Bittersweet Arts Works

This past year I volunteered to help with the Singing Hills Chorus. This is a chorus for people with various forms of dementia. Our brains may deteriorate in many ways but our love of music and our memories of the joy music brings to us stays with us. Each week for 14 weeks we gather to sing and practice for a concert spring and fall. Last spring our pianist, Dale Anderson, wrote a song, especially for our choir. It was called, "Sakata, Singing Hills." Sakata is singing hills in the Dakota language. The song was especially inspiring to me. Several of the verses stirred my painterly imagination. Within 4 weeks I had painted four 1-foot by 4-foot panels visualizing the musical images. We displayed the paintings at our reception and that day 3 of them were sold. Inspiration is everywhere. And we artists are always looking for those special times that strike our creativity. I thank God for the special Singing Hills (available) The Sun Shines Bright (sold) Sun Sets

What could we do when our collections get to big for our home, studio and garage? Buy one big huge space that we can share as a  Gallery Garage!  Last Friday night we had an open house at our new space so that our friends could see what we have done to combine our passions. Dan's cars and trucks drew a good crowd. And finally lots of those people could see and hopefully appreciate my works of art. Since I have made several large paintings I needed a place to show them and keep them from getting damaged. The huge white walls of the garage are a perfect place to hang them. They show off really well and some of the colors even blend well with Dan's collection of beautiful Corvettes and trucks. A birds eye view. 68 Chevy Truck, 99 Corvette, 38 Dodge, 86 McLaren, and my art on the wall.  03 Silverado SS truck and 09 Corvette on the lift. My art on the wall. View of the room Left wall and blue vehicles Right wall with Corvette, Trucks and McLaren We a

My much awaited grant show, Visible Geography, is hung and ready to see at the Waseca Art Center. You really have to see these oil and cold wax paintings in person to appreciate the depth of colors and the textures that a camera just does not pick up.  I have 60 paintings in the show. Large and small and something for just about everyone. Lots of abstract landscapes. And lots of color for these grey and white winter days. The show will be up until March 16, 2018. The Waseca Art Center is open  Tuesday through Saturday from 11-5 and Saturday 12-3. My work is in the lobby gallery. Opening reception is March 2 from 5-8. I am sharing the gallery with Todd Shanafelt, a ceramist from Minnesota State University Mankato. Many thanks to Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council and the McKnight Foundation for the grant that has supported my work this year. My pair of large paintings. "Vision Dance" on the left and "Quiet Country" on the right. Me and my pride

I was selected to have a show at the Waseca Mn. Art Center this late winter season. So after a month of painting in Florida, we are finishing off putting the paintings done in my little studio on the lanai * on cradled panels. And I am polishing up the paintings that I painted on the cradled panels that I brought to Florida. That final polish with plain wax gives the paintings a soft glow that really accents the textures in the paintings. The show should be an engaging one, with quite a few smaller paintings and several larger paintings that are a new experience for me. Thanks to a generous grant from Prairie Lakes Regional Art Council and the Clean Air Land and Water Legacy grant, I was able to experiment with large panels, 36 by 48 inches. I mostly paint much smaller and the challenge of the larger panels was exhilarating. I have some more of those larger panels waiting for fresh inspirations for my next show in August at the Twin Rivers Emy Frentz Gallery.  This red

Florida Sunset, Oil and Cold wax pallet knife 1x2ft Another year and another January in Florida. This year we are renting a home with a sunny lanai where I set up a table, covered it and the floor with tarps and made a really sweet studio away from home. What I really like about it, is that it is right in sight from any where in the house. I just walk out, put a few strokes of paint on the panels or spend a whole day creating in a beautiful sunny and protected studio. I wish Minnesota had this kind of weather. These paintings are being produced for my show in February and March at the Waseca Art Center . This is the final project, completing the plans I proposed last year for a grant from the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council, the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota Clean Water Land and Legacy Amendment. I have used the grant to purchase all the tools, panels, cold wax and paint I used to create the paintings in this show. Of course, I really saved a lot of mone

Time for an up date. While we were in Florida, I wrote and submitted a grant request to the Prairie Lakes Regional Center for the Arts. I found out in March that I received the grant. I just returned from Italy where I attended an artists' retreat concentrating on abstracts using cold wax and oil. Now I will pass on some of that knowledge to other artists who are interested in exploring the medium too.  It was a great workshop put on by Serena Barton, author of Wabi-Sabi Painting with Cold Wax. http://wabisabiartworkshop.blogspot.com/  These paintings were done while in Tuscany. All in just 5 days. We were so productive. I am sure that it was because of the other students were so creative too. It was an amazing time.