Custom painted items include metal wall cabinets, spray guns, a tool box, vintage gumball and popcorn machines, vintage pull wagon, hanging ‘hot rod’ fish, vintage gas cans, a motorcycle helmet, garage stools, two Airbrush Getaway classes, metal trash can, iPad, longboard skateboards, snowboard, bowling pins, tri-cycle, KitchenAid® stand mixer, and many other items. The “all-star” line-up of contributing artists Nub, Steve DeMan, Mike Learn, Mitch Peacock, Ron “Flea” Fleanor, Bugs, Armando Serrano, Jeff Styles, Jonathan Pantaleon, Ryan Evans, Richard “Duke” Bobinac, Brian Lynch, Don Ruks, Pat Paldino, James Kunzinger, Sam Shriver, and others.

The website, www.Artists4Education.org, will feature each piece of artwork prior to SEMA so that bids can be placed by those who cannot attend. The site will also include artist biographies, supporting organizations or individuals, and foundation links. Stay tuned here, http://www.matrixsystem.com, http://www.CollisionEducationFoundation.org, and www.facebook.com/artists4education, for the website launch date and instructions on how to bid.

Matrix System Automotive Finishes is committed to assisting the many schools and students across the country that can benefit from some financial or equipment support. “If we can help one student enter this awesome industry, the mission was a success” says sponsor David Brunori, President of Quest Automotive Products.

About The Collision Repair Education Foundation

The mission of the Collision Repair Education Foundation is: “To secure donations that support philanthropic and collision repair education activities that promote and enhance career opportunities in the industry.” The ultimate goal of the Collision Repair Education Foundation is to create a future in which every entry-level technician hired will have graduated with the necessary skills and understanding of new technology to be well-trained, productive, and efficient employees from day one on the job. www.CollisionEducationFoundation.org

About Matrix System

Matrix System Automotive Finishes, a division of Quest Automotive Products, has become one of the industry’s most successful aftermarket manufacturers of high quality paints, primers, hardeners, clearcoats and reducers. Today, the AccuShade® Intermix System now leads the product line, giving body shops the ability to make over 200,000 colors with exact formulas and 2.1 V.O.C. compliant products. For more information about Matrix System, please visit http://www.MatrixSystem.com.

By Bob Keyes

Portland Press Herald

Beverly Hallam approached her artwork with the curiosity of a scientist, ever eager to incorporate new techniques and technologies into her art-making processes. Best known for her pioneering use of the airbrush and, later in life, for embracing digital abstract images, Hallam died Feb. 22 at age 89 at her home on Surf Point Road in York.

Hallam had been sick for several years, with a progressive lung disease. In August 2011, she told the Portland Press Herald that she still enjoyed working “when the spirit moves me.”  Her longtime confidante and best friend, Mary-Leigh Smart, said Hallam suffered a stroke Wednesday morning that partially paralyzed her. She died the next morning. “She was blessed that she didn’t have to linger long like that,” Smart said. “I can’t imagine her surviving and being paralyzed.”

A painter, printmaker and lifelong educator, Hallam was a key member of Ogunquit’s art community and was known nationally as a pioneering postwar female artist. Hallam’s career included several milestones that distinguished her from her peers. She was an early proponent of acrylic paint and became one of the medium’s most accomplished purveyors. She mastered the art of monotype printmaking and became most famous for her detailed and intricate airbrush paintings of flowers.

Her flower paintings are rich in detail and exact in color, often showing sunlight refracted through glass vases, shadows on walls and tabletops, and the intricate precision of petals, stamens, stems and seeds. She took a centuries-old subject of still-life painting and applied modern techniques in ways that no one had tried, said Carl Little, a Maine arts writer.

Hallam’s mastery of the airbrush was both unexpected and thrilling, Little said, and gave her “the grand point of her life. Who saw that coming? I don’t think anybody did, except you knew she would do something great for her next act.” Her flower paintings are in museums across the country, including nearly every museum in Maine.

In Rockland, the Farnsworth Art Museum on Feb. 25 hung her 1985 painting “Orange Prince” as a tribute. “She was one of the most accomplished realist painters of her generation,” Farnsworth Curator Michael Komanecky said. Near the end of her life, when her strength faded and some of her other facilities began to fail, Hallam used a keyboard, a video monitor and a color printer to make abstract images.

News of Hallam’s death signaled “a sad, sad day,” Little said. “Beverly was a great friend and a wonderful artist.” She came from a family that included inventors, engineers and artists, said Little, who wrote a book about Hallam, “An Odyssey in Art.”

“She had something in her DNA that led her that way,” he said. “She took in everything, and she was really committed to art. That’s all there is to it. She was one of those people who put her mind to it and went after it.”

Hallam was born in Lynn, Mass., in 1923, studied at the Massachusetts College of Art and taught art in Massachusetts until the early 1960s. She began coming to Ogunquit in 1949 and was part of a second generation of artists who made their home on Maine’s southern coast. She was active in the Barn Gallery in Ogunquit and the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. “She came at a time when the New York scene was turning to abstraction,” said Ron Crusan, director of the Ogunquit museum. “With the dramatic cliffs and breaking waves of Ogunquit as inspiration, she brought youth, innovation and enthusiasm” to the region.

She was instrumental in bringing acrylic paint to Maine, helping to set the tone for modernism in contemporary Maine painting, he said. Hallam’s Surf Point Road house is legendary in art circles. It is a sprawling home, with magnificent views of the ocean. She and Smart spent several decades together there.

After Smart dies, the Surf Point Foundation will operate the home as a retreat for artists, scholars, critics and historians. Several of Hallam’s paintings are on view at the Art Gallery at the University of New England on Stevens Avenue in Portland. Her paintings are part of a show that celebrates Maine female pioneers in art. The show runs through Sunday, March 3.

“Her spirit in this show is huge,” said UNE gallery Director Anne Zill. “She will be sorely missed. … In this show, people often stop in front of Beverly’s works. They have a power to them that is completely arresting. People stop and spend time in front of her works.”

Zill called Hallam “a force of nature. She was strong, organized and driven to work every day, to discover new things about her work as an artist. She owned her world. She owned her art world.”

The Portland Museum of Art began collecting Hallam’s paintings in the late 1960s, and has acquired her paintings and prints regularly through the past decade. That puts her in a small group of artists whose achievements and innovations the museum consistently heralded over several decades, said Jessica May, curator of contemporary and modern art.

Hallam was the subject of a Maine Masters film, “Beverly Hallam: Artist as Innovator.” Filmmaker Richard Kane spent many days with Hallam on the project, which was completed in 2011. He called her a “real joyous personality. She found humor in everything. She was a lot of fun to work with.”

Little is fond of telling a story about Hallam from her youth. It illustrates her family’s dedication to Hallam’s career choice.

Hallam’s mother, Alice, ran a hair salon. One day, she met Leonard Bernstein’s father, Sam, who sold hairdressing supplies. They started talking about their kids.

“You can’t imagine what my son Lennie wants to be,” Sam Bernstein told Hallam’s mother, according to Little.

“He wants to be a composer … of music … a musician. Can you believe it? I can’t stand it.”

He then asked Alice Hallam what her daughter wanted to be.

“She’s going to be an artist,” Hallam’s mother answered.

“Oh my God,” Bernstein replied. “They’re both going to starve to death.”

In addition to her work in the studio, Hallam is being remembered for her work as a teacher. She taught continuously for most of her life, including at the Maine College of Art in Portland. The college gave her its Art Honors award in 2001.

In her artist’s statement, Hallam cited her lifelong process of learning. “As the mediums in art change, I change along with them. As Michelangelo said, ‘I am still learning.’”

Portland Press Herald staff writer Melanie Creamer contributed to this report.

“We travel a lot. We tend to get to the airport last minute and the long lines aren’t helping at all .”

Going through security is not their favorite part of flying. They can’t take the tools of their trade, small glass vials with needles, through security.  They wish they could.

NewsChannel 5 contacted TSA to find out if the new rules apply to the artists.  We’re waiting to hear back.  The agency now says you can take small knives and some sports equipment onto the plane with you.

“They probably realized they weren’t a threat to the safety of the passengers,” said American Airlines Pilot Chuck Long. He said the new rules will make it easier for passengers to get through security.

Smooth sailing for people, doesn’t mean worry-free flying for flight attendants. Cherie Randall has seen a lot of changes in the more than 25 years she’s been a flight attendant. She said this one scares her.

“We already have using hands, feet and fists against us and it will be a matter of time before a passenger is wielding a weapon,” said Randall.

Randall said the knives, bats and clubs should stay in the belly of the plane.

It’s not the place the airbrush artists want their equipment. They said they could check one less bag, and save a few extra minutes if they could just take the tools onboard with them.

The TSA security changes go into effect on April 25.

For video go to: http://on.ksdk.com/ZMtBJB

If you haven’t heard about Createx’s new illustration paint yet, you soon will. It’s an airbrush paint that gives the artist a broad range of special effects opportunities, while being one of the best spraying water-based paints on the market today. Although the new paint was designed for paper and canvas surfaces, it has been proven to be popular with automotive painters due to its sprayability and lightfast automotive grade pigments.

I had the opportunity to beta test this paint for Createx early on, and I was always impressed by the willingness of chemist Dennis Delorenzo to listen to the needs of the artist, and make the necessary adjustments to create this extraordinary airbrush paint.

The new illustration paint was created for artists looking for an airbrush-ready paint that is easily erased,  re-wettable, performs well when buffered with opaque white, and can be sprayed without the need for additional reducer.  The result is a paint with superior spray capabilities, reduced tip dry,  and easy clean-up.

However, the most revolutionary aspect of the new illustration paint is its delayed cross-linking. This means that, after the paint is applied, it cures more slowly than other water-based airbrush paints, taking 30 minutes to reach maximum strength. Artists can take advantage of this characteristic by manipulating the paint during its most fragile period. For example, the effects of erasing the paint when it’s two minutes old will yield different results than when the paint is 5, 10, or 30 minutes old. This results in a wider range of creative effects than with other types of paint.

Texture  effects can be achieved by the simple application of an amine, such as a glass cleaner.  Applying the amine with a spray bottle can create a tremendous range of effects, especially when applied between layers of paint.

One of the keys to the success of the Illustration paint is in its opaque white. With a silky smooth spray, and reduced tip dry, the illustration opaque white dries to a velvety flat finish, making it ideal for critical color matching. The coverage is excellent, and as with the transparent colors, is ready to use straight out of the bottle.

With Createx Illustration paint, I have been able to create more consistent and precise spray patterns than ever before. I would recommend this paint to any airbrush artist seeking a water-based paint to serve their illustration needs.  Its sprayability, easy clean-up, re-wetability, and delayed cross-linking make this paint unbeatable.

AWARDS in Each Category
1st Place: $500 in prizes
2nd Place: $350 in prizes
3d place: $150 in prizes

In addition to a Certificate of Award, competition winners will receive airbrush and art products as listed above. All award-winning entries will be published in Airbrush Action magazine.

Deadline: Friday, March 15, 2013

PLEASE INCLUDE:
Name,  Email address,  Telephone number (Include area code),  Mailing address,  City, State,  Zip, Country, Artwork Category (Title of artwork, Type of paint, Surface, Size (inches)

Entry Requirements:  All entries must be submitted in hi-res JPG, TIFF, or PDF digital formats on a CD or DVD disc to: Airbrush Excellence Competition, P.O. Box 438, 3209 Atlantic Avenue, Allenwood, NJ 08720. Photographs, negatives, and large format transparencies will NOT be accepted.

Entry Limit:  3 submissions per person.

Acknowledgement:  If you include a stamped, self-addressed envelope or postcard, we will acknowledge receipt of your entry. No phone call regarding your entry will be accepted.

Deadline:  All entries MUST be postmarked by March 15, 2013.

Conditions:  Upon submission, all discs become the property of Airbrush Action. If insufficient entries are received in any one category, that category may be subject to cancellation. Competition judges reserve the right to move entries from one category to another if deemed appropriate.  Airbrush Action makes every effort to protect and secure all discs, but cannot be held liable for loss or damage.  Your entry shall imply agreement with the above-stated conditions.

Get published and becom famous as a winner of the Airbrush Excellence Competition

Day 2 progress pic of Gary Worthington’s intense new DVD, Creating Killer Zombies, produced by Airbrush Action magazine and Createx Colors. Stay tuned for more photos on this exciting new title.