Friday, December 30, 2011

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 6th… 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.





Friday, December 9, 2011

Check out my comment on the 'Gallery Photo:Horse Lake House'. http://ping.fm/7LSWa



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.




Check out my new photo. http://ping.fm/q5aIE