Exhibiting At The Santiago Art Walk - 6/18/2011

Just this last Saturday night I had my very first group art show. The event was held at the Santiago Art District Art Walk (On the corner of Santa Ana Blvd and Santiago Blvd in Santa Ana) hosted by Joni Renee Gallery. The theme was "Forests, Faeries, and Mulberries", a multi-gallery art charity event sponsored by the Amazon Conservation Association, American Chestnut Foundation, Tree People, American Forests and Forest Trends. Here is the Yelp link for rating if you are interested.

The party is just starting to get warmed up......

Kristine with artist Celene Cecena and her abstract works in the back.

Me and my wife Kristine arrived there around 7:10 PM and have little problem finding the parking. There was a building crowd and some live music performing going on. My geometric/symmetrical art and some nature-inspired works (Including a faery theme) were displaying at the second garage space adjacent to the main gallery space. Basically all the galleries were privately owned apartment complex with owners' garages being converted into displayable spaces for the artists. We got to meet and chat up with many great artists for some interesting conversations. Of course there were plenty of food, drinks and snack all around. Some girls were dressing up in fantastic faery costumes with high platforms.

Kristine in one of the main exhibiting room.

Our good friend Charles and Angela there to cheer for us.

We had roughly about 24 artists' exhibiting works, and I got to hang 8 pieces of my works there. Overall the general receptions were very positive & encouraging. We hung around and visited some other galleries and Kristine got a miniature sand painting from this talented artist Celene. Our good friend Charles and Angela came, and we are more than gracious for their support.

The show ended about 10-ish PM and many artists quickly took down their works. I would recommend the gallery to put the artworks up for another week since it is absolutely too short of a time frame to get any decent traffic exposure and many art patrons and alike are simply going miss the exhibit. Unfortunately most of the gallery spaces are privately owned and none are to be used for extended exhibit purpose. Also I learned that in this tough economic time people are more likely to buy a cheaper print then the original work, so I would do that for my next art show like this. Anyhow it was a very positive social experience with different people, artists and performers there and I especially thank the hostess Joni for give us this cool opportunity. You can visit her site here - http://www.jonirenee.com/

We got to chat with Jack Pan, this super enthusiastic environmental biology student from UCI. He brought many of his very interesting "self-contained" and "self-sustained" plants in all sorts of glass jars he called the "Ecojar". My wife loved it so much she purchased one from him. I think personally from the unique selling point he should be able to market his cool concept and product to the mass market. Basically his ecojar required watering only once a year or some even required none. Jack told his wide-eyed audience that he placed little microbes and self-sustaining soils in the jars so that these plants can virtually live a very long time without our human maintaining. Here is his web blog site, very unique and interesting. I would love to collaborate with him to do some interesting plant display art in the future if that's a possibility….  Visit his blog site at - http://ecojarlab.blogspot.com

Jack Pan with his fabulous Ecojars.

Close up shot. Some of the plants he claimed to be unkillable.... really?

Below are some of my exhibited works in 12" x 12" framed prints especially made for the event. Most of them are connected with the nature and the natural environment, which are something less edgy than some of my other mechanical/industrial themed works.

"Butterfly Spirits" Digital Work on Premium Print/2011

"Faery Double" Digital Work on Premium Print / 2011

"Where Forests Meet" Digital Work on Premium Print / 2011

"Weed For Me" Digital Work on Premium Print / 2011