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Playing with Paint Collaboration Projects are designed unique for each family, group or organization to create an experience when team building, imagination and creativity are brought together as the ingredients creating a personal development story for the participant and an … Continue reading
I’m desperate for a manicure says my painted hands. In the final moments before Spring Gallery night is presented to our Fort Worth Community, I feel a deep connection to this lovely town and all the people who share my passion to focus on the artistic expression! I’ve read recently Fort Worth has become the number 1 city of places to live in the US. It is my belief our city shines in the number 1 rank by the love and passion for The Arts, the nurture we give to local craftsman and artisans and our innovative spirit to integrate Art into other aspects of our lives.
Join me This Saturday to Celebrate and honor our Art’s Community. Spring Gallery Night
Spring Gallery Night Guide
Click to access FWADA2014spring.pdf
is a chance to get back show passes and front row tickets into the local art scene. Map out your Art Attack with the above Art Dealers Association Guide (give it a click) and don’t forget those back alley shows, which is where you’ll find me, like the Fort Works Art Show where Visual Art and Music will be married into an event by local shadow artist and curator J.W. Wilson, Artist Lauren Saba Childs and the unique expression in of herself Kristi Wilson Marks! 
I invite you to allow your critic to embody your presence with the freedom to like, dis like, turn away and fall in love with the expression’s shared this Saturday. Go on adventure and explore who may become your favorite expression. It might be a hanging on a gallery wall or it may be the show itself which brings inspiration and aliveness into a hollowness of your psyche. Treasure hunting can be part of the fun adding to your personal collection and placing your $$ vote to support local Artist. Regardless of the role or roles you choose this weekend; Artist, Curator, Viewer, Collector or Critic each holds important elements to our overall Cities Expression that Art Works!
Fort Works Art Show
Shipping and Receiving 205 South Calhoun St. 76104
Live Music & Visual Art 20+ Artist Original Works
“76101”
“Play On”
“Kame’s Grapes”
“Hospitality”
“Banana”
“Chirpy”
Ink, Pigment, Mud on Canvas
I had the privilege to sit in on a round table discussion on the Intimate Perspective of Art. What started out as an informal conversation grew in power as the passion of the very smart (I use the term smart to mean the full spectrum of IQ; emotional, intellectual and spiritual) represented around the table. The question we pondered as a collective consciousness; Does ones perspective on what one sees or the message one receives from viewing an artistic expression (piece of art) have more value than another viewer? Does the artist meaning to the piece bring correction to the viewer’s perspective? Is there a Right/Wrong in the Art World?
Art has been used for centuries to hide messages through symbols to keep a story, idea or belief from being eradicated from society. Even more Art is a great way to know oneself at a deeper level through witnessing the thoughts and ideas which are revealed by viewing art. What one sees as a paint brush someone else may view as a gun. And then a gun may represent a sign of destruction and evoke fear in one viewer while triggering a positive memory of youth with grandfather or be a symbol of guarding ones flag and personal freedoms. What is beautiful about this process is both get to be true! The viewer gets to decide to what they see and the power given to a piece is determined by ones own critic and the story created in ones own mind.
Recently I’ve noticed my artist, viewer and critic in conflict over a current project. While creating pieces for a local business based on the owners found memory of nudes from his youth. The artist in me is having fun in my studio creating this project, however I noticed the joy in the shadows as I’ve shared the project with others.
I noticed what was fun to explore in my private space became awkward and uncomfortable when I launched my work into the public eye. My thoughts questioned if my work would cause others to feel uncomfortable, evoke someone I care deeply to feel a personal boundary had been crossed? I leaned in a bit further and realized my personal perspective was limiting the power of my own art.
Displaying my art has always been a personal act of courage. Sharing my work with the freedom that it may be viewed as less sophisticated or without proper technique. My message lost in the blurred lines. I embrace being uncomfortable as part of the path of dynamic conversations and question does powerful art derive from powerful symbols from our culture? What has been taboo for me becomes the platform to claim freedom around my own femininity. As the maturation process is applied both through my art and in my personal perspective allowance to others to define, believe and perceive as they desire becomes my gift. Giving voice to the taboo in my own story builds a platform for my daughter, sister, mother, niece, friend, neighbor, to my best friends daughter, his wife, his mother, to all women and to all those who love those women.
I share openly all the projects working in my studio knowing the viewer will create their own story of the 5 foot yellow bird whimsical and simple which was inspired by the depth of the round table conversation inspired by this post. Cheers to the creation of “Chirpy” and to all who sing their own song!
March 13th 6PM Playing with Paint headed to Indianapolis, IN. Class theme “Paint What You Love” Inspire Studio Broadripple, IN. RSVP. brandicottingham@me.com
March 29th 2pm-8pm Brandi C. Art Studio will be Popping up for Spring Gallery Night asking the viewer to become the artist for the moment. Warehouse 201 S. Calhoun St Fort Worth 76104.
March 29th Brandi C. Art will show original work Fort Works Art Show 201 S. Calhoun St, Fort Worth, TX 76104 2PM+ 3 bands, 19 artist, adult beverage and food!
Monday I celebrated Presidents day with a couple of my young artist friends. We went on adventure experimenting with paint, drywall mud, cookie cutters, caulk guns, if it was in eyesight we stayed in the question “How can we transform this object into something better?” My artist friends inspired me to stretch outside my normal techniques and get my tools dirty in a new way, melting crayons has become a standard with this group, but what can we do with cookie cutters and the drywall mud we found in daddies driveway? Or what about my old puzzle I no longer have all the pieces? My studio mate Ms. Kim was inspired to leave her bookkeeping and bring out the glitter flakes! Ohh what fun a room full of girls and glitter flakes!! The inspiration and excitement of experimentation was alive as we fed the next moment with more ideas and used the previous amazing idea as the contrast for the next enhanced expression. Wouldn’t life be all that more delicious if we used our ability to contrast this from that not as a way to feel bad about the black next to the white or why the yin is sooo different from the yang, but to apply our ability to contrast as the stepping stone to the very next more amazing moment. If I put purple next to red they both look more brilliant. Today I’m going to take my inspiration from my young studio mates and look for ways I can use the practice of contrast to design my day and then expand into tomorrow and then expand larger into the next day. A good practice for me as I’m in studio getting ready for my next show, Spring Gallery Night March 29th. Cheers to the courageous, open, adventurous artist who sang, danced and played with paint, and on a day off from school took the ordinary and turned it into the extraordinary! Just from this one question;
What can I do with this _fill in the blank__ and make it work better for me?
I proudly proclaim myself a degenerate artist and believe to love art is allow it ALL to live. A toast to the degenerate Saint Valentine and his expression to marry couples, during a time it was not socially acceptable, only for those who loved in the shadows. Celebrate with me bring your love out of the shadows and let it shine today!!
Politics have never played a greater role in art than they have over the course of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany before and during the Second World War. Not only did Hitler depreciate the art of contemporary artists of German Expressionism as “degenerate” but he also dreamed of having the greatest German Museum of Art in Austria of Old Master paintings to showcase Germany as an intellectual and political superpower and he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Every country Germany conquered they immediately looted of all its precious works of art, from museums to private collections. Foreign countries took to extreme precautions to protect their gems from the oncoming German armies.
The Degenerate Art Exhibit staged in Munich in 1937 was the catalyst in Hitler’s purification of the German state not only in terms of race but also in terms of art. It is ironic…
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Last week my studio popped up at The Community Food Bank. The project was designed with multiple objectives. Create an original piece of Art which captures a snap shot and tells a story of those in our community who require assistance to fill their pantries. Blur the lines between giver and receiver by asking the receiver to give their creativity into a project which will then produce income to support the organization which is giving to the receiver (Who’s On 2nd). Create a conversation with the clients inspiring them to connect with their resources by creating a meaningful experience which the client may choose to build on, and or, have a super fun story to tell about their trip to the Food Bank!
And finally to sell the project to a buyer who desires to be apart of this story and wants a truly unique piece of art collaborated by a group of strangers who crossed paths in one moment in time drawn together with one common factor…Hunger.
I feel so lucky to have met and heard so many amazing stories from people I may have never crossed paths. I painted with 3 year olds, 80 year olds, sick, healthy, working, without work, homeless and blessed to have a home. They all inspired me as I was blown away by the joy and friendship they extended to me. They played with paint with me, some sang, some rapped and we laughed. I love the piece which started as the Campbell’s Soup Can (inspired by Warhol) which has taken on a life of itself and expresses the joy I found within our community where I least expected it to thrive.
I’m back in my bricks and mortar studio putting on the final touches and looking forward to revealing “What Do You Hunger 4” 
Collaboration Piece Brandi C. & over 30 Clients & Volunteers from The Community Food Bank Fort Worth, TX
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Wednesday Night Canvas 1: I transformed Xerox Corporate Travelers from New York to Portland Oregon as Painters for the night. Locals from A Wish for Wings and happy hour patrons stepped into the Pop UP Studio and with every brush … Continue reading
Pop UP Studio Alert: Worthington Renaissance Hotel Wednesday 22nd, Thursday 23rd & Friday 24th 5-7Pm hotel bar.
I’m adding to my bucket list this week; Get commissioned by an International brand to create an original painting which will hang in a public location where locals, domestic and International visitors may view a piece of work themed after the adventure of Discovery. AND, invite all my friends to add this same adventure onto their list and do it together! If your excited, if this sounds like fun then let’s check this one off together!!
The Worthington Renaissance Hotel has partnered with Brandi C. Art/Playing with Paint to turn their Lobby Bar into my studio and paint a 3 part series which will hang in the Fort Worth Hotel. AND they want you to be the artist! The R Life Live team would like this to be a collaboration project where the lines are blurred between the artist, critic and viewer. The creation of the piece becomes in and of itself an adventure! This amazing project will be painted this week starting Wednesday night and will continue Thursday and Friday evenings from 5Pm-7PM each evening. Hotel Staff from the DFW area, hotel guest, extended stay patrons, and anyone else who decides to celebrate happy hour in their bar, and for these 3 nights my studio, will become the artist for the evening.
Let’s Paint! Brandi C.
Thank you to all the Starpoint Kids and Friends who showed up to Paint the Cooks Children Construction Mural. Thanks To Cari Ann at Cooks and her creative crew for the beautiful mural we painted!
YOUR INVITED
Collaboration Painting Mural Project for Cooks Children
Cooks Children is expanding! During the construction project a beautiful Mural of Fort Worth destination spots will adorn the construction fence. Cari Ann with Cooks and I have created a day for Kids to be apart of this amazing collaboration project.
Come Paint with Us and leave your mark!
Saturday January 18th
noon-3PM
801 Seventh Ave
I have Easels Open for Tonights Elegant Design Studio Class. Create your own Art.
January 22nd, 23rd & 24th The Worthington Renaissance Hotel 5pm-7Pm collaboration piece to hang in hotel. Studio will pop up in Lobby Bar.
brandicottingham 