2011: The Year in Review at DREGstudios!

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When January rolled around 12 months ago, I hadn't thought much about what I wanted to do with my artwork this year.  I had been blogging seriously for just a few months and had fallen in love with the open forum which it provided me to fuse both my voice and my art.  The past few years I had focused on exhibiting  anywhere and everywhere in the world I was accepted, placing my art in over 100 shows across the country and world.  For 2011, I wanted to focus on building an audience here in the digital world.  At the turn of the year, I made the decision to dump my static website which housed galleries for my art and focus solely on turning my blog INTO my site.  I found quickly that it was a learning process and looking back I can see the wonderful evolution of the DREGstudios! site over the past 12 months, which has grown from several hundred viewers a month to 15-20K viewers per month since June!  Falling in love with blogging was the best creative decision I've ever made.

2011 was the most inspiring year of my life so far for my work and passion.  I'm still on the upswing and haven't managed to find a way to make a living doing what I love quite yet but you can go back through my archive of blog posts and see the fruits of my labor.  Here's a look back at just a few of the major highlights of this incredible year...

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The 2011 Rivers and Spires Festival

One of the billboards featuring my winning illustration!

The 2011 Rivers & Spires Festival kicks off Thursday night in Historic Downtown Clarksville with live music beginning at 4PM and rounding out with Mr. Speed (16 year veterans of being "America's Kiss Tribute") on the Public Square Stage at 8PM!

This is just to warm things up!  The streets will really fill up all weekend with more music, vendors and artisans.  I'll be in the Artz Galore section next to City Hall all day Friday and Saturday along with dozens of other photographers, artists and craftspeople.  Come by and see me to talk about art and take advantage of the only time of year you'll be allowed to drink a beer on the street!  I have tons of new framed work and prints to exhibit and will be giving away autographed Rivers & Spires posters featuring my artwork!

You'll also be able to see all that downtown has to offer as local businesses on Strawberry Alley and Franklin Street have their doors open to the public for even more live music and art.  While you're there, make sure to check out "Imagination Unchained," a group art exhibit above the Front Page Deli featuring work from Charles Bennett, Peggy Bonnington, Andi Casali, Patrick Daly, Christy Johnson, Jay Swafford, and Roly Viruez.  All the artists give will give you a wild ride through their pop surrealism, abstract and low-brow art.  This must-see exhibit is open 1-8PM Thursday-Saturday night!

You can also see one of my own personal favorite illustrations, "Octopus's Garden" at the U.S. Bank Open Exhibit in the APSU Downtown Gallery on Strawberry Alley, which will have it's doors open during the festival as well.  This illustration is exhibited with over 100 local artists.  Proceeds from the show go to scholarships for the Austin Peay Art Department to dole out to young artists!

"Topsy-Turvy: Octopus's Garden" (Portrait of The Beatles) at the APSU Downtown Gallery

Festival Manager, Doug Barber and his hard-working committee hustle year-round to bring together three days packed full of entertainment and activities for the public.  There is something for everyone with Jazz music, Rock music, Country music, and Christian music on multiple stages simultaneously.  The streets will be packed full of local and regional artists, craftspersons, food vendors, and activities.  The Rivers & Spires Festival is FREE every year here in downtown Clarksville.  In it's 9th year, this event has won a slew of awards including being in the Top 100 Event In North America.  This year will be even better all the way through Saturday night when headliner, Clint Black takes the stage.

[Click HERE for more on my winning design for the 2011 Rivers & Spires Poster Contest]

[Click HERE for more about last year's Festival]

[Click HERE for a Map of the Festival and The Rivers & Spires Official Site]

Back-to-Back baby! (cue the Rocky theme)

This morning I got some tremendous news to set a good tone for the week. Doug Barber, who heads up the Rivers & Spires Festival here in Clarksville called to tell me I had won their poster contest for the 2011 event. Last year was the first time the city had held this contest to get a local artist to design their festival poster. I had the honor of being the first artist chosen for the illustration I entered. Before 2010, they had been outsourcing the paintings to an out-of-state artist. The main reason they started the contest was to give local artists the opportunity to gain some exposure through this annual event. It was a real treat seeing my artwork on billboards, newspaper ads, and even tray covers at Wendy's last year! Keep an eye out for the new artwork around town toward the spring!
The 2010 Rivers & Spires Festival was a huge success drawing thousands of folks from all over the region.  This event has won a slew of awards over the past couple of years including the prestigious International Festivals & Events Association’s Gold Grand Pinnacle award and the State of Tennessee’s Tourism Spotlight Award. The festival has also been recognized as among the “Top 100 Events in North America” by the American Bus Association and “Top 20 Events in the Southeast” by the Southeast Tourism Society.  We also had the pleasure of hosting The Charlie Daniels Band as the weekend's headliner back in April.  

(Click for my blog about last year's poster design and pics from the 2010 festival.)

Here is my new work for the 2011 poster and the process of it becoming the winning design! I still have to meet with the event board over the next few weeks so this may be altered by their graphic designer. At any rate, here is the original illustration which was chosen!

I wanted to incorporate the same elements that made my drawing a winner last year but at the same time I couldn't do the same thing right?  One element I added in was the flags, which are a trademark of the festival. I also wanted make the illustration have a Downtown feel.  On the left is Franklin St and on the right City Hall to kind of frame the work out on both sides.  

As part of my prizes, I'll receive a free booth again at the Artz Galore section of the festival.  I hope to see you there for all the fun and festivities.  Stay tuned over the next few months for all the announcements as far as some big names in country music who will be headlining the main stage (If you can't stand the wait, I can give you a hint... I ran across some of the lineup already posted on Pollstar.)  The poster will also be made public with an announcement of my winning as soon as the design is finalized for print.

Just for you because today we're winners...

UPDATE Saturday, December 4th

Click here for today's Leaf Chronicle article about next year's Rivers & Spires Festival's musical guests and the announcement of my winning poster design!

Rivers & Spires 2010

The Rivers & Spires website has a nice page up about this year's poster contest for the local arts & music festival and my winning design!

UPDATE: April / 2010 (after the festival)

The weekend was amazing and we met a wonderful group of people from all over Middle Tennessee! I had the privilege of spending part of my morning Saturday with Hank Bonecutter from WJZM Clarksville!

I had a great conversation with Hank about Meatloaf (off the air). Hank had pleasant things to say about the guy in person from his interviews back in the Bat Out of Hell I days (as do I; I've seen him in concert twice to pay homage). I'm rocking the cover on my T with these folks who won copies of my poster at this year's festival!