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Nudes, Eagles, Sea Lions, Flowers and Fruit, the Family Tree

Well, while I have been busily working away on my giant eagle project for this year’s Apple Blossom Parade, Martha has been busy making more beautiful nude sculptures out of clay at home and working with the kids at one of the local schools in town on a Flower and Fruit project. The kids had a great time and made some really nice artwork that they were really proud of.

Martha, also, did a tree mural inside the home of a local family which they intend to use as a means of displaying photos of members of their Family Tree. What a nice idea. They really liked it and it should serve the intended purpose quite well. I think one or more of the family members may be interested in taking some art lessons down the line.

And, along the lines of Martha’s art classes and such, we worked on and developed a flier for the upcoming Playback Theater project that she and her good friend Susan Evans are putting together. I still need to make the flier for the art class she will be teaching at the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center in May… I better get on that.

For me, having installed the Seal and Diver sculptures at Orca Scuba Center, our local dive shop, I got the bug to get back in the water.  So, I worked on my dry suit so as to be able to make it out on the boat with all my dive buddies. 

The guys have really missed my company over the past year while I have been working on so many art projects and writing so many art blogs and sadly not diving. As it was I still needed to borrow a dry ‘dry suite’ as mine still leaks.

But, make it I did and it turned out to be good for ‘research’ on my eagle project as well, as I saw a number of them and got some pics of one seated atop a rocky atoll in the San Juan Islands.

Our skipper Phil Jensen did a great job of getting us in close to some sea lions also on this rocky atoll where I got some good stills and some video of them which I posted on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JKdJKFCJOA&list=UUNvpiC1XcVKVH-EiXJCMCsA&index=1&feature=plcp  .

I got a number of great pics while out on the boat... too many to put in one blog, but some I think I need to print and frame a few of these new nature photos.

On the way back from Anacortes we made astop to get some more art viewing in... ok we really stopped to eat.But as it turned out they had some art on display at the pub in Mount Vernon where we ate. They even had some cool looking chalk art there.

Well, enough for now and back to work on that eagle, Apple Blossom is a coming.

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I am the Earth, Art for Child Care Providers and the Giant Indian

Well, while I was writing yesterdays blog, starting the firing of my coral mound for my seal project, volunteering as a docent at Two rivers Gallery, and visiting Terry Johnson to see what I would need to do next on my Steel Eagle, Martha was busy teaching her ‘I Am the Earth’ art class with a great bunch of third graders at Mission View Elementary in Wenatchee.  While at Terry’s I got a chance to see the new large Native American Painting that he did and committed to help him install it today.

Once Martha was done with ‘I Am the Earth’, we met up and headed out to the town of Quincy so Martha could teach an adult art class put on through Catholic Family and Child Services for child care providers at the Quincy Senior Center.

Once there and once Martha was situated in the space that she and her students would be able to use for the class (there was a bit of confusion at first as the place was mostly set up for the St. Patty’s Day Feast that would be starting about the time Martha’s class would be wrapping up), I went on over to the Quincy Library. There I needed to measure the smaller of Martha’s two sculptures there as I will be making a new mounting plate for it. The plate that is currently under it is too small. And, of course I enjoyed seeing Martha's large sculpture of a proud farm worker displaying the fruits (vegitables) of his labor.

Having measured the plate and determined the size that is needed, I took the time to enjoy the art by Don Nutt, Jan Cook Mack, Brad Brisbane and other artists on display there. I took note of the fact that Don’s painting of the first North West Explorers being observed by Native Americans high on a bluff above the Columbia has been moved to a location in the library better suited to show it and give it the room it deserves.

After enjoying the quiet and solitude of the (no cell phone) Quiet Reading Room with its comfortable chares and fire place, I was jolted by the sudden ring of… you guessed it, my cell phone. Ooops! I jumped up and quickly left the no cell phone reading room and returned the “Short Stories of Truman Capote” to the shelf and went outside to take Martha’s call. She was ready to have me come over and take pictures of the artwork of her students.

This group of child care providers which included a preschool teacher and a social worker were all there to work with clay modeling, learn about art, tap into their own creativity and get firsthand experience at how art can be a great stress reliever. Some of the senior center staff were clearly interested and related how they really could use such a stress reliever in their lives. Can’t we all? Some of the floks there recalled Martha from when she used to work for a program called First Steps  in Quincy almost twenty years ago.

The art that the students did in such a short time was pretty surprising. There was a collection of miniature furniture by one student, a good looking panda bear by another, a blue swan ladle or spoon holder and an assortment of other animals and decorative items. All in all it was a good day for art all the around.

While there I took note of the poster put up by our good friends out in Soap Lake for the comedic play they are currently running, that might be kind of fun to see. What a hoot that must be.

And, today, as I write this Martha is preparing to head back to the elementary school to finish up the ‘I Am the Earth” project at the school and I will be helping our friend Terry install his giant Indian painting and working on my Steel Eagle.

Another good day for art to be had.

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Coral, Diver, Seal and Eagle of Steel

Well, while Martha has been busily working on her teaching projects at various local schools and at the local emergency housing program and making giant birds and flowers for a float in the upcoming Apple Blossom Parade, I have been finishing up my  Seal and Diver sculptures.

And, for those who only last saw the Seal and Diver while they were being created at Terry Johnson’s studio I can tell you “Yes they are done” and now it is simply a matter of finishing the Coral Reef that will serve as the mounting stand for the Seal.

Meanwhile, as I have been waiting for the Coral Reef to dry sufficiently to fire in the kiln, I began the long awaited American Bald Eagle assignment for the same parade float as the colorful birds that Martha and co. have been working on. I have affectionately dubbed my bird the “Steel Eagle” as it is made from ¼ inch steel rods formed together with a combination of baling wire, spot welding and yes that all American favorite Duct Tape.

In fact the outer skin as it is at this moment is also of a light weight duct tape. More will go on top of the tape skin to finish the look for this project. But, for now it looks a bit more like a 747 than an eagle in some respects. No insult to Boeing intended.

Later this morning, I will be volunteering at our local co-op gallery Two Rivers Gallery in Wenatchee, after which I will meet up with Martha and head on out to the town of Quincy where she will be teaching yet another art class this evening. That should be fun.

While I’m there, if it’s not too late, I might get over to the Quincy Library and take a measurement of the smaller of the two sculptures Martha created for the new library. The sculpture in question really should have a bit wider of a mounting plate than the one the library folks placed under it.

Tomorrow, I should be able to get back to filling out the paperwork for Martha to have her art in a gallery on the west side of the mountains. Summer is coming and that is really the time to best think of transporting her large pieces over the passes and to being able to attend art walks and receptions and such over there.

Well, enough for now and back to researching and planning for my next art project… think giant lava lamp.

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Dancing, Birds, Surfin' Dali, Hip Hop and Prades

Well, it’s been an eventful couple of weeks since I last published in our blog.  Since then, we have been working diligently on our own projects… Martha along with friend Cindy Reitvelt and an number of volunteers have created several giant birds

and large cloth flowers for the parade float project for this year’s coming Apple Blossom parade.

 Some readers may recall that we were very active in creating the Giant Puppets that were such a hit in last year’s parade and for which I produced a number of videos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-JDMGAazDY&feature=plcp&context=C498021fVDvjVQa1PpcFO7Y7u6x-yNpk8__ObzFBysveri0Ou3Rss%3D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Qah4vItEI&feature=plcp&context=C4fd1a5eVDvjVQa1PpcFO7Y7u6x-yNpvwl_yzDOzDUM-Mplso7Lo0%3D

Besides the birds that Martha and the other “Embracing Cultures”volunteers have created so far to represent several of the nations of Central America, she has been  teaching a number of art classes and we have been firing small art pieces for them in our kiln.  

I am still to build my American Bald Eagle for the Float, but have acquired metal and have been practicing spot welding for the armature for what I am hoping will be a great and proud representation of this important American Symbol. I’m up against some stiff comparison as Martha’s birds are so good and colorful. I need to really make a splash with this…hmmm.  An eagle ‘splashing’ in the water after a fish… now there’s an image.

This calls to mind the trip we recently made up to the town of Twisp for an art opening at the Confluence Gallery.  Along the way we had spotted some eagles and I got some pics of them, although the one that that I really wanted of an Eagle in the water of the Methow River eluded me.

 I did get some good pics of deer and of a local bridge which offered some interesting color and contrast in lines and structure.

We arrived there inTwisp with plenty of time before the beginning of the reception which allowed us to have free reign to take in the art without the shoulder to shoulder crowd that would be there later. One thing that catches the eye as one enters the gallery is the large metal ball sculpture in the center of the room (anyone who has gone down to the Riverfront park area near the walking bridge will recognize the work of Bernard F. Hosey). Which reminds me that I did a photo shoot of a fellow in Wenatchee Just prior to heading to Souther California last week during which I photographed him at the the Hosey outdoor sculpture by the River Front Park.

Later when we returned to the gallery after a pleasant dinner further up the river in the Town of Winthrop the joint was jumping with people and we were so pleased to meet some of the artist such as Jenn Allen Tate who shared with me how she does some of her work with acrylic paint, plaster and cardboard and John Lucus who’s three dimensional wall hanging pieces really caught our collective eyes. I got a chance to visit a bit with John as well and learn a bit about what he does with his molded figures and stone in his 3d paintings. 

Although we didn’t meet James Cicatko, we couldn’t help but be very impressed with his skill and outlook as expressed through his large graphite on paper drawings. His take on the world is definitely his own and not like any others we have seen.

What was a real surprise was that we bumped into people we knew such as Allen and Rose Lundberg from Soap Lake. Readers may recall them from previous blogs about the Soap Lake Art Guild’s 3^rd Wednesday art Talks in Soap Lake. We, also met up with Rod and Jane Weagant.

The last time I had seen Jane was before she and Rod moved up to Alaska a few years ago. Rod Weagant, the well known and respected nature artist who is known for his large canvases which allow the viewer to enter into a resplendent alpine landscape or sense the refreshing splash of a mountain stream portray scenes from the Cascades, Alaska and other regions of the mountain west. Rod’s landscapes are vivid and sun-splashed, marked by the high contrast of dazzling light presented directly without pretense. Although Rod was not exhibiting in this show he has been involved with the Confluence Gallery since returning from Alaska and moving to the Methow Valley. It was good to talk over old times with he and his wife Jane whom I had known previously from when we worked in the same school together years ago. I really hope we see more of them and of Rod’s art in the near future.

While there we took in the work of Ann Osin, Yuko Ishii, Kay O’Rourke and others and I took a few more pictures of the artists and their work. That was a great trip and full of surprises.

Back in town on March 1^st, Martha and I helped Lynn Brown change out her artwork at the Wenatchee Senior Center and Martha Flores and then we installed some of Martha’s work in her place as the Featured artist there for the month of March. It’s a small venue and one not likely to produce any sales. But, it gives the seniors a bit of color and brightens up an otherwise institutional atmosphere.  And with older folks keeping; the environment fresh and changing has therapeutic benefits said to help forestall the onset of dementia and Alzheimer’s.  So; it’s a good thing all the way around that the artists from Two Rivers Gallery freely participate in this community effort without any hope of personal gain.

Last week I traveled to Orange County, CA for family events and was lucky that while I was missing our local First Friday Art Walk in Wenatchee, though I did get our art in the Two Rivers Gallery before I left,

 I was able to take in the Fullerton, CA Art Walk as that is were two of my grand daughters were performing with their hip hop ‘crews’. The older granddaughter and her ‘Kmot10n’ dance group went on to win 1^st place the next day in Aneheim at the Urban Street Jam.   

That was great to watch, photo and video. The video can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuzpGZ9bRdY&feature=youtu.be

The artwork ranged from the quirky to the traditional and a whole lot in between.  Some could be described as where the surf meets Dali.

 One fellow will ‘paint on anything’ and had displayed a pair of Vans sneakers on which he had painted  ‘Venus’ by Botticelli. Other very youth oriented art, such as that by Brandon Gratner, was a bit ‘trippy’ for most over the age of 40, but non-the-less of good quality.

I met and chatted with a German born artist named Steffi Moellers who did a variety of things including a mosaic sculpture. She was very interested in learning about the giant puppet projects that Martha and I were involved in for last year’s Apple Blossom Parade and the international birds that we are making for this year’s parade. She shared that they do a big parade in her home town in Germany that she thought was like our Apple Blossom Parade and that she wants to make some giant puppets herself.

I also was taken in by artwork of an older artist named Sung Su a ‘California Impressionist’ who was more traditional than a lot of what was out there that night. His was the only display that I was not allowed to take direct photos of, but his daughter did allow me to take a photo of some of his post cards which gives an idea of his work.

 It was interesting to me that when I mentioned Sung Su to Terry Johnson the owner of Terry Signs where I have been working on some of my various art projects, he recognized the name right away adding that he’s in several of the art books and catalogues he has in his studio library.

And, speaking of art projects at Terry’s, Yesterday I picked up  my fired clay seal I had been working on prior to leaving town and took it home to begin the glazing process which will take several steps but is coming along fine. I’m hoping to have in our local dive shop Orca Scuba by next week.

And, so now it is time to do some real work and then get back to that seal and start on the armature for that Great American Bald Eagle. Wish me luck with that.

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Healing Waters, Harvest Pride, Giant Birds and Artful Adventures

Well, yesterday was quite the day for the art adventures of Martha and Rod.  Our day began first thing with a trip to the Wenatchee Valley Museum and Cultural Center. There we met up with Brenda Abney the Director of the museum and headed out to the City Yard to take a look at the parade float that is in storage there. This is the same float that we and a group of friends used a couple of years ago for the Apple Blossom Parade and which was used by another group last year while we did the Giant Puppets for the parade.

The group that Martha is part of that wants to use the float this year is the Embracing Cultures group for which Martha has been designing and making colorful birds to represent the national birds of the various countries represented. So far we have one four and half foot or so bird taking shape in our home studio. The float is in a trailer and it looks to be in OK shape, but I’ll need to come back and charge the battery up to get it started.

After leaving the city yard we paid a visit to Terry Johnson at his Terry Signs Studio to see about enlisting his support with the float project. He was all good with that and shared that several years ago he had been a float judge for the Apple Blossom Parade. I hadn’t known about that; so that was interesting news. He offered to let us use some of his outside space and whatever we needed. Thanks Terry… you’re the best. While there I showed Martha the Seal project I am working on which will eventually have a diver along with it.

Upon returning home we loaded up the car with the Harvest Pride sculpture for the Quincy Library and several small to medium sized prints and original paintings of Martha’s to take to the Soap Lake Art Guild for her talk there in the evening. Martha continued to work on the giant bird project through the day while got to do more mundane repairs and such at one of our rentals. Ugh… the work never ends.

Ahh…. but then it was time for the fun stuff again as we took to the road. First stop Quincy. We were a bit early, so we had time to take a look around the new library designed by Brad Brisbane, a fellow member of Two Rivers Gallery in Wenatchee, and all the art that they have acquired so far. They had work by a number of artists that we know. There were paintings by Diane Sanford, Jan Cook Mack and Moises Napoles that we enjoyed. There was also a large oil  by an artist named Don Nutt who we were not familiar with that depicted Native Americans on horseback overlooking the Columbia River as they watched the first white men coming down the river by boats. We, also saw where Martha's family constilation sculpture sits high atop a piller near the Children's Section of the library. And, of course there was an oil landscape by Brad Brisbane, his  ‘Crowning Glory’ as Roxa Kreimeyer of the Quincy Library Foundation later described it. It is a great piece and it sits in a place of honor, as well it should, as he is the designer of the building.

When Roxa did arrive, we set to the task at hand of installing the ‘Harvest Pride’ sculpture in its own special alcove.  It sits nicely between two farm themed paintings by Consuelo Soto Murphey.  As we looked and appraised the setting, Roxa asked if we could make a pedestal to raise it up just a bit more and Martha offered to come back and secure the loose vegetables in the basket as Roxa had a concern that at some point some kids might fiddle with them. So; the work goes on and all with joy.

After, the visit with Roxa, we hit the road yet again this time out to Soap Lake, a place neither of us had been to before. Martha who used to work for Grant County Mental Health many years ago, thought she had been there, but had really only been as far as the northern outskirts of Ephrata. Once there… again a bit early, we drove around a bit and got out of the car to take a close look at the ‘Calling the Healing Waters’ Sculpture and Sundial by artists David Govedare and Keith Powell, a project that was completed and installed just in 2009  and which sits right at the shore of the lake.

After touring the town a bit more we went to the Masquers Theater where the Art Guild of the Soap Lake Area holds their ‘3rd Wednesday’ art presentations. They were in the middle of their board meeting when we arrived (early) so we quietly set up the art we had brought with us for the presentation. It’s a nice live theater building with a great Marquee outside that is visible from the moment you enter town. And, as it turns out Soap Lake has a very active community theater program which performs there regularly. The next play there we were told will be ‘Sex Please, We’re Sixty’ a comedy… what else could it be with that title. It starts in March… and it looks hilarious on their web site http://www.masquers.com/ … we might just take another trip out there to see it time permitting.

Once set up and after everybody had plenty of finger sandwiches and cookies… I love cookies, we all filed into the theater and Martha was introduced by Allen Lundberg. She then gave an entertaining presentation capped off with a rousing and dramatic recital of one of her poems and then took a few questions. Everybody loved the art and listening to Martha. While visiting with the crowd after the talk, I met Don Nutt who had painted that large oil of the Native Americans and the first white explorers that we had seen at the Quincy Library. He invited us to come up and visit him at his ‘Cariboo Trail Studio Art Gallery & Visitor Center’ in Coolee City.  Another day - another adventure to come. It was fun visiting with Don and the other folks there, I even met someone from L.A. and we chatted a bit about the old stomping grounds. It never ceases to amaze me when I find fellow Angelinos in various far flung places such as Soap Lake.

After visiting a bit in the theater we all headed over to the new ‘Healing Water’ art gallery across the street. There I got a chance to visit with the owner Bridget Ann Oie who showed me some of her photos of the soap of Soap Lake and explained a bit about the lake and its medicinal qualities to me. The gallery was nice and had some interesting pieces by a number of artists. Who knew in Soap Lake... well, it is a pretty new gallery.

Well, that was quite enough for one day…. believe me. And, now to work helping Martha with those giant birds. Have a very artful day.

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