Art All Over The Map

Well, it’s been a wonderful two weeks for art and artistic endeavors. It was exactly two weeks ago today that Pamela and Marvin Barrow came to pick up the family themed sculpture by Martha Flores for the new Library in Quincy. It was so good to have completed the firing and glazing in time before heading out to southern California to spend Christmas with the grandkids.

And, speaking of the grand kids I was overjoyed to see dance performances by two of the grand kids. One performance I put on video which everyone who saw it thought was hilarious, and can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOk7skxagBc&list=UUNvpiC1XcVKVH-EiXJCMCsA&index=1&feature=plcp . The oldest of the grand kids will be in a competitive dance competition soon, and so I was admonished, therefore, that I could not post video of the dance online as competing dance groups will know what CF Dance Academy will be doing and try to ‘up their game’ accordingly. So; alas no video of that very cool dance at this time. We’ll just have to wait till after the competition for that.

While there I also was able to get to Downtown L.A., to the Los Angeles Center for Digital Art with one of my sons to see the three digital art pieces I have in the December Show there. That was an adventure and it was interesting to see the art by the other artists, meet and talk with the Director Rex Bruce, as well as seeing my own art there.

And, of course hardly a day went by without some communication with parties at Two Rivers Gallery in Wenatchee and the Icicle Arts Gallery in Leavenworth where due to some scheduling changes Martha Flores will have overlapping Shows as Featured Artist in both galleries. Communicating with Jan Theriault at Two Rivers and Bryan Miller at Icicle arts to get the designs right for the posters and promotional post cards for each show and various installation issues kept each project not far from my consciousness even with all the wonderful family activities I was otherwise occupied with while out of town.

While stumbling around the internet at one point I discovered a worldwide arts map called TheArtsMap.com, which I added the Martha Flores Studio to view go to: http://www.theartsmap.com/detail.php?id=9942 . TheArtsMap.com is an interactive worldwide map of artist's studios, galleries, arts organizations, museums, arts events, and more. Listings on The Arts Map are free and searchable in many different ways. After sharing the info on TheArtsMap.com with Jan over at Two Rivers Gallery, he informed me that he has added TRG to the site as well. Good job Jan.

And, no trip to So Cal. would be complete without spending some time on the water with family. Fishing and watching Dolphins and whales from the boat with Martha and family could not be beat. I did get some good pics and some shaky video of the marine life on what was a most beautiful day of sunshine and calm seas… perfect! We shall see if the bits of steady video of the whales and dolphins add up to a decent video for youtube. In any case I was able to isolate a good still of the Dolphins Jumping from the video.

After the boat trip it was great to get some photos of the artwork of Marisol Bowling, Martha's prima, who has really developed well in a short time since starting to paint couple of years ago.

On our way home, we stopped in Ventura, Ca. to visit with a wonderful artist and car designer Mark Sterenberger who has just recently had his art produced in the 1960’s rediscovered by a whole new generation of young artists and art lovers in New York.

Back home, there is no rest for the weary. Today Martha and I will head out to Quincy where the word is they may wish to commission another piece by Martha… Yeah!  And, of course we will want to see the new Library and all the new artwork there.

And, no sooner will we be back, when it will be time to start putting together the artwork for the gallery installation at Two Rivers Gallery that will take place this weekend. The opening reception there will be Friday January 6^th… the same day, by the way, that we will be installing Martha’s artwork at the Icicle Arts Gallery in Leavenworth.

And, last but certainly not least, in yesterdays mail came the January edition of the Good Life Magazine which had a lovely article about Martha titled “Dancing Painter Turns sadness Into Sensuous Canvases” written by Susan Lagsdin. What a wonderful end of the year gift that was.

Well, enough for now… back to work and then to Quincy we will go.

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Mountain Spirit Winning Bidder, Happy Feet, and Living The Good Life

Well, it’s been a full and interesting week for us in our artistic activities this past week.  Of course last Saturday and Sunday, we had our home art show and open house which was well worth the effort. We weren’t sure how well we would do given that we just had the Dancing While Painting event the weekend before. But, in the end all was good.

And, as if the whole home art show thing wasn’t enough, no sooner had the last visitor left on Sunday, when it was time to get the kitchen ready for the contractors to come tear it all apart the next day. There really is no rest for the weary.  That done, it was back to work on the glazing and firing of the small test sculpture as a prelude to the firing of the large sculpture Martha has been working on for the Quincy Library.

                                                                                                

Come Monday morning while the workers were tearing up the kitchen, Martha was being interviewed by Susan Lagsdin for an article that will run in one of the most prestigious publications in the area ‘The Good Life’. Martha and Susan had a very nice visit as I understand as I was out seeing clients that day.  And, even though I was busy all day, I was able to get into Terry Signs briefly between appointments to trim the edge of the bowl I am working on there ( He was working on some pretty awsome stuff of his own while I was there). Several days for my bowl to fully dry and it’ll be time to fire that puppy up and hope it hangs together. The last one I did broke as I was sanding some rough spots before I even got it into the kiln. I really have to watch that bull in a china shop thing when working with such delicate materials.

Through the rest of the week I finished up the firing of all the little Christmas ornaments and such made by the residents of the emergency housing program that Martha does art with. Meanwhile, on another project, I was able to track down the winning bidder who bought Martha’s  ‘Spirit of the Mountain’ oil on canvas that she donated to the Wenatchee Performing Arts Center for their Festival of Trees Auction a while back. I was interested to get a photo of the piece and the new owner… a lovely lady named Marti Gonzales, who I was able to get together and visit with this week. She is one happy lady as she knows she really scored in getting that piece.

Click here to purchase a print.

Also, this week another lovely lady picked up the giclee’ canvas print of ‘Flowering Consciousness’ that she ordered earlier in the week. She was so very happy her feet just wanted to dance like she did while watching Martha paint last week. She was so eager to hang her new 24”x36” giclee on her wall at home, she could hardly wait. The original of this piece is of course quite a bit bigger at 48”x 60” and I should add, a bit pricy.

Last night, was a busy night for both of us as Martha was involved with the Playback Theater production at the Columbia Elementary School in Wenatchee while I was at a board meeting for Two Rivers Gallery that Martha and I are members of. There, I learned that Martha will be the Featured Artist for the months of January and February. Previously she had been scheduled to be Featured Artist for the months of March and April. That had seemed really special for Martha as her birthday is in that range. But, those months will now have no featured artist instead being an anniversary show allowing greater exhibition of all the members work. This is intended to give something back to the membership at large who don’t all get to be featured artist. We board members really want to show our appreciation to all the contributing / supporting members of our local Co-op gallery.

All that being accomplished for the week, it was off to the airport this morning so Martha can get to Texas to spend time with the Texas grandchildren before heading to California to meet up with me for Christmas with the Cali. Grandchildren. I sure hope those contractors get this kitchen back together before I leave… if they don’t YIKES!  
I don’t even want to think about that.

Well, enough for now. Have a very artful day.

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Lets Dance with Dancing Martha, Dancing Zebra Stripes and a Whole Lota Shaking

Well the weekend and the week so far have been so full and fulfilling for art that I have only now found the time to write about it. The biggest story was of course Martha’s Dancing/Painting live at the NUART Gallery over the weekend.

Friday was spent in preparation for the next day’s event.  This entailed everything from getting white foam core board for the poster I had picked up detailing the history of Martha’s art and community activities and accolades from both California and Washington to making final cut decisions on what art to take with us on Saturday and dropping off art and the posters and boards to be mounted at the gallery. Whew!  Then it was writing blogs and watching Martha try on outfits that she might wear while danc ing and painting the next day… that part was fun.

All of that done, it was up early on Saturday in order to have time to load up even more art and then set up the show and which included wine, food and other refreshments and get the stereo set up so Martha would have the Latin music she needed to do her Dancing/Painting to.  Even before Martha got there and while Gary Doan, the owner of NUART Gallery, and I were setting up, people were coming by and asking for Martha. They had most likely seen the pictures and story on the front page of the GO! section of the Wenatchee World on Thursday.

Lots of people came all day long. We were both very pleased that representatives from the World and The Good Life came by and chatted it up a bit with Martha. Other folks that we knew stopped by to visit and enjoy the show and the art and we met new folks and made new friends as well.  It was really great to see the crowd swell at times. It was particularly interesting to see the number of young people including teen agers who gathered outside the gallery to watch through the front window. Others really took the time to stop and read the articles and look at the photos on the poster board at the entrance to the gallery. Some even took pictures of the posters.

I of course, took lots of pictures and video from which I posted a video on Youtube…. more on that later. Martha was the star of the show and she had a ball dancing and painting not only from 11am till 3pm as planned but continued on till almost 4pm so as to finish the third painting she did that day. I was so glad to see not only the numbers of people who came into the store and looked at all the art - not just Martha’s, but some of whom took art home with them.  Yeah!  A good day for all.

The next day I spent beaucoup hours putting together a movie of the Martha the Dancing Artist and no sooner started uploading it to Youtube when it was time to head out to the Cashmere Arts and Activities Center Gallery to help change out the art for the December show. When I stopped to show Artie and Sandra at CAAC the video on Youtube…. it wasn’t there. Arrrgh! It must have had a glitch I assumed.

After Martha and I returned home from dinner with some good friends, I was able to get back to the video only to find that it was unsalvageable. I couldn’t even save it as a movie on my hard drive. It had too many “errors” to the code at that point…. very disappointing. I could only surmise that I had cut and hacked up the video bits so many times getting it down from 48 minutes to just over 8 minutes with sound overlays and more editing after adding the overlays that the underlying computer code got mangled.

Monday morning even though it was a work day for me, I got up bright and early and remade the video. This time I did it better and more efficiently… knowing what bits I wanted to use already I just added those in, thus minimizing the amount of editing to be done in the movie making program. I even made it shorter yet, by tightening up the bits limiting the use of stills and cutting out most of the video of Martha painting the third painting of the day. This time it was a tight little 6 minute movie that uploaded to Youtube without a hitch. It’s a lot of fun to watch and can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qGR5qiAB7E&feature=channel_video_title

The week has so far involved firing many bisque and glazed figures for Martha’s students at the emergency housing program and ‘helping’ Martha with her new larger family themed sculpture for the new Quincy Library, installing art and taking photos at the Two Rivers Gallery for their December show and picking up art from Terry Johnsons Studio for our upcoming Home Art Sale this Saturday and Sunday here at our house.

 I was so happy to find that some folks had purchased some of my cards at Terry’s and while I was there carrying out the last two of my photos someone came by, saw and fell in love with my large framed Tulip photo and just had to have it…. Yeah! It found it’s ‘forever home’.  And, of course Martha is working on some new paintins for her upcoming show at Two Rivers Gallery which will be in March and April. I really can't wait for that.

Well, enough for now and lets all have a very artful day.

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link to video of Martha Dancing and Painting live

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qGR5qiAB7E&feature=channel_video_title

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NUART Dancing/Painting, Singing and Potting Videos, Joseph in Technicolor, and B.B. King

Well, it’s been a busy and fruitful week for Martha and I and our art projects this week. Since our last posting we attended the Second Saturday event at the Cashmere Arts and Activities Center which was well attended and had two musical treats. Kirk Lewellen played original music written by him on guitar and alternately the crowd was treated by Sharon Brodder singing show tunes most notably “Can’t Stop Lov’n Dat Man” from the musical Show Boat. A video of Sharon singing can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7FUJebI-8k&feature=channel_video_title

 And, as for videos, the same day I posted the video of Sharon I also posted a video I put together of Terry Johnson decorating one of his pots with sculpting on the side. The Terry Johnson video which is informative and a bit humorous as well as, Terry can be, can be viewed at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnAL8hUb7MY&feature=relmfu  The video was taken on Saturday before the Cashmere event while we were continuing the 38^th anniversary art sale at Terry Signs and Studio. Sales were good and it was good to see more people coming in. Terry continues to give free pottery lessons to anyone who is interested… what a guy!

Meanwhile Martha has been diligently working on the sculptures for the library in Quincy and in fact some folks associated with the Library there came out one day this week to see how that project is coming. They enjoyed looking at all of Martha’s art and a few of my photos I am told.

Martha also, taught an art class at Catholic Family and Child Services for the Child Care Providers Class there. And, of course her weekly art class with the residents at the local Emergency Housing Facility where they are making Christmas Tree ornaments out of clay, which I will be firing in the kiln as soon as they are dry.

In preparation for the upcoming Dancing While Painting event at the NUART Gallery which Martha will be doing this Saturday Nov. 26^th in the East Wenatchee Mall, we picked up some new canvases from the Craft Warehouse as well as some acrylic paint. This so; Martha will have everything she’ll need at the ready for Super Saturday, which is what I have been told the day after Black Friday is now called. After buying the canvases we went to NUART and visited Gary Doan the owner and making final plans for the big day.

My own art work had to take a back seat this week after posting the videos as I had plenty to keep me busy upgrading one of our rentals and seeing clients. But, that was all worthwhile and very fulfilling. And, although this is the first chance I have had to write all week, I have been checking our blog stats and am pleased to see that new people are reading this blog from more countries all over the world… who would have thought. Also, the two videos described above and my other recent video titled “Tearing Down the House”      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95WzkG615x8 have had quite a few views.

Also, this week it was nice to get out and see B.B. King at the Town Toyota Center with a friend while Martha was at “Joseph and Technicolor Dream Coat”  with some folks who had a child in the performance at Wenatchee High School. I was able to take a few pics at the B.B. King show with my phones camera, but alas… not as good as would have been the case with my good camera.

Well, enough for now and back to work even though its Saturday… ahh, the life of a landlord… hahaha.

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Volunteering, Art Demonstrations, Dancers, Art Cards and Videos

Well, things are progressing in the various art and art related projects that Martha and I are involved in.

Friday night we attended the annual dinner for the Icicle Arts at the Barn Beach Reserve in Leavenworth. It was a very enjoyable evening. As we ate and enjoyed conversing with our table guests we were pleasantly surprised to see, on the screen which was showing various slides of events of the past year and some art photos as well, a photo of one of Martha’s signature works “Flowering Consciousness” appear. That was nice. Later there was some discussion of a possible Martha Flores Show. We will keep our fingers crossed on that. But, if it happens, it may be in the early part of 2012… yahoo! That would be just great. We’ll keep you posted on that.

Martha was a busy gal on Saturday volunteering at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center’s Multicultural Festival. There she represented Guatemala with some of her art depicting the people of Guatemala in traditional garb. While there she was also involved in helping kids to make paper flowers and painting maracas.

While Martha was busy with kids and adults for that matter upstairs I went around and gathered photos of some of the other exhibitors and wrote down some info about what they were presenting and quick ran downstairs in time to get some photos and videoof two of the dancing groups before I had to leave to attend a memorial. Later that evening I posted a couple of short clips of a Japanese fellow playing a traditional Japanese stringed instrument called a Sanshin Japanese exchange student playing a Sanshin instrument and of a troop of Middle Eastern Dancers Middle Eastern Dancers at Multicultural Fest  from the festival. That reminds me I need to send a link to that video to the dancing group.

Yesterday while Martha recouped from her long day at the Museum, I headed out to help with the sale and pottery demonstration at Terry Johnson’s studio at Terry Signs in Wenatchee.

I got some good photos and video of him demonstrating how he works with clay both in making non-traditional sorts of clay objects and in throwing a pot on a potter’s wheel. That was great.

Today, I was up at the crack of non-daylight savings time dawn, ordering new Martha Flores Studio business and pricing cards so we will have them in time for the Dancing Artist demonstration Martha will be doing at the NUART Gallery in East Wenatchee on Nov. 26^th… the day after ‘Black Friday’ on Thanksgiving weekend. That should be a lot of fun but I’m sure it will be quite tiring for Martha. She loves it though. This event should give people a good look at what goes into the painting of an oil, or most likely an acrylic, painting in a fun and entertaining way. I missed the event at the Marriott where Martha was first asked to paint while dancing, so I am really looking forward to being there and getting some good video of her in action.

After designing and ordering the card, I took a few picture of the custom order clay figure Martha has been working on. It’s been drying for a few days now and is getting close to being ready to bisque fire in the kiln. Today, I will put it in the kiln at very low temperature to finish drying it out before I do the actual firing. If all goes well this piece could end up in the new Quincy Library. The opening for that is coming up soon I understand, so I really need to get that going and done.

Having looked at the photos and video of Terry Johnson clay work demonstrations yesterday, it looks like I’ll have enough to make a good little video on clay work. It’s pretty cool of Terry to offer to demonstrate clay work as he does for anyone willing to take a chance and get their hands a bit messy. Oh, on that note… the decorative bowl I started working on after I completed my Japanese styled vase broke when I accidentally put a little too much pressure on it as I was sculpting some shapes on the side. So; back to the drawing board.  I’ll get another going in the next day o two.

I received an email from Dominick B. this morning asking if I would like to write a contributing piece for the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center’s Blog.  There’s another interesting and challenging new task. We will see if I can come up with a good article for the WVMCC blog.

Now, it’s time to get work firing some student art projects from martha's class at the emergency housing facility, and then I need to get myself psyched up to build a web site for Martha. Everyone we talk to asks “what is your web site address”, “Can I see your work online”, “can I order prints of your work online” etc… So; it is back to that as well. There are a few preliminary steps I think that I need to complete first on that.

Till the next time.

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Horse Lake House, Nursery Themed Art with a Twist and Japanese Pottery

Well, it’s been another world wind couple of days and shaping up to be a busy weekend for art.

Tonight is of course First Friday in Wenatchee, but as Martha and I are to attend the Annual dinner for the Icicle Arts Gallery at the Sleeping Lady Resort, we won’t be able to walk the art walk in town. But, not wanting to miss out on the exhibits, I made a point of getting around to as many of the venues as I could to get pictures for a blog or two.

So, thinking ahead, yesterday I got out to Two Rivers Gallery and took photos of this month’s show and filled in as docent for a few hours… good thing I had the time to do so, as I made a sale of one of Milo Mirabeli’s wood sculptures and a small painting. The show looks good and I like the photos I got while I was there.

This morning I had an email from the Land Trust which stated: “ If you have visited Horse Lake Reserve, you have probably noticed the old house that sits among the aspens. Unfortunately, the dilapidated house has become a dangerous, attractive nuisance for vandals and trespassers. Due to liability and safety concerns, Pipkin Construction will take the house down next week. Thanks to Waste Management and Pipkin Construction for generous donations to help offset the cost of demolition.”   So, I figured I better get out there and take some photos before they tear the old place down. I had been out that way a few years ago and seen the old farmhouses, and barn as it was at that time. Unfortunately the time I went out there before I didn’t have a camera with me and so had no stock photos of the place.

It was a nice walk out there from the new parking lot to the old farm… a bit brisk in the morning even at 10:30, so I was glad I had another old shirt in the truck to layer on. I got some good usable photos and got to visit with Tina Duffy from the Land Trust while I was there. She confirmed for me which building was coming down and shared some info. With me about the plans to restore the big field in front of the old place to its natural state with native grasses and such.

The views from up there are great and that really makes one think of how nice it must have been to live there for the former owners back in its heyday.

A few more pics on the way down and then it was back to town for me to get photos of the venues I won’t be getting to tonight. First was a stop at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center.

There I visited with Bill Rietvelt and took pictures of the Menorahs and Dreidels collected by Alex and Amanda Taub. It was good visiting with Bill who did a fine job of setting up the display hearing from Brenda Abney about the upcoming show for December which will feature the 600 bronzes of the fifth graders that participated in the art day event last month with Kevin Patel. And, of course tomorrow they are hosting the Multicultural Festival from 11am to 3pm, so I’ll be back there again tomorrow.

After visiting with Bill and Brenda I was off to Amanda’s Book store but was disappointed to find she was closed… and I had a photo for her. Oh well, next time. Then I was off  to Lemolo’s, Café Mela and the Step above gallery. While at Step Above which is above the Columbia Furniture Store, I visited for quite a while with Renee’ Rogers and she gave me the tour of the art of Marcia Van Dorn who is the wife of Robert Graves for whom the Robert Graves Gallery at the Wenatchee Valley College was named for. Marcia wasn’t there, but if she had been I would have loved to have visited with her and would have relished the chance to hear her talk about her artistic take on the childhood nursery theme of some of her pieces which are clearly taking that theme into her own individual realm. Oh well, can’t be in two places at once.

After that I barely had time to stop in at Terry Johnson’s studio long enough to pick up my Japanese style vase which I had done to simulate the style of a piece of pottery I have at home that was a gift from a Japanese foreign exchange student I sponsored almost thirty years ago. The texture and glazing actually came pretty close to what I was after. And, while there Terry showed me what I was doing wrong in my effort to do a shrink wrap canvas. I did what he said and voila… Martha has a stretched canvas to paint on.

Then it was quick home to meet with the kitchen counter top guy and get my say in on choice of granite… whew!  All that and a bag of chips and just enough time to write this blog and get ready for tonight.

 I’ll have another blog to share tomorrow.

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Back From the Abyss

Well, back from the brink at the edge of the abyss, back from so far down I missed what promised to be an excellent farewell party for a wonderful Russian artist on one weekend, but, back barely in time for the scariest weekend of the year and yes back by popular demand, your artful blogger is back in the saddle again. It was rough not being able to write. But, alas I am one of those who suffering from the flu (you know that illness you’re not supposed to get right after getting a flu shot) cannot think let alone write.

But here I am and glad to be able to think and to write again. And there certainly were artful things going on while I was out of commission. Martha for one has been given a commission to sculpt a piece for a wonder lady from Quincy and just shipped off a poster sized print of one of her most popular paintings,

 “Flowering Consciousness” to the Allied Arts of Yakima where it will then be framed and eventually adorn a new Family Shelter  facility in Yakima. It is really nice to know that this new family shelter will house a number of pieces of art that are inspirational hopeful and even enlightening as well as simply decorative. Martha is not the only artist that will be contributing to this project and I’m sure it will give a boost to the spirits of all the women and families who happen to stay there for a time.

Meanwhile here in town, our good friend Terry Johnson is well into his second week of his 38^th anniversary  art sale.

The day he was just getting it set up I was not quite down for the count yet and helped to set it up. He is really looking now after 38years to really change the focus of his business to his real love which is the art studio that his sign shop has slowly evolved into and now a gallery open to the public.

His idea is to not only continue making and selling his own pottery glassware and paintings but to open it up to other local artist to have a community based studio they can use to work on their art and a place to sell as well. He has already had some success selling a large painting of a Native American in full headdress.

And, Terry has taken orders for clay Salmons made for wall hanging.

Martha’s art is well represented there already and I have been working on some of my art there for some time. And, in fact, while I was ill Terry did the bisque firing of a small piece of pottery I was working on just before I got that infamous flu shot. I can’t wait to get back to work on that piece and get it all glazed up. Let’s hope it comes out well.

I for one need to work on a submission for a gallery in Orange County California, Martha has her dancing/painting gig coming up at the end of the month and we both of us need to get ready for our big home art sale on December the 4^th. Lots to do and only so much time to do it.

This weekend also looks to be a very full one as well.  Friday night we will be attending the Icicle Arts Member Appreciation Dinner, which looks to be a really great event at the Barn Beach Reserve in Leavenworth.

I do so love the beautiful grounds there.

Then Saturday the 5^th Martha will be involved with the Multicultural Fest 2011 at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center. This is to be a celebration of our communities’ diverse cultures. It should be very entertaining with more than 20 local ethnic groups represented through music, dance, food and Martha will be doing crafts with the kids- making paper flowers and painting maracas.

Well, enough for now. Have a very artful day.

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