Reality Boost …

I’m still reeling from a power packed weekend of art and artists and curators and interviews and new and old friends and a studio filled with all that and then some.

The Brandywine River Museum show was spectacular. The opening was mobbed but there were enough spaces in the crowd to get to meet all of my Realist heroes. The museum has put the paintings up on their website in an online catalogue version. It’s a nice way to have access to the images but I long for the old days when you could buy a nicely bound book to bring home and peruse at your leisure and revisit the images over the years.

With gracious appreciation to Bob Jackson, Pat and I were invited to join the artists and museum staff at a dinner following the reception and a luncheon the next day following a panel discussion. Both opportunities were pure gold and I will live on the fruits of those many conversations for months.

It was also a chance to meet many of the artists with whom I’ll be showing next month at the 1261 Gallery in Denver.

I’ve been painting round the clock to have some new works to show them and this morning the gallery director said yes to them all so …. off to the photographers and the framers went Pat today and I’ll be shipping them out early next week.

Here’s a preview of one of the paintings that will be in that show… Oils on Canvas

They too will have an online version of the show and I’ll post that link when it’s up.

The show is titled, Reality Boost and will be featured in the October issue of American Art Collector Magazine so check your bookstores or mailboxes for that…

and….

stay tuned for an artist’s profile on yours truly that will appear in the AAC Mag sometime in the near future… Contributing author, curator and all around man of the arts…John O’Hern… was in town for the Brandywine show and spent the rest of the weekend visiting here in the studio and interviewed me for his upcoming article. It was a once in a lifetime experience to share our space with him and the gift of so much of his time, depth of knowledge, and rapier like wit and charm.

John’s genius is well documented in the years of Re-presenting Realism series of shows which he curated while leading the Arnot Art Museum in Elmira, NY. But it is perhaps his current creative incarnation as a freelance curator, writer and consultant that may leave a more indelible mark on the artworld.

His most recent work was to collaborate with EVOKE Contemporary Gallery in Santa Fe and curate the show…Re-presenting the Nude. You can view their online catalogue version by clicking here. It’s a powerful collection of work and I’ve been spinning off of the catalogue to research artist after artist whose work he has now introduced me to.

Spinning is indeed the operative word for my head right now…

Add to all of the above a stellar week of sales at the Granary Gallery and we are holding on tight to this wave of positive energy flowing around us… it’s certainly nice to have good things to report on and we’re not taking one second of it for granted.

Now it’s back to the easel for me…  and you all get out and take a walk in this crisp clean air !

Having a heat wave ?

Take full advantage of nature’s drying oven and….make panels !

The studio yard doubles as workshop in order to get a jumpstart on a batch of smaller panels.   Day one – Dibond cut to size.    Day two –  Portrait grade cotton canvas wrapped and adhered with acrylic matte gel.    Day three (morning) – Call Pat on her way home from market and ask her to detour to pick up some Liquitex acrylic gesso… use plastic putty knife to paint backside of panels.    Day Three (afternoon) – use same putty knife to paint front side of panels.    Day Four (today) – second coat on front with Liquitex.

Let the sun do its thing today and they will be ready tomorrow for the first coat of ArtBoard Gesso. I’ve written about it before when first trying it out and after months of working with it…it’s become my gesso of choice. The beautiful chalky surface is easily and quickly worked into a smooth paste using a fine sanding sponge and a little bit of water. I can control the texture and even when it’s glassy smooth there is still plenty of tooth to hold the first coat of oils. It is pricey enough that it would be wasted on the primer coats, but well worth the expense for the finished product.

I’ve got two more shows this year and want to have new works in both so there is no down time in the studio for this artist.  I’ll be posting the expanded exhibition schedule soon…but in the meantime mark your calendar for these two dates…

1261 Gallery     Denver, CO.

Group Show     Opening October 15th

and

4 Women Paint   York, PA

Opening  November 13th, 14th

Artist Talks the following weekend.

Back to the easel for me… stay frosty out there !