Geometry 101 Show

Terry Hastings juried and curated a wonderful show at the art gallery in University of California Riverside’s Palm Desert campus.

Entry point!

It’s always nice when you walk in and know a lot of the artists already. This is my good friend Michael Angelo (Hernandez). Yes, I hang with Michael Angelo….

Captures of the structures in downtown LA

More color.

I wonder if they hung those from the top….

There’s always more walls….

No photoshopping involved here except to adjust the lighting and crop. These ladies heads really did align completely with the top of the row of paintings. I didn’t realize it until I was cropping the photo!

Love the middle piece.

More big paintings.

Even the cheese was more geometric than at some openings.

Fabric inspiration.

Oh, do we see something familiar to the left there? The th ing that is unfamiliar are the 6 paintings to the right. They are by Diane Morgan (dianemorganpaints.com). Definitely something for this show and not*** her usual style. When she arrived I said she needed to readjust her medication!

I like this one too.

Lot of detail work….

From the right, Diane Morgan, Terry Hastings, Jeni Bate.

We had a little sculpture too. Actually not so little.

These are littler sculptures.

That’s about it! I didn’t realize how much art there really was until I processed the images. It was a HUGE show. Kudos Terry!

Collage Artists of America Membership Show

The Collage Artists of America membership show, “Just your Imagination” was held at the San Fernando Valley Arts and Cultural Center.  The show runs Sept 4-29th and the reception was on Sept 7th.  As part of my contribution to the show, I sat in the gallery on the afternoon before the reception.  It was quite during much of the afternoon though there were several families turned up with kids to have an art lesson.

I had forgotten my kindle so I had plenty of time to enjoy the exhibit in detail.

My entry was right next to the front door!

Assemblage is allowed, so we have sculpture too.

My show favorite is on the left there. I also serendipitously met with a friend who came to see the show, and this was her favorite too. It did not win an award.

A lot of figurative and portrait work.

I did like the tree piece and the one on the right, which also contained a tree.

The large green creation near to us took second place. My pic of the winner did not come out well, sorry.

I talked to this lady at length as we were the only ones in the gallery early on.

Getting ready for the reception.

Loved the piece on the right, though I felt it was more painting than collage.

Great crowd at the reception!  I still didn’t win an award….

Rancho Cucamonga show

This was a 3-day show organized by the Associated Artists of the Inland Empire, at the Rancho Cucamonga Cultural Center, running Sept 6-8th.  I had three paintings in the show, as you will see when you look through the photos – two oils and an acrylic – but didn’t win any prizes. 😦  These photos are from the reception on Sept 6th.

One of my favorites on the left.

The green poured painting was one that appealed to me.

Something familiar towards the left there.

My friend Jan Wright painted the abstract green watercolor on the left

Quite a few ocean paintings

Some nice landscapes

A familiar moonscape at the bottom there.

And my sun rising at top right.

The round plate was my favorite from the show, though I voted for a different piece as popular choice based on the amount of technical skill I knew went into it. (No, not one of mine.)

Newer work #89

“Daybreak on earth”‘s name is inspired by the beauty that I am still seeing in ‘Dawn off my back porch’, and the fact that the Salton Sea is drying up.  Some day in the not too distant future there will be no water reflection.  And it’s not just here right in our lap, it’s everywhere.  Climate change is observable in our lifetime and will eventually render the planet utterly different than we know it.  But it is still worth getting up in the morning and seeing what the world has to offer because as far as anyone knows, there are no dawns and sunsets in heaven.

“Daybreak on Earth”, 9×12″ refractured watercolor on panel. $110. The poem written for and painted into this painting is: Daybreak in heaven never looks like this! Heaven has no day and night

Skies Exhibition.

I’m happy I was accepted into this online exhibition and received an Honorable Mention.  The couple who run this are local and I’m hoping that at some point I will be included in the in-gallery shows.

The 3rd Annual Skies art exhibition is now open. Thanks to all the artists who participated and congratulations to the winners and finalists including Best in Show winners, James Griffin (Traditional), Pavlos Evangelidis (Photography & Digital) and Diana Fernández (3-Dimensional). Click HERE to see the exhibition. Also visit our YouTube Channel on September 8th to see the exhibition videos.

“Sunrise with Creosote” Oil on canvas 30×40″. $1500.

HDMC Show

The High Desert Medical Center in Joshua Tree hosts artist displays in four areas in the hospital.  The shows include three artists and go up for four months.

This is the second time I’ve shown here and this time my fellow artists are Mae Fox, a stained glass artist, and Tammy Romatko, a painter.  The curator, Raini Armstrong, also gets to display a piece on the group wall in the cafe.

The reception didn’t have a lot of attendees (it’s August in the desert, only the hardy are still around) but I was delighted that my friend and fellow artist Nancy Miehle came, along with her husband Bob.

My work on the wall in the main foyer, with Nancy and Bob.

Raini gave us a tour of the four parts of the installation.

Tammy Romatko’s animal inspired work.

In the cafe, there is a group show.

All four artists have work on this wall.

We posed for a quick photo.  Mae had recently fallen ill and had not been able to attend the reception.

Raini, Tammy and Jeni with their artwork.

In the Emergency Room waiting area there are a couple spaces with Mae’s stained glass art.

Mae Fox’ work on the wall

Mae’s work in the display case.

The artwork will be up until Halloween.  If you’re in the area and have a few minutes, please stop by.

Tales from the field #29

Last weekend in Palo Alto, we were setting up booths – we start early because there is only one line of traffic allowed down the streets because of the way we set up, so the people on the non-traffic side get there at 5am to set up.  By the time we’re done there’s usually a little trash that comes out of the process, and there was with mine.

Walked down the street a little to where I knew there was a trash can next to a neighbor’s booth.  This is what I found.

Nice cover. Is it incognito?  I wonder which artist got paid to design that?

I asked the artist next to it if it was something of his he’d rested over the can.  No, the city people had come round and put the covers on.  What?  On a day when they expect a lot more people than usual and have many food stands, they close the trash cans.  It did not make sense.  Fortunately I have a few plastic bags in the box of tricks so I deployed my own trash can behind my desk for myself and my neighbors to use.

Later, when going to the restroom, I found the city had deployed larger trash barrels near the food stands and porta potties, marked recycle and landfill. It’s always interesting to go to different cities and find what is and isn’t regarded as recycle in different places, but I’m not going to do a survey on that. life is not boring enough.