What's Cookin'

Hi folks, been a while since I last made an entry. This time of year is always especially busy for me. Somehow I managed to secure 3 shows at around the same time (am I nuts?), and am preparing for the almighty Comic-con once again ( I say again - am i nuts?) : ) 

 So much work to produce!! I wish I could paint in my sleep.  In anycase, if you are interested (which I'm assuming you are since you are on my blog and reading this! hee hee): My show at the Black Maria Gallery is going well. New clients buying new work is always a good thing! I am especially grateful that people continue to buy my work - even in such an economically stressful time...So, THANK YOU TO ALL OF YOU who continue to support the arts, buy my art, attend openings, and buy my books! You keep the brushes in my hands and the food on my table!

FYI - above is a sneak peek of some pieces going to Gallery Revisited- Silverlake, and POP Gallery-Santa Fe. Both will be super good shows. I'll provide links to see the works online as soon as they are posted.

xoxoxox. cjm

My Daughter - Five Year Old Fashion Designer!

So okay, I've got to boast about my own kid right? Sophie got her hands on a big box o' fabric scraps and my dress form and had a blast! She used safety pins, clever knots and ties, and even a needle and thread to make this creation. She even asked me to make her some business cards! I'm so proud of her ingenuity and creativity. It just shows that you should never underestimate what your child is capable of!  So here's to letting your kids play with sharp scissors, needles and mom's sewing machine once in a while! (yikes?)

An Artist a Day makes the ----- go away.

Yesterday I was featured on Artistaday.com's website. It's a website that features - an artist a day (go figure!). It is linked as a widget on my Google page and I just love it! When my art was posted, I got so many responses and so much great publicity. I feel like trying to find things on the web can be a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. This site makes it easy to find art treasures. Check out the site and submit your work if you are an artist/illustrator
Here's the link to my pageCJ Metzger on Artistaday.com

New Paintings by moi

Hi Folks, Just wanted to give you a sneak peek of some portraits that I've been working on for my upcoming show at the HIVE Gallery in Downtown.

Lately I'm drawn to creating portraits of women and girls with animal features protected by predatory birds, snakes. And I've become increasingly inspired by a Hawk that sits perched high in a tree outside my Studio window! If all goes according to plan. these paintings will be part of my forthcoming book titled "the Secret Lives of Dolls". A book which will hopefully be ready for Comic-con (if the planets align correctly!).

This year is chugging along already and I've been selling and exhibiting at the Pop Gallery in Santa Fe! Sharla the owner/director is terrific! Things are going well at The Wonderful World Art Gallery in Culver City too. Miss Mindy and my work is still there, and we'll be rotating some new work in as we make it!

For now I'm just trying to stay inspired and creative and not to force the work. I often struggle with feeling like an "art making factory" at times, so one of my goals is to "find the love" in the work and find new ways to encourage the creative process, ways to nudge it along without sending it into shock! I'll keep you posted with how it goes and if I come across any major emotional break throughs!

Best wishes to you in all your creative endeavors for 2008!

New Owl Painting + a Poem

There was an owl
who lived in an oak.
The more he heard,
the less he spoke;
the less he spoke,
the more he heard -
We all should be
like that wise old bird.

(Found this online. Poignant huh?)

Happiest of New Years Wishes to ya'll!

What a wonderful way to start off 2008! My honey Pete snapped this photo today in the early morning outside our house. Many believe that a visit by a hummingbird brings good luck in love! So with that we send lots of love, hugs and warm wishes to you and yours in the new year to come!

Xoxoxo,
CJ Metzger & Family

“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”
Frank Lloyd Wright

Show at the Wonderful World Art Gallery

This is a show I'm in! Very cool gallery in Culver City! And my work will be up in the same room as Dr. Seuss and Tim Burton! How rad is that??

I lived on the moon

video clip by Yannick Puig. My friend Christina Conway put this on her blog and I can't get it out of my head! It's amazing!

Comic-con Update: Books, Toys and art OH MY!

Well, it's over and somehow I managed to survive! I can't even begin to explain what a monumental task it is to have a booth at the almighty Comic-con, yet it is at the same time it holds some of the most memorable moments of my year! This year was the most successful by far! My sister Miss Mindy and I debuted our vinyl art toys "Mischievous Maeve" and "Dink" (by Kaching Brands, showcased and sold by Toy Tokyo). We also were selling copies of our Artist Sister's Box o' Stories (Children's book collection). We had tons o' art, prints, collectors pins and other things for sale. We made tons of new friends and had a blast all around. (See photo of our booth with Miss Mindy posing, and the b/w photo of us signing our toys at the Vinyl Toy Network event!) If you'd like to get a toy, there are still a few available through 3-D Retro. See the links page to visit their site.

Open Studio + Backyard Bliss

Hey ya'll! The Open Studio and Backyard Boutique was a super fun day! Lots of people and art lover's milling about and we couldn't have asked for better weather. Thanks to all those who came by to visit and to shop and to all my uber talented friends for being a part of it! Also, I'm getting a bit tired of always tootin' my own art-horn on this blog. So, check out the inspiring collage portraiture of my friend Michelle Caplan. She does some beautiful work and I am now the proud owner of one of her pieces!
Comic-con is coming up next! I'll have more photos of works and works in progress soon!

Up & Coming

Much is happening! The Comic-con is fast approaching, and my sis and I are feverishly putting together paintings, updating websites, creating promotional materials...Whew! It can truly be exhausting. But I have an especially great feeling about this year. Books, vinyl toys, gallery shows - it's all coming together.

Oh yeah! and I'm even preparing for an open studio event this July 8th. Check out the card + ad I placed in the Verdugo Monthly. That same day I'm having some friends over to sell their wonderful creative wares in the courtyard at my studio. If you are local, you should come on by.

I made a painting today!

Here's a painting I started today! It was so nice to turn off my computer and just paint, uninterrupted for a few hours. The piece is untitled right now, and is part of a series of robot icons I'm painting for my Windup Gallery Show in Arizona in August. I'm thinking of framing it with a bulky cheesy gold frame. Hope you like it!

My Mischievous Maeve Vinyl Art Toy is almost done!

See my toy on http://www.vinylpulse.com

Here's what they said about me "LA artist C.J. Metzger's mixed media art and paintings are full of colorful life and whimsy. Along with her sister Miss Mindy, the two artist sisters' recent joint show @ Gallery Revisted was extremely well-received by a packed gallery of collectors and fans. Her first vinyl art toy, Mischievous Maeve, from Kaching Brands has a cute yet sad feel. In addition to the Color and Mono versions shown above (paint masters), there will also be a secret colorway. Standing 8" tall with a skull accessory, Mischievous Maeve will be released at SDCC. The Artist Sisters are making a splash on all fronts -- fine art, books, illustration and now the ever-expanding world of art toys." Wow... I'm blushing :)

HEY! I've got an upcoming joint show with Sister Miss Mindy

Here is an excerpt from the Press Release:

"The "Secret Live's of Dolls" show evolves around the notion of women, their friends and relationships in fantastical places - places close to home and those found in reality as well as in our thoughts. Not to be confused with a feminist ideology, this show relishes the important roles that are inherently feminine while at the same time embracing youth and acceptance.
“Exploring the sadness over the loss of a bird, the feeling of manipulation, being trapped by expectations, or simply having butterflies in your belly -- these emotions, love, fear, angst, and humor are vividly present in our work in a whimsical, bittersweet, and hauntingly delicate way.” CJ Metzger

CJ Metzger and Miss Mindy’s work falls into the recently coined genre, “Pop Surrealism”. Although they embrace this new label they do prefer to identify with the history of art making. Their inspiration stems from Craft and Folk Art as evident in the materials that they use, and the inherent themes that surround domesticity, every day occurrences and simple global feelings. They circle around the fringe of their hottest peers, comfortable in their individual fortitude to create work void of pretence and focusing on matters of individual expression.' ~ Leora Lutz (Gallery Revisited owner/curator)

The show is March 24 - May 5, 2007. Reception in is March 24, 6-10pm {3204 Sunset Boulevard, LA CA 90026 behind Sumi's}

Sorting and Classifying

"Avant garde", "Low-Brow," "edgy" - all the silly lables we create to make sense of things in the art world. Sigh... Well, no use fighting it I guess and since I'm being grouped in the newly coined term "pop-surrealism" I decided to do a little research. (Actually, I do love the Surrealist movement, especially the roles women artist played in it - Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, etc.) In fact, I found this passage very interesting - I especially love the last line:

From "A Little-Known Work by Remedios Varo"- Chelsea(1995)

"Few people outside the world of art and art criticism are consciously familiar with the work of the Spanish surrealist Remedios Varo. Those who have come across her inadvertently may not even be aware of their acquaintance: Thomas Pynchon, in his slender ludic novel The Crying of Lot 49, introduces her with his description of her autobiographical triptych, Embroidering Earth's Mantle, a 1961 oil on masonite piece which depicts six young women held captive in a convent tower, busily stitching under the austere supervision of a masked, apparently male figure who stirs-

a broth boiling in the same alchemical vessel
from which the girls draw their embroidery
thread. Each girl works alone, embroidering
images onto a continuous fabric that spills out
from table-height battlements around the facets
of the tower. Together they create a landscape
with houses, ponds, streams, boats, animals, and
humans, all nestled within the folds of the fabric.
(Kaplan 21)

Hardly Varo's most striking work, it is nonetheless clear why Pynchon chooses it for his novel--the idea of constructing meaning, of the maze, the self-created puzzle. The world of one's own imagining. -----One labors to make a certain sense of one's life, and then is trapped by the labor's fruits.------"

Wow... Isn't that the truth?

Art on a roll.

My day started with me waking up to my 4 year olds kisses, brewing a pot of the strongest darkest coffee , and putting together my daugher's school lunch of assorted mini sandwiches, carrots, and various crackers. It might not sound glamorous or exciting, but it's actually a rather pleasant way to get my bearings before I plunge into my day. So after giving Sophie and my honey their goodbye kisses, I grabbed my coffee, threw on my painting apron, and headed back to my studio.

And I must say that today was a bit like Christmas! It seemed that overnight some creative little elf (my sister artist pal Miss Mindy I suspect!) had begun some fantastic work on a few collaborative pieces for our upcoming show. She painted in a portrait a girls most sad but endearing face on a piece that will eventually become a diorama doll house piece (with tiny hinges on the doors and shutters on the windows. I'd show you a picture, but I have to save it for our upcoming show!!!

Oh, did I forget to mention that Mindy and I are doing a joing show at Gallery Revisited? I think so. Well, here's the scoop. March 24th is the opening of our "The Secret Lives of Dolls" art exhibition at a great little gallery in Silverlake (see links to the right). We are working on individual pieces, and a few collaborative ones - so it will be a show full of all sorts of new art. Wooden dolls, diorama doll house paintings, hand painted nesting dolls! AND if we are super lucky, we will be selling super duper limited edition of our upcoming box set o' books (published by Baby Tattoo Books!) As soon as I'm done typing I'm heading into the other room to work on some new pieces for the show. Ok I better stop procrastinating - I gotta go!

So, it looks like I've entered the world of blogging. This should be fun. I'll have some content soon- As soon as I get finished folding my laundry.