Darla and Olivia in Real Life

So, as life would have it, I just so happened to give birth to little Ms. Olivia Rae Jackson Grant on Friday, October 23 at 4:15am. She came into the world as I like to say "quick like a bunny" via an amazingly fast and wonderful home birth. She weighed 6lbs 5oz at birth and is 19 1/2 inches long. She's a total doll and I couldn't have wished for a more wonderful little lady.

Darla and Peanut in Real Life

Last weekend fabulous photographer extrodinaire, Ms. Laura Graham, took some photos of my belly in between some other fanciness that she's working on (Top secret of course...) and I wanted to share the digital version...It was quite a fancy affair with special lighting and backdrops and cameras (oh my!)

Art Alliance...

So the Art Alliance show is coming...I have my idea...Heck I even already have a title...now I'm just trying to figure out which pieces to make...

I'm doing this crazy "animals take over a house" installation based on a piece I did on this subject for Petit Fours (a show of miniature work by The Other Woman Collective at Arcadia Boutique earlier this year). The piece for that show ended up being more of a maquette for something bigger and more exciting so when I was approached by the Art Alliance to create a room specific installation, I knew this would be a great fit. The space is an old mansion and the first floor is chock full o' architectural detail, similar to what I loved about the space in the Barclay for my January show at CFEVA. Right now I'm working out how many pieces, what animals, what are they doing, where can I get furniture that will work, etc etc etc... (Sidebar, if anyone has any old crappy furniture that looks like maybe it was a bit fancy at one point, I may be able to take it off your hands for you... :)

I feel like there's alot of opportunity to create some crazy pieces but want it to read as realistic and believable as possible...I want viewers to walk in and for their experience to be as if they just got home after a long trip and found out that all these animals had taken over their house...and these animals are all still there trashing the place and are all of a sudden staring, maybe even looking a bit hungry...!

Here are some photos of the space (with some crazy amazing installation in it! I don't know the artist's name but its really fabulous)...




Idea sketches to come, hopefully later this week!

Weekly Update

I've been a slackity slacker in the blogging department...Sorry! It's just because I'm trying to figure/plan/bust a move in the get 'ish done department...both art and general life realms. Anywho, here's another bit of an update for the week, with hopefully lots of exciting other things to come...!

Current Exhibitions

I just took this show down today...Whont whont...


Step Right Up...
New sculpture by Darla Jackson
September-October 2009
Vagabond Boutique
37 N. 3rd Street
Philadelphia, PA


Opening Exhibition
September 13th-November 15th, 2009
Graphic Art Room
Van Espenstraat 36a
Tremelo, Belgium

Upcoming Exhibitions

In February 2010...

While you were out...
Solo exhibition of new work by Darla Jackson
February - May, 2010
Philadelphia Art Alliance
251 South 18th Street
Philadelphia, PA

The Other Woman Blog

In case you haven't seen it yet, The Other Woman Collective has a blog at www.theotherwomancollective.blogspot.com. It's quite random and varied in subject but all interesting info as far as I'm concerned. Check it out!

oh Deer...

Last night I brought a taxidermied deer head to my Fleisher class for my students to sculpt. It was fun...he was a bit raggedy around the edges but there were some really nice sculptures made, despite his shoddy appearance... And it got me thinking about all the taxidermied animals and taxidermy forms that are used in art and how I feel about all that. As an animal sculptor, I think taxidermy and taxidermy forms can be great reference material, BUT I get infuriated when people try to pass off something done over a taxidermy form as "Oh I made this whole thing myself." For god's sake just reference the damn taxidermy form! It's like people saying they sculpted a life cast. Argh! Anyway, here are some things I found that are related...some real taxidermy, some work done over forms, some real live actual sculpture, some more design than art...

Taxidermy Forms

Work by Rachel Denny

I like these sweater covered deer heads by Rachel Denny, who references the use of Polyurethane Foam in her materials, which to me is enough of a nod to what lies beneath. (The taxidermy forms are made of foam.) And she makes it her own with the sweater covering.

Real taxidermy birds in headphones....I heart this.



A manipulated taxidermy fawn...creepy...

I'm assuming this is a real taxidermy elephant...???!!!! Insane!

Taxidermy + stuffed animals = Annette Messager

Yes.....!

No!

This is the scariest photo I've EVER seen...EVER!

Amazing....

Weekly Update

Busy, busy week coming up...I'm trying to catch up on bills and paperwork today so I can start new work for the Art Alliance show this week! Will keep you posted with photos and sketches and all that fancy stuff. Til then, here's a quick little update...

Current Exhibitions


Step Right Up...
New sculpture by Darla Jackson
September-October 2009
Vagabond Boutique
37 N. 3rd Street
Philadelphia, PA


Opening Exhibition
September 13th-November 15th, 2009
Graphic Art Room
Van Espenstraat 36a
Tremelo, Belgium

Upcoming Exhibitions

In February 2010...

While you were out...
Solo exhibition of new work by Darla Jackson
February - May, 2010
Philadelphia Art Alliance
251 South 18th Street
Philadelphia, PA

Winter 2010 Classes

I'll be teaching at Fleisher Art Memorial for their NEW winter semester coming Jan 2010. Keep an eye out for details!

In the Studio...

Studio is all still fancy clean from POST, which is awesome because I'm about to get in there and bang out some new work (yes, I am a crazy person.) My exciting news of the week is that I was asked to have a solo show at the Philadelphia Art Alliance (!!!) in February (!!!) so I figured I'd post the clean-ness of the studio before it goes back to craziness and chaos :) Such is the cycle of art I suppose...stay tuned for update on said solo show (!!!!!!!!)

Is it Tuesday already???

Whew! I needed a day to recover after a fabulous weekend. POST was great this year and thank you so much to everyone who came to see my studio!

It was really great to meet some artists in person who I'd spoken to or heard of prior to this weekend, but had never met before. Such as:

Andrew Wilkinson - www.arwilkinson.com
Brooke Holloway - www.brookeholloway.com
Tremain Smith - www.tremainsmith.com

Thanks so much to everyone who came by!!!

(Sorry for the short post...back to work I go, but exciting and fabulous news this week, I promise!)

TODAY (again)!!!!

Come visit my studio today from 12-6pm!

3237 Amber Street
(1 block North and 1 block East of the intersection of Frankford Ave and Allegheny Ave)
Studio 3-3-A (3rd Floor North)
Philadelphia, PA

Click HERE for more details and a map!

Hope to see you there!!!!

TODAY!!!!

Come visit my studio today (or tomorrow) from 12-6pm!

3237 Amber Street
(1 block North and 1 block East of the intersection of Frankford Ave and Allegheny Ave)
Studio 3-3-A (3rd Floor North)
Philadelphia, PA

Click HERE for more details and a map!

Hope to see you there!!!!

Darla visits the Masons...

This past weekend I went on a tour of the Masonic Temple in Philadelphia for my hub's 30th birthday. He'd be wanting to go for some time now and so he made it part of his birthday extravaganza. I had no idea what to expect but was really and truly amazed by the architecture and decorative details. Each room was modeled after architecture from a different place/time period and these details was painstakingly replicated. The most amazing part to me was that many of the architectural elements were plaster and faux finished to look like wood, tile, marble, etc. You would never know just by looking at them...

The ceiling of this room was made of carved (or cast?) plaster tiles...incredible...

This was the Egyptian room...

All of the ceilings in each room were over the top...
coffered, painted and included insane light fixtures.

Egyptian room podium...
(with what the tour guide mentioned were Greek style sphinxes,
rather than Egyptian style...hmmmm...)

A fabulous view of the hall, which featured a cast iron staircase...
(Hub read they cast it in place on the website but our tour guide
didn't know a thing about that..dingbat.)

All the "wooden" ceiling beams in here were actually faux finished plaster, painted with turkey feathers to make it look like wood grain!!!

Alot of the ceilings in the halls had these amazing double layers...

52 foot high ceilings?!?!

The light coming from these windows is artificial light, not sunlight.

Plaster caryatids...

Yet another amazing plaster ceiling...

And another...

Owl!

Bottom of the main staircase...