September 27, 2017
Unapologetic
For what, anyhow?
For being a woman?
For being feminine (but not always)?
For pink?
For hearts?
For unicorns and sparkle rainbows?
For feeling love?
November 7, 2017
E.A.S.T. 2017 Preview
It's that time! Catalogs for the tour can be picked up at any Austin public library for free. These will help you navigate to other studios, but I've narrowed down some of the information specifically as it relates to my work below. For the full scoop on the kick-off party to the private open studio night and a chance to win a signed print, just keep on reading.
November 6, 2017
Universe
Squeezing the entire universe into one work of art is a pretty tall order, but I gave it a shot.
I have a memory from when I was a young child of asking what came before the Big Bang. The answer "nothing" was as unsatisfying to my kid brain as it is to my adult brain. The cogs were already in motion and while long fascinated by astronomy and physics, this piece was inspired by my more recent exploration of current scientific research. In my lifetime our understandings of the universe and the nature of reality have made some great leaps, not necessarily answering the big questions, but constraining them and opening up new areas of exploration that a few decades ago would have seemed extraordinary. And despite current cultural and political challenges to the practice of science, it seems to me that we are living in another golden era of scientific exploration and learning—a beautiful, fascinating bubble that deserves to be looked at and absorbed as best we can.
October 31, 2017
In the Night. In the Dark.
On a dimly lit night when you were under the glorious stars and a sliver of moon there were suddenly two eyes looking back at you, slowly dancing side to side. And all around you were the unseen things that go bump in the night, in the dark.
But what if the things that went bump in the night were only the thoughts in your head, all the things you’ve been taught to fear and bought into maybe without even knowing it, all the things that loomed large in your imagination but weren’t that likely to happen, all the things that could legitimately cause you harm if you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and what if?
October 29, 2017
Emergence
The Emergence series consists of eight landscapes painted from photos I took in and around Big Bend National Park and Big Bend Ranch State Park. Using the concept of geological change as a metaphor for personal growth, the paintings intentionally straddle the line between naturalism and something that exists just outside of that. The stylistic rendering varies across the paintings and sometimes within a single painting as a way to visually suggest a process that is in constant flux, sometimes smooth and sometimes disjointed. The colored shapes are a breaking off point, at first embedded within the rugged rock faces and their dark shadows before floating independently upwards and transforming the seemingly unalterable land and sky around them.
November 13, 2017
En Plein Air
En plein air is a French term that translates to "open air" and in art refers to the act and end product of sitting in the outdoors and painting or drawing what you see. It was my first entry back into making art after a pretty extended break. My good friend Scott Winterrowd is a prolific watercolorist who was my initial inspiration for beginning to pack sketching supplies when I traveled. The satisfaction he was clearly getting from the activity was contagious, and it was appealing to my inner documentarian/historian as another way to capture my experiences.
September 19, 2017
Finding the Way
A painted bunting stands in for all migratory songbirds, casting a shadow of its own internal compass rose on the rural ground below and recalling idealized pastoral scenes throughout art history. A limited range of sensory perception frames how animals, including humans, interact with the world and interpret reality. In this case limited human perception blinds us to the low-level electromagnetic hum of cities that creates navigational interference for birds that rely on magnetoreception for migration.
February 21, 2018
Featured Artist Scott Winterrowd
Expanding this blog to include artwork other than my own has been a goal all along, and now that it's out of the first year of its existence, the time is right. It seemed only natural that the first artist to feature would be Scott Winterrowd, a close friend for more than 20 years and a significant influence on my own work.