It’s All For Show

So, where was I? Oh, trying to stay high and dry, I seem to recall. And working on several shows simultaneously, with the biggest one, “Passionate Menagerie”, opening this Friday at the JRB Art at the Elms Gallery in OKC. A LOT of new work will be available, including the “rain” series and many other artworks seen here. Just under 30 pieces, as a matter of fact. It’s been a busy month or two. Sorry I’ve been a little preoccupied.

El Grande Amor, Collared Aracari, acrylic on board 18×24, part of The Passionate Menagerie at JRB Art at the Elms Gallery

You can contact the gallery if you are interested in making a purchase, and if you are in the neighborhood of 2810 North Walker in Oklahoma City this Friday from 6 to 10pm, stop by and say hello and enjoy the opening reception!

Great Curassows, Costa Rica, pencil sketch 8.5×11 on exhibit in Traveling Through Artists’ Eyes

Another interesting show I’m participating in is called Traveling Through Artists’ Eyes at the Invited Artist’s Gallery in the Oklahoma City Underground, a tunnel system down under OKC that’s been refurbished and updated with new lighting, carpeting, paint and a walk-through gallery with rotating exhibits. This is a group show put together by Julia Kirt at Oklahoma Visual Artist’s Coalition and is a collection of travel related art by seven Oklahoma artists. I contributed sketchbook pages from Australia, Costa Rica and Panama. This one runs through into October. Here’s a really great review by John Brandenburg.

At the Bennington Center for the Arts in Bennington, Vermont, American Artists Abroad is opening this Saturday, August 4. Three of my pastel/graphite paintings are included in this show. And, yes, they are for sale- the Bennington will be happy to help you with all your art collecting needs!

Blues on Yellow, Red-legged Honeycreeper pastel and graphite on paper, 11×14, one of three pieces in American Artists Abroad at the Bennington Center for the Arts.

All That Water Adds Ups To A Lot

This is not Niagara Falls– it’s an earthen dam on a small private lake in our neighborhood that’s been eroding away after last night’s big storms. The rain gauge in our yard registered 5 1/2″ last night, our own personal record. It was a noisy, flashy series of deluges and kept us awake a good part of the night, when around 3am a huge crash of lightning close by knocked out the power which didn’t get restored until after 10:30 this morning, when those wonderful folks from OEC sent out a big truck and crew to get it going again. One problem here when the power goes out: besides the AC and the lights, the pump doesn’t run and we are without water for the duration. Ironic, isn’t it?
We hope this dam holds up until the rains slack off and they can make repairs. It’s on Reynolds Lake, on Rock Creek Road just west of 180th in Little Axe, OK, about a mile from us to the west. We are lucky, and lucky to be very safely out of the way.

Sun Comes Out, Flowers Bloom, Birds Sing

See the rainbow?

It’s NOT raining, hasn’t been for a few days, and it’s finally dried out enough to get the mower (fixed) mowing. It’s an unbelievable year for wildflowers as you can see from these pics of the barn buried in Virginia creeper, Monarda punctata, and Rudbeckia. I’m in two shows in the next two months, one in the Oklahoma City Underground, a curiously sci-fi sounding pedestrian tunnel system beneath our fair city which has been recently upgraded and revamped, and now includes shops and an art gallery, soon to be hosting Traveling Through Artist’s Eyes, July 19th through October 5, 2007. The other show, titled The Passionate Menagerie, is opening August 3 (please plan on joining me there if you’re in town!) from 6 to 9pm, is at JRB Art at the Elms Gallery in the Paseo in Oklahoma City. It will feature a lot of my tropical bird paintings in acrylics and in pastels, and also a good bunch of four-legged subjects. Many drawings as well as paintings, and perhaps a few block prints. I carved up another block today and I think I will proof it this afternoon. Here’s the image, a bluegray gnatcatcher perched in a crape myrtle, right now blooming in my garden. I drew the flowers directly onto the block (while standing in the hot sun), then added in the little gnatcatcher, which I’d sketched earlier near the same spot.

It’s funny, but I think the block is pretty just like this!

Mighty Mowin’ Mike

Rudbeckia, trumpetvine, Bartlett pear tree

Rudbeckia, Monarda, and a freshly-painted barn