White Oak Studio

I just got word that the Till Midnight Gallery is closing due the current financial situation. And, I just made a special delivery there and swopped out new artwork less than 3 weeks ago!

It’s always a huge disappointment when another art gallery closes and this time its both the gallery and the restaurant. I have a lot of sympathy for both businesses - as I’ve been on both sides of that coin!

It’s time to recirculate that artwork yet again.

Today was a day spent on the road making art and brochure deleveries.

I drove first to Krasl Art Center www.krasl.org  to deliver a 12″ X 12″ square canvas titled, Great Lakes Treasures.” My contact there accepted the piece and placed it near my other 10″ X 24″ canvas picturing the St. Joseph lighthouse which all together with a wreath made a nice three piece wall collection.

Then I delivered brochures to The Box Factory for the Arts, and enjoyed the artwork as I toured.

Next I headed to Harbor Country www.harborcountry.com stopping at local tourist sights to leave brochures along the way. A lot of shops and restaurants are still closed prior to opening for the 2009 season but I covered what I could.

My final destination was delivery to Local Color Gallery in Lakeside. This is the third year I have sold through the Local Color Gallery and I seemed to have attracted the notice of an interior designer who has been making purchases of my canvases the past few years.

I took the signature piece, Gifts of the Dunes” (from the Gifts of the Dunes Series) to this gallery along with three pieces from the “Calligraphy & Paper” series and 12 note cards.

Local Color is busy gearing up for their season opener, “Art Attack” www.harborcountry.org/artattack that begins this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I am VERY happy to have my artwork be a part of this well publicized spring art walk.

I finally finished the final 6 piece of art work for this winters collection, “Gift of the Dunes.”

The collection includes;

1) Gift of the Dunes
2) Singing Sands
3) Calm Waters
4) Time & Tides
5) Shifting Winds
6) Water Migration I & II
7) Sand Solstice
Calm Before Storm
9) Great Lakes Treasure

Now my efforts turn to preparing inventories and getting artwork delivered to the galleries before the 2009 season beings.

My new work has returned from the photographer and has been uploaded on my website www.whiteoakstudioandgallery.aftosa.com Each of the 8 pieces is loaded at the beginning of the site and each has the words NEW in front of the artworks title.

Comments from the photographer’s wife, who is also the owner of Khenemu Gallery, www. khnemustudio.com, her favorite work is that the ”Gift of the Dunes” series. Since I find I sit so close to my own work that is hard to remain objective, I am grateful to receive her positive feedback.

My process of making handmade papers is mediatative, repetitive, methodical and ritualistic. The sheer act of doing this work brings me a calmness and piece (like my yoga practice) that I hope communicates the meditative nature of the completed piece.

In this new series, I am attempting to create even more visual and physical layers than before, while continuing to call attention to the beauty and fragility of the Earth and its natural resources. I have turned into a political activist in my home township, Lee Township, Michigan as I try to protect the land, the groundwater and the air quality.

This land is a spiritual responsibility.  Are we up to the challenge?

I’ve been recovering from knee surgery and can’t get into the studio to work. So instead I am watching the PBS TV series titled, Art in the 21st Century. This four season series offers over 4 hours of artistic inspiration per DVD, 4 seasons, or 64 hours of filming overall. This gives me a way to stay involved in the art world while not being mobile.(This would also be a great series for anyone experiencing “artists block.”)

This series focuses exclusively on contemporary art in the US. with selected artists revealing their inspiration and methods behind their work. Through interviews with the artists, the film shows them at work and gives us an opportunity to peek into their lives of creation and exhibition.

Each DVD is broken into themes and a particular artist is chosen whose artwork fits that theme. I am as attracted and interestied inthe themes as I am the artists’ work. I enjoy the themes because I title my artwork, create work in series and give names to exhibitions and I find it interesting how the directors broke the artist body of work down into themes.

Two examples…

SERIES ONE:     SERIES FOUR:
Place                      Romance
Identity                   Protest
Spirituality              Ecology
Consumption          Paradox

This series has introduced me to many new and lesser known artists whose work and style of working I am not familiar with. This sereis has opened my mind to new ways of seeing, observing, working and thinking.

I was most impressed with the interview of photographer Sally Mann, best known for her large scale, black and white photographs of her young children and more recently of landscapes of death and decay.  I knew her work from my days as a photojournalist and landscape photographer. We share a deep relationship with the land and use the land and its natural beauty as a theme in our work.