Urban Landscapes

 As with the recent "still life" piece I created, this collage was made in response to a specific call for an exhibition with the theme "Urban Landscapes". If you are familiar with my artwork, you know that neither "urban", or "landscapes" are not the typical foci of my work -- although I don't mind using related elements. When I saw the call for submissions (from Rome Art and Community Center), I was intrigued and wanted to explore some possibilities. I had already had some interesting elements in my "piles" related to urban architecture (I had done some experimenting in the past). So I began places elements together to see what would emerge. I am pretty pleased with the final composition. I have entitled it, "Office Windows" (9" x 21"):

Southern Humanities Conference "pop-up"

Every January, I attend the Southern Humanities Conference, which is held in a different city in the "south" each year. This year, the conference was in Annapolis, Maryland. Since I was able to drive (usually I fly), I was able to bring my newly acquired display rack with me, and exhibit my work as part of our open mic night (and it was up all weekend). Folks have seen images of my work as part of various presentations I have done over the years. I was happy that they were finally able to see the pieces in-person to get the full impact. I even sold a piece (thanks for your interest and support, Sarah!).

 

And now for something [completely] different...

In addition to finishing "Orbit Boy" yesterday, last night I did some experimentation with this piece. It's a bit of a departure from my typical composition style. The piece is certainly not finished. It needs better balance, and it's difficult to see the smallest dark green circle (at the 11:30 position), so I may have to change the color a little bit; but I am happy with the progress thus far.

"Orbit Boy"

Finished another piece last night. It includes a vintage Christmas light, so it's a "shadow box" piece. It's difficult to photograph the box with the glass, so I took a photo out of the box. It's 8" x 10", and the title is "Orbit Boy Always had a Good Idea for Another Planet".

Another Question

 Inspired partly by a piece I had done years ago (2012), which was entitled, "The Question"; and partly inspired by some elements I had "laying around", which had the appropriate patina -- I present the first finished piece of 2026, entitled "Another Question"...

Here's the piece from 2012...

another collab

I have great anticipatory excitement for a two-person exhibit I will be part of in November at The Other Side (Utica, NY), involving David "RC" Oster and yours truly. David is a phenomenal artist who specializes in highly detailed pen-and-ink drawings of barns and buildings and trains and roller-coasters. His work is exquisite. For our exhibit, he plans to show some of his "fantasy" city-scapes. Interestingly, he uses drawings of real buildings, from real cities, but combines them into his own created city. For example, he might take a sky-scraper from New York, and add another building from Chicago, and one from Philadelphia, to create a fantasy city (with the inclusion of a roller-coaster or a set of train tracks and trains). It's really amazing! For our two-person exhibit, I thought that I might make a "collaborative" piece, by which I would integrate my collage elements into a print of one of his fantasy city-scapes. Here are the prints I obtained from David on which I will experiment with placement of collage elements. I'm excited to explore the possibilities!

Tom Nettle

Here are some photos of the most recent work of my friend and fellow artist, Tom Nettle. I absolutely LOVE the piece. It's entitled, "Seldom is Herd a Discouraging Word".