Exhibition at the White Bird

 

 The show I`m having at the White Bird Gallery in Cannon Beach Oregon coincides with the 50 year anniversary of the gallery. I`ve been a part of it for 35. The poster above is available from the gallery, $35.

 The founder of the gallery, Evelyn Georges, was in New Mexico on vacation and staying in the bed and breakfast of a friend. My work hung in the guest rooms. Meanwhile I`m in Oregon giving it a trial run while living with my brother Gary. After a year, I moved back to Santa Fe for a while longer before coming to the Northwest permanently in 1993. Evelyn came by my studio in 1986 in a section of Portland now called the Pearl District. She looked at lots of my work with most of it done after the month long workshop I had participated in with Richard Diebenkorn. I was inspired and really productive and she asked me to show at her gallery. Evelyn wasn`t easy but she was a true believer in the relevance of art. Our relationship was tested but it held fast, I knew she cared about and believed in me. 

 The White Bird has always had an eclectic group of artists and for many of them, showing there was their first experience being represented by a gallery.  A long time employee, Allyn Cantor, bought the gallery from Evelyn before her death in 2014. As the new owner, she continues in the same spirit. I`ve never worked with anyone who was so simultaneously sharp, empathetic, and principled. She has been so kind to me even when I whine. The public, promotional part of a painting career has always been uncomfortable. I`m friendly and like the attention but I do not want to clamor for it. I write my blog, post my paintings on Instagram and Facebook, appreciate the notice and let Allyn do the other promoting.

Here are the paintings in the show. They all are 26x20 inches [55x51 cm] in either pure watercolor or mixed water soluble mediums such as acrylic, ink and crayon on the plastic paper Yupo;

                                                                 Downstream Tahquitz

                                                              Above the Cold Ocean

                                                                              Beltane

                                                                     Coastal Nocturne

                                                                         Cliff Corner 

                                                                      Dune Sea Sky

                                                                              Estuary

                                                                        Forest Edge

                                                                         North Coast

                                                                        Glacial Water

                                                                           North Slope

                                                                      River Run Park

                                                                       Over the Sea

                                                                           Reliquary 3

                                                                   North Coast Cliffs

                                                                Stafford Valley October 1

                                                              Stafford Valley October 2

                                                       The Cloud Lifts from the Mountain

                                                               Surrounding the Creek

                                                                      Summer Cliffs

                                                     Oswego Creek Spring 23x35 inches

 I was in Cannon Beach this morning to see the show. Most of the paintings are unframed and hung beautifully. It`s an unconventional presentation with a distinct advantage. The paintings can be rolled up and shipped in a mailing tube at a cost much less than shipping a framed painting with glass. They are also suitable for professional mounting and hanging without glass at all. They have been varnished with a UV protection matte varnish.

Here are some photos from Cannon Beach earlier today;

The pandemic made it worse but my inertia on updating my website has ended. After many recommendations, I sat down with Squarespace and tried to do it myself. Unsurprisingly it was disastrous. But I had paid already and begun the transfer of my domaine name. I put out a call of distress and sure enough the network came through for me. A watchful mom saw the S.O.S. on Nextdoor and promptly suggested her bright son design it. I go talk to him and he assures me he`s the guy I want. I believe him.

Not as much but I am painting too. There are several paintings in process in my studio and I think this one is finished;

oil on Multimedia Art Board 12x12 inches

                                                              

 I also will be part of the Portland Open Studios Oct. 9 and 10 and Oct. 16 and 17, 10am-5pm. I have open windows, good ventilation and masks will be required. I`m confident it will be a safe environment.

I live at 5373 Lakeview Blvd, Lake Oswego OR 97035

Please come by

Click HERE for work in my studio

The Storm is Lifting

                                           The Storm is Lifting watermedia on yupo 26x20


 My brother Mike asked me the other day how I would characterize the work I`ve done in the last year. I told him wildly uneven.
For much of the year I didn`t know if I was getting better or worse. When I realized worse, I quit trying to push myself with exercise. I never stopped but I quit trying to rehabilitate myself. I was making the pain much worse. Now, as I wait for my new knee next week, my painting is as scattered as ever.

                                                     Across the Canal oil on  Yupo 20x16


 I was sitting on the bank of the lake`s canal trying to decide if I was cold, was it too early to paint outdoors. I did the drawing below and thought the weather was fine. Across the channel I could see a level area dense with vegetation. I tried to paint it from memory, first in acrylics and then in oils.

 Next I thought I`d do something I`ve never done before but had heard was an excellent way to learn. I would copy a hero. Bjornar Aaslund, a painter from Norway, slides in and out of abstraction as he paints his landscape derived, dynamic paintings. His work is adept and passionate and I admire it a lot;

                                                                    Bjornar Aaslund

                                                                     Bjornar Aaslund

                                                                     Bjornar Aaslund

                                                                    Bjornar Aaslund


 His painting, at its core, is suffused with nature. As if he has studied it all his life up close. As if he were a biologist. That last one, just above, is the one I decided to paint. I thought I could learn about his process and just adopting his palette was educational.

                                                  Bjornar and Me watercolor on Yupo 14x11


 Quickly I went my own way but it was a fun exercise. It wasn`t hard to imagine the lakes finally free of ice, suddenly teaming with plants in the warm sunlight.

                                                                 Bjornar Aaslund



 Because of my limited mobility I can`t get to all the places which are the basis of what I do. Consequently, I`ve had more creative blocks than ever. Usually I don`t become over concerned. A change of mediums will get things moving again. This time has been different. It feels like I`m actually denied that part of my brain. As if my imagination were inert or empty. A modest walk in Bryant Woods or a review of one of my Pinterest boards can change the chemistry in my thinking somewhat reliably but what is going on? It has been on, then off, frequently. I bet it has a hormonal element. Anyone else experience this as being cutoff from oneself?

 My show at the Hanson Howard Gallery in Ashland OR is up the whole month of April!

                                                                     John Wolseley

 This is plein air painting! This Australian painter is another naturalist/artist. Really inspirational.

work for sale in my studio

MMIW2 and White Bird Show-Cannon Beach

                                                 My Marsh in Winter 2 oil on canvas 18x36


 My current exhibition at the White Bird Gallery in Cannon Beach Oregon can be previewed here.
 It only took 25 years but I`m soon to see for myself the splendid Painted Hills and the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. The weather is predicted to be partly raining which should highlight the colors beautifully.
 Here is an aerial view of the hills;

This is going to be fun! I`m taking my paints.

watercolors-post eclipse

                                                              Mountain Purple wc 8x6

                                                                   Mountain Red wc 8x8


 These two mountain doodles may be the best work I`ve done lately. These came from a need for pure color and a subject that wasn`t trees. Neither took long and they satisfied my desires. I sometimes paint something other than my immediate surroundings because I need to see it.

                                                    Runoff watercolor and oil on Yupo 20x26


 I had been working on this for a week. It looked promising, then lost and eventually I sprayed the watercolor with a varnish and started in again with oils. I`ve done this before and it`s a viable process. Since the support is plastic and there is an acrylic barrier applied between the two mediums, I think it will be stable for millennia. Although Yupo is new, I`ve worked with it for twelve years without any changes at all in the pieces I have kept. My sense is that it`s sturdy and permanent.
But the painting above may lack the animating piece of the puzzle, I don`t know yet.
So I painted a couple of mountains in the interim.

                                                      Stream and Sunlight acrylic on paper 24x18


 And this too is new. When I began I actually thought I could do it in pure watercolor. Let the white paper reflect through and illuminate the vegetation. Somehow I would just intuit where the lightest values would be placed. So I began with no guiding marks whatsoever and was soon scrambling for the acrylic white for corrections. The greens in the upper left are exactly why I don`t particularly like acrylics. I had to add white to the green to achieve the right value and now the paint looks chalky and opaque. The rocks in the back were glazed repeatedly trying to give them some of the luminance of watercolor.

                                                                   by Rebecca de Figueiredo


I was about to go to bed but was still looking at art on Pinterest the other day when I stumbled on the work of Rebecca de Figueiredo. The color slapped me in the face. She paints complex botanicals and somewhat narrative abstract landscapes that are derived from the countryside where she lives in Botswana. All of her work pulsates with vitality and high spirits. She is also remarkably affordable.
Here`s a couple more;

                                                                   by Rebecca di Figueiredo

                                                                   by Rebecca di Figueiredo


 Finally some good news; Iceland has banned televangelists from their airways!
Now I`m a big fan of our first constitutional amendment allowing freedom of speech, but if other countries have conditions, so be it. My grandmother used to watch those vultures for hours and gave when she could. Such predators! Exploiting the vulnerable for cash. Not in Iceland anymore!

 I could have known with just a bit of research.
Early in the morning of the full eclipse of the sun, I received an email from France marked URGENT. A reader of this blog wrote emphatically that there was a world of difference between 99 and a 100% totality. He implored me to get into the full eclipse zone. That this stranger was urging me to do something I had already dismissed had a sickening ring of truth to it.
John was at a doctor`s appointment, we had no eclipse glasses and my traffic app showed the highways thoroughly clogged with cars. I was stuck.
The Oregon Department of Transportation had easily convinced me to stay home. Disliking crowds and traffic, I had decided to accept 99% of the spectacle and realized too late this was a huge mistake! At the peak, my house looked like this;

 Interesting sure, but not the once in a lifetime experience happening a mere 20 miles south. Soon I started hearing from friends and family that had made the effort to see the totality. They all said it was unlike anything they had ever witnessed, it had been marvelous. Then I saw the videos and when John`s Mom told us she could see the stars from her home near Salem, I knew I had made one of the biggest blunders of my life. One million visitors to Oregon that morning could not be wrong.
I`m still upset with myself.


 Life goes on.
I delivered my show to the White Bird Gallery in Cannon Beach yesterday with a sense of success. Getting it painted and then exhibition ready was a real challenge as I still can`t stand for too long.
Here is an article about it.

                                                                                     Banksy


available work mostly in my studio