The Little Reclamation that Could…

…inspire! Small and simple, this little painting was a spontaneous creation earlier this week. What I enjoyed about painting it was that it just seemed to happen naturally. Paintings in the Reclamation series are usally premeditated, planned from layout and color scheme to exactly which type and how much material I have to mold or sculpt for the assemblage. With this piece, I just gathered a few unused embellishments and sort of threw them on a 12" x 12" canvas. The colors evolved on their own, I only knew that I wanted it to be light on the top and darker at the bottom. I am so pleased with it that I now want to atttempt doing something similar on a much larger canvas. So I am now creating more of the circular pieces for that.

So here it is, my latest in the Reclamation series entitled "Just a Bit Further":

Pierre Paul Gallery

Four of my paintings have been consigned to this gallery in Ann Arbor, MI. Here you can see Reclamation #22 (top center) and Sticks & Stones #31 (bottom center). I am hoping to get photos of the other 2 on display soon. It's always exciting for me to see my work actaully hanging on a wall!

The front of the gallery. You'll have to click on this image to enlarge it, but if you look really closely, you can see my paintings through the window!

Reclamation (top) and Sticks & Stones #31 (bottom) are centered.

Reclamation 15 (top) and Industria 11 (bottom) are on the far right.

Stumbling Block

Switching back to figurative work the past few weeks has interrupted what little flow I had going for my abstracts. But I truly enjoyed doing those pieces, in fact continued on with a small piece for my friend Kevin, who’s birthday was last week. I painted “Red-haired Girl" especially for him:



So now I am left a bit torn. I have been doing research, reviewing and updating layouts for my Reclamation series and all the while thinking about doing more figurative pieces. Unfortunately, this split focus results in almost no focus at all and I really haven’t gotten much done this long holiday weekend. Mainly I have been escaping by attending barbeques and the like, avoiding the studio. But I suppose an artist needs some R & R once in a while.

The Artists' Reception

The artists' reception was held last night at the Alex Haleigh Gallery in Gardena. It was quite nice. They had drinks and snacks and live music! Oh, and ART of course! The show's title is "La Figura" so not surprisingly, much of my current available work did not fit the theme. Fortunately I had time to create a couple of new pieces for the exhibit: "Blue Angel" and "Bouquet", (the far left and right paintings). The center painting, "Hairdo" is from 2004:



Several friends came to help me celebrate. Thanks everyone, it meant so much to me!

Here my sister Dianne looks at art:



Kevin and Buddha display my art:



Kathye and Kirby came by:



Good friends, good times:



Art appreciators mingle:



People are checking out my art:



Other artists got to display their art too. Cool stuff:






All in all it was a good turnout. Unfortunately, I didn't get pictures of my friends Marsha and Ilga who also attended. And the one and only picture of me was too blurry to post. But I so appreciated those who came by for taking the time to do so. It meant so much to me to see you all there!

My goodness, it's almost been a year…

…since I have posted anything on my blog! Lots has happened since my last post: I agreed to return my old job but the problems that caused me to quit in the first place worsened. By December of last year I was miserable there once again. Then, through pure happenstance, I got a new job that suits me much better. What a relief! And now I have more time to paint.

I am exhibiting three pieces at Alex Haleigh Gallery in Gardena:







The reception is this weekend, the show will be up until the end of June. For more information, visit their website:

http://alexhaleighgallery.com/