Stone and Water

On the way to Italy for a mail art call with the theme of Stone and Water. 

  A desert scene because in California our rivers run dry.

Zabriskie Point

I have been visiting Death Valley for decades, and always finding it inspiring.  Typically, I paint it in a more presentational manner.  But this latest version of Zabriskie Point is more focused on that unique palette.  

Printing Death Valley

 

I believe the last time I was carving out linoleum and making block prints was when I was student.  Maybe it was the visible geologic time machine of Death Valley that inspired me after last weekend’s trip to the desert.  This one comes from a long morning hike way back into Mosaic Canyon – one of my favorite places in the national park.

ATCs of Palette and Place

Yesterday’s outgoing mail included my latest series ATCs.  In this series, the Collagescape idea that I began with in 2014 takes another direction.  There are eight different designs in the series.  Each design shows different place that has been reduced to four individual colors.  The colors are used to represent a certain place and, in some cases, a time of the year.

Take a Hike! — National Park ATCs

There is a great deal of expectation for artists to respond to the lunatic and his cronies that have occupied our White House.  As an artist I feel compelled to respond and yet I am torn.  I rather not let such negative energy into my art space. I want to make pleasant art and let my head escape to the national parks I love.  It is remarkable that something as innocuous as National Park-themed ATC’s could be perceived as something political. But these are remarkable times when our federal lands, lands protected for future generations, are under siege.   Even the voices of park rangers are being censored. Today’s outgoing mail art includes artist trading cards with the “radical” notion that the land administered by the National Park Service is to be loved and protected.

The Photography of Jim McDonough

Jim McDonough (1959-2015)  grew up in the Boston Area and after graduating from college ended up working at the gas company.  He was a meter reader.  We creative people often build resumes that are a patchwork of jobs.  He had dreamed of moving to San Francisco or New Mexico — he settled on San Francisco.  Soon after Jim, moved west I found my own home in San Francisco.  We became friends soon after I moved here 1990.  A few years later we realized that Jim was my meter reader when I briefly lived in Medford, Mass.  Fate is a strange thing.

A job opportunity detoured Jim to Florida.  But, when it was time to escape, re-entry into the Bay Area was all but impossible.  Jim found a new home in Albuquerque, New Mexico and began to get serious about photography.  He began exploring some fairly remote corners of the state going down roads that probably were not meant for his Toyota Echo.  Soon his work was being exhibited and even won a few awards.  Sadly illness cut Jim's career short and he passed away in November 2015.

Here is a sampling of some of Jim’s work.  I am the fortunate owner of a Sprung.   A few years back he placed some of his work on fineartamerica.com and you can see more, and even get prints here. 

Landscaped Postcards

What happens when you take something like ordinary, unused, old postcards?  You can enhance them by adding some paint or “landscape” them.  Now you have a new round of mail art to send out today.