Alice McMahon Gallery: Open Studio Event

Front parlor, studio and gallery.

Please join me for a two day gallery opening event at my private studio at 609 S. Prospect St. Apt 1, Galena, IL.

Wine, beer and cheese opening night, Friday May 8th 5 pm to midnight. Tea and cookies Saturday afternoon, May 9th, noon to 6 pm. Drop in any time during the two day event.

View works in progress, and all art and some fine antiques will be available for purchase. Special savings offered on commissioned artwork.

At the easel, March 2015

Portrait commission, work in progress May, 2015

Welcome to my studio! Works from The White Album series in the entry hall.

Detail from a digital piece by Vladimir Fokanov, rendered in letterpress on fine paper by Peter Fraterdeus. 

Also showing selected limited edition signed and numbered letterpress prints from Russian artist Vladimir Fokanov and Peter Fraterdeus of Slowprint, Dubuque, IA.

Galena's Horseshoe Mound Public Art Project

"The Earth has Music for those who Listen." ~ George Santanaya

I was honored to be invited to create artwork to be on one of six benches installed at Horseshoe Mound Preserve in Galena, IL. The benches are made of indigenous oak and were crafted by area craftsman Larry Cording.

This beautiful scenic area is one of the highest points in Jo Daviess County.

The mission of the Jo Daviess Conservation Foundation is to conserve and enhance natural wildlife habitat, cultural heritage, agricultural character, and the scenic vistas of Jo Daviess County and the surrounding area for future generations.

My design was intended to show the geology of the area, so I depicted the Mound itself, the Galena (formerly Fever) River, a cardinal, a cone flower, monarch butterfly, a tree frog, snail, bumble bee, a grasshopper and dragonfly in an early autumn landscape painted in a whimsical style. This acrylic painting on wood was outside of my comfort zone, but I had fun with it. My first public art project.

Looking forward to seeing all of the art benches at the grand opening at the end of September, 2014. 

Paleolithic snail rendering, this snail only lives in the driftless area.

Galena River from a reference photo a tourist took from a hot air balloon!

Small Daily Sketches

Some small, quick daily sketches of regional wildflowers and grasses, studies for an upcoming portrait commission. Enjoying my Pro Artist Watercolor Travel Kit by Windsor Newton and brushing up my skills for September travel journaling in the EU!

Hawk weed? and clover with grass. Ink and watercolor.

Lamb's Ear - ink. I did add watercolor later, but don't have a photo

Wild grasses and ants and a bee - ink and watercolor 

"Dear Trixie"

"Dear Trixie" posthumous portrait of our lovely friend Lisa Hammer, pen name Trixie Kitsch,
29 x 22" mixed media


Lisa was kind and generous, a talented artist and writer, she had a biting sense of humor
and a heart of gold. She saw through our veneer and loved our souls.
The world lost a great woman at Valentine's week, 2014.

Farewell Dear Trixie, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you. 

"Thinking Itself Is Love - Self Portrait with Brain Tumor"

"Thinking Itself Is Love (Self Portrait with Brain Tumor)"
16 x 8" mixed media

After thinking about this project for over a year, I finally made this self portrait. I used references from my MRI scans that were taken before neurosurgery to remove a benign Meningioma brain tumor. I am doing very well, nearly two years post-op. Thank you to everyone who supported me during this most trying time of my life. I really don't know where I would be without all of you.

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about how a broken heart might effect the mind and physical and mental health. Forgiveness and Love are always the answer. 

"…the heart is not broken, in the sense that it does not exist before the break. But it is the break itself that makes the heart. The heart is not an organ, and neither it is a faculty. It is: that I is broken and traversed by the other where its presence is most intimate and its life is most open. The beating of the heart - rhythm of the partition of being, syncope of the sharing of singularity - cuts across presence, life, consciousness. That is why thinking - which is nothing other than the weighing or testing of the limits, the ends, of presence, of life, of consciousness - thinking itself is love."

 ~ Jean Luc Nancy, Shattered Love

"Dove and Peonies" Commission

"Dove and Peonies"

 

 

 

Commissioned charcoal drawing on beige paper with white pastel pencil. 10 x 8"

Magnolia and Dove

"Magnolia and Dove"

 8 x 8" charcoal and white pastel pencil on beige paper. A gift for a friend.