Yesterday evening I was on a panel of four artists asked to speak about our careers in an “Art Survival Skills” course. I brought this admittedly odd deer figure (freshly completed work) as a bit of show and tell.
The panelist were Robert Canaga, gallery owner and Eugene arts community icon; David Funk, co-owner of a local marketing agency Bell + Funk (which I did just google and liked what I saw); Jon Cruson, who was making art and selling it before I was born; and me, with my deer dolly of course. I was clearly the inexperienced one of the bunch. Yes I was humbled, intimidated, awed, and invigorated. These three artists with their wildly different dispositions and divergent art career paths, were remarkably similar in a few important ways. They each conveyed their absolute determination to be artists, they each revealed a general willingness to embrace unconventional opportunities, and they were productive people (drawing, painting, experimenting, generating art). I can get behind all that. Look out world, I’m goin’ in, with or without the deer dolly!
for those of you wondering
Thursday’s mystery quilt close-up..... A fish.
my punch card
It is an odd feeling recognizing that the entirety of my work day is captured in the above photograph. Granted, it wasn’t a pedal to the metal sort of day. There was sunshine: I walked in it, sat and sewed and spoke with friends in it, dallied at the mailbox, chatted with the neighbor. But still, I sewed diligently and this is the little plot of textured surface I created.
I used to get Ranger Rick magazine as a kid. The back cover always had a selection of extreme close up photographs which readers were encouraged to guess at. What plant or animal are you looking at? Go ahead, make a guess.
I just hung work
At Territorial Vineyards tasting room on 3rd and Adams. It will be there through the month of March. Bring your honey, bring a pal, have a glass of wine, have a look around.
nervous me
I give my artist talk at LCC in one hour. You think I’d jump at the chance to talk about myself for a full 90 minutes, but really, I’ve been a bundle of nerves about it all morning. Last night I dreamt I decided to wear a monkey suit for the presentation. I couldn’t find the tail so I was in the process of hooking a black umbrella to my rear end when Josh woke me up. Hopefully things will play out better than that possible scenario.
a hundterwasser wonder
This office building makes me smile.
meet Friedensreich Hundterwasser
Hundterwasser was an Austrian painter, architect, and an early environmentalist. In the commentary for the painting (1971) pictured here, he wrote “Only when the DIVINE respect of GREEN POWER, only when the love of VEGETATION becomes part of us all, only then can we improve step by step our dying environment.” His paintings are a flurry of intense color, repeating shapes, dense line work... His buildings are organic in form, often featuring living rooves, undulating surfaces, and even holes to accommodate pre-existing trees. In his late years Hundterwasser dedicated himself enthusiatically to the environmental movement. He was a huge advocate of the composting toilet.