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Time for the Art Studio Tour

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T he Vashon Island Spring Studio Tour is on the horizon.  The first two weekends in May, 7-8 & 14-15, Vashon Artists open their studios for a public, self guided tour. For the first time this year I am on the Spring tour and even on the cover of the brochure. I have been printing and painting, even working on some garden art for this event and will be writing the next several blogs about the imagery I have created.  The image for the brochure (above) is called Nature's Priest.  Here is a link for the event and map of artists studios on the tour. Vashon Island Studio Tour Spring 2011.

Unclad 2011

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The 10th annual Unclad Art show opens March 12 at Gallery by the Bay in Stanwood Washington  I am excited to participate again this year.  The show celebrates the nude in art by more than 90 artists from across North America.  The scope and scale of the art represented is a rare treat to see. A digital gallery of the work on exhibit may be found at Unclad 2011 as well as directions and a schedule of the many special events planed around the show. My Monotypes Gentle Bower, (above) and Centauromachy or Battle of the Centaurs, (below) are my contribution to Unclad 2011.  In the gallery gift shop I will also have 24 different card images and two smaller monotypes for sale.

Leda and The Swan

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O ne evening while the lovely Leda, Queen of Sparta, went about her bath, Zeus spied her from his perch on Mt. Olympus and was smitten, enamored, or at the very least, fell deeply in lust.  Libidinous Zeus then changed himself into a swan, a bird sacred to Aphrodite, and swept down from the heavens to join Leda in her watery ritual.   Artists through the ages have depicted this union in many, many ways, perhaps because this particular miracle is a challenge, but fun, to imagine.  My Monotype collage version of this amorous encounter depicts Leda as self aware but unaware and slippery Zeus as diminutive, not unlike a bath toy.  I guess I was thinking of soap on a rope.  Really, who could be afraid of that? This mythic union is very important because one of Leda’s children by The Swan is beautiful Helen. Helen’s abduction by Paris, a prince of Troy, will lead to the Trojan War and destruction of Troy, the death and memorialization of many heroes, set the stage for the future

King Maker

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The Kevin D’Amelio Art Gallery will open this Thursday, March 3, 5-8 PM, at the historic 619 Western Building in Pioneer Square with a group show highlighting Vashon Island Artists.  At last count more than 60 artists, representing the remarkable wealth of art being created on Vashon will be participating.  This show runs through March 13. My Monotype King Maker (above) is one of two images I will be exhibiting in the Kevin D’Amelio Vashon Island Artists inaugural show. 

Telamones

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The world turns.  It’s a fact.  I first witnessed the proof on a black and white Zenith TV.  A peg legged modern marvel and the centerpiece of my Middle-American living room.  The date was 1969 and US Apollo Mission Eleven had just landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin upon Earth’s moon.  There for all to see from a totally new perspective was Earth, our (black and white) home, spinning in space. Untangling my thoughts to blog about a video and TV cabinet I made for a friend and patron has been difficult.  Telamones was designed to conceal (and reveal) a flat screen TV.   In the process of creating the cabinet I thought  about many things relating to TV and how historically the information we receive informs and shapes our perceptions.  In each epoch our worldview is framed by technological advances and of course the culture  into which each new technology is born. My father told me he first saw a “murky” television image in 1932 at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. 

Moon Over Marathon

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Much of history is astronomically oriented.  The Greek Historian Herodotus described precisely the phase of the moon in his account of the battle of Marathon.  A battle that is considered a defining moment in the development of European culture. In  490 BCE 10,000 Greeks met the assembled forces of the Persian empire, a seemingly invincible army of approximately 20,000 infantry and cavalry, twenty six miles north of Athens on the Plain of Marathon.   The runner Pheidippides was sent to Sparta requesting aid and he returned with the message that Sparta would send reinforcements but only after the conclusion of its religious festival of Karneia which forbade battle until the full moon (another six days). When Greek generals concluded that battle could not wait, a line of infantry equal in length to that of the Persians was formed and the Greek warriors attacked the Persian line at a dead run.  In the ensuing battle an estimated 6,400 Persians were killed while only 192 Gre

Small Works at Roby King

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Lost, Monotype 6 x 6 in. I have five Monotypes at the Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island during the month of December.   Roby King mounts an annual small works show each year and I was invited to exhibit in the 2010 Small Works Exhibition.   Above and Below are two of the Monotypes for sale and currently on display. Halcyone, Monotype, 6 x 6 in.

Masters in Miniature

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 Parthenope, Monotype, 6x 6 in. The last weekend, Dec. 12-13,  of the 2010 Vashon Island Holiday Studio Tour is coming up.  There is lots of wonderful art by Vashon Island artists to see and buy.  My studio is #12 on the map .  Please stop in to take a look at my print, paint and assemblage work and all the glass, dyed fabric and toys that Laughing Magpies and Tiffany Huslig have created to show and sell. A great place to start your tour  this weekend is the Blue Heron Gallery’s year end finale Masters in Miniature . The exhibition showcases art by 43 Vashon artists in mediums that include: painting, pottery, wood, glass, tile, sculpture, printmaking, fiber, photography and mixed media.  No work is larger than 7 x 7 in.  This annual exhibition, curated by Gallery Curator Janice Mallman and artist Carol Schwennesen,  is exceptional and should not be missed. Posted here are two of the Monotypes I made for The Blue Heron Gallery’s Masters in Miniature e

Bookended by Art

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Siren's Song, Monotype, 12 5/8 x 10 1/2 in. Art at Studio Bookcase  Walls of art bookend my studio bookcase during the 2010 Vashon Island Holiday Open Studio Tour .  Three more images of my monotype print work featured there are posted here for closer inspection. Athena Nike, Monotype, 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 in. Island Orchard, Monotype, 20 1/2 x 27 1/2 in.

Art Descending a Staircase

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Art at Staircase Here is another shot of my artwork as displayed for the 2010 Vashon Island Holiday Open Studio Tour with details of a print and painting featured at the staircase. Theseus and the Minotaur, Monotype, 14 1/4 x 22 3/4 in. Taming Bucephalus, Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 in.

Open Studio

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Art and Hearth In the next couple days I will be posting several images of my work as it is displayed for the 2010 Vashon Island Art Studio Tour .  Above is a shot of the hearth and posted below are images of two Monotype prints featured there. Battle of the Centaurs, Monotype (1/1), 14 1/8 x 35 1/2 in A Thousand Ships, Monotype, 14 3/4 x 11 in.

They Who Go Down to the Sea in Ships

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Invictus, Monotype, 15 1/4 x 22 in. Although my surname might conjure a heritage comfortable at sea, I have had little experience with boats or for that matter large bodies of water until moving to an island in the Pacific Northwest.  My friendship with families who fish professionally and the stories I have heard them tell have however engaged my imagination and sincere appreciation of what ingenuity, fortitude and mind over matter it must surely take to make a living from a boat afloat at sea.  I find the concept frightening.  Much of my fear though is not about the hard work or uncertainty of nature but the dependency upon ones shipmates, their strengths, weaknesses and the emotional baggage all of us are born to and carry in our personal odysseys.  Several Monotypes I have made for the 2010 Vashon Island Art Studio Tour illustrate my reflections upon all of the above and are presented within the context of Odysseus’s misadventures and long voyage home to