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.