Jenny

'My Birds', acrylic on canvas, 28" x 22 "

'Field and Grove', acrylic on canvas, 22" x 20"

How long have you been working with iXpress?
I’m not sure. It’s a long time. Before iXpress, I took art at School 84.

Why do you make art?
It is fun. I like working with all the different colors: blue, white, yellow, red… Pink is my favorite.

How do you feel when you are working?
Happy and good.

What would you change about iXpress if you could?
I would like more time to paint. I am sad when I have to stop.

I had a painting in the show. It was called “My Flower Garden”. I was surprised when it was chosen. I was excited.

DEC Grant Awards

Back in the fall iXpress applied for the Decentralization Grant offered in Chautauqua and Erie Counties.

Chautauqua County's iXpress is lead by Sara Michalak, she is pursueing an outdoor sculpture project related to the surrounding landscape. Her project will be implemented by our iXpress individuals in conjunction with The Resource Center.

Erie County iXpress lead by Amy Holdnack and Samantha Hamilton requested funding for a large scale assemblage project using deconstructed recyclable materials. They will be working with two local artists, Ginny Lohr and Jozef Bajus. The project will conclude with a workshop day hosted by the Burchfield Penney Art Center.

We are pleased to announce that both projects have received funding for their respective projects and we can't wait to get production underway! More news on these two amazing projects (and what you can do to participate) as they unfold.

Comfort Zone Cafe Mural

Comfort Zone Cafe has graciously asked us to do a mural for their new Elmwood location! iXpress was only too happy to get right to work. The Co-op at Tri-Main is primarily working on this endeavor. This large work will be installed mid Spring we'll be sure to tell everyone when it's up for viewing! Deb using the projector to paint our drawings on the mural boards.

Laura helping Deb out.

Pottery at the Co-Op

Jody and Sarah trying out the wheel

At the Co-Op art facilitator Jody has been having ceramics classes once a week. This past week she pulled out the big guns, the pottery wheel! Judging from all the pictures the brave guys that tried it out were delighted as well as a little grossed out from the texture of the wet clay. There's nothing like good old messy fun in the art room!

Steve

1. How long have you been working with the iXpress program?
I’ve been working with I Xpress for 5 years. With 4 different teachers.

2. Why do you make art?
I like art because I move my hands. I like paint to and make colors. I like to feel the brush to make different colors. I paint boats, buses, trees, houses.

3. How do you feel when you paint?
I feel great. I feel happy cause when you help and keep me on task I finish a painting. People tell me I do a good job.

4. What would you change about iXpress if you could?
I would paint more and faster.

Stacey

1. How long have you been working with the iXpress program?
3 years with 3 different teachers.

2. Why do you make art?
I feel happy because the pictures are beautiful and I paint well with my own hand. Impressionist paintings are easy for my hand and the colors are pretty. My favorite colors are purple and pink. I picked Monet’s garden for the purple Irises. I like to work from historic painter’s art. I choose the piece because the fall colors. I like to go to art because it is quite (sic). I like the music and my friends.

3. What would you change about iXpress if you could?
Nothing.

4. As an artist, what is your most important message to get across to your audience?
Nothing, I paint for me.

from the Southern Tier

JB is a skilled and thoughtful participant in Aspire's iXpress program in the Southern Tier. His choice to create with pastels allows this artist to work in ways that express an engaging confluence of personal process with media. The effects of layering, blending and stroking/marking convey visual depth as well as an immediacy of the experience of art-making. This artist is gifted with an ability to create in ways that offer fresh opportunities to the viewer for considering the ways that art may enhance our own ways of seeing and understanding each other, our experiences and the world around us.

"December Light", blue pastel, 6" x 6"