And speaking of out of the box...

Sunflower Box - Side View

The Out of the Box exhibition is currently being shown at The Summit Artspace Gallery located at 140 E. Market Street in Akron. Local and regional artists create boxes that will be auctioned off to benefit The Akron Area Arts Alliance, an umbrella group that represents 40+ cultural groups in the Akron Area. This event is held every two years and will culminate at the Arts Alive! event Sunday, November 15 at The Portage Country Club. This year I decided to paint a commercially purchased cigar box, simply because painting is what I do best....well, maybe not best, but better than constructing, gluing, and working with hand tools. My "Sunflower Box" is color driven and was inspired by vintage fabrics with, I think, an unusual color palette for sunflowers....red! (Sunflowers are almost always set off with cool blue or blue-violet backgrounds). I also wanted to introduce raw umber to the palette, which is a Scandinavian addition which ages and softens. It took a while! All of the surfaces were coated with gesso...several layers....the sides were patterned....then the flowers painted on top and lapping over the patterning. The inside is a solid cadmium yellow. The painting, of course, was the most fun. The hardest part was gripping those teeny weeny screwdrivers to reassemble the hardware....I cursed like a sailor. All in all, it was a fun project. Next time (and that's the way we painters think), I might look for a vintage box with an unusual shape. There are always so many fabulous and funky entries....I can't wait to see them all!

It is always a surprise....the turning of the seasons. Those sunflowers have now now morphed into seed heads for the birds.