Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Willo North Solo Show: August First Friday

The View from Outside Looking In

Last Friday evening was a Phoenix First Friday and the Willo North Gallery was open, showing my work. The actual reception will be the next First Friday, on September 3. I'll be sending out cards and the gallery will be doing advertising for the opening. There was a nice crowd last Friday, and with more advertising, there should be even more people next month.


Another view from outside looking in.


Installation view of the north end of the gallery.


The southeast side of the gallery.


Another view.


People.



Todd, Stacy and Dan, checking out my use of perspective in a painting.

Thanks to Jim for the photographs of the evening. There were a lot more good shots, but son Mathew told me that any more would just be boring. So there you have it.

Monday, August 9, 2010

What Comes Next After the Painting is Done?

Before a painting ever leaves my studio, I make sure to have photographs taken. Luckily, since I'm married to a professional photographer, this is easily accomplished. I just have to be sure to give Jim enough time to fit this job into his schedule. He'll do this for other artist's, too, only he charges a fee.


Here is Jim, checking the color balance. That why there are dangling items hanging from a string over the painting. I have no idea of the technicalities of all this (note the poor quality of all of the photographs I've taken for the blog!), but I do know it's critical.



Lighting equipment helps to control things. Here, Jim is testing the lighting and the color balance. He works until everything is just right. With digital photos, he's pretty sure when he has what he needs. The next step is to download the images to the computer. He does more color correcting at this stage of the game, too. If all is well, he is done his part of the job.

At this point, I transfer the photos into my computer. Isn't it all magic? At least if everything goes well and I don't do something stupid! From there, I organize the photos and put them into Bento, a program I use for keeping track of my work. Then, I add the new painting images onto my website.


Ah, ha, here's the little UHaul I rented to transport my paintings. All set to load up.


Jim is carefully stacking the paintings.


Next comes tying the paintings down with lots of bungee cords. Don't want them damaged in transit.



After arriving in Phoenix after a two hour drive, we unloaded the paintings. Son, Mathew, is rushing about (hence the blur), rehydrating himself after moving the paintings from the 110° outdoors into the cool gallery. They are randomly placed around the wall space to start with.



What you aren't seeing here is all of the work the went into getting the gallery ready for my work. First, the previous show had to be taken down and the art work needed to be picked up by either the new owner or the artist. Next, the walls were moved around to create a space especially for suitable for the new show. Holes had to be spackled. Walls needed to be painted. The yellow was chosen, because it complements the colors I use in my paintings. All of this was done with great care by a group of artists who volunteered their weekend to do the job.



Here's another view of the space. It's a beautiful gallery. Polished concrete floors, high ceilings, great lighting. It even has a bathroom and a kitchen. Deluxe! After much moving of paintings to see what fit where and what looks good with what, the show was ready to put on the wall.



My heroes, Patricia Sahertian and Todd Daniel are discussing their strategy for hanging the art work. They are a meticulous pair. The mathematics was beyond me. My job was to write down numbers on a little pad of paper. Actually, I do know how to do all of this, but am usually too lazy.

They are deciding on the spacing and height.


Figuring out how far the wire is from the top of the painting. This is the last step before actually pounding the nail into the wall.


Getting everything just right is a lot of effort, both physically and mentally. And it takes lots of time and patience. Thank you to Patricia and Todd for the beautiful installation. Both are artists with limited time to make their own work, making the time they spent even more appreciated.

Stay tuned for pictures of the August First Friday reception.

Friday, August 6, 2010

What's Up With Blogspot??

I've been trying since Monday to upload photographs and write a blog, but there seems to be a technological snaffoo of some mysterious sort. Being pretty busy, I haven't tried to figure out how to contact Blogspot to find out what's going on.

Tonight is the August First Friday opening of my solo show at the Willo North Gallery in downtown Phoenix. The show will be open from 6 pm to 10 pm. The gallery is located at 211 N. 7th Ave. It'll be fun to have some low key time to visit with friends.

The real actual bona fide opening will be on September 3. I'll be sending out postcards, and doing the proper marketing activities for the September show.

Stay tuned for more information and photos!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Where Oh Where Has Barbara Been?

I inadvertently dropped out of the blogosphere while I was binge painting. Yes, I admit it. After our 32 day working trip along US Route 89 and celebrating the return of our younger son Mathew from 5 months in New Zealand on his junior semester abroad, I made my way back into my studio at last. And didn't really emerge until today.

As I was painting away, day after day, I avoided looking at the mass of paintings being stored in my studio. I didn't allow myself to question why I was madly creating a 48" x 60" painting of a wall with a window in it, or why I was making a bunch of small panels of water reflections. I was just so happy to be back at work. Occasionally, I'd come up for breath and those niggling doubts would start to pop up, but I quickly quashed them by making a fast return back to painting.

Then, 3 or 4 weeks ago, my artist friend Patricia Saheriatan contacted me and asked if I'd like to do a solo show in Phoenix. Opening the first week of August. Of course I said yes. It was a complete surprise, and the perfect excuse to stay immersed in my studio. No blogging, no marketing, nothing but painting, painting, painting. It was heaven.

Yesterday I delivered a load of paintings to the gallery in Phoenix.

More about the back story about how I met Patricia, where the gallery is located, and what's involved in putting together a solo show, along with some photos. Tomorrow.

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Getting Back into Gear


It’s hard to believe we’ve been home for nearly two weeks. Jim’s been deep into going through his 2000+ photographs, and catching up on business. Plus dealing with various home cooler and toilet maintenance crises. Me…well I’m not sure what I’ve been up to. Lots of laundry at first, and then trying to sort myself out and figure out what to do next after the big road trip. I had anticipated teaching a community college art class this summer, but the enrollment was too low. It’s been wonderful being back in my studio, painting. I’ve completed one painting and have gotten 9 small panels ready to start on. I’m excited about some snapshots I took of various oddities I noticed on the trip and am looking forward to turning them into paintings. Guess I have been up to something after all.

Glad to be back, but missing the road, too. One thing that helps is following the delightful blogs of a few other intrepid traveling couples. One is Twelve Legs Travel, written and photographed by a newly married couple on a 12 month traveling honeymoon. I especially like their most recent post on the first fight of their trip. We haven’t met them, but would sure like to at some point. Another fun blog to follow is Adventures of the Wandering Book Artists by Peter and Donna Thomas. They’re on a year long trip in their fabulous hand crafted Gypsy Wagon, stopping at various universities and libraries across the country to give workshops on book making. I was lucky enough to take a one day workshop by Peter in Tucson (this workshop is mentioned in their blog post of April 28, a must read since I’m mentioned in it!!)


Monday, May 17, 2010

The Semester is Over, the Big Book of Jim's US Route 89 Photographs is Done and a New Adventure is About to Begin

It was a great semester teaching Basic Design and Art Appreciation at the Tohono O'odham Community College. The students were open to learning and appreciative of my efforts. They worked hard and came up with some impressive artwork. I'm looking forward to doing it again!

The book project I was working on to fulfill a commission for the Law Offices of Snell and Wilmer in Salt Lake City is finished. I took photos of it, but somehow I can't seem to locate them on the computer. They must be floating around there somewhere, but for the life of me I can't figure out where. Anyway, after much sweat and (some) tears, I'm pleased with the way it came out. Hopefully, the client will be too!

We're now about 4 hours delayed in starting our big big month long US Route 89 road trip adventure. I'm sure I've mentioned the 89 project a number of times in this blog. We'll be writing about the trip via a different blog. While traveling, in addition to working with Jim to figure out "why life is so fine on Route 89", I'll be doing some drawing and lots of thinking. And taking snapshots for possible future paintings. Back about June 17.

By the way, besides the photos that I can't find, I do have some I had planned on posting of my students at work on their last drawing project of the semester. But Blogspot doesn't seem to be uploading photos for some reason today. Or maybe I've suddenly forgotten how to upload photographs, too??

Monday, May 3, 2010

A Big Bookmaking Mess and an Impending Deadline


The mess in my studio looks a little like the inside of my head right now. I'm working on designing and constructing a one-of-a-kind (well, maybe eventually a small edition) book for the law office of Snell and Wilmer for their office in Salt Lake City. The law firm is a corporate sponsor of our US Route 89 project. One of the benefits they get for their sponsorship is a series of Jim's US Route 89 photographs for their offices. The Phoenix and Tucson offices made their selection of images to be framed and displayed. The Salt Lake City office decided they would like a table top book of the photographs. Thus, the mess you see above, as I work to come up with a book form that will do justice to Jim's wonderful photographs.

After much thumbing through of my various bookmaking books, and advice from Peter and Donna Thomas and participants at the workshop I took from Peter last week (see my last post) I think I've settled on a book form.



This is my third attempt at making a prototype for the book. Not too pretty at this point. There is a lot of figuring that goes into making a book. In this case, one of my main goals was a book that will lay flat when open. I settled on an accordion pleat stitched book, with modifications.



This book by Peter and Donna Thomas has great information. I recommend it for anyone who is interested in bookmaking. It's clear, has good instructions and photographs of beautiful books for inspiration.

My next step is to try, try again with the accordion pleat idea.

And to clean up the space. There is nothing to invite a bookmaking disaster like a mess. Glue everywhere, scraps of paper in the way, a lost exacto knife, you get the picture. Not to mention a deadline looming for the completion of this project.