When I need a dose of color, light, and texture Mike never fails. He’s in New Zealand at the moment …
http://www.antipodes.us/

I’ve spent the past year sailing the high seas and exploring exotic influences. Taking on many of Jon’s duties at Hard Press Editions I completed Exotica by Jason Jacques, and Frank Vining Smith, Maritime Painting in the 20th Century by James Craig. The design and related production efforts (aka “cat herding”) involved in producing these two books ate my life in 2010 (nearly to the exclusion of anything else, as my friends can attest). In the end it feels like it was worth the effort and I’ll attach sample pages as PDFs when I get a chance.

This past weekend I lost a friend and colleague Jon Gams, founder of Hard Press Editions, and the guy who gave me the opportunity to work on three of my favorite things combined—art, books, and design. Even as we make plans to move forward with the projects he spearheaded it still feels unreal. Some ends come as a closing chapter summing up a story in a satisfying if sad conclusion, but this was too sudden, too abrupt, and feels incomplete. I don’t even know what I’m feeling. While we worked together the past couple of years, and talked almost daily,  there’s many, many people who have more right to call him a friend. I’m looking forward to meeting some of them at the memorial service tomorrow. They have memories to share that may not make this loss any less, but will help make his story complete and maybe help me feel a little more whole.

Last weekend Kit and I had the opportunity to go on a photo safari at the most elegant BBQ ever in Southfield MA. Jeremy and Emily Stanton plan to open a butcher shop featuring organic and locally raised meat and poultry. The outdoor feast was a fundraiser for the project which they hope to launch by 2010. Rural Intelligence chose a few of the boatload of images we shot to illustrate the story.

I just looked over the F&Gs of the Mike Glier book Along a Lomg Line and I’m so excited. The printed, unbound pages we received yesterday represent the last stage of proofing. After months pouring over digital color proofs tweaking and correcting color it’s thrilling to finally see these in printed form. Digital proofs are to print what print is to standing in front of a painting. There’s a depth and intensity to layers of ink on paper to which a digital proof just can’t compare. We’ll have the books in hand October 15th but if you’d like to preview it you can visit Hard Press Editions or Along a Long Line.

The first of four illustrations commissioned by Seven Salon Spa is at last complete. This is undoubtably the most complex piece I’ve ever done in Adobe Illustrator, but boy was it fun to get back into the drawing-zone again.

You might say we had a wee bit of rain this summer. Or like me, you might begin to imagine that what they mean by climate change is that the weather you normally associate with your area is suddenly switched for that of an entirely different locale;  say, Seattle for instance. From what I hear they’d like their regular weather back too.  I guess the silver lining to our many clouds has been that I was not so tempted to run and play outside or while away the hours in the garden.

Instead I’ve been staring into the depths of my monitor. Diving back into  Adobe Illustrator creating an illustration of  Seven Salon and Spa  (and their gardens) in Stockbridge, MA.  Also completed a couple of  wordpress site redesigns for two of  Mike Glier’s recent projects, Along A Long Line and Antipodes. They are online artist’s travel journals documenting different locations around the globe. Mike is currently in Botswana in the first stop of the Antipodes series, painting, taking photos, and writing about the experience.  I’d call his work abstract impressionist landscape—and amazing. Great sense of light, form, and color and I really admire his deftness with the palette knife to create textured overlays of color. I’m not keen on a lot of abstract art but his work is the kind of work I wish I were doing.

Mike Glier has a show coming up at the William’s College Museum and the book version of Along A Long Line (from Hard Press Editions, Lenox) is due back from the printer in September.  I’m really looking forward to seeing both. I’ve spent the past few months deep in the land of color-correction staring at Mike’s paintings and I haven’t gotten tired of  looking at them. But color on a computer monitor or even on the printed page can never truly compare to seeing the real thing.

A few of my favorites:
ARCTIC
“July 21, 2007, 40°F, N66°13 W65°75, Fog”
“August 10, 2007, 47°, N66°13 W65°75, Mount Duval”

NEW YORK
Seventh Street Garden Wisteria

CARIBBEAN
“February 19, 2008, N 18° 33, W 64° 79, 81° F, John’s Folly”

EQUATOR
“October 20, 2007, 89° F, S 01° 02, W 77° 36, rainforest”

This month is dedicated to the final push to get to press Mike Glier’s new book along a long line, (published by Hard Press Editions) and an online marketing campaign promoting it. After that a newsletter for Clark & Green Architects and a series of illustrations for Seven Salon and Spa.

Which means I won’t be getting around just yet to making my own site look like do anything more than write about graphic design… Ah well, I am getting back into CSS a bit so at least I’ll come back with some new chops and some new pieces for my portfolio. And it’s Summer, the dog roses are blooming, peonies are swooning, and the Berkshires are doing the best imitation of a tropical rainforest possible in zone 5 New England. Life ain’t bad.

It is the cruel nature of a blog to highlight, for all to see, just how long it’s been since you last posted. The past five months have been a whirlwind. The Hair Ball was a great success as was the publication of Kenneth Snelson’s Forces Made Visible and Irving Sandler’s Abstract Expressionism and the American Experience: A Reevaluation. In the relative lull that occurred after these historic events I’ve had the opportunity to work on a number of print ads, brochures, and online newsletter, a photoshoot of baby animals, and a blurb.com-published portfolio. As I delve more deeply into the Word Press experience I’ll be loading a gallery or two of my own portfolio on this site. In the meantime the block to the right has a small set of revolving samples.

It’s been a busy month and not just because of the holidays. Working with Hard Press Editions in Lenox I’ve been applying the “final” edits, color proofing and typesetting for two great books that I can’t wait to be able to sit down and actually read. The first is a book of Kenneth Snelson’s work Forces Made Visible. The second Abstract Expressionism: The American Experience by Irving Sandler has been difficult to work on because I have to keep pulling myself back from getting absorbed in reading it.

I’ve also be writing some copy and designing the graphics for IS183 Art School of the Berkshire’s—The Hair Ball. Their annual dance party-silent auction-masquarade-extraordinaire, the ball has a different theme every year but is consistently one of the best bashes in the Berkshires. (See myriad photos from last year’s party at rocktheopera.org)

And on a quieter but no less fun note I’ve been working with the lovely and talented Karen Beckwith. Karen is an artist and interior designer who recently launched a line of home accessories that includes pillows and window treatments of her own design. I’ve been assisting with drawing floor and furniture plans as well as designing ads. We’re currently working on her marketing plan for the coming year.

Michelle Quigley

Experience

Freelance Graphic Design & Marketing Coordinator 2007 – Present

Graphic Design & Marketing Coordinator 2004 – 2007
William Caligari Interiors/Architecture, Great Barrington MA

Art Director and Web Developer — Front End/Interface Systems 1999-2003
Zenn New Media LLC., Great Barrington MA

Freelance Graphic Designer 1997-1999
DBA Skin-A-Cat Design, Providence, RI and Housatonic, MA

Media Production Designer 1998-1999
Mesolore CD-ROM, and Auroch CD-ROM, for Prolarti at the Center for
Latin American Studies, Brown University, Providence, RI

Associate Art Director 1994-1995
Judge Dredd, Mass.Illusion Visual Effects, Lenox, MA., for Cinergi
Inc., Buena Vista, CA.

Assistant Art Director 1992-1993
Luxor, the Secret of the Pyramid, The Trumbull Co. Inc., Lenox, MA.,
for Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, NV

Production Assistant 1990-1991
Back to the Future, The Ride, Berkshire Motion Picture, Housatonic,
MA., for Universal Studios FL and CA

Education
B.F.A. Illustration, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI 1995-1998
A.A. Liberal Arts, Simon’s Rock College of Bard, Great Barrington, MA 1985-1987

Etc.
Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Quark, Dreamweaver MX, GoLive 5.0,
OS X, HTML, CSS, Acrobat 5.0, Logo Design, Iluustration, Pre-Press
Production, Information Architechture