Paris 2014

Once upon a time I wanted to go to Paris. Selfishly, I wanted to go by myself. Really, so i wouldn't need to negotiate with another the plans of each day. To just go, be there and see. To see great art that I had studied and to know what my art historically was adding to. That was 25 years ago and now with Mary, on our 20th wedding anniversary, I couldn't dream of going by myself without her, let alone with anyone else. I was so glad to have her be the one to go with, everyday we had the same desires and wanted to see all the of the best that art history could show us. Each day there was no negotiating, eat croissant and have coffee, hit the street, see art and architecture, drink wine, eat, sleep. Well we found it all and a few surprise things and never had one low point.

Sierra Haiku folio 2014

For the past two years it seems Mary and I have been working hard on the side a day here a day there, squeezing in a set of prints that celebrates our backpacking trip careers along the crest of the Sierra Nevada. Mary and I collaborated together on the imagery, she carved the linocut blocks from either one of my photos or out of her sketch book/journal. the Haiku poetry I wrote while we hiked in the backcountry and was hand set in lead type. In total we made eight prints in the folio and the folio is an edition of ten. Mary printed the whole folio at KALA, a print studio where she has been doing an artist residence. The letter press she used is an old Vandercook SP20.

Symbiosis 2013, things connected

This new sculpture is another conglomerate of elements that are states of symbiosis in nature. Nature being that state or politics between living things in the wilderness that i see and witness. Elements being the flora and fauna that exists and only exist because of one or the other elements in the chain of nature. Today i was doing a little bit of research on a few rivers systems, one being the North Umpqua in Oregon. My friend Melinda who I've been doing some woodworking for highly suggested that I make time to go and experience this watershed since it has such an incredible level of biodiversity and wild state that seems so untouched still and very accessible. After a quick search on the web it looks like its on my visit list for 2014 after Paris and of course it has great fly fishing opportunities. The small cabinet is veneered in Redwood Burl and was a cigar box that my friend Bruce gave me after a camping trip, while the dragon fly inside came off the radiator of my truck when i was on my way home from studying split cane rod building with Chris Raine in Dunsmuir in June.

Mapping the Terrain 2013

This show that i'm in is a really smart survey of current mapping projects artists are experimenting with in the local bay area right now. Located in the Mills building on 220 Montgomery street in downtown san francisco, the exhibition gives generous space to my work as well as others. My works stem out of my personal art practice that starts in the "field" or more like extended journeys into the wilderness, beyond the roads that most people will visit, and even more remote than the average hiker will tempt to visit. Most times it can take me 5 days to reach a valley in the High Sierras, and its not uncommon that 15 to 30 people may even visit these wild places. Two sculptures that i made are in the show, Endo-Biotic Symbiosis and Evolution, are culminations of the wilderness experience. In another display case, curator of the exhibit, Kerri Hurtado of Artsource inc., has displayed many of the research materials i often collect from individual places in the wilderness and my actual pocket sketch books that i use while trekking into the backcountry. Among my sculptural pieces are some really interesting works by Lynn Beldner, Francesca Berrini,Val Britton, Jutta Haeckel, Dana Hargrove, Charles LaBelle, Michael Light and Lordy Rodriguez If your in the downtown area of San Francisco or you know your headed that way let me know and maybe we can meet at the space and have lunch? There's a great vietnamese resturant not far away called Golden Flower.

Endo-Biotic Symbiosis

Ive been super busy since the new year in the studio. New sculptures that seemed to be languishing along on work tables suddenly became clear in how they were to procede. Newly finished is a sculpture Endo-Biotic Symbiosis. the outer sides are styrene forms taken off of tree bark that are monted and hinged to panels. Open sculpture is a narative about the inner dependency that flora and fuana has in the wilderness. The sculptures slip cover is quarter sawn sycamore with a deciduous tree image cut out relating to the trees in the sculpture.

Multiple update and laminating

After a crazy bought of work in my workshop, I finally was able to laminate the 10 reliefs onto the sculptural/book frame work. i used a two part expandable ridged foam to secure the styrene relief to the wood veneer page on both the outside edges. Before actually glueing these down, i sealed the burl veneer thats on the opposite sides with a coat of Spar varnish to seal it from being stained by any runs or residue from the opposite side. The process seemed to work well by stacking weights onto the piece to keep the relief so it would drift while the foam dried. the foam is a urethane based material very similar to Gorilla Glue.

once i'm finished laminating these, i'll begin to start sealing the styrene with some paint and begin to shade it into a landscape like the map elements that i use often in my work.

Denver, Drawn and Quarto

Denver, Drawn & Quarto, On the plane at 6 am, Mary and I are off to Denver for the show at Alicia's gallery, Abecedarian Gallery, located on Santa Fe Street in the new art district. We're excited to have an opportunity to share our work in the area and to see the art scene, visit with other artists, and also to get to know Alicia more as well.

Arriving at the gallery, it was great to see Alicia, the last time we met was at the Codex Art fair in Berkeley a year ago when we, Mary and I, had our collaborative work taken on by Vamp and Tramp artist book sellers. Alicia had the space next to Bill and Vicki and she was able to see our work when we had our visit. After a few hours at her space, finalizing details Alicia needed for the opening, we took off to visit Denver's Museum of Modern Art. Crazily, while looking at a small sand sculpture display in the gift shop, a young kid that looked like my old studio mates son was standing next to me. I thought yow that looks like Olen. Then while I turned around it was! Suddenly I heard someone call Mary! And it was Jeff! What a coincidence. After a quick visit with his family we were off again back to Santa Fe Street for Denver's first friday art openings. During the openings, we got to meet some engaged Art viewers who's demographic was very familiar to the Oakland Art-murmur. Also it was quite impressive the number of spaces that were open with fine art. The sidewalks were packed with artists and art lovers, and all the galleries, over 30 that we visited, majority being artist run, were all full of people. Not all of the art was great, not unlike Oakland's scene, however it was very exciting to be part of, and people viewing art as well as the artist seemed quite engaged and serious about the scene. What was also interesting was, mind you this friday evening the weather consisted of a mixture of light rain and snow flurries and the temperature was about 35 degrees outside. Out of all the spaces we visited excluding our show at Abecedarian Gallery, I thought the best artwork to be seen was at Space Gallery with their show White Black Grey. During our 3 day business visit to Colorado we also visited the town of Boulder since we heard that it had a few good galleries including spaces at the University. However we were a tad disappointed except for the FYIPA beer we had at the Mountain Sun Brewery for a late lunch. On sunday we walked around the LoDo area of Denver and visited the Museum of Contemporary Art that Alicia and Rupert Jenkins who we got to see Saturday evening, recommended. To say the least we were both very impressed with not only the two shows that were on view, but also the architecture of the museum itself. Built on a contemporary modernist model thats popular now, it had very well designed details, Epe wood, steel and glass that didn't interfere with viewing the Art, but still rhythmically complimented the structure throughout the space. All in all, it was a great business adventure, we said "más tarde cocodrilo" to Alicia and her doggy Tyler, and headed for the airport to catch or flight back to Oaktown.