask? Well, I got into grad school! I was accepted to the MFA program at University of Alberta, so it appears as though I will be heading to Edmonton in September.

So I may be posting illustration work far less often these next few years... but I know I will come back to it someday.

Ruelles update

Hello!
So my show at the Maison de la Culture NDG has been up for about 3 weeks now and it's going really well. I've sold quite a few of the pieces (so my recession-induced fear of never selling anything ever again has been unwaranted), and many people have been writing in the comment book, signing with their name and the alleyway they belong to.
My sentimental favourites (of the comments) are the ones written by grade-schoolers in their best cursive lettering.
I had a little interview with the neighbourhood paper, which you can see here.

Vernissage

It went really well! Way better than I could have thought, what with it being about minus 20 degrees outside and everything. People kept coming into the gallery in a deeply frozen state. There were about 80 people there overall, and they all seemed to be having a great old time. It was awesome having this show right where it belongs in the heart of NDG because then all my neighbours got to come out and take a look.

Now I am quite recovered from the no-sleeping craze which preceeded the show I am trying to get my footing again... as in what do I do next? Well. Right at the moment I am a few hours away from getting onto a plane for a little trip to see my grandmother, so I suppose I will have time to think it over. For now, though... I had better go and pack!

Up for air

I may seem to have dropped off the face of the earth for the last little while, or perhaps you may think that I have been eaten by a large predatory carnivore... but in fact I have merely been hibernating in my studio, working on my exhibit at the Maison de la Culture NDG.

It opens this Saturday!

I have already begun setting up, and am extremely excited for the vernissage. I will probably have some photos then, and more to say as well! For now, I am still in a sleep-deprived daze, having rediscovered the pleasure of all-nighters in the studio (oh, the good old days of portfolio all-nighters in university) when you get so muddled by fatigue after individually gluing bricks onto a collage for 3 hours that is suddenly seems like an amazing idea to listen to an Alanis Morisette CD at 4am.

Until Saturday, then, because I still have some work to do. Perhaps more tiny little bricks. Excellent!

angry bunny

I am having so much fun drawing bunnies!

By the way, my website is now up. I am on the path to computer literacy!

Go visit it at: www.andreakastner.ca