It Came Out of The Sky

Well, I have been working diligently on some new art. I have one that I am particularly endeavoring to ‘get right’. It has a lot of potential. The working title for now is “It Came Out of The sky”.  I am including an image of same in this blog…any comments would be accepted. On another artistic note, I took some seascape photos on my way back from Cali. the other day. Some of those look pretty good as well.

Meanwhile Martha is traveling to Texas to see the grand kids there.  At the same time I just opened the latest edition of the Eastmont Focus Insert in the Wenatchee World for March and found an article about the High School Art Show that Martha judged recently. Kudos to Petra Michael and Jordon Mayo of Eastmont High School.   Petra won best of show for her “Dog Duel” an interesting piece that screams out for a show  and looks like it could make for a great tattoo for someone who is into tattoos. Jorden got second place in the sculpture category for his piece titled “The Psychedelic Buddha” (great title too by the way). Both of these young artists will see their work go onto the State show in Olympia being held from April 8 through June 2.  Good luck to both of you.

Now back to working on Martha’s art book… hopefully I can get’r done before she comes back from Texas. That may not be possible; but I hope to make some serious headway in any case.

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A Great Week IN CA

Well, it was a great week in Cali., with all the family, seeing and holding my new grandson Samy.  Sam and Marlene are going to be great parents for lil’ Samy. And, spending time with Tatiana and the girls was such a joy. Didn’t see enough of Deshano, but he’s doing what he needs to do - work, work and more work (I hear the theme to “Car Wash” in my head).

While there, and being all alone at night without Martha to keep me company, I worked on some more of my digital art with my computer… that is once I had it working right again (but that’s another story for another time).  Some of these are quite striking and will definitely warrant large scale printing and showing.

Also, while in CA I went to my son Rodney’s with the thumb drive containing Martha’s art book, such as it is, and got some helpful advise about self publishing. It is so good for an old guy like me to have knowledgeable kids that can help me learn how to do this technical stuff. With the help of my kids I am managing to get out in front of many of the folks my age and up that I know anyway as far as techi stuff like this. And, that being the case, I will pick back up with developing a marketing strategy for a good friend and artist here in town who makes great ceramic art.

Before I left I was able to pack up the forty picture frames (some quite large) that my son Austin had picked up for me from a Craig’s List seller in the OC. And, on my way back I picked up a 59 gallon wine barrel in Paso Robles for one of my other artistic endeavors…that is if you see wine making as an artistic endeavor...I do.

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New, New, New. New Grand Baby, New Artwork and Very New Look Of The Art

Well, It’s been a wonderful week down here in So. Cal. With kids, grandkids and the newest addition to our family… little Samy.  But the art goes on. Martha has been working away back home on the Giant Puppet project which is coming along splendidly with all the help from the H.S. kids from Wenatchee High. She says that they still need a couple pair of hands. When I get back I may have to create the armatures for the hands so the kids can then do the clay and paper mache on them .  Martha has been filling in for me on Gallery Docent detail… whew I’m glad of that. I’ll have to cover for her while she’s out of town next month. Martha has also, been putting my cards out for sale at the galleries but ran out of certain sizes of clear bags for them, so I ordered some online just a bit ago.

Meanwhile I have been working on some new digital art while I have been up late at night here at my daughter’s house. I’m pretty pleased with how some of these new pieces are looking. They are double new. New pieces and a totally new offshoot from what I have been doing. I want to say that they are a complete departure from what I’ve been doing. But, that would only be half true. The look and theme is completely new, as are the base subject matter from which I began the process. But, they are still the product of some similar actions on the material as I have been doing for some time now with my abstract works.

This could lead me in a whole new direction with my art…we shall see where it leads.

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Living Treasure

Busy busy busy at work on art production, promotion, management. Saturday Martha  along with Reed Carlson - a photographer from Leavenworth, was a judge for the High School Art Show being held at the Wenatche Valley Museum and Cultural Center for kids from several high schools. This coming Saturday they will present the awards to the winners. Sunday we had a  local artist Terry Johnson, who makes wonderfully creative pots and paints as well in his studio where he has run Terry's Signs from for thirty-five years, and his wife Karen over for dinner.  Terry is a hoot. Since then Martha has been busily working away up in her studio. I have been framing up more pictures downstairs and droping off fliers for this Saturdays Second Saturday opening at Cashmere Arts and Activity Center where I am the current featured artist. I have had meetings with the director of CAAC and attended the Cashmere City Council meeting Tuesday night along with Artie Bowman the director of CAAC as part of our effort to promote the gallery and get more involved in the community planning that will effect the gallery. This morning at 2am while I was reading the paper, I found an article mentioning that they were accepting nominations for the Living Treasure award in Wenatchee; so I spent the next few hours filling out the nomination form and writing the description of why I was nominating Martha for the award and collecting the supporting documents and news paper articles. We'll see how it goes. I think she's got a pretty good shot at it myself. Today I'll take it in to Wenatchee.

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Check out my new photo. http://ping.fm/3IeZP


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First Friday and Special Olympics

Well, it’s been another busy couple of days for us in Wenatchee. Martha did free portraits for the Special Olympic Athletes Friday while I attended First Friday at Two Rivers Gallery where we had the opening of the Walter Graham exhibit. The event was well attended and many of the attendees participated in the "name the painting game". Many of Walter's work were left un-named at his death and participants had the opportunity to fill out a form with their suggestions for names for several pieces of his work. Once submitted the forms would serve as a raffle ticket for $200.00 worth of coupons. Another true raffle was available at $5.00 per card to win a small oil painting by Mr. Graham. Everyone really loved the show. The painting that served as the blue print for the larger than life Horsepower mural at the Rock Reach Dam was on display publicly for the first time in well... maybe ever, since it's been seen only by visitors to the home of Walter's niece Denise who was present at the event. The art in this show by all the other artists was also good and well appreciated...but, of course the Walter Graham pieces stole the show.

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Martha's International Women's Day Breakfast Key note speech went well this morning. Three hundred people attended, and a number of those are staying for her workshop, which she is doing as I write. Every one was happy and inspired by the speech and loved the artwork. The theme of the healing power of art and the focus on the healing of broken lives and helping children in stress and poverty to feel good about themselves and have hope and inspiration for their own lives were central to the message of the talk and of the mission of the Bruce Transitional Housing Center and Women's Resource Center which sponsored the event. And, of course when Martha recited some of her poetry she really got into her best 'Evita' persona as I like to call it. Everyone loved the poetry as well as the visual art. On a side note, all the post card packets with Martha's art work on them sold out and a number of people want to come see her art at the house with intent to buy and one women is wanting Martha to come to her house to see her space and either help her pick just the right piece for her home or commission a piece just for her. For me it was great to be there listen to Martha, take pictures and see so many people that I knew and hadn’t see for so long. To name them all  would to long a list for this post. But, here’s a shout out to Doug Head. It was good to see you after so long, and the same for Julie Anderson. Tanya Bradford of the Women’s Resource you are a joy to work with and we both appreciate all you have done. All in all a good day for the community.


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London Street Photo Festival , Terry Johnson and the Women's Resourse Center.

Well, today was a busy day indeed for Martha and Rod. First thing this morning, we loaded up the car with many of my photos and several of Martha's oil paintings and headed off to Lamolos to be there by 8am so we could get everythihg installed before they opened for the 11am lunch crowd.  When we got there, it turned out that there was a miscommunication. While Kasey arrainged with us to fill in as the March artist had not been able or ready to do the show, Zebb had made arraingements with someone else to do the show. Oh well, what can ya do. when we got back home I started working on a submission for photos for the London International Street Photography Festitival. I had to track down the correct photos to uses on three computers several thumb drives and my Maxto External hard drive which holds tons of phots that were backed up there before my computer hard drive fried on my desk top and my lap top had a software meltdown. Thank God I had bought the Maxtor and had backed up so much work. While working on that it came time to go back out with Martha to drop off some sculptures to be fired by friend and artist Terry Johnson of Terry's Signs. While there he was so kind as to give me a contact for a gallery in Bellingham and even greater than that by far, he GAVE yes I said GAVE Martha one of his Roku style Vasses that he makes. Martha, had simply commented as she looked at a catalogue of his work, how much she love his work and PUFF he said, "would you like one", and pulled one out and gave it to her. He has even offered to let us use his spaace there any time we need a place to work and get dirty. What a guy. We really like this guy and want to have him and his wife over for dinner. After leaving Terry's we went to the Women's Resourse Center, Martha needed to drop off a CD for them to use when Martha gives her Keynote speach this Thursday at the Convention Center. While she did that I went across the street to McDees Art supply and low and behold, there was Jan Theriault from Two Rivers Gallery doing a water color painting along with a group of other water colorists. We chatted and as we had needed to meet up with him at the gallery at noon any way to put the missing tags on the backs of our art works we took over there on Sunday, we just waited for him and went straight from there to the gallery. After having taken care of the errant or really missing tags, we came home, and I spent the rest of the day on the London Street Photo submission. Some of what took so long in that was that as I was looking for some very specific photos, I was finding all kinds of other stuff that I organized along the way, so that it will be easier to find photos on other themes later when I need them.

Come 5pm it was time to go work on Giant Puppets, but by then I wasn't as enthused about going out again. So; Martha went to work on puppets and she also needed to consult with Bill regarding the event coming up Saturday, which I think is maybe the Special Olympics. I feel bad a little bit right now that I'm not sure that that is what it is, as SO is this weekend, and Martha is involved with it, but that there is also something on Friday which I can't think of what it is just now.  Brain is turning to mush... must be working just too danged hard hahaha.


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