Some of the pieces in my current show.

Youth and Beauty 14X18 Gouache and collage on paper. (sold)

30X24 Mixed Media on Yes Canvas

Red Muse 22X30 Mixed Media on Paper (sold)

Girl in the Window  30X22 Mixed Media on Paper (sold)

Concert break  Mixed media on Linen  24X36 (collected)

A Slice of Life

Tonya Vollertsen

November 10th thru     December 2012

Bahrain National Gallery AWA Show

 This is an annual show that is put on by the American Women's Association at the National Gallery of Bahrain.  The venue is a beautiful building with several gallery spaces.  What you see here is the main gallery.  In the first photo you can see my work just to the left of the center post and just above the little table sculpture.  This was such a huge event and very well attended over the course of the show.  There is a photo of the Minister of culture arriving who would normally be in traditional Thobe and headdress but donned western dress, I think in deference to the American Women's Association.  He had a bandaged right hand and even though he extended his "damaged" hand in a western manner.  Middle Eastern women don't shake hands so it is a difficult thing to try to  straddle both worlds. Should you be American and extend your hand or hold back and not?  This show was very well attended and this is the National gallery basically like the National gallery in Washington. The Kingdom of Bahrain is quite progressive in the Arts although they do cater mostly to ME Artists.  It is difficult for a non ME artist to get into the main galleries.

An Odd Mix. Some Works in Progress.

Reworking an older painting on Bristol plate paper 22X30

 Happy New Year to everyone!  I wish you all a creative and prosperous 2012.

I have in the last couple of years been in keeping with the idea of working on a painting until I like it myself and would want to keep it and look at it everyday if it was hanging on my own wall.  In fact I do actually hang them on my living room wall and live with them until I either think of something else they need, get sick of looking at it and take it back to the studio to figure out or "that nice boy I married" gets sick of looking at it and asks if I have anything new to look at.  If no one is tired of it and it sits there until there is something else to take it's place, I deem it satisfactory and don't mess with it anymore.
                                                                                          That probably seems like the logical process               now that I say it that way but what I used to do was get an idea for a painting, execute it, evaluate it for content and completeness according to the original plan and then call it finished.  If I didn't like it or think it turned out as planned I just gave up on it.  I never wanted to, for example, add acrylic to a traditional watercolor or collage to a painting of any medium unless it started out as a college project.  I would never crop a painting to make it better or add line or anything that wasn't part of the original plan.  My new attitude is if it's not working, start thinking outside the box and use whatever necessary to make it a better painting. I was very hung up on "Well it's a watercolor so I can't fix it or that is cheating."  I like Chagall's quote of "I work with whatever medium likes me at the moment" and I will add my own "I like whatever process and medium gets me to an image I am satisfied with in the end"
  I find that I am confusing people by doing what they perceive as several different styles of work but I am actually using abstraction to make my mind think differently in my figurative work.  The abstractions started out as a means to an end but I discovered that not only did they help my other work but I really like the process and the paintings  themselves and other people like them too.  I usually have up to 10 paintings in the works at the same time so to me they all seem like they relate as I go from one to the other depending on which one I have figured out what to do next on.  My methods are working for me and I am finding that I'm not that concerned if I fit into the basic "artist" mold.  By letting go of some of those restraints and rules, I am finding the fun and excitement of painting again which I had lost for a while. What's your story?

Watercolor on Coldpress paper. Abstracted realism 22X30

Mixed media on Hot press watercolor coated with gold gesso
14X18

Actually, another older painting that was unfinished
on Yes! Canvas 30X24