Joyful Abundance

The January 2012 issue of American Art Collector magazine has just come out and in it is a feature on my upcoming (February, 2012) show at Gardner Colby Gallery in Naples, FL.  It's a nice article and includes images of 7 paintings, all of which will be in the exhibit.  In total I hope to have 15 in the show but I'm not done painting yet!

I hope to have a link to the article on my website soon but until then if you're interested you'll have to find the actual magazine in a bookstore or magazine stand somewhere.  Kind of old fashioned to actually look at a printed magazine but it's fun - try it if you haven't done it in a while but be sure to recycle it when you're done...  :)

Have a great holiday season!!

Media Week

Lots of interesting media activity this week.  The magazine Art Ltd. has done an article on the Sun Valley art scene which includes a mention of my gallery there, Gilman Contemporary.  I'll be having a show there - it opens November 14 called "Modern Parables".  Here's a link to the article: Sun Valley, A Cultured Holiday Retreat.  They mentioned my upcoming exhibit there and reproduced one of the paintings in the show.  Also, just found out that Gilman has taken out a nice ad in California Home + Design Magazine advertising the show.  Thanks!

Also, I just got off the phone with a writer for American Art Collector magazine.  She interviewed me for an article they'll be doing on my February show at Gardner Colby Gallery in Naples, FL.  This magazine has featured me a number of times so I'm pleased and honored to be featured yet again!  The article will be in the January issue - I'll let you know when it comes out.

As fun as all this has been it's time to get back to painting!  After all, that's why they cover me in the first place...

Chaco

I joined a group of friends and went to some ancient sites in northern New Mexico this past weekend.  We visited El Morro - also known as Inscription Rock and El Malpais - an area to see ancient lava flows from the now extinct volcano we call Mt. Taylor.  But most of all we went to see Chaco Canyon.  It's an area of ancient ruins left by the people we call the Anasazi but are now referred to as the Chacoan people.  It's pretty much in the middle of nowhere - 20+ miles on a bumpy dirt road keeps the faint of heart (or vehicle) away so you really get a sense of isolation and feeling that things are relatively untouched by modern standards.

The building are all stacked stone - astonishing masonry skills which in some cases are still standing and relatively intact after over 1000 years.  A friend calls this place the "Machu Pichu" of the north.  After being there I think he's right.  It's a complex and extensive system of structures and roads which at it's peak they estimate supported 8000 people.

If you've never gone - you should.  It's worth the hassle to get there.  Here is a link to learn more: Chaco Culture.  Also, here are a few pictures I took --

The Naturalist

"The Naturalist", 48"x36", acrylic on canvas

"The Naturalist" is finished - here it is.

Lately I've been toying with the image of a disassembled clock as you can see here.  For me it can symbolize a time before our modern preoccupation with time, deadlines, etc. or in this case perhaps the clock is being assembled and symbolizes the beginning of a new era - The Age of Discovery when naturalists and other types of explorers were coming to the "New World" and bringing with them their values and technologies regarding resources, time and the natural world.

Almost finished

It's nearly finished in this photograph - actually it's completely done but I won't post the final image until it's professionally photographed.  But, until then here it is in a close to finished state.  The challenge left at this point was to figure out what would be on the pages of the book...  Stay tuned a picture of the completed painting will be posted in a couple weeks or so.

Painting this incredibly abundant bunch of bananas brought up a word most of us don't know or ever use - fecund.  It's a very descriptive word and one which I hope will inspire some new paintings...

fe·cund

   [fee-kuhnd, -kuhnd, fek-uhnd, -uhnd]  Show IPA

adjective

1.

producing or capable of producing offspring, fruit,vegetation, etc., in abundance; prolific; fruitful: fecund parents; fecund farmland.

2.

very productive or creative intellectually: the fecund       years of the Italian Renaissance.

It Looks Like Progress But...

...sometimes it's an amazingly tedious process of adding something, taking it away, adding it again, and so on, etc.  This is particularly true of the background space, specifically the sky.  I've been working on this section alone for a few days, continuously tweaking the color and light until I feel it's right.  Then, I'll start to approach the objects in the foreground which will in turn cause me to have to make changes to the sky!  It's an endless back and forth - once that dance feels complete then I know the painting is done.

Slowly taking shape --

Bananas!! (actually plantains).  I'm basing the bunch of plantains on a photograph I took when I lived in New Orleans in the mid 1990's.  While driving down the street one day I saw that someone had cut off this enormous bunch of green plantains and placed it on the sidewalk to be picked up with the trash.  I found it beautiful and extremely exotic so I took it back to my studio, hung it from the ceiling and photographed it.  I did a couple paintings using this image back then and am happy to be revisiting it now, about 15 years later.

A New Painting Begins...

Some combination of these elements will soon come together in a new painting.  I'll keep you posted...

St. Regis, Monarch Beach, CA

Last week Mark & I took a vacation to Laguna Beach, CA.  It was a great trip;  perfect weather, time on the beach, sleeping late - all the fun vacation stuff.  Because we were so close by we decided to drive a few miles down the coast to the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort.  About 10 years ago the hotel commissioned me to do two large paintings for the lobby, one is behind the reception desk - it about 3-1/2' high x 14' wide.  The other is directly across the lobby and is behind the concierge desk.  I was able to finally see them in place - 10 years later!  They look FABULOUS!!  Unfortunately only one shot came out OK - here's the painting behind the reception desk -

Art Hamptons, International Fine Art Fair

My work will be on exhibit at this year's Art Hamptons, an international fine art fair July 8-10, 2011.  My gallery in Sag Harbor, NY - Richard J. Demato Fine Art will be exhibiting at the fair.  In addition, he will be exhibiting my work at his gallery in Sag Harbor so it looks like it will be hard to miss seeing my paintings this week in the Hamptons!    Here's a link to Art Hamptons: Art Hamptons.

To see what I'll be showing at both the art fair and at Richard J. Demato go to his website:  Richard J. Demato Fine Arts Gallery.  

Disaster paintings

Last week I was sort of whining in an email to an old friend who is also a VERY good painter about the ongoing smoke from the various fires around us as well as feeling a bit "stuck" as to what to paint next.  Her simple reply was: "paint the smoke".  Good advice and so I did.  After "The Wildfire" was finished I thought about the seemingly endless reports of floods and tornados this spring and early summer so decided to paint those as well. I chose to paint these in a small format - 11"x14" ovals.  I like the kind of vintage look they offer and I also painted them in a monochromatic sepia tone.  I don't want to simply document these events - that's for the documentary photographers.  Rather, I wanted to make these very difficult occurrences appear beautiful and dreamlike for a just a moment.

By the way, please visit my good friend Ricki Klages' website and enjoy her paintings: http://rickiklages.com/home.html.

The Wildfire, The Flood and The Tornado

Welcome!

I've started a blog.  I never thought I had that much to say - other than in painted form, but I'm giving it a try.  Actually, I have numerous journals of thoughts and drawings I've accumulated over the years so the idea of writing about things of interest isn't new to me.  Publishing some of those thoughts however is new to me so we'll see how this goes!

My hope for this blog is to describe some of what goes on in my studio while creating my paintings as well as other news related to my career like shows and occasionally posting new work as it's completed.  I also hope to share art and places and ideas I come across that in find interesting, and you may too. 

Also, I've been posting things for a few weeks so please go to the older posts section on the right and see what been previously posted.

Hopefully this will be a conversation, not just me going on and on - I look forward to hearing from you!  

Fires Make Beautiful Clouds

I often create billowing, cumulous type clouds in my paintings.  I love the way they can become magnificent sculptures in the background of the paintings. This past weekend in the mountains here in Santa Fe I saw a beautiful cloud billowing up from the mountains - unfortunately it is caused by an out of control forest fire.  Gratefully this fire is currently moving away from Santa Fe but it's still a bit scary to see this thing grow and remain uncontrolled.  It makes me see my painted billowy clouds in a different light -

Studio Views

Supply Department

I think people are sometimes surprised when they come into my studio (especially non-artists) at how unglamorous it can be.  It's really just a workshop where I make things by hand.  It gets a little messy at times and needs to serve many functions - not just a romantic place where beautiful things are created.  Here are some views of the "supply and shipping departments"...

Shipping Department

Noticed at the San Francisco Fine Art Fair...

Gilman Contemporary, my gallery in Ketchum (Sun Valley) recently participated in the San Francisco Fine Art Fair and sent me this blog posting.  The writer kindly noticed my work in their booth and posted this with a photo:

http://askmissa.com/2011/05/25/recap-san-francisco-fine-arts-fair-2011/

Finished

Here is the final painting.  I've titled it "The Deadline", 36"x32".

Odd Thomas

Here in Santa Fe they are filming an adaption of the Dean Koontz book "Odd Thomas".  My friend Peter Stephenson is working on the set decoration and has leased a painting of mine for use in one of the sets.  Apparently it will be used in the bedroom of "Stormy", the girlfriend of Odd Thomas.  It's a lot of fun being part of Hollywood if only as a supplier of a prop!

Here's the painting they're using - it's called "The Rare Flower, 30"x60".

After a few more days...

Things are progressing nicely.  This was shot last week and by now it's done and being professionally photographed.  I'll post the final product soon...

Then it looks like this...

I tend to work on the background a lot at the beginning - often obscuring the subjects in the foreground.  Eventually the background will feel more settled and I'll start to solidify the characters in front.  More later...

A Cloud of Thoughts

I came across this quote recently by John Dewey:



Man differs from the lower animals because he preserves his past experiences. What happened in the past is lived again in memory. About what goes on today hangs a cloud of thoughts concerning similar things undergone in bygone days. With the animals, an experience perishes as it happens, and each new doing or suffering stands alone. But man lives in a world where each occurrence is charged with echoes and reminiscences of what has gone before, where each event is a reminder of other things. Hence he lives not, like the beasts of the field, in a world of merely physical things but in a world of signs and symbols. A stone is not merely hard, a thing into which one bumps; but it is a monument of a deceased ancestor. A flame is not merely something which warms or burns, but is a symbol of the enduring life of the household, of the abiding source of cheer, nourishment and shelter to which man returns from his casual wanderings.

Perhaps not coincidentally, I also just completed this painting called "The Persistence of Memories".  The egret stares at the pile of clocks with a startled and abrupt gaze.  It's an unlikely scenario because like Dewey says, "with the animals, an experience perishes as it happens, and each new doing or suffering stands alone."  The clocks mean nothing to the bird, and yet to us they symbolize so very much.  

San Francisco Fine Art Fair

If you happen to be in San Francisco this week stop by this art fair at Fort Mason.  I'm showing with Gilman Contemporary, my gallery in Ketchum, (Sun Valley) Idaho.  The show runs May 19-22, 2011.

Here's more info:

San Francisco Fine Art Fair

It Starts Like This...

A charcoal sketch on canvas (36"x32").  This drawing will eventually start having washes of color and the gods willing, eventually turn into a painting.  For me, this is the most challenging part of the painting but also very invigorating and full of possiblities...

Studio friends

Some things I live with in the studio and often find their way into my paintings...