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Sunday, January 22, 2012
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
A Long and Winding Road of Art, Galleries and Openings
Well, it’s hard to believe that it’s been as long as it has
since I last posted in this blog. In fact this is the first posting of the
year. The First Friday opening and
Reception for Martha as featured artist at Two Rivers Gallery in Wenatchee was
quite a success … lots of people came and enjoyed the art of all the artists
and raved about Martha’s work. And on the morning of the opening in Wenatchee, I took more of Martha's paintings up a long and winding road to Bryan at the Icicle Arts Gallery in Leavenworth for yet another show where she is featured artist.
At the Two Rivers Gallery opening that night it was nice that folks who had never been in the gallery
before came and some bought art from a number of the artist represented…
including Martha and myself… Yeah!
Everybody had a really good time as well and that is always nice. We were so happy that some friends from
Seattle came for the show as well and stayed over the weekend.
Since that event we have been busy working on other projects
like the large clay figure of a Hispanic farmer happily showing the fruits
(vegetables) of his labor in a basket for the new Quincy library. Over the
weekend it was time to install the Vicki Hillberg show at the Cashmere Arts and
Activities Center.
On the twelfth was the board meeting for the Two Rivers Gallery
which I attended. Jan Theriault the board president was very pleased to say
that last week’s first Friday was the most well attended that he can
recall. He joked that he didn’t know
that Martha knew so many people.
Among other things we discussed the ongoing development of
the Troll under the bridge project. This was the first time we actually got to
see the drawing by board member Russ Helper.
We also discussed the upcoming First Friday love theme as February is
the month of Valentine’s day. Martha will continue to be featured artist and will
recite some of her love poems. That should really make for another unique show.
Since then we have taken the clay figure she’s been working
over to the Terry Johnson Studio as that is where it will have to be fired due
to the large size of the piece. We sent
a photo to one of the prime members of the art committee for the Quincy Library
and the response was outstandingly positive…yeah! One idea was to make a mold of it and then
make the final piece from cement, but Martha would really like to try firing
it… so after hollowing it out to make it better for firing, we must now just wait for the clay to dry and then fire
it ever so slowly and ever so carefully. I really can’t wait to see how it
turns out. While at Terry’s I got some last pics of the piece and of the small
painting he did for his grandchild.
Meanwhile, Martha has continued to do her usual work
teaching art to the folks at the emergency housing program and I have been
firing the small clay figures that the students there make. Added to that
Martha did a workshop for the kids (fifth graders I think) at the St. Joseph’s Catholic
school in Wenatchee. That went well. The kids really liked it. And, for me, I
have been working off again and on again on my acrylic painting of the Horse Lake
House that I photographed just before it was torn down in the fall. You may
recall that I also produced a video of the destruction - “Tearing Down the
House” which is on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95WzkG615x8&list=UUNvpiC1XcVKVH-EiXJCMCsA&index=7&feature=plcp.
The Painting is coming along… getting certain aspects just
right has been a bit of a challenge as I had various perspective and light/dark
issues to contend with. On top of the fact that I just haven’t painted in so
long and of course Martha is the REAL painter in the house, which has its
plusses and minuses. On the plus she is a great critic and can give me good
suggestions of how to solve a problem. On the other, I judge and compare what I’m
doing to her work in my own head and will always come up short comparing my
painting to Martha’s… note to self as artist … don’t compare my work to Martha’s.
Well, that’s probably enough for now, or this will be way to
long. Happy new year to all and a very artful as well.
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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.
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.
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Friday, December 9, 2011
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.
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| 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.
I don’t even want to think about that.
Well, enough for now. Have a very artful day.
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