A nice mention of "Inside and Out" appeared in the online magazine Yareah. Here's a link to it.
Meanwhile, here's another piece that will be in the show.

"Running Bear", 18 by 24 inches, acrylic on panel.

"Inside and Out"

I've been really remiss on the blogging lately. The show is coming up in three weeks and for a change I'm just about ready. I have to frame the drawings and prepare some paintings for hanging.

Here is a poster I designed, primarily for social media purposes. And I'm including the official "artist's statement" for the show. I don't do "artspeak" well, but it is what it is.

"Wild life, still life.

Those two terms wouldn’t seem to have much in common except the word 'life'. But they reflect two of my personal interests, the experience of nature and the impulse to collect and display. We take our world out into nature, sometimes to its detriment, and bring the natural world in to recreate our adventures in it.

This body of work explores what I have seen while encountering nature and what I have tried to bring home and live with in an attempt to recreate that experience. My usual interests in color, texture, composition and scale are also satisfied in the process of making paintings based on these considerations."

Wildflowers

"Wildflowers in a Pitcher", 8 by 10 inches, acrylic on panel.


"Five Wildflowers", 6 by 6 inches, acrylic on panel.


"Invented Wildflower", 6 by 6 inches, acrylic on panel.

This is an idealized idea of bringing wildflowers in and putting them in a vase or other container, because they don't really last very long under those circumstances. But these paintings function more symbolically anyway, addressing the need to bring the outside world into our protected interiors, both literally and metaphorically.

"Desert Quail", 8 by 8 inches, acrylic on panel.

This was inspired by the busy quail we saw while in Joshua Tree, California. Another quail, a bobwhite, entertained us in Santa Ynez with its persistent "bob-white" call throughout the day. But I liked the topknot on the desert quail.

We're back.

We had a great trip to California. While at my niece's and her husband's vineyard I did this pencil drawing on Windsor Newton paper I took with me. It depicts their latest label. I left it on the piano.

Mojave Still LIfe

We're off to Joshua Tree, CA in the Mojave Dessert in a few hours to visit Ranchito Conejo, our bunny patrolled 1/3 of an acre there. We have some friends who live next to it, so we'll see them, too. Then we'll go to Sandoval Ranch Vineyard in Santa Ynez, the winery of my niece and her husband. Their daughter, my great-niece (in every sense of the word) is in for the summer from going to school in England.

This painting, "Mojave Still Life", 12 by 9, acrylic on panel, is a bit of a celebration of that area. The piece below it, "Vineyard Still Life", 12 by 9 inches, acrylic on canvas, commemorates our trip to the vineyard last year. Obviously we're looking forward to both visits.

"Bell Pepper"

"Bell Pepper", 6 by 6 inches, acrylic on panel.

This piece is really small, at 6 inches square, but still seems big, I think.