Ennui
2013
12x9
oil

GALA Spring Show, 2013

Golgotha
2012
36x36
oil















The GALA (Gardner Area League of Artists) show in Gardner is coming to a close in a couple hours.
There was a lot of great work this time around, and no blackout!

The judges were Karen Hass, curator at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Greg Heins, fine art photographer, and head of the photography studios at Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and C.M. Judge,

intermedia artist based in Fitchburg, MA.

I walked away with an embarrassment of ribbons, including best in show for this painting.

Invariably, people ask me why it is "up side down".  I always stumble with the answer.
It is just how the painting asked to be painted, which while true, sounds like mystical mumbo-jumbo.

Last night it came to me:  countless people have been crucified or otherwise tortured and put to  death over time, but regardless of our beliefs,  we have to admit that the crucifixion of Jesus turned the world up side down; changing forever the course of human history.

Pictures from the show will be forthcoming on the GALA website. and Facebook page.

Go See Art, Now!

Measurement of the Necessary
2013
40x30
acrylic


















I have been continuing my work with the discarded journal I found many years ago.
This page also contained a list that I loved:
paint
ladder
mIrror   
                                                 
To date I have completed eight paintings in this series.
My plan is to just keep going with it until I can't.
Could be a long trip!

Lots of art to see this weekend.  Central Massachusetts is hopping with Spring shows, despite the prediction of more snow tonight.

I have a figure drawing in Vision as Voice at the House of Art in Monson, MA.

And, for one weekend only, the Gardner Area League of Artists will have their spring show at the PACC in Gardner, MA.

Follow the links for all the details!

Brush Gallery Massachusetts Artists Biennial

Untitled
2013
18x12
mixed media on paper















This Saturday, March 16th, is the opening for Massachusetts Artists 2013 Biennial at the Brush Gallery in Lowell, MA.

All three of my submissions were accepted by juror Dina Deitsch, curator of contemporary art at DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.  She chose only 34 pieces from the nearly 200 submitted.

I am honored and excited!

As for the piece above:  hot off the presses!  Well, actually no presses involved, although there were some printmaking techniques used.

This came out of a terrific workshop I attended last weekend in Holyoke.  Taught by Dean Nimmer (of Art from Intuition fame), we explored monotype printmaking, printing over painted surfaces and drawing into prints.

I came away energized and with a mess of prints that I am looking forward to working with.

Beast of Burden

Burden
2013
24x18
charcoal















A few weeks ago I added a few new figure sketches to the slideshow that runs at the top right of this blog.

This is one I particularly like.
You can take it (or leave it) on a literal or symbolic level, as you wish.

Montage

Figure study: Montage
2013
24x18
charcoal















The figure group I have been going to warms up with five minutes poses, which is kind of long for me, so I usually draw, wipe the page and draw as many times as I like until the time is up.

On this occasion, I left remnants of all of the quick sketches to make a layered drawing.

I suspect tomorrow will be a snowy day, so I don't think I will go.

The Classics

Penelope's Work
2013
30x22
mixed media on paper
















I can honestly say that Homer's Odyssey remains one of my favorite sagas.

Penelope is generally interpreted as a paragon of fidelity and domesticity, but I love her for her cunning  ability to protect herself, even as a person with few rights and little power.

As you may recall, she  buys some time by promising to choose one of the many unwelcome suitors who have descended upon her home to be her new husband as soon as she finishes weaving a shroud for her father-in -law.
Every day she works at her loom, and every night she secretly slips back and undoes her day's progress.

She does this for three years before they figure out what she has ben up to.

I find something powerful and poetic about that concept of weaving and unweaving the same thing for day after day to preserve yourself.

Napping
2013
oil on board