paintchip update

I've been steadily adding to the paintchip pile. So far I've got 288 completed, and I'm starting to think about the ways I want to expand the project. About all the houses/apartments I've ever lived in & about what the place we live says about us.

So here are some spare bedroom installed pictures.

another place to see my work

So I put a bunch of work Saatchi online tonight, and in the midst of trying to describe the kinds of paintings I've been making lately this spewed out. It seems right, this body of work is about the things I like to spend time looking at, and in a very roundabout way a comment on the struggle to find that balance between urban/rural/wild. I'm drawn to the kinds of places where that exist on those edges. I've long admired the beauty found in abadoned buildings and at the waters edge.

i make paintings. this series is a reflection of my fascination with the spaces where land/sea, nature/built environment overlap and try to co-exist. i'm smitten with the coast, the columbia river gorge, rivers of all sizes, mountains in the distance, broken down buildings, bridges, rain drops, trees, rock and earthen layers, pictorial logic & waves.

I'm headed down to the basement studio to clean and organize and make it more work friendly and hopefully work on a new little painting.

i should really be updating this more...

I keep meaning to update this blog more, and I really don't have a good reason why I haven't. I think my dislike of the quality of images my little point and shoot digital camera produces, along with my general ability to distract myself have something to do with it. Nonetheless I keep plugging along. Making things and taking pictures of them.

A few weeks ago I finished another large-ish painting. Another in my ongoing series about land and water and nature and manmade and the intersections between all of these things. Inspired first by a wonderfully decrepid building I saw on the side of the road somewhere between Alsea and Waldport.

until the rain comes pouring down, 2010
oil on canvas
40"x30"

until the rain comes pouring down (detail), 2010
oil on canvas
40"x30"

And finally, I'm pretty close to finished with a new (yet to be titled) smaller painting.

Paint chip installation - Nested

I probably should have posted this while the show was still up. But I had the opportunity this summer to be in an excellently curated group show called "I want to feel at home here" this summer at Milepost5.

Meg did a bang up job curating her first show. And I feel lucky to have been included with so many great artists from around the country. Here are a couple of images from the show itself. I ended up showing 180 of my ever growing paintchip collection, arranged in a grid 18 long by 10 high. It turned out great, even if it took a ridiculously long time to hang in a straight line (5+ hours) and only slightly less to take down (3 hours).

On to the images.

4X6

I've spent the last week furiously sewing circles onto slightly larger paintchips for a show in hong kong. It was one of those things I signed up for, then put on the back burner. It happened as we moved into the house and got engaged.

Least you think I've been a total slacker, I've been making art for another show, planning a wedding, settling into a house, setting up an art studio, along with a few other things.

where land meets water

I learned a new word last week, Riparian. A riparian zone is the space where land meets water, that special ecosystem found for example at a riverbank. Ecotones and Riparian zones.

Application for a new gallery finished. Two upcoming exhibitions (more info soon). The creative juices are starting to flow, I woke up this morning thinking about combining papercuts with larger paintchip samples, but for now I'm gonna post my new painting, "where land meets water." Appropriately today I read a quote today:

"A painting is never finished - it simply stops in interesting places." ~ Paul Gardner

I feel likes its in a pretty interesting place at the moment, perhaps not quite finished but at a pretty interesting place nonetheless.

where land meets water
oil on canvas, 2010
40"x48"

neglected but not forgotten - 192 paintchips

There's been a lot of change in the last two months. A new job, a loss of a new job. A new house with room for a studio, an end to the Sellwood studio. An engagement!
I haven't been making art like I want to be, but i've been making some. And painting rooms and unpacking and planting strawberries, and planning a garden, and today I finally set the easel up in the new house. I feel the itch, and know I'll have more to post soon.

Through it all, i've still been sewing paintchips, a project that's travelled with me now to my 3rd house in 18 months and grown much larger than I ever thought possible. I spent the better part of the afternoon hanging them up today in the house - seeing what I've got done, trying to incorporate some none striped paintchips into the mix, and I think they work. Much better than anticipated, and counting. 192 paintchips so far. I'll break 200 for sure. Sometime soon I think and planning for their public debut.

gettin my love on

At the 5th Annual Portland Loveshow.

This year I submitted the painting I did for my Nana after she passed away in 2008.

I posted a blog about it when I finished it last year, which can be read here.

It took me a long time to be ready to paint it, when my granpa died the year before the painting came fast, this one was slower, needing more time to sit and be nurtured - which seems so very fitting for a person who was always there with a hug or a kind word or a batch of cookies.

Elegy: for Nana, with Love
Oil on Canvas
36"x48"
2009

Show details:
For the 3rd year, I'm participating in the love show. I haven't been quite on top of getting the word out, but there's something like 350 artists participating, so I'm guessing it will be a crazy fun filled opening and you should come.

Opening Reception

February 12th, 2010

Olympic Mills Commerce Center

7pm-12am

Free! All-Ages!

Olympic Mills
107 SE Washington Street,
Portland, OR 97214

sometimes I love my job

Its winter in Portland, which means lots of gray, rainy days where there's no real light. Its hard to get motivated to leave the apartment, and get to the studio. So I'm a bit behind in posting here. Today there was blue skies and I loaded the dog in the car and drove to the coast to get inspired. I walked the beach at Gearhart and found the boatyard in Astoria and took lots of reference pictures. I'm in that creative place that is hard to document. It involves a lot of thinking. Work has started on another large painting, re-invigorated with salty air and a little bit of sunshine I plan to have more finished images to post soon.