Animal Instinct - Show Nov. 7th! Buy art and proceeds go to The Humane Society of the US.

My new friend Tracey Taylor is curating this wonderful group show benefiting the Humane Society of The US. Please check it out! I'm submitting a piece titled "The Wish". It's a Chickadee holding a dandelion and is acrylic on wood (I'll post the image soon! Just need to take a photo of it!). 80% of the sales of all items and artwork for this show will benefit the Humane Society. The opening is next Saturday Nov. 7th. Hope you can make it to support this organization and the super great gallery TheLab!

Muertos con Leche

So here's a sneak peek at my "Playing Dead - in the forest" piece for the show at Avenue 50 Studio in Highland Park! The opening is this Saturday night. Nice to be exhibiting in my neck o' the woods again! Here are the details about the show

Celebration Reception: Saturday, October 10, 2009 from 7-10 pm.

MUERTOS CON LECHE ~
Light Hearted and Satirical

Please feel free to dress in your favorite DOD attire
The satire that has sprung from Mexican artist Jose Guadalupe Posada's work can be seen in the Dia de Muertos folk art of today. Please join us in our 2009 Dia de los Muertos celebration exhibition featuring the following contemporary artists:

Joe Bravo
Lalo Alcaraz
Gomez Bueno
Pola Lopez
Douglas Alvarez
Stuart Rapeport
Kay Brown
Ronald J. Llanos
Isabel Martinez
Mavis Leahy
Mario Torero
CJ Metzger
Ms. Mindy
Heather Hoggan
Patricia Krebs
Jennifer Gutierrez Morgan
Jose Orozco
Kelly Thompson
Olivia Sanchez-Brown
Dan Van Clapp
Ricardo Duffy

Avenue 50 Studio is proud to present a fun and satirical exhibition for this year’s Dia de Los Muertos. Once a year during harvest time, we pay homage to Death. At harvest, while crops die, they give back life. This is the spirit of Dia de Los Muertos ~ through death there is life.

Dia de Los Muertos is a pagan celebration to the Dead. We offer up candies and flowers and images to keep the Dead happy. This Dia de Los Muertos we’ve asked our artists to feed Death’s belly with laughter. Through laughter, he will pardon and overlook our trespasses, and open a window to the underworld where we can communicate with our loved ones. Let us feed the demon Death with sweet life. And through those spoonfuls, keep the living alive. Let us laugh and celebrate life. This Dia de Los Muertos, we hope to keep you entertained in honor and celebration of the duality of life.

Painting on Everything!

New piece to share! Here's a girl portrait titled "Tattooed Matilda" that's part of my series painted on an old collection of Encyclopedia's that belonged to by grandfather artist Ralph Johnstone. The books are from the 1930's and lovely! But with such obsolete information! So, just loving the color and texture of the books I've decided to re-purpose them - turning them into paintings. As for now I'm just painting the covers, but as time progresses, I'll start adorning the insides as well.

This one is for sale in my Etsy store!

Paintings Come and Go...

Someone asked me the other day if I found it hard to part with my paintings still. Yes - and - No. For me a piece is never truly finished until it finds the right person. Whether it be someone stumbling into a gallery, one of my open studios, a friend that catches it in the making, or my mom not letting it leave the studio - i always feel that the circle of creation has been completed once it finds it's rightful owner. I do feel a bit rushed in with the art-making process these days. And, I do like to have my fresh and new pieces around me for a while. It's nice to just make friends with them for a few days! This is one of those pieces that comes out of my hands, gets framed, and is off to the gallery - then to a client faster than I can even document it! All I have is a snapshot of the piece... I'm going to have to track this baby down.

Oh, and if you have any of my work in your home, can you send me a picture of it hanging in place? I'm putting together a collection of photos of my art in clients places. You can email them to me at cjmetzger@cjmetzger.com. thanks!

A little bit of Golden Sunshine

This piece lifts my spirits. It's a warmer color palate for me - a departure from the my obsession with blues and greens - those deep forest colors i've been using for quite a while. I added gold leaf to embellish her hair. I have a feeling I'll be using alot more of gold leaf. Something about how it catches the light, pops off the surface, makes things look so precious. I can't help but think of Klimt when I layer on that lovely stuff. Sunshine is the color of honey, softer and sweeter, looking to the future with a hopeful expression.

This piece is at the Wonderful World Art Gallery in Culver City, and measures 12"x12". I'll have more work on display there over the next few months so I'll keep you posted.

Also, I'm working hard to make my prints available. I have HUNDREDS of paintings that I've painted (and sold!). Luckily I've been pretty diligent in archiving these pieces! I'm starting to post them on my etsy shoppe. Right now theres only a few pieces, including new original work and prints (including a print of this piece) for only $20. They are web exclusive! Spread the word!

Many of you already have prints of mine, and I'm so grateful and appreciative of your support in my work! So just to say thanks - Send me an email if you have a print of mine - and I'll send you a discount code for 20% off anything in the shop - along with a FREE mini print. It's my way of saying THANKS!

Making Tiny THings

My oh my! What an assembly line! I've got a bunch of mounted prints at a lovely gallery I'm doing business with over in Culver City. It's call the Whole 9 - heard of it? If not, it's very cool I tell you and you should stop by!
here's the scoop:

Life is Just a Fantasy
Group Show at The Whole 9 Gallery
when: June 20th, 6:30-10pm
Join us for some wine and music!
where:6101 Washington Boulevard, Culver City, 90232
310-836-4601


They also have a networking site for artists that is very cool. It's a bit hard to keep up with all that twitters, facing facebook, but The Whole 9 is a very cool community of creative types. They even have job postings. Did someone say -- jobs?! Yipee!

Check out the special projects section of website for more mini art pieces. I'll have a link up to an Esty store very soon too!

Character and Illustrations - Galore!

Check out my SlideShare Presentation:

Cjm Portfolio I

View more Microsoft Word documents from cjmetzger.