Blue Canvas event

I've got to say that the Blue Canvas event down in LA was pretty crazy. It was quite a crowd. I guess I'll never know how many bigshots scanned my work oh so briefly with their critical eye before moving imperiously on to other things. The whole thing was downtown for the Thursday artwalk. There was a gallery with some really amazing work on the first floor, plus DJs and art cars in the hallway. Then upstairs some live painting under spotlights and bars waiting for the after hours party which apparently went until the wee hours of the morning. I lasted about one hour. But still. Quite the event. And I must say the magazine really looks great and features some very fine work. I'm not sure what I expected exactly but it really is an impressive publication.
You can check it out here: http://www.bluecanvas.com/magazine/current-issue
The blue canvas website will probably be posting some photos and/or video of the event. I'll link to those when they do.

New painting and a trip to LA

"Backhoe" or possibly "A Bear and a Backhoe"
oil on canvas  36"h x 48"w

So I'm heading out tomorrow a.m. to Los Angeles where this and another painting will accompany me while I proceed to hawk my wares to galleries. Always a good time, that.

They will also hang at a one time launch event for issue 9 of Blue Canvas magazine which also runs an artists networking site. The event is from 7pm to 1am. I wonder if I'll last that long. 

Arts West

I was informed that I'll be participating in a show at Arts West, a theater and gallery up in Seattle, this fall. It'll be a group show with about 5 pieces, maybe. They plan the art shows by choosing artists whose visual work somehow or another relates to, or has something in common with, the plays that will be running concurrently. I like that idea, but I'm especially pleased with the plays that will be running while my work is there. One is a play about marital revenge in which the wife ties up her cheating husband in the woods and covers him with honey to await the bears. The second is "Evil Dead The Musical". My favorite press quote about my work came from the Portland Mercury and described it as somewhere between Vincent Van Gogh and a horror movie backdrop. So something consistent must be going on here.

Note: This is not the actual ad currently being used for the musical, but I rather liked it.

Press!

I've never been much good at drumming up press. But here's a link to a nice little article on my painting that won first place last month in a show at the Coos Art Museum.
(see my earlier post here.)

Linden Tree

5 new paintings

The show at Attic Gallery is already up and the reception went well I suppose. With a little help from John Power.
Anyway I finally got the last 5 slides of the newest paintings scanned so here they are:
Click on the images to view them larger!

"Three Acts" 36" x 52"  2011

"City Map"  41" x 49"  2011

This one I'm not so sure about the title. If something better occurs to me I'll change it. For some odd reason the piece makes me think about Thomas Kinkade ("painter of light").

"Focal point"  50" x 33"  2011

"Sister"  50" x 32"  2011

"Transect"  50" x 33"  2011

A Winner!

I had a painting in a show called "Expressions West" down at the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay, Oregon. Yes, there's an art museum in Coos Bay. It's actually pretty nice. Anyway I just found out last night that I won first place. And that comes with a check. Sweeeet.
You can see the winners here.

"Linden Tree"  oil on canvas  34" x 52"

Finishing up "3 acts"

I don't know that it's 100% percent finished but it's close enough. Once it's stretched I'll get it and several other pieces properly photographed, without all this damned glare.
(the problem with documenting a work in progress is you have no idea ahead of time how well it;s going to turn out. I feel like I something got lost somewhere with this one. But there's still time to make some small changes and often that's all it takes.)

This image shows approximately the final cropping after stretching.