Well, the
art keeps happening around here.
This past
week Martha taught her Artist in Residence ‘I Am the Earth” art class all week
at the Mission View School in Wenatchee, WA. She loves doing this and the students and
teachers love having her there for this special art project. That not being enough
she continued to do her late afternoon art classes at the local emergency
housing facility. She was a busy gal but she loves art and teaching. Her
students there did a lot of really cool clay pieces that we’ve been firing up
in the kiln. And, speaking of the kiln, I finally got around to testing out the
old jewelry kiln that a local artist/friend gave to us. He had indicated that
it didn’t work, so it has sat for quite a while since we got it. When I plugged
it in it got hot, but started to smoke from the control box after a bit. Next
step… open that box up and check the wires. 
Over the
weekend Martha painted a water color portrait of her cousin’s young daughter. This
came out really well. I know the family will be happy when they get it. Martha’s
other current project is an acrylic on canvas painting of birch trees. I like
how this is coming.
Meanwhile
since the last time I wrote, I have represented the Two Rivers Gallery on TV
and have been working on some new paintings. One is an acrylic on canvas
painting that I have decided to call ‘Peace by Piece.’ This work started life
as a design I made on my computer. I liked it so much, that I decided to paint
it. This piece is based on an image of Gandhi and is dismantled and reformed
into a series of rectangles and cubes. My thought is on how Gandhi and what he
accomplished is too easily spoken of in a few sentences or represented by a
simple image, when the truth is that at any point along the way his quest for
freedom of India through the use of non-violent protest could have failed both
in result and in process. Nothing was as simple as it can easily be described
in a sound bite or a short film clip from back in the day. I hope my point
comes through in this work. I’m hopeful that it will as the image must be
looked at and a bit of effort is needed to see who the image is and how it all
goes together like the puzzle of this man’s life.
The other is
a mixed media piece that incorporates collage materials and acrylic painting on
canvas board. The working title of this piece is ‘The State of Peace’ or
perhaps just ‘State of Peace’. It includes images of Gandhi (both a photo image
and a small representation of the extruded Gandhi design of my ‘Peace by Piece’
painting), a peace dove, a Buddha in silhouette surrounded by flames and the
colors of the Peace Flag also going into flames. The dove has what can be construed
as blood on it.
I’m hoping
to have one or both of these ready by this weekend as I am to be the featured
artist at the Performing Arts Center for March and April and this weekend is
the installation at both the gallery and the PAC. Otherwise, I will install some of my larger
existing pieces at the PAC and take some of my new smaller works to the
gallery.
Well, enough
for now and remember the words of Gandhi, “non-violence is the weapon of the
strong”
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