Whew – here we are at the last week of ArtOMatic 2012!  If you haven’t taken the time to go seeit yet, then look back over the interviews and plot your course.  Once Saturday comes and goes, ArtOMatic 2012 Crystal City is gone forever!

Our 26th interview is with the artist Bono Mitchell, who can be found (with so many others!) on the 11th floor, Space 115, Room 1161.  Bono says “You can’t miss the yellow glow coming from the room” and offers that there is a place not only to sit, but also encourages you to lie down on the bench and look UP from below the light for a different view of her PAINtings with BACKlight!

This is Bono’s fourth ArtOMatic.  “The real reason I keep coming back is the people.  Is there any other place where you have so many creatives in one place, with their art, all physically participating?”

For many years, Bono, who has been making art “since I was a kid,” painted mostly small watercolors to document her travels.  The last ArtOMatic was the first time she did anything large, and she did that so her work wouldn’t get lost among all the other exhibitors. Because of this, she feels that ArtOMatic was responsible for expanding her idea of what she creates as well as providing her with the reason to make art for public exhibit and personal expression.

Bono works at BonoTom Studio, Inc., a small graphic design firm in Arlington, VA, with 6 designers and says that she loves the creative exchange that goes on there every day.  “But ArtoMatic is THAT times 700!  Open show – open minds!”

The installation Bono is showing this year grew from a couple of operations she had on her neck and back.  After recuperation, rehab, several years of pre-op pain, and physical limitations that affected her ability to make art, she saw empty prescription pill bottles piling up in a corner of her studio glowing orange at her.  “I hadn’t been in the studio to paint in so long and was feeling like I was wasting a big part of my life.  I had to do something to make a statement, get past it, and get on with making art and dealing with the constant pain.”

Bono felt that the glow of the mounting orange plastic containers were begging for light so she came up with the chandelier even

though she wasn’t sure how she would be able to put it together.  Her good friend, Woody DeSwarte (who she describes as an amazing carpenter who has helped with other art visions involving things like bowling balls) said he was ready to build anything.  She arranged the bottles on a glass table, photographed them, told him it should have fluorescent lights, hang from two spine models and have blinking fiber optic lights between the discs.  Woody built to her specification and to perfection!

The PAINtings were inspired by black and white images from Bono’s x-rays, MRIs and C-scans of the implants that were put in her back and neck.

The installation project was created as an installation and not as individual pieces.  Bono wanted the viewer to see the pain – but make it beautiful  “The site this year was great since I could have a separate room to pull it together and isolate it visually.  It was a very healing project.”

According to Bono, several people have told her, or left a note in her BACKlog, that they had the same type of operation and immediately related to the images.  There are also those who don’t realize that the orange objects are prescription pill bottles and who don’t understand the paintings either.  “Both are fine with me,” she says.

Bono notes that at ArtOMatic you have the opportunity to use space, light and juxtaposition to highlight your art, and the ArtOMatic Artists Catalog to connect with the world.  She suggests using that catalog [ed note:  I am surprised at how many don’t.  I always connect to catalog pageswhen interviewees suggest other ArtOMatic artists to

visit – I can’t do that if there isn’t a page!].  She also suggests talking to as many artists and visitors as possible to expand the experience for yourself and for them.  “You’ll be back for the next ArtOMatic, I guarantee!”  And, she counsels, don’t forget to leave some inspiration and contact information for the visitors!

Says Bono: “ArtOMatic – where do you start, where do you end??  I must say, I love the dinosaur on the 10th floor.”

To read more interviews and see more photographs from ArtOMatic 2012 and earlier ArtOMatics, go here.

Thus ends our ArtOMatic 2012 Crystal City VA artist interviews.  I hope you have enjoyed them as much as I have enjoyed putting them together and meeting the artists.   I encourage you to take the last opportunity to “meet the artists” this Thursday from 6 – 9pm, and that you consider the closing gala on Saturday evening, June 23 – it’s always a party to remember!