Gown

Gown oil on board 8"x8"

I was recently in a group show called the 20/20 at 20th Street Art Gallery in Sacramento. The show has closed so now I will include some of the work I did for it. I thought the show was very good with some very interesting, varied and excellent work. Sales in general were only so-so because of the bad economy but a few artists did have about half their paintings sold. The gallery sold three of my paintings. The painting included here is one of them and I believe it sold on the first day because I never saw it hanging. It is one of my personal favorites and one of the most difficult for me to paint because it is a quite complex image and I wasn't sure how it would be received. It's a shop window with dresses and a suit displayed in it and the window has the reflected image of the scene across the street. I'll be posting the other two paintings that sold but might not show the unsold paintings because I may approach other galleries with them first.

Cup of Coffee

Cup of Coffee oil on board 5" x 3"

Tequila Shot

Tequila Shot oil on board 7" x 5"

The early morning sun shining through the glass and bottle created interesting shadows and highlights.

20th Street Art Gallery and Bluephobos

I should have mentioned much earlier that some of my work is in a group show called 20/20 at the 20th Street Art Gallery in Sacramento. I did allude to it in an earlier post but didn't give the name of the gallery. This is a show of small works in an 8 inch square format. There's a lot of good work to see and I hope the gallery sells a lot. The show  runs through May. If you're in Sacramento I recommend you drop by. Samples of work by the artists participating can also be seen on the gallery's web site:  http://www.20art.net/. If you haven't been to a Second Saturday in Sacramento, you should go to the next one on May 8th. While there are many galleries open all over town for the monthly event, the heart of the action is on 20th Street between I and K. It's a fun, vibrant scene with street bands and a happy crowd with a great mix of people. For the last Second Saturday on April 10th we met our friends Karen Ryer and Pat Sargent who made the long journey from Guerneville to see the 20/20 show. We all had dinner at Michelangelo's Restuarant, which has wonderful food and is next door to the Barton Gallery, where I have shown in the past. Pat and Karen run Stone Sculpture Supplies and Withywindle Gallery. Karen is a very dedicated carver and you can see her work at http://www.karenryer.com/.

Also, Adebo Thomas has been kind enough to feature me on his art site, Bluephobos I should mention that Adebo and his wife Rehema are also our friends. They came to the April 8th opening reception of the 20/20 show and Adebo interviewed me for Bluephobos. The gallery was packed shoulder to shoulder so we had to go outside for the interview. We had a great conversation, standing outside the back door of the gallery in the warm evening air and Adebo recorded the whole discussion on his iPhone. You can listen to excerpts on Bluephobos and/or YouTube. Afterwards we tracked down our wives at a nearby Starbucks.

Kahlua

Kahlua oil on board 7" x 5"

Continuing the spirits theme.

Pollution

Pollution ink on paper 22" x 16" 1970

The first Earth Week occurred 40 years ago on April 16-22, 1970. At the time I was a student at the University of South Dakota and in the graphic design class I was taking we were asked to create a poster for the event. This is what I came up with. I believe it was printed for use around campus with some additional text added, although all I have is my original.

Jalapa in Rain

Jalapa in Rain oil on board 5" x 7"

I haven't posted anything recently, but I have been working. I've been putting in full days churning out 25 small paintings for a show in April and May. I'll post them here when the show is over.

I took a few moments the other day to do this one for the blog. This is a view out the studio window to the hill above. It was pouring rain.