the Painting Activist

photo by John Rott

Heck, why not partake in a little gloating?   Louisville’s Velocity Weekly recently profiled me in their “What I’m Into” column.  One more thing for my grandmother to laminate.

If you’re in Louisville, you should be at 1330 Cherokee Road #6 tonight.  I’m having a show of over 50 paintings, mostly from ‘07 (wow, even I find that impressive).  I’ll also be collecting household items to be donated to Kentucky Refugee Ministries.

Clearly, I can’t sell paintings in two places at one time.  Well I actually I can, and I have, and learned the hard way when two people bought the same piece.  Therefore, no online purchases please until tomorrow, the 7th, at 10pm east coast time.

I hope to see you tonight!

Tomorrow will be a long day of interviews, tours and appointments at several Seattle nonprofits.  I’m most excited about interviewing a elementary school teacher who has become so heavily involved with the plight of the homeless that she has come to spend many of her nights not nestled in her own sheets, but at an outdoor, mobile homeless shelter.  Such shelters, called Tent Cities, are a bit of a Seattle novelty and have offered this teacher the deep understanding of homelessness she was after.

There is no lack of controversy over whether the Tent Cities do more harm than good, and I’m looking forward to discovering an insider’s view (albeit an loving “impostor”) on what strategies most effectively combat this age-old issue.  I certainly will be asking what her thoughts are on prison reentry programs, rehabilitation treatment, cost of living vs minimum wage, and more.  I welcome your questions if you can get them to me before tomorrow afternoon (ashley.cecil(at)gmail.com).

After we have dinner, we’re heading to one of the Tent Cities nearby to meet some the residents.   A few of these folks will be fielding questions as well, so please send any thoughts or questions you would like me to ask them (Colleen, I know you have something to add!)

I’m en route to Seattle today for a 2 1/2 week stay. As always, I would love to hear your suggestions of blog worthy topics, causes, organizations and people I should have on my agenda to cover.

7″ x 9″ watercolor, $70
SOLD
See all artwork available for sale.

I only stopped at home, in between the camp in Paducah, Kentucky and St Louis, Missouri, long enough to wonder why I unpacked at all. So without preparation for visiting the latter location, I’m now at square one here in St Louis discovering what organizations to highlight. I got a little sidetracked with celebrating the 4th of July at a Cardinals baseball game last night (well worth it).

My artistic reach has been stymied by being beholden to my travel-mate for transportation, so my inspiration has started in the backyard of my hostess’s home. Although, we have been in the city exploring multiple places I will be revisiting to share with you via paintings. Nonetheless, I want to exploit one of my greatest proven resources, you, to provide me with leads. I’m dying to hear about any St Louis groups, organizations, individuals, stories, events, etc that your have to offer.

From time to time I get fan mail, invitations to events, and sometimes gifts. There’s nothing like coming home to a package on your doorstep from someone you’ve never met, who took the time to put together a care package for you. This gift though, takes the cake. Painting Activist admirer, Millie Fennig of far away Dallas, TX, hand-crafted this piece of wire art of my initials. I was blown away and had to share it with you. I wish she had a website I could direct you to, but in lieu of one, I’ll gladly take orders for her.

Thank you Millie!

Make mom happy as well as the nonprofits benefiting from your purchases at ashleycecil.com.

• Browse my gallery for paintings available for sale,
• Or custom order prints.

“ART + ACTIVISM
engage
participate
support
subscribe

www.ashleycecil.com”

“art springs from creativity
activism creates change
ashleycecil.com, painting activism”

This is the front and back of a postcard I’m nearly ready to send off to the printer, but I can’t decide if the copy is too obscure. The final 4″ x 6″ postcard will be a direct mail piece. I’ll also leave stacks of them at various places such as coffee shops. My guess is that there isn’t enough information for someone to understand what the card is about, or what it’s asking them to do. In case it’s even unclear to you, the goal is get people to visit ashleycecil.com and buy the art that supports the nonprofits featured here.

I’m not wed to any of the text and I would greatly appreciate your input/suggestions. So, what do you think? What would hold your attention until the next time you were online?

I recently ordered a new batch of note cards to send along with the paintings I sell as a thank you to my clients. While I still have an abundance of these mini-paintings, I thought I would offer them to both my buyers and yet-to-be-buyers in exchange for word of mouth marketing.

Email a friend about this blog, cc me (ashley.cecil@gmail.com), include your mailing address, and I’ll send you a note card. By all means, feel free to email all your friends, and encourage them to do the same. I will send a note card everyone who keeps it going! Hmm, this sounds like a chain letter. So be it! Help me help the organizations I blog about (of course, it works well for me too!).

6″ x 9″ watercolor, $70 ($10 donated to Water for People)
SOLD
See all artwork available for sale.

Yesterday was World Water Day, “an initiative that grew out of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.” The theme for 2007 was “coping with water scarcity.” Many of us in developed nations have no concept of what water scarcity means on a personal level. I certainly got a sense of the problem while I was in Venezuela. I had to pack my drinking water with me for my stay in the country, and avoided nearly all vegetables so as not to eat anything washed with unclean water. Even in the major capitol city of Caracas, clean drinking water was an issue. Multiple factors such as overpopulation, poor infrastructure, and lack on funds contribute to the United Nation’s estimate of over 1.1 billion people currently without safe drinking water.

World Changing posted an excellent list of resources, projects, and events that address water scarcity. It’s worth a glance.

Happy belated Water Day!

What was I thinking when I assumed that I would be able to post new paintings while in Venezuela trekking through rural communities and cities void of WiFi?

I´ve found a crowded internet cafe where I could squeeze in a quick heads up to everyone that I will be back in the States early next week with enough material to work from for a long while.  I´m gaining an amazing amount of insight and clarity about political, economic, and social issues related to Venezuela and the US.  I´m looing forward to sharing it very soon!

30″ x 48″ oil on canvas
SOLD
See all paintings available for sale.

I thought with my sly ways I could tag this commissioned painting with an article written as an afterthought to make it “blog-able,” and you would never be the wiser. Maybe it’s my pocket PC blinking at me with a laundry list of things to be addressed that has taken precedence over crafting such a story. So honesty wins, and in the impostor article’s place I’ve opted for a list of some the great small businesses illustrated in this painting of Louisville’s Douglass Loop.

This area of town has done a commendable job of preserving its “mom & pop” heritage and keeping all signs of corporate big-wigs, like Walmart, at bay. These days, pocket spots like Douglass Loop are needles in a haystack (I blame my recent trip to Houston for this pessimistic outlook on the boom of strip malls and an insatiable use of concrete).

Although, this certainly doesn’t include them all, here’s a short list of shops (beware dieters):

• Heine Brothers - Fair Trade, organic coffee, or maybe just as well known as the place to hang out and be seen. They also display local artists’ work for a very low commission fee (but don’t get too excited unless you’re willing to sit on their waiting list for well over a year).
• Desserts by Helen - I start to drool within seconds of visiting the bakery’s delicious website.
• Twig and Leaf diner - I remember it as the one restaurant that was open in the wee hours of the night as a teenager. And who doesn’t want waffles and eggs at 2am?
• All For One - “This is a very good, funky, but clean secondhand store run as a charity on behalf of HIV hospices here in town.” - thanks to Jim at yelp.com.
• Graeter’s ice cream - “The French Pot method swirls our secret recipe of egg custard and fresh cream…whips air out of our ice cream…which accounts for an extremely dense pint of that weighs nearly a full pound!” It puts Baskin Robins to shame (and your hips).

8″ x 10” oil on canvas, $220
SOLD
See all paintings available for sale.

This piece, like yesterday’s painting, is another Manhattan shot. I’m very pleased with the amount of photos from the trip earlier this month that I’ve been able to put on canvas.
I have several commissions going right now, but I’m anxious to have a clean plate (hopefully by the end of the week) so that I can execute work for the next topic. So far, most of the paintings I’ve posted have lacked narratives of grand importance. I’m incredibly excited about getting this rock rolling! See my “about” page for a new description of my mission.

New ideas, sketches and paintings are on the way…

8″ x 10″ oil on canvas, $220

See all paintings available for sale.

There is a companion painting to this I will be working on tomorrow…