Throwback Thursday

This week's throwback, below the surface, is one of twenty three heartland paintings installed this week at Benedict's for the Dyer Arts Visionaries. Show opens this Friday 7-9 pm.

below the surface, 2014, acrylic, 11" x 14"

Big news coming up soon...

in the studio

In the studio this week: two small works in progress. Heading in a more minimalist direction - at least trying to. I'm fighting against myself a bit on it. I keep seeing what I want, and it's more subtle than what I've created in long time. The upper piece needs a bit more work at the transition and the lower one is pretty close to done. I need to look at it for a bit.

Out of the studio, I went to Nido Bianco on Saturday for Art Attack and saw some friends. Andrea Peterson was there giving demos of paste papers and suminagashi papers. This was great because I had no interest in the sumi and now I want to do it!
I also delivered a bunch of large scale works which will be at Tapistry Brewing for the next two months. And I confirmed a heartland series solo show for Dyer Arts Visionaries at the end of May.

Up next: Friday night is the opening at the Towle for Landscape's Language (finally!) I'm so excited for this opening! Twenty-one pulp paintings created during last fall's residency at Hook Pottery Paper. The reception is before The Next Thing You Know opening night. After the play, I'll be at Merge for their LOOK15 opening, where I have 4 heartland paintings. Friday is May 1st and Autism Awareness Month will be over, but I'm continuing my donation pledge through these openings - and I've upped the donation to 25% of sales for these locations. Also next week, I'm serving as a grant panelist for the IAC, which is a very interesting experience - to be on the other side of the grant process.

in the studio

I started this week finishing up before. After loading in 5 paintings at Angel Hair the previous week, I realized I needed one more piece there. So before is now complete and installed and ready for their opening tomorrow!

before, acrylic and ink on canvas, 40" x 60"

The rest of the week was spent working on monotypes for #printoctober. I switched at the beginning of the week from gouache to acrylic and have just about gotten to the right level of how much paint is enough, without being too much. It's a sort of fine line. The last image is a ghost print, which is printing what's left on the plate after a print is pulled. You can see there's residual paint to print, but the image isn't really there to be a worthwhile piece. It can be reworked with drawing or painting, and that is probably what I will do.

Other printmaking ideas to tackle: collagraphs, watercolor pencil monotypes, paper litho, inocut, styrofoam plate relief prints. And, a small etching press is on its way to my house so apparently more printmaking will be in the future after this month's #printoctober is done. If you are interested in seeing other printmaking, I recommend you check out the #printoctober hashtag on twitter.

in the studio

This week I spent most days still working on out of reach...

but, I also got to try encaustics! That's painting with melted wax, for those of you not familiar with the lingo. You can see work in progress pics in the encaustics post here. It was pretty amazing and I'm glad I got to finally try it! I would like to try translating the #art365 landscapes into encaustic. This will take a lot of practice, as there is quite a learning curve.

And a pair of #art365 landscapes. The first field, crown point, sold less than an hour after it was posted! If only everything sold that fast! The second is the same field, crown point. These are small canvases, which were purchased pre-#art365 and I felt were too small to do anything. Now I kind of like them, and I like working on this field, so I expect to do a few more.

This week I firmed up three upcoming shows: one of my large scale paintings will be in TEXT: Louder Than Words at Studio 659, two #art365 landscapes will be in SLAC's Hot! at The Sip, and somewhere in the neighborhood of sixty(!) #art365 landscapes will be part of a two person show at Paul Henry's Art Gallery, where I will be showing with the charming Brabant Lenting.

America at The Edge

Sounds ominous, doesn't it? But, it's true! America is at The Edge. How many crazy political extremists are totally disappointed that I mean my America paintings are at the Edge Coffee House? If I haven't lost you, stick around to hear to the controversy at the end.

I first heard about The Edge from my friend and fellow-artist/photographer Lora Mercado. It's a cool coffee shop in Crete, IL. She had a show of her photographs there last year. She'd been referred by someone else we both know. When she was installing her show, she showed the gallerist my facebook page on her phone, and just like that, a potential show.

This is why you need to know other artists. You need to support them and they will support you. And that's how things happen.

Yesterday and today I delivered and installed. I have twelve paintings form the America series up all month. A portion of all sales (20%!) is going to the Crete Food Pantry, so purchases are not just helping a starving artist, they're helping local people who are in need. Compliments were coming in as I was hanging, so I was very pleased.

Today, when I went in to wrap up the final details, one of the employees said a customer wanted to speak to me about the artwork. He said he saw human figures in the artwork and asked if he was correct. I confirmed this for him. It's in my artist statement, hanging next to my work. I don't know if he read it before or after he looked at it, or even if he bothered. He was very nice and enthusiastic about my work being there. Later, the employee came back and said he had complained that my work was "too explicit" for the coffee shop. That's right: My landscapes were too explicit. 

So, what do you think? Are they too explicit? This is my first art controversy. It's kind of exciting!