It's almost funny.

Win some.

I'm 24 minutes late for expresso, but Facepalm Man was a good find so it was worth it.

Post-espresso update:

I've been thinking about past openings and all the great people I've met. Truly amazing, really. I used to blog more and every so often I would meet another painter who had been following my blog at an opening. It meant, and still means a lot to me to meet people who dig the art. It''s not an ego thing, it's a connecting thing. I communicate through my art. I feel less alone in the world when my art is out there in the world. I can't really explain it. You'll either get or you won't.

The last of the large paintings is going well. I still have about 2 1/2 weeks and today it finally started coming together. In case you're just checking in, I've been working on a show for a year. Eleven months, but who's counting. Day in, day out. Thick and thin. I lost some faith a few times along the way. If you've been at this for any length of time and haven't led a fantasy life in an alternative universe, you probably know that everything that prevents you from creating work under optimal conditions is a potential roadblock. Optimal conditions is subjective of course. For some it might be having a track light burn out. To others it might be having to prioritize the cost of a camera over framing expenses or choosing to eat Trader Joe's organic popcorn for dinner. (Who, me?)

Nonetheless, every so often your vision becomes distorted and you start thinking— wait, what was I thinking? I'm in this all alone. Where's my safety net? My posse? And then you get over it, because in order to manage this career you need to practice some form of denial and you  keep working knowing that thousands of hours in the studio, a few headaches, the trip to the emergency room when you slashed your finger, the dog's near-death experience, your rockin' special topics class that cancelled because no one got it, the grant you thought you bagged but didn't, ALL the chores you ignored—would disappear into stardust for one evening where for two hours, all the self-scrutiny goes away, and you can pretend you made a difference. 365 days crunched down to two hours. Year after year. It's crazy, but it's what we do.

So, good people, the show will be at David Lusk Gallery in Nashville. October 11th. Save the date. 

Fog.

If the rest of my hood wasn't hell-bent on manicured lawns, painted shutters and keeping weeds in check, it wouldn't be such a bad view.

Openings Round 2: 21 Collaborative Art Project at Bennett Galleries

21 Collaborative Art Project at Bennett Galleries
A benefit for the Pujols Family Foundation's programming for individuals with Down's syndrome
September 5- October 9, 2014

Openings Round 1: Faculty Exhibition at Watkins College of Art, Design & Film

Monuments, Hotel Soap and Linear Progressions 
Sept. 4- 26, 2014
Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Gallery at Watkins College of Art, Design and Film

Critic's Pick in the Nashville Scene

Two inches of so much painterly heaven it's like Christmas over here.

Detail ^

Mary Addison Hackett
Self-portrait with Red Towel, 2013

I discovered that tomorrow's UPS delivery would arrive this afternoon. So yes, when I heard the UPS truck, I stepped out on the porch to await his arrival. I was smiling like an idiot so I hollered out that I was exited about the package. He asked if it was a camera. Yes, yes, it was. Turns out my UPS guy is an also an aerial photographer bearing a close resemblance to Michael Madsen while wearing shades. If I were still in LA, I would have bet the farm on it.

I'm almost weeping with joy. Since 2010 I've been suffering a through an insufferable malaise about not having amazing images of the work. Ask anyone who would listen. I was almost to the point of thinking I was living in a parallel universe where 'good enough' was the new black and that there was no such thing as a tack sharp image at 100%. I was one breath away from accepting that using loupes and 'actual pixels' to check sharpness of an image was like puttin' g's on verbs. Still, I would come across details of other painter's images and I knew one day, I, too, would have sharp images again. Good People, that day is today. There are still some lighting kinks to work out: one of the cords in my my trusty light kit finally shorted out.

Power Cord with Specialized Housing to Fit Tota Lights

(1988- 2014) 

The first step to leaving the house is to shoot things outside the house.

.

I learned today that dogs have calluses on their elbows.

Time for an upgrade.

The guy at B&H called my Nikon D40 a tyrannosaurus. I had to agree. No one shoots 6 MP anymore. If I had the foresight to build all my canvases to match the digital aspect ratio of my camera, I wouldn't have been on the phone with Lou in the first place. But alas, after cropping, my simple caveman pictures are not large enough in our gazillion megapixels world. I told Lou I mostly shoot artwork. He asked me the usual questions: Tripod? Check.  Lights?  Normally check, but I briefed him on 8 foot ceilings and power surges and said I was now shooting outdoors. People think shooting outdoors is great. It's not. It flattens the artwork. Great for flat artwork or sculpture, but if you pride yourself on using your bag of painterly tricks, you're fighting the odds. Even lighting mean no shadows. No shadows mean no texture. No texture means thin washes look suspiciously close to gobs of paint and the beat goes on. Hence, milking everything you can is critical. When it sinks in that 90% of the people who view your art will do so though the Internet or printed matter, you begin to appreciate what a time-consuming OCD detailed process it is. My life working in a frame-accurate, color-accurate, no-pixel-left-behind world conditioned me for minute details. Whenever I feel like I'm being fussy about these things that the average joe in average joeville looking at his average joe monitor might not notice, I remember reassuring words spoken by an artist I met when I first moved here: "You've only got your name and the work." It's true. Never forget it. Ordinarily, I'd never give it a second thought.

But back to Lou. We discussed a few more items though he reiterated that a great deal of progress had been made in the last 10 years in the world of digital photography and gently encouraged me to consider joining the revolution. I'm doing research now. I  currently have a ragtag lot of miscellaneous equipment  listed for sale in order to raise some dough for the new camera. I am  attempting to downsize at the speed of light after watching Tiny, but a day later I decided to keep the old lenses. You never know. 

upcoming shows

My dance card is full next week for awhile.

Magic Mail

I have 4 catalogs left from a 2008 show back in Los Angeles. They are for sale on my website. This note arrived with a check today. I'm posting it here because every now and then, no matter where you are, or what you do, everything about this note will come in handy.