Spanish Dancer, White Tails and Strange Mushrooms

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it’s been a great and busy week or so for the art and art projects of Rod and Martha. So much so that I am only now getting to writing this blog.

Monday of last week I finally got a chance to meet Koross Hoseini the phenomenal nature photographer whose work fills the Pelican Gallery in Leavenworth. His wife Sherri who runs the gallery agreed to carry some of my photos and the Monday before Thanksgiving was the day to deliver and meet Koross. He is a real friendly guy and I really enjoyed meeting him.

During the week, we found out that Two Rivers Gallery wants us to do the monthly TV presentation for the gallery on KWCC’s Laura Herrera Show. That was a hoot doing it this month and should be a fun gig going forward.

Of course, with Thanksgiving and the weekend Dancing Martha event at the NuArt Gallery looming we spent a fair amount of time preparing for that event. None-the-less I did get an outdoor photo adventure in on Black Friday. As much as I appreciate everyone out there shopping at the galleries on that day, I myself just had to get out and about and enjoy nature. And, Friday last presented a great opportunity to get out into the Sage Hills west of Wenatchee to see nature at work in her recovery from the fires of September.

The lower hills and ravines were full of deer early in the morning. I saw over a dozen of them in groups of three to four.  I stayed plenty far from them but was able to use my zoom to get some great close-up shots of some of these white tails. As the morning progressed they all seemed to be heading for higher ground and so did I, though I was looking for vistas and new growth of flora more than fauna. The higher up I got the greater the vistas and opportunities to take some panoramic shots.

The way the grasses and fungi sprout up out of burnt ground provided some interesting photo ops. The hills covered in a thin re-growth of green sprouting from blackened earth made for what I think was a beautiful contrast of color and texture. The rock outcroppings that would have been more obscured by sage before the fires presented some additional visual eye candy for this photographer.  I was pleased to find some positive responses to these photos from the folks at the Chelan Douglas Land Trust which owns much of the area that I photographed.

And, while I was out trudging around in the mist and rain taking pictures, Martha was over at Simply Unique, where we both now have some of our art and photos, for their grand opening. As soon as I got down from the hills I visited there to get a photo or two. Folks were exploring and enjoying this new venue for art and antiques. I hope we and all of the other venders there do well.

But, the big event of the week for us was the Dancing and Painting live event at the NuArtGallery in East Wenatchee on Saturday. That was a whole lot of fun from which I made another Martha Flores Dancing Artist movie which is on Youtube and GoWedia. We had a young artist who goes by the moniker of David V35 there with us and he was also painting live… though not dancing. He is a very talented artist whose work I really like. Look for future joint events with David V35 and Martha Flores / Rod Daut.

We had a free raffle there at NuArt and lots of people put their tickets in the drawing box. The lucky winner was a young lady from Puyallup and a 12” x 18” print of Martha’s signature piece “Flowering Consciousness” will be picked up by a relative as soon as we can get together on a time and day.

We were also fortunate to sell a serious piece of Martha’s art “Despair” that I had only just got framed up a few days prior to the event. I had a good feeling about that piece and sure enough it sold. Gary Doan related that the lady who bought is a repeat customer at NuArt. I really am glad it found a good home with someone who really appreciates art.

This Monday we recovered from the frenetic weekend staying in. But, that didn’t stop Martha from creating a few new masks and from putting a few more touches on the Spanish Dancer and horse painting she did while dancing on Saturday.

Yesterday was all work all day on a multi-page art show proposal for a large regional museum gallery show. This turned out to be pretty involved and is waiting to be completed.  It’ll get done… no worries on that.

Today, before sitting down to write this blog we had a very fruitful meeting with a young internet marketing specialist named Mike Endsley who is helping put together our strategies for getting Martha’s art out to the world in 2013. I’ll keep you posted on that.

Well, enough for now, have a very artful day and think a bit on the words of St. Francis of Assisi who said, “He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands his head and his heart is an artist.” I like that.

 

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NUART, New Ventures, Flames, Alien in the Museum and Eyes Over Venice

 

 

 

 

Well, this week I began working on a small scale mock-up of the new Steel Eagle project. Along this line, I also paid a visit to friend Terry Johnson’s studio to work on my welding technique. The end result of both the mock-up and the welding is that I am rethinking design to work with flat steel vs. steel rod for the armature. That should give me a much better surface with which to attach the sheet metal to the armature.

And while I have been working on the preliminary stages of my new Steel Eagle, Martha has found her small scale painting muse. I had ordered several 10”x10” canvases for her but they arrived after the submission deadline for the upcoming show in Twisp… dang! But she dived in head first and is making some really great small paintings. These should make a good alternative to buying prints for art buyers who would really love to own and original Martha Flores painting.

Thursday was the really big and busy day though for Martha and me.  First off we stopped in at the newest venue for artist to offer their work in Wenatchee… that being a place called Simply Unique. Heidi, the owner, was there and we delivered several of Martha’s small sculptures both bronze and ceramic and a number of paintings as well. After that it was off to Leavenworth for us.

On Wednesday, I posted a couple of videos on the new local GOWEDIA video sharing site. One of which was of Martha's Show at the Performing Arts Center in Wenatchee. It seems to be doing well there so far. To view go to: http://www.gowedia.com/videos/2012/nov/15/martha-flores-at-the-pac/

I had become aware that two restaurants in Leavenworth were supporting the Upper Valley mend organization which supplies the area food banks by committing to donate all proceeds from Thursday to support the cause. So, I thought that would be a great day to head to Leavenworth, have lunch and visit Sherri at Pelican Gallery and meet the new director of Icicle Arts Gallery.

And; so after lunch at Café Verona we visited with Sherri who so graciously agreed to carry some of my photos in her gallery. Thanks so much Sherri. And, then we stopped by Icicle Arts of which we are members and where Martha had a show in January and February of this year and visited with Alicia McKee. She is eager and committed to doing great job and has some ideas about expanding the reach of the gallery.  For more on my interview with Alicia look for an upcoming blog in Art in the Valley and Beyond in the Wenatchee World Online.  While there we got a chance to see the current exhibit by Colored pencil artist Vicki DeRooy – we really liked her art.

After our visit to Leavenworth, the day wasn’t over yet for me. I still had the Two Rivers Gallery board meeting to attend. There we addressed nearly three hours worth of ideas. Plans and issues, but for Martha and me the upshot was that we are now committed to going on TV every month to promote the gallery and our First Friday event. Ahh… Martha … a star is born. My good buddy in Seattle is really wanting ac copy of our first TV appearance… it cracked him up so much. That should be a lot of fun for us and hopefully we will develop a following. We will plan on bring some art work with us each time and continue are humorous banter that both the host Laura Herrera and those who watched us enjoyed so much.

On Friday things were a bit more sedate. I worked on press release about Martha’s dancing and Painting Live show at the NUART Gallery in East Wenatchee on Saturday Nov. 24^th. Some readers may recall that Martha painted three acrylic paintings while dancing to Latin Music last year on Black Friday from which a video was produced which can be seen at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qGR5qiAB7E . 

 

Later, I worked on submitting images for printing on metal and bamboo. One of the images that I am having printed on metal is what I am calling "Alien in the Museum". I’m really hoping those images will come out great on those substrates. And, while I worked on the upcoming show and my prints, Martha was paining in the studio and then went off to teach her art class at Recovery Innovations in Wenatchee.  

 

 

   and as always martha is creating one and inventive concepts in her art like this one which for now I have dubbed  "Overlooking Venice" by Martha Flores.

Well, enough for now. Have a very artful day and as as Horace once said, "A picture is a poem without words". I think Martha would agree.

 

 

 

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Beautiful 'Young Woman' 3D Light and Rod and Martha on TV

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it’s been a full week for art and art projects for Rod and Martha.

Last week on October 31^st Halloween Day we were guests on a local talk show at KWCC TV hosted by Laura Herrera. It was a lot of fun and we were able to talk about the upcoming First Friday reception at the Two Rivers Gallery where we are showing and the various art events and shows we are involved with and to show some of our art. All in all it was a good and entertaining TV. Or, so my friends who watched attested to.

A couple of times during the week I went on over to the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center to get photos of the staff there putting up the Lightening Fires photo exhibit in which I had five photos of the September Fires which presented some unusual photographic opportunities for a good number of local photographers. One of my photos of the firemen in the exhibit had also been picked up by some news agencies and was on Yahoo news from what I was told.

Friday was the opening at both the museum and the gallery.  Our artwork was well received at the gallery. I went to the reception at the museum early before the crowd so can only hope my photos were appreciated. I suspect they were. Visitors to Two Rivers really loved Martha’s ‘Blonds and Penguins’ and her ‘Young Woman’. Both are acrylic on 40 x 40 canvases.

There was a bit of buzz as well around my abstract digital photo art. One ‘Cascadian Collage’ was a multi  stage process starting with a photo of the art deco upper floors of an old hotel, the Cascadian  in Wenatchee, which I had then altered using several filters in Photoshop. I had then printed several copies of it on plain paper and manually cut and pasted them together forming a unique pattern. Then, having attached them to a board I photographed the design, I put it back into Photoshop and used the liquid paint brush function to finish the piece as it was finally printed and framed. It was a lot of work, but it turned out pretty well and I found that other artists were most interested in it and how I did it. My ‘Great Idea’ three dimensional looking light photo was similarly of interest to others especially other photographers. I was asked a few times to describe how I created the ‘The Begining’ digital painting from a photograph, which was fun to explain as well. Who knows maybe a sale will come the week after First Friday to one of these viewers as has happed before.

Saturday, Martha was invited to show some of her art a local church fund raiser. She sold a few cards and prints and had a good time painting three water colors while she was there.

And, while Martha was painting, socializing and selling art at the church, I decided to get out into the hills for a fall hike and to get some photos. This was my first opportunity to get out into the hills all season and to try out the panorama function on my new camera. It was a good day to be out and about. I got some shots of an owl flying low to the ground a large bird of prey flying high and several deer working their way up a hillside and of course a few of those panoramic shots. I’m thinking some more trips up into the hills may be called for.

 

And, while I took a break from photography and art on Sunday, Martha was working on several new oils in the upstairs studio, one of which will be a variation on the ‘Flowering Consciousness’ theme as in Martha’s signature piece by that name. This one should be fun to follow and see how it turns out when it is done as will the mother and child water color.

 

 

Well, enough for now as soon I will need to go to a fund raising luncheon for ‘The Arts on the Avenue’ at our local Golf and Country Club…. ahhh the work never ends, but then as Elbert Hubbard said, “Art is not a thing, it is a way”… and what a way it is. 

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