It has been a while since my last post so I decided it's about time and plenty has happened since this past September. I have completed my internship at Piedmont Biofarm in December. It was a wonderful, life-changing opportunity. I went to learn how to organically farm and came out with a completely new look on life. I believe whatever walk of life your from, that everyone should experience an internship on a farm and learn where your food comes from. I am now one step closer to building my own homestead farm.
    In February, Ian and I will be entering our next step in building our farm by moving into a cabin in North Carolina to start our very own farm on an accomplished artist's estate. She expressed a need for a vegetable garden on her land and asked Ian and I if we would be up for the adventure. As we plan and set up for this exciting step in our lives, we have been spending the winter with my sister in Gloucester, Massachusetts.
    The winters in Massachusetts are cold but we have seized the weather with a hike-a-day attitude. Each hike has a unique history that I would like tell through some pictures.

The Boulder behind me in this photo was engraved along with a hundred others by out-of-work stone masons during the great depression. Each boulder inspires hikers with words of strength and courage.
    This hike was great and riddled with history. It was originally a settlement in the 1600's. Disease, witches and prostitutes drove the original inhabitants out of Dogtown, leaving their dogs behind. The dogs became the owners of the land, hence the name Dogtown. There is an eery feel around the now grown woods but also a very exciting map of trails that follow some marked cellars left over from the 1600's. Here is a couple of photo's from Dogtown:

This hike was wonderful. we saw hardly a soul and the swamp trail in the winter was beautiful. It was a 6 mile hike and the best part was the board walk over the frozen swamp. The tree roots coming up from below and the boards floating on ice gave it a very surreal look. The first time we hiked this trail it was completely snow covered which added to the wonder of Ravenswood. Here are a couple pictures from our adventure:

Halibut Point is located in Rockport, Massachusetts, next to Gloucester. It is a reservation with an old quarry that overlooks the ocean. There is an overlook on one of the trails where you can see Maine and New Hampshire from across the ocean. The shore is mostly giant boulders with great nooks and crannies to sit and look over the water. Halibut Point is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

Here is some links of the hikes and trail maps if anyone is ever in the area and would like to experience the great New England wilderness.

Dogtown: http://myweb.northshore.edu/users/ccarlsen/poetry/gloucester/dogtownhistory.html
Ravenswood: http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/northeast-ma/ravenswood-park.html
Halibut Point: http://www.thetrustees.org/places-to-visit/northeast-ma/halibut-point-reservation.html

While interning on an organic farm in North Carolina, I came across many interesting plants. It is true that before going to this farm, I had no idea how peanuts grew or that amaranth and lambsquarter are edible! In learning this valuable information, I also took some pictures of the strangeness of nature. These are some of the things that are influencing my current paintings so I felt them very necessary for my website. Enjoy!

I will be displaying my work at Cafe Volo on Main St Manayunk for the month of July and August. This is very exciting and great to be able to show the art that I have been laboring over this past year in  my Post baccalaureate program at the Academy of Fine Arts. I will also have a few new ones on display that I have been working on this summer. There will be a opening reception on July 8th 2011 at 4:30-6:30 pm. Following the reception there will be food and drinks at one of the restaurants along the Main St for all who want to celebrate with me. Thanks for all your support!

Yup! I did it and now I am free!! Graduation was May 13th and following the Commencement was when the all student art show opened, along with the Post Baccalaureate show on the 4th floor! Both shows were a hit with a lot of people who came to celebrate with all of us graduates. Thank you to all who showed up. It was quite a show.
    I am happy to have completed such a rigorous but rewarding program and I can only hope to keep up with my art on a regular basis. The future now holds many more possibilities and I can not wait to see where it goes. For the present moment though, I am having an art show at Volo Coffee House in Manayunk, Pa the 8th of July and it will be on display for a month. I would love your input and support.Thanks again to all of my fellow Pbers and graduate professors who helped me along the way and out of my extensive writers block. Much Love ~Katie

    These are pictures of the event, Art All Night that happened the weekend of April 29th in Pittsburgh, PA. This event was by far a great experience to see as a fellow artist but also for those not involved in the art world. The event is not curated, nor juried. It is open to everyone and anyone that would like to show their work without judgment. All one has to do is bring their work and a group of volunteers hangs it up on the many open walls in the old factory building. It was a huge event with live music, live painting, and free food and drinks all night. And when I say all night, I mean all night. The event started at 4pm and ended the next day around 2pm. This gave people plenty of time to peruse and get to know the fellow artists and of course, have a great time.
    Ian and I thought that it would be a great idea if we signed up to volunteer, thinking that we would hang a couple of paintings and go on our merry way. It turned out that we were released to the parking lot to help, you guessed it, park cars! To Ian's delight, he was given a walkie-talkie and told to listen for information regarding special tasks. He instead used it to tell every invisible person to roger this and roger that. It turned out to be quite fun. We were pardoned from duty and excited to see the work all hung up inside. We made it to 2 in the morning and could do no more but next year I am making it a point to keep my eyes open a little later to see the drag queens come out!

    Please join us tomorrow, May 10th, for the preview of the Post Baccalaureate end of the year show. The time is from 6-8 pm on the 4th floor of the Hamilton Building. The work will be on display also during the opening of the All Student Show on May 13th.
    The work is a culmination of our one year program, displaying how far we have progressed in such a short amount of time. I believe I speak for most Post Baccalaureates when I say that this program was well worth the time and struggles to be able to move forward in our individual endeavors. I not only found how to use quality studio time but also how to use the art community in bettering my own work. I know in the future I will be missing those grueling long group critiques but for now I am glad to spread my wings.
    Thank you to all who prepped the walls and hung the show. It was hard work and I sincerely appreciate your time and effort. Here are the times once again for all interesting in joining:

Where: Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
       The Hamilton Building
       4th Floor
When: May 10th is the preview party with           music and food :)
      May 13th is the opening during the ASE
Time: May 10th 6-8pm
      May 13th 5-9pm
Why: Because it's surely going to be a groovy      time!

               SEE YOU THERE!!!!!

Here is a website that friends and supporters of Ai Wei Wei have created to give the world information on his whereabouts:

http://freeaiweiwei.org/

I have recently signed a petition on change.org to free Ai Wei Wei, I suggest you do too!

    Andres Serrano's Piss Christ has been vandalized by Christian Fundamentalists in a gallery in Avignon, France. In 1987 Serrano was one of the artists working on shock art using his own blood, piss ejaculate and other taboo materials. In this piece in particular, he place a plastic replica of Christ on a Cross and dunked it in a bottle of his own urine, the photograph being the lasting image of this work. The statement he was trying to make was of the misuse of religion. I do not think people as a whole understood this and have taken this to be a blasphemy on Christianity. Even though this photograph has been shown around the world and in France before without a problem, it seemed to have hit home for these Christians. They were said to be a couple of young 20 year olds, who entered the gallery when it was opened in the early afternoon, and one proceeded to take a hammer out of his jacket and beat the picture. To get the full story, follow this link Guardian News and I would love to hear your comments on this topic.
    I do think that this image could be seen as sacrilegious but that is without knowing the meaning behind it. In a time where shock art is the only way to get worldly attention, I don't think that Andres Serrano should be punished for his photograph. He was trying to make a point and he obviously succeeded with all of the attention that he received. Whether good or bad, it is still attention and I think he should be commended for it. In my opinion though, I believe he should explain his reasoning behind this work to the wider public more, so this does not happen again. It is a pity that these Christians had to destroy art to make a point. This should never be the way. Instead they made a fool of themselves and nobody can say that they did the right thing.
   

Today I found out who Ai Weiwei is and what he is doing as an artist living in the confines of Communist China. In seminar class we watched a video from PBS Frontline on Ai Weiwei called "Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei?" and how much he means for the citizens of China. Not only does his twittering and blog throw the middle finger to the government it shows freedom of speech. He is a hero to the working class of China who can only watch and hope nothing terrible happens to their Teacher. This past Sunday he was detained by the Chinese police at the airport and has not been heard of since. This resonated so much in me for I am but a spoiled artist living in the luxury of freedom of speech and making art for my own selfish needs. Ai Weiwei is trying to make a difference in his government and has been missing because of it. We can only hope that someone or everyone works together to see that he get out safely. One can only hope!
Here are some articles on the updates of Ai Weiwei's whereabouts:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/apr/05/ai-weiwei-detention-china
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/apr/06/ai-weiwei-investigated-economic-crimes

LOU SCHELLENBERG
Shadows and Light/Day and Night
Exhibiting paintings of man-made structures and the shapes they define
MARCH 1 – 30, 2011

Lou was my undergraduate painting instructor and mentor at Elizabethtown College. I went to first friday in Lancaster to see her recent solo show at The Artisans Gallery at 114 Prince St. It was great to see what she was making these days. Her earlier works have a wonderful sense of light in the day, similar to her great use of color for her later paintings of night and dusk. I apprieciate the way she uses colors to make flat shapes appear whole. She also has an eye for making complicated landscapes of buildings and alleys seem simple. I suggest if your in the area to go see this show!