Art, Emotion and the Events of Life

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well the past week or so has been quite busy for Martha and Rod.

 

Early in the week we got Martha’s submission in for the upcoming Bird themed juried art show at the Icicle Arts Gallery in Leavenworth, WA. Her fanciful and imaginative takes on the theme are so colorful they just make one smile and wonder.

 

In the same couple of days we got her submission in for a show at the Arts West Playhouse in West Seattle for next year. We’ll keep our fingers crossed on that. And while these submissions were going through, Martha was busy all week teaching her ‘Fruits and Flowers’ class as a guest instructor at one of the local elementary schools. She loves doing those guest artist gigs in the schools and the kids really love it too.

 

On Thursday April 11^th Martha was featured artist at the Nature Consortium in West Seattle for the West Seattle Art Walk. It was a lot preparation for days ahead and the event was the day after we got the call that Martha’s dad in El Salvador had passed. The event went well. Martha was surprised at how many people came to the little and seemingly out of the way venue on the art walk.

 

The next day we were able to settle in and do some traveling down memory lane regarding her Papi by going through the old photos from when she and her brother were little growing up with her dad Lito  and her mom Taty.  Having posted a few pics from that era on Face book a number of folks commented on her dad’s movie star good looks in those days. In this photo of Papi Lito and Martha's brother Mike he really does look like a 1940's Latin Movie Star. When we visited together a couple of years ago I saw that he still had the painting I had done of him on horseback modeled after an old black and white photo from the 1940’s. Wish I had a photo of that to share.

 

And, while Martha had been teaching and preparing for her show in Seattle, I finished the hard copy acrylic version of the ‘Peace Dove Crying Over a Burning Monk’. This I finished by  attaching it to a repurposed ¾ inch plywood board that had a thin vinyl like shelving material on one side which I had torched to make it fit the content of the painting. In burning the board the shelving material bubbled up in such a way as to really create a great texture and patina. Where the wood showed it took on a really great reddish color and tone. The original hard copy acrylic painting I think I will hold onto for awhile and look for a non-profit Free Tibet organization to offer it at an auction to raise money for the Free Tibet Cause. The prints of the acrylic painting are available on my web site sales of which will go toward continuing to create Free Tibet and Peace Art to support the cause of freedom for Tibetans and other non violent peace causes around the globe.

 

Also, in the early part of the week, I submitted seven photos and a video to the ChelanDouglas Land Trust’s juried art show and reframed my painting of the old Cherry Creek Ranch House that was on the Land Trust land till it had to be torn down for safety reasons in the fall of 2011. The painting will be submitted later in the month. People who have seen the black and white photo of this deer in Land Trust submission really liked it.

 

Saturday, between reminiscences about Lito, I finally put together my submission for the Bird Fest show in Leavenworth. Seven photos some natural and some digitally altered to create digital paintings. It took awhile and only a few hours later did I realize I forgot to include one of a Kingfisher in a tree by the Columbia River. Oh, well next time.

 

On Sunday I was pleased to find on the front page of the Wenatchee World News Paper one of my photo images with a link to my ‘Arts In The

Valley and Beyond’ blog. That was a surprise that made that moment if not my day.

 

Well, enough for now and onto preparation for another of those life events – the wedding of my youngest son down in CA. Wow! Where did the time go?  And with these thoughts today I am pondering the words of both Paul Cezanne who said, “A work of art which does not begin in emotion is not art” and those of Henry Moore who said, “To be an artist is to believe in life.”

 

Have a very artful day.

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