Meeting rescheduled

Still digging out?

Our February meeting, cancelled as a result of a whopping snowstorm, has been rescheduled for March 1, 2015, at the same location: Columbine Library, 7706 W. Bowles Av, Littleton, CO, 1-3 pm. The agenda remains the same. Bring your Wicked Plants related materials and literature -- and ideas -- and we'll also have a look at the photo project in support of RARE II.

We do hope the snow clearance goes well following the next shot from Winter.

Daffodils are emerging in my yard -- too early!

Art living among us in disguise?

Consider the website Hyperallergic.com (Sensitive to Art and Its Discontents), which is about art as an alive, changing event in all our lives : Food for thought for artists as activists. Lifting a page now and then from radical artists’ playbooks, as Libby Kyer suggests, might spur us to grow botanical art first as a recognized ART genre (we’re all artists here…) and secondly as the visible science contribution to education about life on the planet!

Upcoming Meeting Locations

February 22, 2015  1-3 pm  Columbine Library, 7706 W Bowles Ave, Littleton, CO 80123

March 29, 2015  1-3 pm  Roxborough Library, Lockheed Martin Meeting Room, 8357 North Rampart Range Road, Littleton, 80125

Membership dues: are you overdue?

Here is a link for both your ASBA and RMSBA memberships. To go directly to the ASBA site to join or renew your membership use this link:   http://asba-art.org/join/joinrenew-now

For persons who wish to pay by check, please fill out the membership form and prepare a check for $90 made payable to ASBA. Send the check to: ASBA Membership, 2900 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY 10458-5126.

Please email any questions to our treasurer, Ronda Ballard: RMSBAtreasurer@gmail.com

Remember to renew your membership no later than January 31st each year…

Call for Entries: Wicked Plants    

RMSBA is hosting a non-juried exhibition inspired by Amy Stewart’s book Wicked Plants. Posted nearby is the Call for Entry and Entry form.  Something new we have added to this CFE is the Email Intent to Enter.  If you know you are going to participate but don’t know the botanical plant you will be illustrating, don’t worry, just show TBD in the form. Our intent is get a count of how many art pieces we can expect to hang. 

If you have a copy of the book, please bring it to our meetings for members to look at and get ideas.  You can purchase the book on Amazon or at Denver Botanic Gardens.  Check your local libraries; they may have copies as well.  

We really encourage you to have fun with this.  You can add other elements to show why your plant is wicked, i.e., a plant with thorns could have blood dripping off or a poisonous plant with skull and crossbones.  I know that you can come up with some very clever ways to illustrate a wicked plant.

RMSBA has extended a special invitation to the Denver Botanic Gardens School of Botanical Art and Illustration students who are not RMSBA members.  We are excited to have them participate with us and to see what benefits they can have as members to our great organization.

Botanical Business Cards

Art for Business cards RMSBA is having business cards printed, and on them we want to show a cross-section of our wonderfully talented artists. We have found a printing company that will do several images per order, and we thought it would be fun to have five or six different images on our cards.

Wouldn't you like to see your artwork on our cards? 

Please submit a high-quality botanical image (300dpi) of your favorite botanical artwork. We will show the images at the meeting in March when we vote on our new tag-line The six images earning the highest number of votes will be the artwork for our new cards.

So before you think about it too much, just send Dorothy (ddepaulo@gmail.com) an attachment of your favorite image!

Tagline Contest for RMSBA Members - with a Prize!

Tagline Contest 

Let’s get a tagline for RMSBA, many organizations have one. 

Tagline – A slogan or catchphrase conveying important attributes or benefit the group wishes to convey

Example:  Denver Botanical Gardens – ‘Connecting people with plants…’

Email your tagline entries to Vanessa Martin at martin.vanessa655@gmail.com during February; use Tagline contest in the Subject reference. She will compile all of entries and send out an on-line vote for members to for favorites and the winner will receive a $10 gift card to Meininger’s.

January’s early submissions
First entry from Susan Fisher: “Plant portrayals promote preservation…”

Helen Smithwick has a few:

"Art with altitude" 

"Everything you love about illustration"

"Empowering the illustrator"

Heather Myers offers:

 - Art from the ground up!
- Glorious plants, glorious art.
- Art from the plant world.
- Portraits from the plant world.

Send yours in now!

January Meeting at Golden Library

January 25, 2015, Golden Library, 1019 10th St, Golden, CO

Agenda:

1) State of the Organization 

2) Mission Statement and By-Laws

3) Tagline contest

4) RARE II Update

            a. Need committee to handle photo gallery addition to exhibit

5) Upcoming Exhibits
            a. Gathering of the Guilds
            b. Wicked Plants
                   1)  Decide on non-member entry fee
            c. Tagawa Gardens

6) Membership Recruitment Drive

7) Proposed schedule for 2015

8) Member discussion on ideas for workshops and other activities

9) Share favorite books

The complete Minutes of the meeting are posted to this Blog under Documents of Use

Proposed (and accepted) 2015 schedule of meetings

1) January 25th - Golden Library - 2015 kick off

2) February 22nd - Meeting cancelled due to snow; rescheduled for
     March 1 - Columbine Library - RARE Photo gallery, work on project

3) March 29th – location TBD - Discussion on digital techniques

4a) April 24th (Friday) - Framing RAREII at Sharon Eatons’s

4b) April 26th (Sunday) - Gathering of the Guilds – Boettcher Mansion

5) May 31st – Rocky Mtn Land Library - Film

6) June 28th – location TBD - Susan Fisher workshop/ Color Force

7) July 26th - Plein Aire at Mt. Goliath

8) August 30th - Bar-B-Que at Vanessa Martin’s house

9) Sept. 27th - Aurora Plains Conservation Center Tour

10) October 25th – location TBD - recap of Miami ASBA conference

11) November 29th - no meeting
12) December 20th - location TBD - Holiday party

RARE II Exhibit Update (further details in the January Minutes)

Adding a Photo Gallery as an interpretive component to the exhibit received enthusiastic support. We need all RARE artists to forward any photos of field work, herbarium specs, on-location photos with botanists, anything that would interest the public. These will show the story behind the process, how we go about researching, field work, looking for plants etc. 

Send digital photos to Susan Fisher at susan@susantfisher.com. Please explain the photos so we can create captions. At our next meeting we will work on this project. Bring your ideas! We need volunteers for a committee; please let Vanessa, Dorothy or Susan Fisher know if you can help us with this creative project.   

Question: Will those RARE artwork pieces not accepted into the traveling exhibit be included in the catalogue?  Answer: No. This is a catalog of the exhibit itself. 

Upcoming Exhibits (further details in the January Minutes)

Gathering of the Guilds – Sunday, April 26th, The Boettcher Mansion on Lookout Mountain, Golden, 9am-4pm – RMSBA will have a table. Members are invited to sell their prints, note cards, etc.  If interested in participating, please contact Sharon Eaton and Patti Hearn.

 Wicked Plants Exhibit– An exhibit inspired by the book “Wicked” by the author Amy Stewart.  This non-juried show is open to RMSBA members with a special invitation to DBG non-member students. The show will be in October at the Aurora Cultural Arts district gallery.

The Call For Entry will be posted soon with the details. We need a good turn out because the gallery is huge and we need to fill it: we estimate a minimum of 45-50 pieces. We will also be able to sell originals, prints and note cards at this venue; gallery takes 25% commission. 

Tagawa Gardens – Patti Hearn is negotiating with Tagawa Gardens for us to set up one weekend in August to sell our art. Also they want someone to conduct a workshop for 10-12 year olds.  Tentatively Sharon Garret has volunteered to work on this. More details once Patti has finalized the commitment.

Membership Recruitment drive – (further details in the January Minutes)

Vanessa encourages all members to think of ways to get new members. We will be getting business cards for members to carry to pass out to prospective new members. Members who take classes at DBG should promote RMSBA. We want to send the message that you don’t have to be a graduate of the DBG school in order to join, we welcome newbies to the botanical art world. 

Exhausted from so much thinking and planning and proposing, we shared our favorite books and magazines and munched on snacks… Ahhhhh, it was a good meeting!