Millicent Greason's Urban Artware is an art gallery and retail store featuring an eclectic mixture of one of a kind paintings and lovingly hand-crafted treasures. Specializing in the magical artwork of some of the Southeast's finest contemporary self-taught artists, Urban Artware is an oasis of color and inspiration. Intermingled throughout the gallery are wonderful finely crafted pieces, including metalwork, blown glass, pottery, woodwork, furniture and funky jewelry.
(description taken directly from website)
Winston-Salem is home to Artists in Cellophane and Art-o-mat. Millicent has an Art-o-mat machine at her gallery. I met her when I went to the Art-o-mat 10th Anniversary Swap Meet in 2007 and liked her instantly.
Patrick Harris is an artist local to Winston-Salem and is also an arto-artist. A few days ago he posted an invitation/call for art for an Elvis Birthday Artfest to be held at Urban Artware for the city's January Gallery Hop and also during the month of January.
I wanted to try and submit something for this show but wasn't sure I could get the piece done in time. I don't have many magazine images of Elvis...just this one, actually. It is from the movie "Blue Hawaii".
I put together a dimensional Animal People collage inside of a deep shadow box. I used a hound dog head and gathered a birthday cake and presents. I added a candle to the cake. Luckily, I also found a film reel and little paper parasol images. The dots in the background are shiny spangle/sequin things that add some color and remind me of Elvis.
I apologize for the poor quality of the photographs of the finished piece -- the glass wasn't removable. I think you can get an idea of how it looks, though.
I am happy with the way it turned out. I hope folks like it.
