At the show at Flagstaff today, a couple came in and didn’t take long in selecting ‘The Forgotten Garden’ to add to their art collection. I asked them to send me a photo of it in their home, and indeed they did before I got back to the Airbnb!
It’s always my pleasure to forward this newsletter. This time the subject is the recent C.A.S. vacation on Lundy Island off the coast of Cornwall, England. Sounds like they had an awesome time there!
For the second year I entered a painting into the Riverside Art Museum.
Arriving at the reception. Quite well attended.
I got there a little after the reception started and soon got talking to a lady named Anita Sylvestri. She is a docent at the museum and has a painting in the show.
Quite a variety of mediums!
Anita had a mixed media collage in the show.
Anita Sylvestri with ‘The Impossible Dream’
We both explained our work to each other.
She returned the favor and took a pic of me with my painting.
When the awards were given, Anita won best of show!
Riverside Art Museum is holding a fundraiser called Art Bark in the Park to which I applied and was assigned a pup. I decided to paint the pup in oil – a skyscape with lawns on the bottom of each paw with dogs on, and my sonnet about dogs painted into the clouds. So far I’ve done the sky and the lawns. I will need to wait a week or so until that is dry enough to add the dogs and poems. I didn’t know until I picked up the dog that I was getting a beagle.
The blank canvas. I’d had to fix the undercoat in a few places. The difference in undercoat color won’t affect the painting.
My fellow artist Mary Foote came over to see this as a demo so took some photos of me in action
I was showing Mary how to blend clouds in oil
Photographed this one at an angle to get the entire dog in.
And it’s possible to paint on the back, so I have another canvas to dream up!
For various reasons I do a lot of trips to the east end of the Coachella Valley. Shows in Indian Wells, Indio, La Quinta and the studio I work with in La Quinta. I take Highway 86 north until just past county line and then turn off and go through the fields. The route is a pleasant drive in the country through fields of various crops and citrus and palm groves.
The drive home is equally pleasant, but one highlight for me is the concept that from that area, directions to my house include the instruction ‘Turn right at the tinsel bicycle’.
It has gathered more tinsel over the years. I don’t know why it’s there. Art or memorial? No clue.
Yesterday evening I drop up to Joshua Tree for the reception for the Joshua Tree Art Gallery Expo. The show had some awards to give from Jack Farley Art Supplies, and a people’s choice award. (I didn’t receive any, though.) The reception was very well attended, though I think most were the artists themselves (for the award ceremony).
My second favorite was the yellow one in the middle.
White dresses must be in.
My favorite is on the left. And that was before I knew that the piece was titled the Salton Sea!
My paintings are at the back opposite the door, but there are people all around them.
….eventually she will wander off…..
…hmm di hmm, maybe take a photo here….
…eventually the girl on the phone was joined by a friend and I asked them to step aside for a minute!
It has been a little while since I blogged – sorry – busy then away for a while. Actually ‘off the net’ which pretty much equates to vanished!
Tuesday June 4th I set off for Escondido Municipal Gallery where I hung a solo show in a single room that, when I first stepped into it seemed small, but yes, the dimensions did work out as the plan said and all the paintings I bought fit in nicely as planned. Actually I had some extra space on the outside I hadn’t know about, but that was easily handled because I brought more smaller paintings than I thought I’d have room for, so it ended up perfect! Just took me two hours instead of one. Then it was pedal to the metal to catch the plane (which was eventually cancelled and I ended up leaving the next day, but that’s another story entirely).
Box city arrives
…and a little table for promo materials and a bin.
Now it’s starting to take shape. At this point one of the local artists came by and liked my work and wanted to buy a book.
…line em up!
You can see that I like to work barefoot where possible.
Now that looks like a show
One on each side of the door
Looking good! Books and cards went into the gift shop at the front.
The back wall is concrete and the gallerists gave me special nails that go in the wall, my regular nails were turning into L-shapes!
I spent so much time getting the quadtych level! It’s so much easier in a booth.
Almost ready. One more sign to go up, and that box of nails to go back into storage
