i'm a big metal fan

I was painting in my studio on this hot day while this fan blew cool air in my direction. I posted this photo online earlier because I wanted to share how pleased I was that such an old appliance still works perfectly. The reliable "Eskimo". The only thing it doesn't do anymore is oscillate, but I like it pointed right at me anyway, and in a 100 sq-ft space, that works. The title of this post is from a jokey illustration my nephew sent me a link to, though I confess that I'd have come up with a similarly goofy pun. The other link someone sent me was to a Vija Celmins painting of a fan, which I liked.
This piece is only 6"x6" acrylic on wood, and it's from '09, and I've since sold it, but I was thinking of making a bigger version. Since I am such a fan of this fan.

double or nothing

Yesterday I just shipped off a group of paintings to a gallery in Las Vegas NV, TastySpace. I'm having a solo show there in July! I will post the poster soon, which my friend is designing. I won't be able to attend the opening, so it is up to my paintings to speak for me. This is fine. I would love to go, but now isn't quite the time. I had never mailed more than a couple paintings at once, so I had some anxiety (and a few deep breaths at the post office), but I am excited to have the opportunity to exhibit somewhere new, and particularly across the country! I did exhibit my work in Truth or Consequences, but as part of the Art Hop one Saturday. How I'd like to make it out there again, too. I have likely mentioned this once or twice.
This is the selection for the show, along with some mini car/map-collages, titled "Road Trip":

 Most of these works are from the past year, a few are older (Radio Train in upper left & Mixer in lower right are from '07, and Little Red Lighthouse is from '02!). But I think they will hang well, and that together they offer a sense of collecting images of places and objects as one moves along.
I didn't give the paintings any money, because I don't trust them out there in casino-land; who knows what trouble they'd get up to. Plus what if they met other paintings and got married? No, they'll have to earn their cash on the walls. At least that's what I'm betting on.

shoe-shine

Last week I drove by the Drive-By Gallery, which is part of Lift Trucks Project in Croton Falls, NY. Actually, I had made an appointment to see the space, so it wasn't a true drive-by. I had seen the show online (click the link to read more) and wanted to see it in person, as well as meet the artist who runs the gallery and has a painting studio upstairs. I liked the idea of a storefront exhibition, and I liked this collection of old, mostly Depression-era shoeshine boxes on display. I also had a great meeting with the artist, Tom Christopher, and showed him some samples of my work. 

 I'm just adding the below photo to indicate that I recently made these postcards. For sale at several places in Beacon including Tas Kafe & Clay, Wood & Cotton, and directly from me, for only $1 each. Not everyone wants to wear a dummy light on their shirt, but this town has lots of visitors and not many postcards celebrating esoteric but beloved local objects.

chalk and roll

I've participated in the Perry Chalk Art Festival a couple of times before, but this year I'm the 'featured artist', meaning in addition to a fun day of chalking, music, food and farmer's market festivities, I'll have a show at the Upstairs Gallery at the Arts Council on Main St. The opening is Fri July 13, and the Chalk Fest is Sat July 14. Here's a photo of me & my square (& my shadow) in 2010. Theme was 'In the Garden', so I purchased a fresh bouquet of flowers from one of the vendors and set to work:

This photo is from the same weekend, it's my nephew Sol with his birthday balloons, so cute I had to post it. Bonus that he's wearing my dummy light t-shirt. Perry, NY is where my brother Rick and his family live, so I do have additional interest in the town beyond chalk.

I've been assembling a group of paintings from the past couple years to exhibit, including one or two that were based on local places, because I often take pictures when I am in town. In fact, my first rusty truck painting was from a dilapidated vehicle I found by the Silver Lake Trail. I wasn't sure why I was drawn to it, but it certainly started something. 

This one, I photographed a couple years ago but never painted, it was just enough the way it was, abandoned to rust in the middle of a field overgrown by midsummer wildflowers. 

banner up

The banners went up on Beekman St over a week ago, but I was out of town for a few days, so I was very excited to see mine waving from a lamppost in all its 13-ft glory. Speaking of posts, I may add to this one later. The original painting (below) is 12"x16", so imagine my thrill at seeing it so big, and it fit the odd shape just the way I had envisioned. The banner presents a cropped vertical slice of Mack truck, just as it might appear if it were hurtling down the highway toward you, larger than life.

From beaconcool.com, the website accompanying the banner project, on my work:
"somewhere in beacon, and on occasion points elsewhere, the waltons never left television. old things, not forgotten, just out of view, sit and fade into our history and nostalgic memory. but there’s the rub, or in this case the turtle wax: one glimpse at our ancestral technologies lets us travel, ever so briefly, through time. A cloud of yesteryear heading out to points unknown, from the Citgo, this afternoon."

come one come all

These two paintings, 6"x6" oil on wood, will be in the greatest show on earth. That's right, folks, here in Beacon, NY, at the Mad Dooley Gallery, 197 Main St. Opening this weekend, Sat June 16, 6-9 pm. This is a gorgeous circus-themed group show that my friend has curated, and I'm glad to be part of it. The 64 one is a small and slightly different version of the larger painting I posted recently. 

words to the why's

In this, the 3rd installment covering bootcamp weekend, our increasingly disciplined young artist learns about copyright laws & intellectual property law & contracts; receives advice on fundraising & an overview of NYFA's considerable resources, many of which she's been underutilizing; shares some of her goals; and reviews the 'artist action plan' in preparation for working on it in the next several weeks. Action? Plan? Me? Exactly. Then when we meet up again in July, we'll talk about the things we said we'd do and see if we did 'em yet, or at least started to. I like the idea of accountability. After investing the time, you want to see it through. Of course I have always been accountable to myself, but it's so easy sometimes to let that slide if it feels like nothing matters. Doing this program is like shouting bravely from the rooftops, "Hey! This matters!"
I took a long walk at sunset to burn off some pent-up physical energy, while all the information bubbled around in my head and that to-do list grew. Back behind the wheel in the morning. Haven't posted any pictures in a while; it was all about words this week. I'll get back to the pictures next time.