A Journal entry

Most of what passes for important art is meant to shock and provoke, to push boundaries and challenge norms. Which is fine. Boundaries always need to be pushed and norms challenged although far too much of this kind of art fails to do either. A lot of this work is politically oriented and most of that does little more than mirror the chaotic political changes occurring with or without such art.

I was never much interested in shock and provocation, even as a young man. The profound and the sublime always seemed more meaningful to me. I've never imagined that I succeed in capturing or conveying this other ineffable calling of art. Sometimes an artist like Van Gogh managed to do both. Of course now his work is so mainstreamed into commercial consumption that the rebelliousness of it is mostly a historical note. Its sublimity remains for anyone who makes the effort to look.

I'm not trying to change the world. It needs changing. Always. But my art is my voice and I was never one to shout from the rooftops in protest, no matter how angry I felt. Others were always louder and angrier. I only wanted to find a way to show others the things that moved me but seemed inexpressible in words.

I only ever wanted to express myself, like Horton's Who yopping to the world so it would know I was here, to express something of myself, to say "This is how the world makes me feel: awed, sad, delighted, lonely, giddy, solemn, bewitched." My only goal is having someone else connects to a single piece of my art with some fraction of this same complex experience.

Light - oil on paper - 12" x 16"

Studio Visit vol. 32

I am happy to have some pieces from my "God In The Hearth" project included in the latest volume of Studio Visit. You can actually download a digital version of the whole book and past issues online here. The latest volume (#32) is at the bottom of the page.

Professional Perspectives on Climate Change

So this was a thing that happened. Forgot to post here about it but I participated in a panel discussion about different professional perspectives on climate change. I was deeply honored to share the stage with the following people:

Sharon Delcambre

PCC Instructor and Climate Scientist
Panelist Sharon Delcambre earned her PhD at the Center for Climate Research and the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She teaches Global Climate Change at Portland Community College. Visit Sharon's website.

Michael Paul Nelson

Environmental Ethicist
Panelist Michael Paul Nelson is an environmental scholar, writer, teacher, speaker, consultant, and professor of environmental ethics and philosophy at Oregon State University. Visit Michael's website.

Cassandra Profita

Reporter
Moderator Cassandra Profita is a reporter for EarthFix, an environmental journalism collaboration led by OPB in partnership with six other public media stations in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. Visit Cassandra's website.

The conversation was in front of a small audience but that allowed it to be quite candid. Unfortunately it was not recorded, and I don't have any pictures. But Michael did give me a copy of this amazing book that he co-edited, with short essays on climate change as a moral issue by people like Barack Obama, The Dalai Lama, John Paul II, Ursula LeGuin, Gary Snyder, E. O. Wilson, and on and on.

Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a planet in Peril

A God In The Hearth

Fire Study #20 oil on paper  12" x 16"

I first began to think deeply about the relationship between human beings and fire in October of 2013 while at the Playa Artist Residency Program in eastern Oregon. The residency lies at the foot of a steep escarpment called Winter Ridge on the shores of the shallow alkaline Summer Lake. It is a wide open high desert landscape, populated more by cattle than people and not many of either. All along the steep slopes of the ridge stood dead juniper and ponderosa pine, the blackened remnants of the Toolbox Complex Fire in 2002, one of the worst in the nation that year. Many nights at the residency I sat in the common room enjoying the warmth and light of a large stone fireplace while snow whirled and blew outside. The contrast between the wildfire that had swept this landscape (and which had come very close to destroying the property on which I stayed) and it’s comforting cousin in the hearth before me, became a focus of contemplation. 

The paintings in this exhibit are the beginning of an ongoing visual essay exploring our deep connection to fire and the impacts of fossil fuels. Without fire we would not even exist. Cooking food allowed our guts to shrink enabling us to walk upright, and our caloric hungry brains to grow ever larger. Using fire we became like it, sweeping across landscapes and transforming them utterly. In it’s varied forms we simultaneously love fire and fear it. But all too often, at our peril, we take it for granted. To make matters worse the fires that fuel modern life are largely hidden. For millenia the hearth fire was the center of social life, a source not only of nourishment but of light in the dark and warmth in the cold. But now most of our fire is locked away in engines and power plants, sealed up like a genie in a bottle and made to do our bidding. 

"Burn (Cascade Creek fire, Mt. Adams WA 2012)"  48" x 114"

These paintings compare traditional fires and fireplaces to the hidden fires in engines and power plants. Comparisons are also drawn between coal and wood, a reminder that fossil fuels are essentially fossil landscapes from a time eons before human beings existed. One ironic result of their use may well be an increase in wildfires on today’ s landscapes, especially in the American West. The work as a whole is meant to remind us of the primacy of fire in our lives, and to make us consider both the necessity and the difficulty of weaning ourselves from this dependency. For as our hidden hearths blaze merrily away the climate of the planet is changing as a direct result. 

Just because we don’t see the flames doesn’t mean the world isn’t burning.

October 2015

"Four studies of the Coal Fired Power Plant at Boardman OR"
oil on paper  12" x 16" each

"A God in the Hearth" now scheduled... twice

My show "A God in the Hearth" has now been officially scheduled. Twice.
The first showing will be at Portland Community College in the Cascade Campus gallery this November and will run through early January. Then the work will be shown at Betty Feves Gallery at Blue Mountain Community College in Pendleton, Oregon from February into March of 2016. The first show will be a slightly smaller version than the second due to space limitations, but not too much smaller. I'm excited to experiment with the presentation as well, possibly including some installation work and a few choice quotes on the walls from my written essay on the topic like the one above. New work will be posted here soon.

People's Choice

My painting Burn in background at the West Coast Biennial in Redding CA.

This weekend I drove down to Redding California to pick up my painting "Burn" from the West Coast Biennial at the Turtle Bay Exploration Park Museum. When I got there I was told, "By the way, congratulations. You won the 'People's Choice' award".

I was and am incredibly touched. There is often a huge chasm between the aesthetics of the fine art world and the general public. What curators, museum directors and art critics pick out as noteworthy is often completely alien and incomprehensible to the individual who is likely to say, "I don't know much about art but I know what I like." Personally I never saw any reason why one couldn't or shouldn't try to engage both audiences. The fact that Bonnie Laing-Malcomson, the curator of northwest art at the Portland Art Museum selected my piece to be included in this show was enormously gratifying to me. Winning the "People's Choice" award is equally so, and gives me hope that my work can occasionally bridge that seeming chasm.

"Burn (Cascade Creek Fire, Mt. Adams WA 2012)" 48" x 114" oil on canvas

A show and a sneak preview of prints!

Attic Gallery in Portland asked me if I'd be willing to have a show of my older work that is still available. So of course I said, "Why not?" I also have a few small new pieces I'll be bringing down to include in the exhibition this April.

But it got me to thinking. There are a lot of older sold pieces that people still ask about. Recently a friend asked if she could have a small print of one these. She did a little research and found an awesome place here in Portland that specializes in fine art reproductions. I had two prints made for her and they came out great. So in addition to the older original works in the show I'll be selling affordable prints of some of my favorite images from years past. I haven't yet decided on how many or which ones but they will definitely include these three:

"The Playhouse"

"Backhoe"

"The Fox"

More Good News

I just found out that both the paintings I submitted for the "Expressions West 2015" show at the Coos Art Museum have been selected. They'll be on display from April 24 to June 27.
I'd like to thank the juror Brian Hoover. He is an amazing artist by the way and it is always an honor to be judged favorably by my peers.

The pieces that will be included are:

"Barricade" oil on canvas  50" x 34"

and 

"Roof"  oil on canvas  36" x 49"

A Busy New Year

2015 has started off fairly busily.
My painting "Truffula Seed" comes down this week from Art Convergence 2014
at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center in Washington.

Coming up I'll have two pieces ("Under The Bridge" and "Hovel") on display at
The Idea Museum, in Mesa AZ.
from February 13 to May 24, 2015
for their special exhibit "Build It".
They contacted me out of the blue as they say, which was very flattering.

Also my big piece, "Burn" will be on display at
The West Coast Biennial of the Turtle Bay Exploration Park in Redding CA
from January 30 to May 3, 2015

"Burn (cascade creek fire, Mt. Adams WA 2012)  48" x 114"  2013

In February I'll be heading out to Boardman Oregon for a tour of the coal fired power plant there, the last of its kind in the state. I'll collect reference material for another large painting on the scale of "Burn" as part of my ongoing visual essay on the deep connections between human beings and fire and its impact on the environment.

Studio Visit vol. 25

This arrived in the mail this weekend.

My statement/blurb on the left page is as follows:
"In my work I re-imagine the world around me, changing the light, altering objects, placing them where they don't belong, using the unexpected to trigger a narrative instinct. It is through story and metaphor, the oldest tools of art, that we both create and comprehend the new."

Abandoned homes

Out in the rural west we're used to seeing old tractors and other farm equipment rusting aways in fields where they first ceased to function. Almost everywhere outside of cities and suburbs people are familiar with the sight of old tireless cars resting atop cinder blocks until they slowly rust away. In rural areas the fate of large objects too heavy to remove or too difficult to repair are left as testaments to a recent past that gradually fades into the distance. But until I visited Virginia last week, where I had grown up, I never realized how often this happened to the houses there. When there's enough room there is apparently little point in tearing down an old unwanted structure when the residents pass away. Too much effort. Too much cost. A new house can be built, if anyone even wants the land, on some other part of the property. And so first the weeds grow up over it and then gradually those die off as the trees take over. Driving down the country roads with the brambled cover of mixed oak and pine on either side it's easy to simply focus on the road ahead. But in winter when the branches are bare, if you take the effort to glance aside now and then, you might notice these relics lurking a little ways off, slowly folding their memories away into the growing forest.

I've an idea that these would make some fine subjects for a few paintings.

photos taken in Lancaster County, Virginia

Rock Circles at Playa

 In addition to painting while at Playa, I stuffed small stones into my pockets while walking back and forth from my cabin to the main building along the seemingly gray gravel paths. During my first visit I had made a long row showing the intense variation in rock color. This time I converted that idea into a kind of color wheel. I did a small version in my studio (see this post), then turned it into a larger one on a concrete platform atop small hillock near some of the cabins. I also made a black and white circle in a gravelled area up on a nearby hill across the road from the residency. The black and white circle kind of reminded me of the cold ashes of a fire-pit which ties in nicely with the paintings. Doing these was a pleasant, almost meditative way to leave something behind.

Small studies from the Field Museum

While in Chicago the family went to the field Museum of Natural History. And while they had some pretty interesting state of the art special exhibitions going on, nothing beats the taxidermy specimens and dioramas from the days of old in my book. Here's three small oil studies on paper based on some.

oil on gessoed paper 11" x 17"

oil on gessoed paper 11" x 15"

oil on gessoed paper 17" x 11"

Identified Flying Object

 "Reflection of a Ceiling Lamp in a Cabin Window"

oil on gessoed 12" x 18" watercolor paper

It's been slow going getting back to work after my show in June. I knocked out this small oil on paper for my own amusement and, to be honest, just as an excuse to get back in the studio and do something... anything...

Although it may not be the most sophisticated conceptual framework it could be fun to do a whole series of Identified Flying Objects. I did a few more small oils on paper for the show just before the opening which I did not have time to scan. They did not sell (bad for me) so I'll get them back at some point and post them here soon (good for blog).

Bigfoot Journey

"Bigfoot Journey"  triptych  oil on canvas paper  12" x 16" each

I did these more to entertain myself than as a serious attempt to make art. They're not very well crafted (I never have been much of a painter's painter). But they do amuse me so in that I guess they're a success. I'm not sure I want to include them in my June show. I'd be very curious to know what other people thought. Anyone?

(You can click on the image to view it larger)

Chair Paintings at home

The owner of my painting "Loser" from way back in 2006 or something, commissioned these two small chair paintings to accompany it. It was a great idea. Here's what she wrote when she emailed me the photo, which I thought was a good insightful description of the whole deal:

Hi David, here is a photo of the paintings together. They work well. There is a whole other layer to the narrative of the main painting now, which I really like (as I think I noted to you earlier, I was looking for almost a forensic deconstruction--something has clearly happened in the main painting & the out takes are an attempt to piece together the events. The chairs themselves are pieces of evidence, yet what they tell us is ambiguous). I'm very pleased with the result and hope it was a fun exercise for you. Strange isn't it, how things evolve--but good, layers are good.

Best regards,
Kerri

finished chairs

A simple commission of two chairs for the owner of my old painting "Loser". To be shipped off this weekend hopefully. Thanks Kerri.

a new theater piece

I don't have a name for it yet but just got it stretched today, and feeling good about it for right now.
34" x 50"

2 Chairs

After waaaayyy too much time I'm finally getting around to a very simple commission. Two small chair studies to accompany an old painting ("Loser") from 2006 I think. Here's the painting and the 2 new studies in progress:

Two pieces sold!

Christmas isn't just for retailers. It helps us artists sometimes too. These two paintings were just purchased from Attic Gallery by a woman for her husband. Sort of a strange combo but what the heck. Thank you anonymous buyer!

"L.A. Story (Brady House)"

"Into the Woods"