(MAQUOKETA, IA) Maquoketa Art Experience is hosting a “Create-a-Painting” Workshop led by artist and writer Sandra Principe of Hanover, Illinois on Saturday, April 2 from 12-3 p.m. at the Maquoketa Art Experience studio located at 124 S. Main Street in Maquoketa.

Principe has created a painting event for anyone who is interested in exploring work with acrylic paints. In this class, participants will create a portrait of a Red Parrot Tulip during a three-hour session led step-by-step by Principe. This class is designed for beginners or for anyone who wants to try something new. The registration fee is $35 for the three hour session. There is an optional materials fee of $15 that covers the cost of supplies if you choose not to bring your own. The registration form and materials list are available at www.maquoketa-art.org. For further information or to request a registration form contact Paula at Maquoketa Art Experience, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or call 563.652.9925.

In her work Sandra Principe's oil paintings capture light and are reminiscent of the American painter, Martin Johnson Heade and are included in numerious private and corporate collections.  Her work has been shown in solo shows across the country, from West Palm Beach and Vero Beach, Florida to Laguna Beach, California. She is represented by Meghan Candler Gallery in Vero Beach, Florida; and Brio Gallery in Galena, Illinois. View Sandra's paintings at www.sandraprincipe.com
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(MAQUOKETA, IA) Maquoketa Art Experience (MAE) welcomes fine art photographer Sindi Mueller to their artist-in-Residence Program with an opening reception and exhibition on Friday, April 1, 7-9 p.m. at 124 S. Main Street in Maquoketa. Mueller joins working artists Rose Frantzen, Thomas Metcalf, and Charles Morris as a permanent resident artist. Maquoketa Art Experience is a not-for-profit arts organization dedicated to bringing accomplished artists to Maquoketa for short- and long-term residencies, workshops, and exhibitions.

The April 1 event features an exhibit by Sindi Mueller entitled “Unveiling” that offers an exploration of kinetic photography and a study in rural and urban landscape photography. Sindi’s kinetic work, photography in which the camera is moved while the shutter is open, captures light, color, motion, and abstraction. Her landscape work explores color, shape, light, and texture of nature in her home state of Iowa, as well as the magnetism of the Chicago urban landscape.  Sindi's landscape images have been published in the Maquoketa Sentinel Press and Bellevue Herald Leader. Her first solo exhibit was held at Darkroom in Chicago entitled "Seduced by the Darkness" in December of 2010.

Sindi Mueller is a native of Dubuque, Iowa. She studied at the Chicago Photography Academy where her mentor William Benson inspired her to create photographs that did not appear to be photographs at all. This study revealed a world of surrealism, abstraction, and interpretation resulting in an exploration of kinetic photography.

As a resident artist Mueller will instruct classes and workshops at her studio and gallery space at 124 S. Main Street in Maquoketa. The instruction will be at various skill levels to inspire photographers to think outside the box and create a new form of photographic fine art.

The public is invited to attend the event and welcome Sindi Mueller to the Eastern Iowa art community. For more information contact Paula Neuhaus at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or by calling 563.652.9925.

Maquoketa Art Experience programming is made possible in part by a grant from the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs.

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WHAT: View the first works of art from the Augustana College collection to be installed at the Figge Art Museum.

WHEN: 9 a.m. Friday, March 18, 2011 at the Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second St., Davenport, IA, 52801

WHO: Dr. Cathy Goebel, professor of art history at Augustana will be available to answer questions about the exhibition and AGES program.

OTHER INFORMATION:

Media will enter the Figge through the loading dock entrance just east of the main entrance, where they will be met by staff who will guide them to the installation. Dr. Goebel will be available to provide information on the works of art on display.

The installation features some of the most celebrated works in the Augustana collection, including pieces by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Mary Cassatt, and others.

The Galesburg Civic Art Center proudly announces the opening of the national juried GALEX 45 Exhibition and Competition.  The exhibition opens Saturday, March 12th and runs through Saturday, April 9th.  The competition awards over $2,000 in prizes including a $1,000 Purchase Award sponsored by Blick Art Materials.  The GALEX 45 Exhibition is sponsored by our exhibition partner, Cottage Hospital.

GALEX is one of the longest running juried exhibitions in the country.  It began in 1966 and has been an annual event at the Art Center ever since.  Sixty-two artists from Illinois and other states have been selected to participate in this show including:

• Christopher Bradshaw of Bettendorf, Iowa for his oil on canvas entitled A Precipitated Fashioning

There will be an Opening Reception in the Art Center Gallery on Saturday, March 12th, from 6-8 p.m. which is free and open to the public.  Many of the artists will be in attendance.

The juror for this year’s exhibition and competition is Mel Adamson. Ms. Adamson received her Master of Fine Arts from University of California at Berkeley in 1988.  She studied with Joan Brown, Christopher Brown and David Simpson and was a teaching assistant to Joan Brown.  She studied painting at École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France during her junior year but otherwise did her undergraduate studies in both music and visual art at the University of California at Santa Cruz.  Her work is exhibited nationally and locally. Mel’s primary subjects are the figure as well as imagery that refers to elements in nature, some of which have been affected by human activity such as harnessed rivers for hydroelectricity or high atmospheric clouds whose formation is threatened due to global warming.  “I work with imagery relating to water and other natural resources, their use, storage and waste, and our simultaneous reverence for and destruction of nature.  I am interested in the translation of the idea of storage and release of energy and the condition of change into the pictorial realm.”  She is inspired by her students – their visual inquiry, dedication and skill.  She lives most of the year in Richmond, CA with her husband, her teenage daughter, their black lab, cat, and chickens and gains inspiration for her painting while working in her garden.  Mel is a part-time assistant professor for the pictorial art department at San Jose State University and taught at the California College of the Arts for their extended education program in Oakland, CA between 1999 and 2007.

Additional award sponsors of this year’s GALEX show are Breslin’s Floor Covering for the Award of Excellence, McFall Monument Company for the Medallion Award, and Blick Art Materials for the Kent Leasure Memorial Fine Print Award. Dowers Roofing is our Juror Sponsor.

GALEX and all other programs of the Art Center are partially funded by the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. The Galesburg Civic Art Center is located at 114 E. Main St. in Galesburg, Illinois.  Art Center hours are Tuesday through Friday 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Saturday 10:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.  For more information please contact the Art Center at (309) 342-7415, or visit our web site at www.galesburgarts.org

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