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Autumn Greetings!

I’ve been enjoying watching the leaves turn from green to all the beautiful colors of Fall. The yellows, oranges, reds, and burgundies can take one’s breath away, especially when the sun is shining. They just seem to glow! Hopefully everyone is taking advantage and creating “masterpieces” with your own personal creativity. Speaking of personal creativity, I have been busy painting slates for various crafts shows and have two more to go. I have been painting slates for about 35 years, with slates I originally accumulated from my mother’s old farmhouse near Athens, Ohio. The slate I’m painting on now is from a chicken coop in South Vienna. I paint anything from snowmen, cardinals, chickadees, barns, flowers and lighthouses to peace signs, pets and football helmets. I enjoy putting on my music, sitting at my work desk in my front sunroom, shutting out the world, and entering my own world of art. I hope each of you have an outlet to express your gift of creativity.

Another reminder – Our Christmas party will be on Saturday, December 10, from 3:00–5:00 pm with catered food. Anyone planning to attend should contact our membership chair, Debbie Cosenza, by December 3 so we know how much food to buy. If you want to join in our gift exchange, please bring a $10–15 gift.

Don’t forget that we still need a new chairperson for the Sweet Corn Festival. Warren Brown, our faithful leader, just turned 80 in October and would like to retire from this important position. He is still willing to mentor anyone who is interested in volunteering. We all know this is our BIG moneymaker that keeps FAA running smoothly so please consider stepping up and helping.

Pat Dunker is giving up the position of Workshop Coordinator and Shirlee Bauer is taking over that position. I think we would all like to acknowledge what a wonderful job Pat did in providing and caring for our workshop artists over the years. It’s quite an undertaking which Pat did with enthusiastic competence and we owe her our grateful thanks for a job well-done! I have every confidence that Shirlee will do a great job and continue to provide FAA with talented artists from all over the country. Thank you, Pat and Shirlee!!!

I’d like to thank Jim and Connie Gifford, Roger and Jan Browning, and Billie Dickson for helping to clean out the office and back rooms of our gallery. It was a MAJOR undertaking and we managed to fill an empty dumpster and then filled Billie’s car with items to take to Goodwill. You can actually walk into the library without tripping over tables, chairs, crates, etc., and the back storage room has been cleared of old, unusable pieces. The office has been organized with extraneous articles removed. We worked for 3 1/2 hours and I can’t thank all these hard workers enough!! And once again, thanks to Lucy Burns and Carol Collett who made our library usable again!

Our next meeting is Tuesday, November 1, at 7:00 pm where Erica Keener, who works in pastels, will be our guest demo artist. I thoroughly enjoyed Nancy Neville last month and look forward to what Erica has to share.

Looking forward to seeing everyone at our next meeting!

Linda Brandenburg
President

FAA DEMO ARTISTS 2022

November 1 Erica Keener, pastel
December 10 Christmas party (3:00–5:00 pm)

FAA DEMO ARTISTS AND WORKSHOPS 2023

January No Meeting
February 7 Dr. Hyacinth Paul, acrylic
March 7 Trish McKinney, multimedia (note change from previous announcement)
April 4 Louise Jackson, watercolor
May 2 Keiko Tanabe, watercolor (Workshop May 1–3)
June 6 Social

…Submitted by Carol Edsall

NOVEMBER’S FEATURED ARTIST –ERICA KEENER

Artist Erica Keener will demo her pastel art work at our November 1 meeting. With her bold use of color and her eye for natural detail, Erica’s work captures the world around us, asking viewers to reconsider even the most apparently ordinary scenes in what she refers to as “luminous brightscapes”. In particular she enjoys trying to recreate clouds and storms as they move over the landscape. Erica’s goal is to share that simple, meditative joy one can find in simply contemplating the ever changing skies above, and she would like to encourage everyone to look around more often – and especially to look up. Her work can be seen online at ericakeenerart.com, in her studio at the Front Street art complex and in private and corporate collections throughout the Miami Valley and beyond.

…Submitted by Carol Edsall

MAY 2023 WORKSHOP WITH KEIKO TANABE

Coming in May 2023 is a wonderful watercolor workshop with well-known artist Keiko Tanabe as the instructor. Keiko was born in Kyoto, Japan. As a child growing up in an art-loving family, she always enjoyed drawing and painting and won many awards in children’s art contests. However, art was not her chosen field of study later on. She earned a B.A. in intercultural communication (International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan) and an M.A. in international education (UCLA, California). She then worked in international relations positions in a Japanese government trade organization in Tokyo, at a large law firm in San Francisco and at a private consulting firm in San Diego. For decades, she has traveled extensively, mainly in European countries, Asia and North America.

Through all these years, Keiko knew there was in her heart the growing desire to someday become an artist. That, fueled by her love of travel and strong interest in other cultures, eventually found its way out in 2003. After learning basic drawing and watercolor painting skills at a local community school in San Diego, she took on her first project as an artist together with her father, a renowned scholar of French literature in Japan. Through the Azure Sea and Sky of Provence: A Tribute to Her Joie de Vivre (Kosei Publishing, Osaka, Japan) was published in August, 2003, authored by her father and illustrated by Keiko. From then on, she intensely taught herself to be fluent in watercolor painting, just as one would do to master a foreign language.

Mostly self-taught, Keiko embarked on a professional art career in 2005 and started exhibiting publicly. In the same year she took a workshop from Alvaro Castagnet and discovered the joy of plein-air painting. Since that year her paintings have been juried into many exhibitions across Americas and in Asia and Europe. Her work has been purchased by private and corporate collectors from all around the world. She also had her paintings published in leading art magazines in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Additionally, she self-publishes her art books and nine books have been completed to date. She’s also a sought-after workshop instructor. Since 2011, she has been invited to and completed successfully more than 400 workshops and numerous live demonstrations around the world. She has served as a juror in a number of art exhibitions including some major watercolor shows around the world such as the Transparent Watercolor Society of America, the International Watercolour Masters, the Northwest Watercolor Society, the Utah Watercolor Society and the New Mexico Watercolor Society. In 2015 she was named an official Ambassador for Winsor & Newton. In 2018, she was appointed to the advisory board of the American Watercolor Weekly. In 2018 and 2019, she was invited to be a faculty member for the Plein Air Convention & Expo, the world’s largest plein-air painting event. Keiko currently lives in San Diego, California.

The registration form for the May 2023 Workshop is available in the Gallery and is attached here.

Keiko Tanabe Registration May 2023

…Submitted by Pat Dunker

CALL FOR ENTRIES – MIDDLETOWN ARTS CENTER AREA ART EXHIBITION

The submission deadline for the Middletown Arts Center Area Art Exhibition is approaching. Artists must be 18 years of age or older and living within a 50-mile radius of Middletown, Ohio. All works must be original and never exhibited previously in a juried exhibition at the MAC. Categories include ceramics, jewelry, glass, enamel, watermedia, oils/acrylics, drawing, and mixed media. The prospectus is available on their website. Artists may submit their work October 31 through November 3, 2022. A list of accepted work will be posted on their website on November 7. The Opening and Preview Event will be held on November 11 from 6:00–8:00 pm. The Exhibition will be open to the public during regular business hours November 11–December 14, 2022 at 130 N. Verity Pkwy., Middletown, OH 45042.

REMINDERS

Our next meeting will be our Christmas Party on SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2022 from 3:00–5:00 pm.

The deadline for submitting articles to be included in the February Newsletter is Monday, January 16, 2023. Please email your articles to April Coppess.

Please note that, for privacy reasons, the Fairborn Art Association will not post personal email addresses or phone numbers in the newsletters or on our website unless we have the respective member’s permission. Consult your FAA Directory for contact information for members. For non-members, we will provide the contact information we are given for them.