Monday, January 18, 2016

Moving Colors

I was telling my pal Sam about having "cleared the decks" of commissions and other work and am ready to spend time preparing for the May-June show at the Bank of the Arts in New Bern (Craven County Arts Council & Gallery).  He replied:  "I can just see you in front of the big south window moving colors around…"

And it hit me:  That's what I'm going to call the show:  Moving Colors.  It fits perfectly!  One does move color around on the palette, the colors have been moving with me across this country, I plan to do paintings with flow of water - more moving color, AND I'm hoping the colorful paintings that I do will be moving (as in the emotional sense) too.  Thanks Sam!

So I rolled up the carpet in my living room and put down some old scrap carpet so I can make a mess and have converted the entire space into a much bigger studio.  I have different "stations" set up - one area for sorting out all of my notes, one for drawing, one for acrylic painting (and the sunroom, when its warm enough, for oil painting)… and two cork boards to post ideas and reference material.  So excited!

I spent today organizing the piles of notes, memorabilia and painting studies and re-reading most of the blog and journals to refresh my memories.  Here's a shot of the "creative mess."


One idea that has occurred to me is to have a sort of travelogue of the trip with funny anecdotes and such at eye level in the gallery.  Then the next level up I'll display the studies and paintings I did along the way…then the next level will be larger realistic paintings from the studies…then I hope to also do some abstract works that capture the emotions/light/essence of the experience of the place.  What an exciting challenge - hope I can pull it off!

…and I've been trying to figure out how to incorporate music into the show.  Think I got it figured out. I'll create a website with links to videos of the songs I enjoyed along the trip - will number them according to a number by the painting to which it relates.   Then visitors to the show can bring their smart phones with earphones and listen to the songs if they want.  Cool!

Sunday, January 17, 2016

New Year, New Work

I've been busy trying to get all caught up with commissions and the galleries so that I can dive full time into the preparation for my upcoming show May-June, 2016 at the Craven County Arts Council & Gallery.  (Mark your calendars, the opening will be Friday the 13th of May).

I took this one to them yesterday.


Rhapsody in Blue, 36" x 48"
And I also took this one in to Fine Arts at Baxters:


Optimistic