Wow. It's been a minute, huh?

Wow, Summer just flew right by us didn't it? I for one had an amazing Summer. One amazing thing for me this Summer was Lady Fest Dayton. Way back in 2000, I was living in Olympia, Washington and was able to help plan and organize the very first Lady Fest (which was one of the more stellar life events I've experienced thus far!).

What is a Lady Fest you ask? Taken from the original Lady Fest website:

"Ladyfest is a non-profit, community-based event designed by and for women to showcase, celebrate and encourage the artistic, organizational and political work and talents of women. It will feature performances by bands, spoken word artists, authors, visual artists and more!!! It will include workshops, panels, and dance parties. This is a woman-run event but all are welcome to attend."

You can view the original Lady Fest 2000 information by clicking on the photo below (you can find me in the photo right below Carrie Brownstein and her cat!)


After that first Lady Fest many ladies went back to their hometownes to create Lady Fests for their own communities and still continue to today. Lady Fest Dayton was an idea some ladies had in early 2008 and by September it had turned into a reality. There are hopes for another next year.


You can view Lady Fest Dayton's MySpace page by clicking on the image below.


I was able to take a wall of the space and put my art up. It was held in a building that used to house a bank (yes the space even had an old bank vault, pretty cool!). At first the space was really rough and looked like it hadn't been touched in years? As you can see...

But after much hard work:

Often in dark lighting conditions:

Lady Fest Dayton was ready:

It turned out to be a wonderful, delightful, and an absolutely amazing weekend! So great in fact that Sunday brought upon a wind storm so massive that the greater Dayton area didn't have power for a week after. Oh the great power outage of 2008 how I miss you...

Here are some photos of my own space that I shared with friends Elyse Dawson and Marishah Paddock.

The space in it's original state:

Stenciling takes WAY more time than one first plans for:

Finished state:

The tiny paintings are mine, as is the "Unclean" photo series I did while a student at Antioch College.

The stenciled words are part of a back-and-forth poetry series zine myself and some friends did, that turned out to be an ongoing project in it's own. We're sort of obsessed with these back-and-forth poem sessions. Some pretty great literary masterpieces have come out of 5 or so ladies sitting in a room passing around a notebook.

The prints next to "Unclean" are Marishah's. And the photos, drawing, and poem in gold are Elyse's.

***

Next month I'll be putting more paintings and other various crafty stuff in an event "50 under $50". Fifty local artists all selling art, crafts, baked goods, etc for under $50. All in time for the holiday gift buying season. I'll update more about that later.

I promise I'll not be silent here all Winter...

OH, I almost forgot...

I submitted some pieces to an upcoming art show in Columbus.

http://www.cnoteartshow.com/spring2008/

If you would be so wonderful as to "vote me up" that would be lovely! Just follow the link below, find me, it will have my name Jen Dyke ( probably near the bottom of the page) and click on "Click To Vote It Up".

http://www.cnoteartshow.com/spring2008/cnoteartists

Or I think you can go here to view my page:

http://www.cnoteartshow.com/spring2008/node/114

I thank you kindly in advance!

Here are a few of the pieces I've submitted, if I make more before the cut off, I'll put those up as well.

Home: Franklin, OH (2008)

Bubblegum Machine: Holland, MI (2008)

Comet Photobooth Seat: Cincinnati, OH (2008)

Antioch College: Transient Mode Home, Yellow Springs, OH (2008)

Success!

So my first show went well, here is the flyer for it (made by the always lovely Jenn Breman):


I sold one painting, the Price Stores piece shown in my previous post.

At the show I ran across Daytonian art-do-gooder Leigh Waltz who informed me of a performance art show he organizes every year and he was gracious enough to tell me to put up my pieces in the visual art corner of this show, so I did, and I sold 5 more!

The show was on Saturday and here is a link to the site for it.

http://www.liveartnetwork.com/



There were a number of performance artists including Queen Mae and the Bells, whom I had always heard were awesome, and now I know that YES, in fact, they are awesome. If you get the chance to see them perform, DO IT!

http://www.queenmaeandthebells.com/

http://www.myspace.com/queenmaeandthebells

photo by Aaron Geiser

Tiny Paintings!

So I've been busy making some tiny paintings! They are based on photographs that I have taken. My major motivation factor being that I was asked to be in an all women art show in Dayton that I'll post more details about later.

Here are five of my favorites:

Webster Hotel, 8th Floor: NYC (2008)

Ryan's Entry: Chicago, IL (2008)

George & Laura's Stairs: Oak Park, IL (2008)

For Rent: Dayton, OH (2008)

Price Stores: Dayton, OH (2008)