beacon open studios 2013

It's that time again! This coming weekend is Beacon Open Studios, and this year I'll be showing work in my own space on Main St, Catalyst Gallery (137 Main). Five other artists will be there as well. More info is at the BOS website. Friday night is the kickoff party and exhibit of work by participating artists at Hudson Beach Glass, 6-9 pm. It's also the place to pick up a catalog with a list and map of the studios.

I won't have a lot of brand-new paintings up, but there will be a lot of smaller pieces and framed works on paper, all for sale, some newer and some older.

Sunday the 21st is also my birthday and so I'm putting in my request now for a really good day. Of course I'd like the whole weekend to be great for everyone. 

My Gulf Gas Pump painting is featured in the April/May issue of the Las Vegas-based magazine BLVDS. Here is the page-- it's an issue about travel. This came through the LV gallery TastySpace where I had a show last summer. It's fun to see my work in print, just for the exposure- I ought to make it happen more often.

blue jar; daffodil; sage

A few watercolors from the past week. Blue jar: because it has been sitting on my studio windowsill awhile after a friend spotted it at the antique store and said she must give it to me. (9"x12") 

Daffodil: because it's spring and I received an email saying, "Daffodils remind me of you." (9"x12")

Sage: because I just submitted a few sketches to the HV Seed Library in hopes of being chosen to do a Seed Art Pack, and this was one of my assigned varieties. (16"x20") Since I posted the small Eat painting and then learned it got into the Small Works show at the Woodstock Museum (opened yesterday), I suppose I'm hoping for a similar phenomenon to occur. Even if not, these attempts are good for my practice. 

piece sign

I was going to wait to post this painting until I hear if it was accepted to a juried small works show this week. But either it was or it wasn't, and I just finished the piece a couple days ago. The 36"x36" EAT was so fun to paint big, why not make it small? And what was it pointing to, anyway? Eat what, where? I thought I'd give it context. Arrows are extremely important, yet sometimes I find them funny. I feel similarly about cake.  

This one is 8"x10" acrylic. 

Cake detail.

eat

I never know if the photos I post are too huge and take too long to upload, because it always looks okay to me. Anyway, this is my newest painting, oil on canvas, 36"x36"! Underneath the oil paint is a layer of milk paint topped by a matte varnish. This is not visible in the photo, but the process created a simultaneously smooth and nubbly rough texture that I really liked.

green bicycle

This painting (18"x24") is from 2008, which predates the blog, so I don't think I've posted it here. If so, I guess that means I just plain really love it. Still have the painting, a tribute to my beloved green bicycle. I ride most of the year but very rarely in the winter months, and it feels so good to finally be out riding again, around town or across the bridge. Along with acrylics I used clay paint; it was a sample can of zero-VOC house paint that dried to a hard matte finish on the canvas. It also seemed an appropriate medium for such an environmentally-friendly mode of transport.

delost is defined

"Looking, making, thinking, experiencing are our starting point. Art opens worlds, lets us see invisible things, creates new models for thinking, engages in cryptic rituals in public, invents cosmologies, explores consciousness, makes mental maps and taxonomies others can see, and isn’t only something to look at but is something that does things and sometimes makes the mysterious magic of the world palpable. Proust wrote, 'Narrating events is like introducing people to opera via the libretto only.' Instead, he said, one should “endeavor to distinguish between the differing music of each successive day.” That’s what we do when we look at art, wherever we look at it, however much noise surrounds it."

--Jerry Saltz (from his recent, accurate analysis of the current 'art world'- but what a fine definition of art this is, in itself.) Here's the link to the article.

color theory part 1

An email, one line: "What color are stars?" It was almost midnight. I thought for a moment.

stars are the color of ice and the color of air
of the space in my arms when no one is there
they're the color of fire, burning up
or pinholes of light in a dark paper cup
they're the color of water reflecting the moon
and the hot blazing light of a long afternoon
they're the color of sleep when I'm closing my eyes
like ten thousand snowflakes in ten thousand skies