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/