As the last warm days of the year fade away I am happy to announce the work is done on loading up the art from my last show, THESE FOOLISH THINGS. Good work takes time, and not just the creation of the work, but the telling of the story and the website design of sharing it is no simple task. Having spent the summer resting my mind, renewing my creative energy and just enjoying the rhythm of every day, I can feel the rumblings of my next body of work. Until then, please enjoy the show under the ART tab.

“REST IS NOT IDLENESS, AND TO LIE SOMETIMES ON THE GRASS UNDER TREES ON A SUMMER DAY, LISTENING TO THE MURMER OF THE WATER OR WATCHING THE CLOUDS FLOAT ACROSS THE SKY, IS BY NO MEANS A WASTE OF TIME.”

John Lubbock, The USE of Life

Grace told me this was her favorite piece.

(photo by Kevin Tully)

My perfectly wonderful granddaughter, Grace Ann attended my opening. I hope someday she will remember that night, when I am old and ‘grayer’ (hard to picture more gray) and too old to pick up a brush, or assemble a collage. Maybe there will come a day when I am sitting in a big comfortable chair, watching her make art for my old eyes.

(photo by Kevin Tully)

The opening of These Foolish Things seems like only yesterday, but time has flown by and my hasty departure only one day after the show left me with  many things undone. Mostly the chance to thank everyone who not only made the opening a wonderful and successful evening, but helped in any way before , during and after. That includes all the lovely volunteers at The Kerr Arts and Cultural Center, friends and family, my secret lettering artist,  Kevin Tully and especially David Smith for taking down the show in my absence and getting it all safely back into crates and storage. I thank ALL my special art patrons and hope you will enjoy your new purchases… it is an honor to sell a piece of art.

I am embarrassed to say I still am not prepared to post the full body of work on my site, as I’m at the mercy of those with technical skills that are beyond mine though I do hope to have it up by the end of this month. Good things take time you know.

In the meantime, I will attempt to post a series of shots on my blog taken by Kevin Tully, who graciously volunteered his talents on opening night.

With endless thanks again to all!

(photo by Kevin Tully)

In your first year of art school, most often there is something called a foundation program. In FOUNDATIONS, students are exposed to a little bit of every major the school has to offer, from ceramics to painting. By experiencing the basics of all the arts, you get to see what medium best suits your creative voice and leanings. By your sophomore year it is time to declare a major and your corse of study becomes an intensive in that area. I hated making that choice. I was loving everything still, including photography. But choose I had to, and I majored in painting with a minor in printmaking and still loving everything else. What I have learned over many years of art making, is they are all connected, all wonderfully related, and I did not have to ever choose one over the other. I do not profess to be a learned photographer by any means, but when you see the world through an artist’ eye, how you choose to portray it, is secondary. Some famous artist once said this about MONET.

“He’s just an ‘eye’. But what an ‘eye!”

This is how it is with the arts. Your viewpoint, your eye is what best tells your story. Draw, paint, photograph, sculpt, build… how you create, and what you create is secondary to what you uniquely see. Make it your own.

This photograph I have featured was honored for the director’s award at the A Smith Gallery , in Johnson City, Texas. I took it on a trip to Florida a number of years ago, and entered it in this show that had a ‘travel’ theme.

The juror was Alison Wright and I could not be prouder to have the piece both accepted in the show and honored by the gallery directors, Amanda Smith and Kevin Tully. The A Smith Galley exhibits the work of both professional and amateur photographers. See the entire show on line at their website ( asmithgallery.com)

This morning I was honored to judge a city wide Youth Art Show at Kerr Arts & Cultural Center in Kerrville , Texas. All schools in the area from K-12.Only the 6 through 12 were awarded ribbons for first , second, third, and there were a handful of honorable mentions.

I saw this show last year and it was so wonderful! Just a joy to be surrounded by art so raw and free. And the skill level and point of view of those who clearly have a calling stood out. Here is an interesting interaction I had as I was placing ribbons for the 12th graders. A woman came in who was a retired grade school art teacher. She was talking with the receptionist in the room that housed the upper grades artwork. There were two great pieces that frankly, I had a very hard time choosing between. If there could have been a tie, this would have been the two. One had exquisite execution – lovely draftsmanship. The other had a marvelous story telling essence, and a unique point of view. I knew the obvious choice for this was the technically masterful one, but I came back again and again to the other one. Why? Because it was handled with a sense of abandon and confidence that drew me to it over and again. I knew there was more to come from this young artist beyond the mastery of technique. That was when I heard the art teacher say, ” You mean that other one won first prize?” Clearly she was not only horrified by my choice, but then said, “Is that a CIGARETTE in his mouth?!” Apparently this disqualified the fine work in her eyes. She simply could not get past this part of the subject matter to see the other truly fine qualities and unique style this young artist brought to his work. I admired his nerve, his studied look at all aspects of the composition and color handling. She could not get past the cigarette. I tried to explain why I felt it had the edge, but she was not convinced and it showed on her face. I’ve had that art teacher before. In fact I had one in high school that used to routinely lock me out of her class. We were like oil and water. She even told me I would never make it as an artist.

It’s so important to remember not to crush a young artists’ spirit when they put themselves out there for all the world to see. The cigarette is nothing. The nerve to use it in his work because he felt strongly it was part of the story is what was important. It was bold and brave and he deserved to be rewarded for the energy it took to tell his story.One that went well beyond technique. That ‘art teacher’ felt it was trash based on her narrow view of subject matter which was a tiny part of the larger work. You know how this is going to end now, right?

    ONE MAN’S TRASH IS ANOTHER MAN’S TREASURE.

(FEATURED IMAGE – painting by Grace Ann Alvord 5 years old, my granddaughter !)

As I said… I’ve been busy with a new body of work. The opening of the show will be in April and I have a series of teaser posts and blogs coming in the days ahead. So stay posted for THESE FOOLISH THINGS!

Before I started to write this, I had to laugh because of how commonplace New Years blog postings have become. I have no interest in making a list, or boring anyone with future plans or last years regrets. But it was with interest that I read a dear friend’s recent post regarding consolidating his many sites and posts from various platforms, all of which he uses to the benefit and encouragement of  himself and others to lead a healthier lifestyle. He is an inspiration and has inspired others, including myself to greater health. His fight has been longer and harder in some respects, but where I see him now and where he has been to get there, I think we see differently. To me, he has moved on and arrived at his destination. To him, he is still ‘getting there’.

A number of years ago, I started a body of work that became , and still is, a long running commentary on living a creative life, observing life and trying to tell a three-dimensional story in collage form. It was an extreme break from traditional art as I had always done, and remains a mystery to most. Every time I try to go back to traditional art as I have done in the past, it’s like putting on ill fitting clothes. I keep making theses art pieces and they continue to teach me, excite me, and interest me … and I have no interest in defending them. I am just compelled to make them. Recently I had the pleasure of a studio visit by a dean and provost from a local university. To my delight and surprise, they got the work immediatly! Even posing the question as they observed some of the works in progress ; when did I know I was finished with a piece? I love that question, because the answer is so universal to bigger moments in life. The answer of course is, YOU JUST KNOW.

During a time in my life when I needed some heavy medication to carry on after a rough patch in life, I asked my shrink, when will I know to go off this stuff? He simply told me, ” YOU WILL KNOW.” As it turns out I knew and remember the very day even after all these years.

Which leads me back to my friend and my title, MOVING ON. The New Year always seems like a perfect time to start over, fresh, anew. But it’s just another day on the calendar of life to me. I see my friend as already having moved on with giant life accomplishments, but only he knows when his moment to stop and MOVE ON will be. Because , you just know…

” In the end, we all become stories.” Margaret Atwood

Forty one years ago I took a cross-country trip from Buffalo , New York to as far as you could get  in the United States –  Hawaii.

It was not planned, possibly very foolish and most certainly under the category of youthful indiscretion at it’s very best. It was exactly what youth is for and all about. I regret nothing. The right trip at the right time with all the lessons I could squeeze out of it without dying in the process. I think we remember these moments better than trips in later years because there is nothing but new adventure ahead, no previous experience to draw on and more importantly, no expectations. Every day was a gift of wonder. National Parks and Forests, a Volkswagen bus, a geodesic dome,  a 30 foot catamaran and any friend who took us in took the place of a house. Life lessons happened on a daily basis. After a few months the country stopped and the ocean appeared. The mighty Pacific Ocean! I thought I would be thrilled. Awed. But we arrived at sunset and to this day my strongest memory of that long travel to end up at ocean’s edge was – loneliness. I felt small, vulnerable, and oh, so alone. Weird, right? I am still not sure why I was so overcome with that emotion, but I suspect it has to do with the space in between. In only a few short months, I had come to some big conclusions about my young life and made some very big realizations. The vast space in between the east coast and the west, the Atlantic and the Pacific, my searching and my finding, my needs and my wants, my past and my future.

It’s funny how we yearn for youth and avoid old age. What we lose in the physical body we gain in spades in our heads and hearts, and that’s the trade off…and I’m okay with that. Those decades of the learning curve of life were long and winding. Little went as planned and much more came from finally accepting. I want to tell those in their 30’s, 40’s  and 50’s that it gets easier in your head right around the time your body says, “this is wearing me out a bit.” To which I say, it’s supposed to. We are all warriors on the road to a final rest.

I love this photo I chose for the blog header. Here I am, some thirty odd years after my first sad encounter with the Pacific Ocean with a very different outlook on it to be sure. And that’s what happens in the spaces in between – we find some joy and peace on the way.

After I survived my formal education, I went on to many years of art school in the form of a BFA and an MA. What I learned from my art school years, was that ART was a verb, not a NOUN. It is something that runs like a thread through your life – sometimes a tangled mess, sometimes beautifully woven into something that helps you articulate what words could not express.

I have chased life through my art for enough years now to know better than to rush through the time needed to process an idea. In fact, I find myself doing far more processing of late than art. I found this disturbing initially. Ideas and images would come and go as inspiration for a new body of work. An idea would blossom and fade overnight. Even more fleeting was the actual need to physically stand in front of my easel and paint. I found myself going through the motions of creating an entire work in my head. I would visualize standing in front of the completed piece and be quite pleased with the result. All this …in my head. For a while now I have had no inclination to go beyond that satisfaction and have been secretly hiding my ‘painting -in-my-head’ world.

I finally shared my ‘secret’ recently with a close friend who never judges or finds my ramblings in life odd or out of character. Her calm acceptance of my explanation gave me a grateful sense of relief. Then, almost as confirmation, I came across a passage from a marvelous book entitled, Miss O’Keefe, by Christine Taylor Patton and Alvaro Cardona-Hine. The book is a memoir that covers the last years of Georgia O’Keefe’s life through the eyes of her artist/nurse. Here are a few of my favorite passages from this beautiful book.

 … When people asked her did she miss painting, she’d tell them, “Well what makes you think that I am not painting anymore?” She told them she painted in her head, that she could still see the colors inside her head.

“… Art has nothing to do with paintbrushes or ink or graphite or any of the materials that are used to create it; those are just used in an attempt to make the transition from the spiritual to the physical and back again. The magic that is sometimes present in what we call art has nothing to do with those materials. It may have to do with passage, with something made visible by one human being to another.

” We do art a great disservice by having to reduce art to a material plane, to painting, drawing, or sculpture “           

Art has become that thread , invisible or not, that runs through my life. It is in everything I think and do. It is sometimes tangible and other times, like a song in my head for no one to hear or see save myself. And now that I have stopped judging myself over a certain tangible productivity, I get on with following that thread.