Never paint 6 - 1/2 inch figures, you’ll burn through five brushes and and never fully realize the faces.
While You
While you were exchanging political barbs on social media and marching past my old cracker box apartment in Capitol Hill with home made signs - I was toiling away documenting the events of the time with paint and trowel. Sacrificing what little I had left. Not for some inflated sense of ego or critical acclaim, not for the chance to ship my work into the middle of conservative America on my own dime. And while I’ll most likely never have thousands of Instagram followers or make 60k a year from selling art, maybe just maybe, some little kid that finishes tests early so they can draw on the back of the paper will get dragged to an art exhibit by their mom or dad, see one of my paintings and be inspired to actually creating something. Do something other than napping and walking the dog, working a cubical job that doesn’t really mean anything just like everyone else. Maybe they’ll spend all their free time creating something beautiful.
Yes, Painting Tiny People
Is just as miserable as you would imagine it is.
New Series!
In what could very well be my last exhibition with Core New Art Space at the Santa Fe Dr location, I’m starting work on my 2018 showing with a series of Colorado centric paintings before Denver completely cannibalizes what’s left of everything that makes this city interesting.
Super Bummed
At the loss of Lawrence Argent, I had the privilege of visiting his studio multiple times and generally shooting the breeze about art. It’s a huge loss for the Denver art community and pretty tragic for the all of the art world. If you’re not familiar with his career - he was doing some pretty major projects in San Francisco and China.
Throw Back Thursday
To this 10” x 44” unconventional panorama from college. My control of oil pastels was pretty amazing.
Plans for 2018
Pretty much every painting I do these days starts out as a quick thumbnail. Here’s one for my 2018 exhibition. The Rocky Mountain News was the morning paper here in Denver and was always the better of the two. Shout out to the Denver Native life.
Pretty Sure
No one actually reads these posts unless I push them to other social media sites, but is October yet?!?
Free-Market Capitalism
Well the upside of gloomy days is you can take great photos of your art. The downside is realizing the hypocrisy of free market capitalism. Yeah in the industrial revolution, you could create something and actually compete - but now with the consolidation and mergers of companies it’s nearly impossible. Take for example this 36 inch by 48 inch painting, there’s only two shipping companies I can use. If I were to ship this in a box that’s literally the same size of the painting the cost of shipping is roughly $36 USD one way. Let’s add 1/2 inch of bubble wrap and 1 and 1/2 inch spacer. That’s a box roughly 40 inches by 50 inches by 6 inches that weighs less than 20 lbs. shipping cost increase to $150 USD for ground shipping. Let’s say you’re shipping that to a juried show where you have to pay return shipping. That’s $300 USD for shipping that you’re eating. There’s no way to recoup those costs and some instance you could buy a plane ticket and fly with the painting or take a day few days off work to drive the painting and still come out ahead. It’s ridiculous and super disheartening, I can’t roll the shipping costs into the cost of the painting to recoup my expenses. What are the odds of actually selling the painting? Will being in a new market increase those odds? Is exposure worth the costs? Those are all subjective answers I suppose, for me it’s just a bummer that there’s only two options for shipping. It’s pretty hard to compete with a gallery or artist that can eat $300 for a one painting in a one month show - just saying.
Last Chance
To see this painting “Protect Ya Neck” before she gets shipped off to another juried show in Texas. part of the “Dog and Pony” exhibition at Core New Art Space, juried by Doug Kacena of K Contemporary
Apparently 2017 has been about doing only juried and curated shows as well as running out of things to do in the Denver art scene, which is kind of a bummer. Oh well at least I can raise my price per square inch.
Re-contextualizing
Greco-roman sculpture through selective deconstruction or ish that would look bad ass in super large scale.
Now What?
Finished up this re-imagined version of Buffalo Bill Cody now it's time to get started on my 2018 show with Core New Art Space.
Just some sketching
5 minute quickie from a couple nights ago of Lola sleeping. Just playing around until a big gallery comes along and realizes I'm good and they want to foster an artist that will do anything to make everyone money. Ha.
Here We Go!
Hung a few of my small works in the annex of Core New Art Space, they'll be on display along with two of my full size painting for the "Dog and Pony" show juried by Doug Kacena of K Contemporary, he also partners with Abend and 1262 Gallery in Triptych. Then I'm shipping one of the paintings off to the Fort Worth Community Art Center in Texas for the "Courage" exhibition. It's been a busy year of juried and curated shows so far.
Art Drop Day!!
Clues to where I hid some paintings around Denver!
Happy hunting!!!
Chipping Away
At this stylized version of Buffalo Bill Cody, trying not to get bummed out by the wackness of Instagram and the cookie cutter Denver art scene.
Testing
just playing around some ideas I've had forever but didn't know if I could execute.
Buffalo Bill
Started this Buffalo Bill test piece or as my great-grandfather would of called him, Bill Cody. Apparently whenever he was in Colorado he would come by the family ranch and they'd go "paint the town." Usually I'd chalk this up to family legend, but then again - I've seen letters with his signature.
Studies
Quick studies of my Bull Terrier Lola. I need to get back into the studio and start painting.
Drawing Denver
Had a chance to do some drawing downtown yesterday , trying to work out some 2018 exhibition ideas. Playing around with the idea of old Denver mixed with contemporary subjects. The first one incorporates the Terminal Annex, 15th St. Viaduct, and local graffiti over the years. the Second is a mixture of a white buffalo, the old Elitch Gardens sign, and the cross street where Elitch gardens used to be. That neighborhood has gone through such a transformation I hardly recognize it anymore.
The crazy thing about Denver, all the places where artists called home have become so desirable that for the most part we've all been forced out. Rino, Navajo, and soon the Santa Fe Arts district. The city doesn't seem to care, and for the most part neither does the public until its too late. Westword recently ran an article about artists leaving mementos on the RiNO Arts District signage in memory of the arts district. The sad thing is little do they know that the Santa Fe Arts District is the one they should be worried about. It's the only cohesive, walkable Arts District in Denver that has a mix of Commercial Galleries and Co-Ops. When Spark and CORE's leases are up in the next two years and we end up disbanded or moving it will be a huge hit to the district and spell the begining of the end of what makes that part of Denver interesting. You'll still have hippy hat stores and whatever Artwork Network is, but you won't have the high quality, thought provoking work that comes out of an anchor gallery and co-op with 36 years of continual operation.