Another Opening Tomorrow Night

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After an unforeseen nine-day visit to Southern California I've made it back to Portland just in time to install another exhibition of the landscape work I completed in July. This exhibit is about twenty miles outside of Portland at the Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center in Hillsboro, Oregon. An opening reception will take place tomorrow evening (Tuesday, September 1st) at six o'clock. For those of you with the time and inclination the particulars are below:

Glenn & Viola Walters Cultural Arts Center

527 East Main Street

Hillsboro, OR 97123

503.615.3485

This is a three person exhibit (it also includes the work of Janette Cavecche and Robynn Fulfs) and it will run through September. Following the closing of this show I plan on taking a break from exhibiting for a while to focus on:

• finishing the second movie (more on that in a bit)
• beginning a new series of work (a bestiary— 'nuff said)
• a motley assortment of design projects meant to sharpen my Adobe skills
• finding a sense of balance and harmony in life

Goodbye Grandma

The desert was all gold and heat.

The desert was all gold and heat. 2009

acrylic, leafing, toner, and wax on panel

10.5" x 10.5"

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I recognize that I've been a bit lax with regard to blogging of late— there has just been so much to do to prepare for shooting the upcoming film that I've felt a bit overwhelmed. In the past I would have sprinkled a few liberal promises about posting more frequently to make up for my silence, but I'm not in a position to fully honor such vows, so the most I can say is that I haven't forsaken blogging regularly; I'm simply in the process of redefining "regularly."

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The desert was all gold and heat. is an utter fabrication. It is an amalgam of a found image and the texture of an old daguerreotype plate. At the MKAC opening one of the other photographers exhibiting there told me it had the quality of an Edward Curtis, which made me glow with a golden sheen not at all dissimilar to that displayed in the work.

I don't belong anywhere near the same breath that would utter Curtis' name; he being a master photographer and me being something of a photographic imposter. But I could see how the color of the image might elicit a comparison.

Curtis, Edward Sheriff (American, 1868-1952)

The Morning Bath—Apache

from The North American Indian (published between 1907-1930)

Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

Divination Rod

Divination Rod, 2009

acrylic, leafing, toner, ink, and wax on panel

7.375" x 7.375"

Click on image for larger view.

Forgive my absence. I've been away for about two weeks on a silent meditation retreat in Washington. Ever since my return friends and family have all been asking the same sorts of questions:

What was it like? Was it worth it? Did it help? Why did I do it?

The answers to these questions are neither short nor simple, so I will wait until more time has passed before I share more about that particular experience. Needless to say, it has been difficult to return to the bustle and frustration of a city after ten days of silence on a 40-acre parcel of wheat fields and evergreens.

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Divination Rod derives from an image of a spray-painted branch I discovered on Bainbridge Island this past Spring. For some reason or another this branch, along with a scattering of stumps and leaves, had been sprayed a metallic blue color that looked most incongruous among the deep browns and greens of the woodland. A contented squirrel sat a few feet away from me gnawing on a nut as I searched for the right angle to capture this knobby wooden talon. It looked in every way like an object with some mystical power, glowing as it was under the overcast sky of the Puget Sound.

Months later, when the image was transferred atop the silver leaf, I was pleased to see that the same sort of luminosity that had been a by-product of the spray paint was evident in this little waxed panel.