A week ago, I attended my first Milwaukee Empty Bowls, a fundraiser for the hungry in our community. I arrived 15 minutes before the event officially started and was shocked at how many people were there. The volunteers were quite humorous--you had your choice of going to the "in control" (long) line where you could see and choose your bowl(s) or the much shorter "don't care about control" line where you picked a bowl in a brown paper bag. You've probably guessed by now that I like choices, so I went in the long line. I ended up buying 8 bowls, presumably for "gifts," don't know how I can part with any of them, all so beautiful. I know I'm getting too wordy here, but the object of this fundraiser is to pick a bowl, have it washed, then take it upstairs where your bowl was filled with soup. That day, Empty Bowls raised $46,400 to feed Milwaukee's hungry! I was excited to read on my cousin's Facebook page that there is a similar event in West Virginia too.
My recent series of bowl paintings has been to celebrate "home" and 38 of the paintings have featured bowls hand made and purchased years ago from Jean Wells Smaglik, one of the artists and organizers of Milwaukee Empty Bowls. These are 3 of the 7 pieces of Jean's.
I tried something a little different with this painting. I nearly always ground my boards with black gesso but so many artists are presently grounding with a soft orange/coral color, so I thought I would try it with this painting. Carol Marine just mentioned it in today's post, and one of Milwaukee's favorites, Shelby Keefe often uses this color. I am eager to hear what you think.
http://www.dailypaintworks.com/fineart/diane-campion/484-empty-bowls/274801
