Paintings in Public!

My paintings are out in public, some for the first time! A big thank you goes to Local Buzz in Bradford VT for showing my paintings for the month of January, so excited!

Dressing it up for the new year!

Getting my pieces ready to hang in Bradford VT's Local Buzz, the best coffeeshop around. They will be up for the month of January.

This one's looking mighty fine with it's new mat and frame. Success!

65°: An Exhibition of Contemporary Encaustic Art

I have three pieces hanging in 65°: An Exhibition of Contemporary Encaustic Art at Nave Gallery Annex! The opening is tomorrow night from 6-8pm in Somerville, MA. I am super excited! The show is solely encaustic works. I am looking forward to meeting some folks in the area that work in this medium. Also stoked to attend a show that contains some of my own artwork...I don't think this has happened for over ten years.
Hopefully this will be the first of many more to come. Thanks folks, I hope to see you there.

Hot Dog Garden - one of the three to be at Nave Gallery.

A visit to the Kimball Jenkins Estate

Here I am, a resident of Concord NH for over a year, and only today have I finally made the visit to the Kimball Jenkins Estate. As far as I can tell, this is the only place in town that offers continuing education art classes and meet&greets for local artists. There are two galleries (one for prominent artists and one for their own students), both of which I was able to get an eyeball on after randomly showing up on their campus.

It seemed to me the place operates more as an event space and provider of art classes: for my visit the receptionist had to run around and turn the gallery lights on for me. Also she let me view the exhibition that was in progress of being hung (reception to be on October 10th). Very informal with no informational handouts, Kimball Jenkins struck me as pretty interesting and mildly standoffish, but heck, it was free. It leaves me curiously wanting to attend one of their social events.

Either way, of the three artists to be presented on October 10th at their upcoming show A Sense of Place, I was by far most interested in the artist Alison Williams. 

One of her paintings on a pedestal.

Again, this show is in the process of being arranged in the space of Kimball Jenkin's mansion. Also it is very apparent that the aesthetic of the mansion is a source of pride for the estate in how much it imposes upon the gallery space. I do believe they ask of the artists to incorporate their exhibitions into the space intentionally. Alison Williams did that with an installation along with her varied paintings and multimedia works. 

Bad photo of her current installation

As you can see, you need to be close to absorb her installation/not have it fight with the surroundings. But she did use the whole space (items on shelves in the background, as well as specific pieces that used light as an element to the work in the windows - this should be interesting at 7pm at the gallery opening). I did do a bit of research on her, and it seems she often makes complete small buildings as installations using a lot of natural light; I think this may be an early attempt at a non-rectangular enclosed space for her.

Either way, her work was beautiful. In reading her artist statement I found she focuses on gardening and art with no separation between the two. She is interested in that line between human direction and natural assertion. From her website; 

"In both art and gardening I navigate the tension between an expected and a disrupted path... 

I set parameters and initiate material intersections, then I am engaged in a relationship 

with how the materials assert themselves and move beyond the imposed limitations. " 

From multilayered, multimedia panel pieces to classic paintings of flower arrangements, she elegantly used her varied mediums in a way that added depth to the long conversation throughout her work.

Looking forward to the show to find out the titles of these. Good pairing here.

Something about Personal Solar Systems

Untitled, but something about Personal Solar Systems.

So I've finished my latest painting, and first painting since moving my life 45 minutes south three months ago. Pretty happy about this. Other good things have been happening too - I will be hanging my artwork in a public space this coming April at Planet Marshmallow, a pretty sweet coffee shop in Manchester NH. I would like to note that this is the first time I will be hanging a solo collection of my work in a public space since...2004. Seriously folks, this is a big deal for me. Good things, good things.

Also on that note - I applied to some artist residencies recently (by some I mean only one) and was accepted. Chalk Hill Residency in Healdsburg, California offers artist residencies for two weeks or longer. The time slot I was accepted for starts next November, so I have some time before I decide to accept it (time and money are factors in this). Despite this, I am suuuuper stoked I was accepted - it is some form of external validation that everyone needs every once in a while.

So folks, happy friday. And keep on keeping on, because chances are you're doing a good job.