coming up for air

We're entering winter...usually the time when Genna and I both kick into coast mode, slow down our travel and rest after our fall season. Not so this year! Genna is still up to his eyeballs in pots 12-13 hours a day (540 down, about 90 to go) and I'm still going full steam in preparation for Telfair in Savannah, the Christmas commission season, and our solo show at 16 Patton.

Speaking of which, thank you to everyone who sent in submissions for our second installment of the "Inspiration Project". My fave image so far (above) was made from my friend and fellow artist Steve Frenkel's submission. I'm calling it 'Railmen'. It's a 20" x 30" oil on linen. Voting for everyone else's faves will begin in a few weeks. Here's one of Steve's fantastic acrylics that I'm proud to say is part of my budding collection:



It's a 12" square called "Hourloupe Dry Cycle". Steve and I met while we were both showing at Opus One Gallery in Atlanta. He is an incredibly talented and dedicated artist. Check out more of his work online at www.stevefrenkel.net.

I have so many more things I wanna tell everyone about...Nastiya's first commission, Genna's pot progress, my first festival experience without him (I hope it was also the last!)...but right now I have to get back to work. Cross your fingers for me.

win a grushovenko!

Last call, everybody! Our solo show at 16 Patton in Asheville is opening November 21st. The concept is this...all works in the show will be made from photographs sent in by our friends and clients. The paintings will be posted online and put to a vote. The painting with the most votes will be given to the owner of its inspiration photo, free of charge.

We will continue accepting submissions for the next few weeks. You can email scans of your photos to admin@galleryair.com. Make sure to include your contact information in your email.

We did this at our gallery in LaGrange this past winter with wonderful results. We had nearly 300 photos sent in and completed better than 50 works for the show. A few of my favorites are "Boy Line, Bike Tangle" and "Good Mama" above. Both photos were sent in by LaGrange folks. You can see the results at www.galleryair.com/inspiration.htm.

pete and repeat

Lest you think all I'm doing is putting pots in boxes all day (this is almost true), I offer you my latest..."Pete and Repeat Class Portrait".

This is only the fourth or fifth time I've worked with the basic idea of yearbook picture contact sheets and it still holds alot of mystery for me, which is awesome. I don't know about any of my full time artist fellows, but for me it's easy to feel the bloom is off the rose when I feel 100% confident and comfortable about what I'm making.

This image was made by transfering individual portraits from a 1950's yearbook and then flipping them and using each portrait again (henceforth the pete and repeat title). When the time came to apply paint, I made no effort to match the pairs or make them unique but instead let each unit speak individually. I love that each character has his or her own essence and personality even without any facial features. My favorites are actually some of the units that are silouhettes only.

The exciting thing about this idea for me is making something dynamic and rhythmic that basically repeats the same basic form over and over. The palette I used was also quite narrow, relying on Genna's underpainting color for variety.

Here's a detail:



If you want to see a larger file of "Pete and Repeat", I'll be posting it on the website tomorrow along with a dozen or so other new pieces.

Headed for Houston next week. I think Genna will be thrilled to be driving the car instead of making pots 13 hours a day. Everything's relative, huh!

the baker's dozen(th?)

So here's my plan...I won't post anything here for maybe a month to six weeks at a time and then I'll post 8-10 times over the course of a few days. Just trying to keep everyone on their toes.

The piece above is the baker's dozen of my "Purdy Dozen" kia pot faves. Check out the first twelve on Genna's webpage.

All twelve are high fire stoneware with temoku glazed necks, copper wire wrap, and one of two glazes on the body...dark green or robin's egg (shown above). Can you tell which ones have which glaze?