copy center

 I have new prints of these nine paintings now available for sale. All are on 8 1/2" x 11" paper with an approx 1/2" white border; the square ones are different, and the small ptgs are actual size, for example the Mixer is 6"x6". Many others are on my Etsy shop, the rest will get there very soon. They are $25 each, or $20 for a limited time if you visit either Catalyst Gallery (137 Main St Beacon) this weekend or the Brewster reception (Studio Around The Corner, 67 Main St) where I'll be this Friday 7-9pm. 

show around the corner

Reporting on this week's news: I have a show opening on Friday at a gallery off Main Street in Brewster. At The Studio Around the Corner behind the Old Town Hall, just steps away from the long-shuttered Cameo movie theater and a couple blocks from the Metro-North train station, six miles from where I grew up on Old Milltown Road. 

I am showing 12 to 15 paintings and will have prints for sale as well. A local photographer will also be exhibiting his work. The reception is Friday evening, 7-9 pm; more info is below. Window Letters (here) is in it; not a new painting, but still one of my favorites.

VIEWFINDERS

Paintings by Erica Hauser

        

With Photographs by Pal Gyomai

Opening Reception – Meet the Artists

Friday, February 20, 7p – 9p

Additional Studio Hours: 12 – 2p

Saturday, February 21

Saturday, February 28

Sunday, March 1

Studio Around the Corner

67 Main Street, Suite 101

Brewster, NY 10509

(845 363-8330

Cover: ‘Window Letters’

Oil on canvas, Erica Hauser

begin again

City of Newburgh, 1940's, 20"x24" made up of 6 panels, acrylic/canvas

There's really no way for me to un-self-consciously start up my blog again without acknowledging the -ulp- four months that have gone by since I last posted. It wasn't intentional, as in, let me regroup or take time to clarify my intentions or make more work or any such excuse. No, just the same old, one week became two became a month became four. But I regret this lapse. It started (or stopped, I should say), I suspect, as a reluctance to repeat myself here after three years of "Look, I'm in another group show/ I stacked a lot of firewood/ I read books/ I made new prints/ I organized a show of 50 artists at my gallery/ I made calendars/ I'm in another group show/ I made a thing for an event/ I painted more stuff/ I drove and took pictures."
Which, far from a reason to shut up, could have nudged me to broaden my activities, except- surprise- these reports are actually why my blog exists, as a method of communication to others and a record for myself that's smoothed out and cinched in for general perusal. When I went too long between posts, I missed doing it. I didn't stop painting or exhibiting, but it's sobering how easily I could tell myself that blogging 'doesn't matter' because time went by and things were ok without me going on about it. I am remembering now that 'ok' isn't enough and shouldn't be. No one will ever make as big a fuss about me and my work as I, so- very needlessly to say-  it is up to me to create the content.
A couple months ago, someone did contact me to ask if I was ok, since I hadn't posted in so long. Embarrassed, I typed "yes.." and went back to posting a blink-and-you-miss-it update on the mixed bag that is Facebook. Then last week, a discussion at a BeaconArts board meeting about using our website to generate connections in and beyond our community by sharing content from local creative businesses and artists' blogs made my sheepish-artist ensemble complete. I had been ba-a-a-adly negligent for too long. Time to begin again. Or tomorrow, tomorrow is fine too.

local color

Two receptions this weekend for area group shows that I have some work in. One is Art of the Automobile at Mamaroneck Library as I reported the other day, and is actually tomorrow Oct 18, 2-4 pm. The other is Reflections, opening at Front Street Gallery in Patterson on Sunday Oct 19, 10-2 pm, which has my Disco Ball painting.

Meanwhile, the  Self-Portrait show continues at Ann St Gallery in Newburgh through Nov 22. Then next Sat Oct 25 is the opening of Small Matters of Great Importance at the Edward Hopper House in Nyack. It's good to get the kids out in the fresh air.

you painted trucks

Some phone calls flew back and forth about work I would contribute to a Westchester group show of cars a friend was organizing.
'You got car paintings?'
'Yes, I sure do have car paintings.'
'Great. What sizes?'
'A bunch of different sizes, 12 or 20 inch…'
'Great. I'll need a few smaller ones as it turns out.'
'No problem', I assure him, forgetting the pivotal word CAR. I have a few large paintings of cars (the Edsel; the Beetle, a couple Fords) that will be too big. I grab two smallish vehicle paintings- one older, one new- and drop them at the venue- the Mamaroneck Public Library. I send off an email.
'You got my pieces, right? Did you hang the show yet?'
'HAUSER!!! Yes you are up.... NO you did not paint cars.... you painted trucks!!! Fear not, all is well. Love how you paint... always have.'
'Oops. Sorry. Trucks aren't cars?'
The show, Art of The Automobile, is up through Oct 27, with a reception Sat Oct 18th 2-4pm.

for the beacon sukkah project

'A sukkah is a house that gives no shelter, a house that parodies the idea of security. It's a Jewish sand mandala of a building, open to the sky and used for seven days around the time of the fall harvest and then dismantled. It's rickety and tenuous, creating the illusion of permanence and highlighting the impermanence of everything… Beacon Hebrew Alliance will contemplate and celebrate these universal themes of ephemerality and transience in Open to the Sky: The Beacon Sukkah Project, which will be at Polhill Park (by the Beacon Visitors' Center) October 8-16.'
I helped install the artwork in the sukkah today, using wood and twine to hang the pieces like scrolls against the sunlit walls of cloth. Above, the roof frame laid with bamboo made soft rustling sounds in the wind.

As for my contribution.. The leaf painting in the center of my piece is from a larger portrait I made many years ago of a dear friend, for a show with the theme 'Influence'. That part, painted beyond her laughing face, was inspired by looking down into dark water at bright fallen leaves swirling on the surface. It became its own painting which I kept for a long time, but it ceased to mean what it once had. The seasonal transition is an obvious example of impermanence, but in this work it also signifies, to me, how a piece of art can shift in personal meaning over time. Holding onto a work to evoke memory or sentiment isn't always necessary. I liked the idea of integrating it into this patchwork quilt-like piece for the sukkah, passing it on to be seen again in a new way for a new purpose.

no small matter

I'm pleased that three of my paintings were accepted to Small Matters of Great Importance, the Edward Hopper House's annual juried show in Nyack, NY. The show will run October 25, 2014 - January 4, 2015, with a reception on Saturday, October 25, 2-4 pm.
I have entered before (see hopper to hauser) but the only time I was in this show was 2006, so it will be nice to see my work there again, in the house where Hopper grew up. The 2014 theme is 'En Route'. It being a theme of mine as well, I had no trouble finding images to submit. Sometimes the juror agrees with me. I did not get selected for the 'Under 40' show at WAAM (in Woodstock), but as the only common link is having yet to complete one's fourth decade, there is no way to know what kind of show it will be, or whether one's work stands a chance. If under 40 means edgy, I suspect I'm always out of the running. Though I got in a couple years ago. The funny thing was that I was one of the few artists who attended the opening, and nearly everyone else in the room was well over 40. Yes, I need to search for new shows to enter, new galleries, probably new cities. Build a house on top of a truck bed and just start knocking down doors.