Monday, August 23, 2010

arts galla fundraisers, oh my!

Tis the season when there are galas and auctions for the benefit of arts related non profits coming up in the fall and therefore a few requests for donations of artwork to help support them. Artists have a love hate attitude about these donations. Some of us are concerned about our pieces being sold for less than the gallery prices. Or being tapped too often.

My own attitude is that I make a lot of work....why not let it go out there and support something....and maybe be enjoyed. Obviously I wouldn't feel this way if I only produced three or four pieces a year. And maybe there would have to be a limit of donated pieces if I were famous and a hundred people asked for the work. But, hey, that's hardly the case. Just don't ask me to go to the gala. I'd rather stay home and paint. Or read. Or garden. Or actually anything other than get dressed up and smile.

So, here's to ya, all you hard working arts supporters, cheers, bid high, have fun.

Friday, August 13, 2010

From little stories to little sculptures, sort of...

Ahh.
After a meltdown yesterday, bathing myself in swaths of self pity because I can't figure out how to fix things on my: blog; organise things in my: house; studio; paperwork; life or even the bathroom faucet, I arrive at today full of optimism and elation. This might lead one to assume I am tilted a bit off my base, but this is the way I have always led my life.

So, while the little colored pencil drawings were fun, a bit, and made me feel like I was doing something with my need to make stuff, they were really a bit of puffery. Or that's the way they seem today. I cleaned up the studio, wired up the last paintings and worked on a piece that is going to take some time.

Then I dug into my basket of gouache and started some new semi abstract pieces that do not feel like puffery. To me they feel like plans for sculpture, which of course I will not be doing....but what interests me is the form. Looking for and finding form.........I like that.

So peace to all in the dire August heat.

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

the short story of little drawings

In the wilt of the year's hottest month.... after a few more paintings in the studio, I have taken to the pine table in the cool of the house. Armed with colored pencils and stray sheets of paper, work continues. Or, rather, play continues. There is so much less to invest, in time and even effort, in a sheet of paper. You know, just throw it on there and see if it works.

So I'm doing these geometric landscape type things that are whimsy and doodles...perfect for August. The world spins around, I'm no longer working "out there", and my world shrinks a bit.
My world becomes more interior even than it was in all my somewhat narrative paintings. At least for right now, August. And I find myself using symbols and abstracting shapes and using color in a more haphazard way. Who know what September will bring. Meanwhile these colored pencil things are the perfect short story.


swamp, 55" x 29"

in progress

flying fish, 55" x 29"

eye with a view

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About Me

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I am living and painting in the little town of Houston. A far way from my San Francisco beginnings. I paint what I see of the human condition, be it human, animal or object. The glimmer of humor, pathos, and spirit in so much of what I see is the basis of what I paint.

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