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Chi Meredith

The Arts Center Exhibitions:

• 'Portals,' Winter Show & Silent Auction, 2011
• 'Where Birds Dream' Winter Show and Silent Auction, 2010

Artist's Statement, 'Portals,' Winter Show & Silent Auction, 2011:

“Portal” became “Port Hole” for me…the many days spent at sea being a large part of my life experience.  So I searched for something that would remind me of a ship’s port hole, and I found just the right thing at “Cat’s Meow” downtown.  I spray painted the cake pan and decorated it with acrylic paint. Then I found just the right size circle of wood to stretch a canvas over it (3” in diameter!), gessoed it, and oil painted an ocean scene as I remember it so well looking out of the ship’s port hole.  I combined the pan with the little oceanscape, and voilà!  My portal piece!

Artist's Statement, 'Where Birds Dream' Show and Silent Auction, Winter 2010:

I create paintings and original prints.  I work in oil, egg tempera, acrylic, gouache, pastel, sumi ink, lithography and many other mediums which I feel best express what I am working with at the time.  It all comes back to the language of the earth and how, as an artist, I try to interpret and share my vision of the world.

 Now I can add wood and glue to my list of mediums.  Making a birdhouse was like visiting my childhood again.  When I was eight, my best friend’s father filled a room in their basement with various sizes of wood and lots of nails and hammers and saws, which we could use to build anything we wanted.  I made napkin holders, little boxes and various other useful things, and then painted them as gifts for my mother.  It was so much fun, and we spent hours creating all sorts of items in that room. 

My bird house in this show is supposed to be a metaphor for apartment buildings, making daily life a close experience with strangers living above or below us, sometimes establishing a neighborhood, if we chose.  Any birds that live in these rooms will definitely be exposed, and as we all like to bird-watch, we can keep a close eye on them.

And I definitely had fun making this bird house!