Honorable Mention and Best Abstract Plaque

Today two of my pieces were recognized at the St. Bernard Art Guild Members Fall Show. My collage, “Purple Blend” received an Honorable Mention in the Under Glass category. My dot art painting, “va” received a Best Abstract Plaque. Plaques are awarded for specific themes, i.e. best spiritual, maritime, portrait, etc. The judge was Kathy Miller Stone, an artist from Baton Rouge.







This show is the first one in the St. Bernard Government Complex since Hurricane Katrina. The building is located in Chalmette, which was devastated by flooding. At this afternoon’s reception, the St. Bernard Art Guild celebrated its 40th anniversary and recognized past presidents who attended.

Ginger Rose Whines Past 30,000 Views

Ginger Rose, the former poodle puppy, is the star of the video "Puppy Whining." The video passed the 30,000 views mark tonight. Only three months ago the video hit the 20,000 view mark. According to the stats YouTube supplies about my channel, dotdude, the video is receiving more traffic because of video referrals from YouTube. When folks look at similar videos this one shows up under “related videos.” So, it will be interesting to see if the pace continues.

New Beginnings Art Gallery Closes

Even before evacuating for Hurricane Gustav, I knew that New Beginnings Art Gallery was having a rough time. It was around the corner from Friends of Rivertown Fine Art Gallery that closed in April of 2007. Anyway, I went to collect my art this afternoon. The gallery owner, also an artist, will be exhibiting at Steve Martin Gallery on Julia Street. In the meantime, my work still hangs at Ele Shoes & Accessories. Three of my small works were sold through this gallery.

Puppy Whining Video Tops 20,000 Views!

It was little less than eleven months ago when I talked about my "Puppy Whining" video being the highest viewed video on my YouTube channel dotdude. Not only is it still my most viewed video, it crossed the 20,000 threshold on Wednesday.

My top artistic video,"Rain Drain," only ranks ninth with 1,243 views. Anyway, I'll still keep trying to make artistic ones. In the meantime, I did make a second channel called dotartdude. I figured it would be wise to claim that name since I use it so much elsewhere.

CrafterCircle

For the second time Art Calendar, a business magazine for artists, has created a MySpace style social network. The first one was Art Scuttlebut. The new one is called CrafterCircle. This one is aimed at the artists whose works are sometimes labeled “crafts.” Recently I was invited to create a profile.

Deleted, Rearranged Blogs

If you notice some of my blog links are no longer there in the sidebar, well I've deleted those blogs. It was time to for me to dispose of some blogs I will not continue. The spark that created them was no longer there and I had no ideas to reinvent them or continue them.

On a similar, I have rearranged the innards of few remaining blogs. I'll see if that helps or not. A few are sporting new templates too. Some other blogs have me on the fence still. Anyway, that is all for now.

Products of Higher Education: A Group Art Show

On June 1st, I traveled to Baton Rouge to participate in a small group art show at the Louisiana State Archives: Ralph Bourque, Troy Dugas, Lucius Fontenot, Kenneth Fontenot, Colin Miller, James Porche, Travis Prejean and Robbie Rodrigue. It is called “Products of Higher Education: A Group Art Show” and includes eight other Louisiana artists. The artists hung a vast array of media for the show. The gallery, where the show hangs, is accessible from the lobby. Every two weeks a new show goes up. This show ends on June 14, 2008.

Below are photos from the show. The first one includes my five pieces. To see closer views of these works, go to my blog, art at random. The second photo shows the works that hung next to my works. The final photo shows the works that are visible upon first entering the gallery.

New Beginnings Art Gallery

Tonight was a reception at the New Beginnings Gallery that is located at 2124 3rd Street (Jefferson Highway) in Kenner (Rivertown). My art hangs there along with the art by artist and gallery owner Christine Coleman. The gallery has only been open a couple of months and my work has been hanging only a few weeks. See more photos from the reception on my blog, pic journal.

First Video Using Flip Cam

For a couple of months I’ve been noticing YouTubers talk about their Flip cams. Naturally I became interested in purchasing one. The question I had was whether it would work with my Mac. I was assured when I bought mine there would be no problem. Well, I did run into trouble getting my file, from the camera over to iMovie ’08, as a usable file.

Fortunately a friend e-mailed me a site that had three things to try. The last one on the list was Div X Doctor II. Finally I was able to make a file that maintained sound. Then I used MPEG Streamclip to make a MPEG 4 file. After that I had no problems.

The video was shot since renovations were completed at Cleanerama. I figured it would be nice to show how much nicer the place looks. Using the same music from the last video I shot there, I assembled my video in iMovie '08. Flip cam handles low light levels very well. I was pleased with the results.



3 min 5 sec

"a" Series Transition

Work on this series overlapped with completion of the previous one. I began adding the dots on April 7, 2007. So now, more than a year later, I completed this group of paintings. Some pieces dealt with more serious events this time. Thus, working on the paintings was more difficult for me - beyond just the imagery. A number of the pieces depict visual references of forced changes occurring between June and December 2006. That’s why I have settled on calling this batch the “a” Series Transition. Here they are in a checkerboard slideshow.

ARTinA's New President

After a number of years of being asked, I finally agreed to be the president of a local organization called ARTinA. The name stands for Art in Algiers. Although the organization began in Algiers Point members hail from all over the Greater New Orleans area. Originally the organization focused its efforts on a festival in October.

With the chaos following Katrina there haven’t been any more festivals put on by Katrina. Currently the organization is in a rebuilding phase. There have been some hands-on workshops, but participation has been much smaller than it was previously.

5 Facts 5 Tags

On January 4, 2008, I was tagged by cspotbeggg on YouTube. ARRRRRRGGGGH! Prior to that, I thought non-vloggers would be safe. cspotbeggg is not a vlogger either. Anyway, I decided to participate. Here is what I came up with for my offical dotdude repsone video:


1 min 40 sec

The music is the iLife '08 Jinlge "Spacey Club."

Prior to being tagged, I viewed YouTuber johnnysmooth's tag video. I then traced a chain of videos back to nerimon's video. From what I can tell, he initiated this game on YouTube as of December 21, 2007. The game mushroomed after that point. Some YouTubers were tagged more than once.