Tag Archives: mixed media photography

Pick of the week, March 5

March 5, 2012 by Chris | 0 Comments

Mile Marker 223, 35x51

Grandpa’s Hayrake by Jeff Boyer

February 29, 2012 by Chris | 0 Comments

Grandpa’s Hayrake

We cousins would climb onto a copious seat
worn slick by rain and sun,
the trousers of men both thick and spare.

We made a kind of game: Each setting of the giant tines
could chart your life. High for smooth,
hardship low, and tragic on the ground.

An overbuilt machine, no amount of hay
could need that bulk. The elms
would whisper secrets in the yard.

Lilacs by the road pushed against the drive
and hid approaching cars from view.
The tires hissed on tar as they sped by.

Only three or four, I knew enough to open wide the door
before ascending to the beds above
to let the breezy nighttime secrets through.

In the side lot under moon and stars
the rake would arc the metal tines like years
and shape the wind in rows.

Jeff Boyer (collector)

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Thanks Jeff for sharing your poem with us!

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Pick of the week, February 27

February 27, 2012 by Chris | 0 Comments

 

Mile Marker 225, 23x35

 

The show Warming Up to Spring closes tomorrow. This image seems to be the stand-out, selling in three of the four sizes. Is it your favorite? If not, please tell me in the comments which one is.

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A view from the studio

February 22, 2012 by Chris | 2 Comments

While making a long journey, we concentrate on the steps needed along the way, careful to keep our footing.  It often isn’t until we reach our destination and raise our view that we can appreciate the surprising distances we travelled.

These last few days in the studio before leaving for a show are always my favorites, especially when it’s the first show of the season. This is the first time I get to physically see the artwork all together, when it’s finally realized, and not just how I’ve been picturing it in my mind for months.

I began planning this series and making work for this moment last October. Because of the all the steps needed and the drying time (especially of the largest pieces), I work with images that I won’t see trimmed and framed for months. Not to mention that the source photograph was likely taken at least a full year before that. That is a long time to wait!

 

There is a fleeting moment when I have arrived at the destination I have been traveling towards all winter, when I can bask in the accomplishment of the journey for a few days. After these sweet moments of reflection, I lower my head and begin to push toward the next destination.  Away we go again!

This year I have figured out a way to share the view from here! (but the view is fleeting, only until February 28th, details)

 

Peace of the week, Feb 20

February 20, 2012 by Chris | 0 Comments

Today I am taking a day away from the studio to select artists for Art in the Park in Columbia, MO. Mostly a regional show, I am excited to see what my fellow Missouri artists have to offer. I will also get in a bonus visit at one of my favorite galleries, the Perlow-Stevens Gallery. A great day in the making for sure.

(And my drive to and from Columbia today, 250 miles round trip, will be a little warm up for our drive to Florida next week.)

Mile Marker 275, 16x22

 

This and other pieces like it can be found right now in the “Currently available” tab at the top of the website.

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Peace of the week, Feb 13

February 13, 2012 by Chris | 1 Comment

Happy Valentines Day.

My valentine and I are busy in the studio getting ready to begin our show season. Two weeks until we leave for Florida, but who’s counting?

Mile Marker 262, 15x29 (x 4 pieces)

 

Please contact me to check availability.

 

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Revving up for re-entry

February 8, 2012 by Chris | 4 Comments

Our last week

As if trying to prepare us for re-entry into the US, our last week in Mexico is always more harried than the preceding weeks. There were many people to have one last visit with, and, all the activities that we had intended to get to that were also shoved into the final days. It was absolutely magical, and I only regret that I don’t have pictures of all of it to share with you. A selection of activities from our last four days:

  • Built tables and storage for the art classroom at the girls home, Buen Pastor, with our friend and amazing art educator, Katie Clancy.
  • Took a field trip to the small town of Santa Rosa with Julie Foley, where we had a fabulous walk along the rough cobblestones, ate amazing tacos, and bought cactus marmalade from a women’s collective.
  • Ate a beautifully elegant Italian dinner at La Capellina with a large table of friends as we listened to Michael Severens play Bach sonatas on the cello.
  • Attended a fabulous dinner party thrown by Allen and Cheri Cetto, our Guanajuato family.
  • Enjoyed the enchanting duets of Kyle and Michael on pedal steel guitar and cello. My new favorite combination of instruments for sure!
  • Laughed through a breakfast outside in our favorite plaza with our new friend Sam Wyngaard.  Sam and her husband Mike are our new heroes, as they have figured out a way to live and work in GTO full time and are building an amazing house in the center of the city. (We can’t wait to see the progress when we return!)
  • Went on an adventure (that I am still processing and a bit ashamed of) to the state fair in León to watch a bullfight. I am glad I went to experience the whole event – the enthusiasm, the tradition, the beautiful costumes, but I certainly never need to see one again.

Tables at Buen Pastor

Santa Rosa, Guanajuato

Santa Rosa - cobbles waiting to be made into a road

La Capellina - listening to Michael on cello

Bullfight in León

What did you do last weekend?

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Street theater

February 2, 2012 by Chris | 1 Comment

There is time for art

Musicians and street performers are in almost every plaza and jardin. And this week there is a street performer’s festival that has brought artists from all over Mexico to every corner of Guanajuato. (Really one should be forewarned so when they encounter a troupe of clowns wielding swords in an otherwise deserted callejon they don’t become TOO startled!) I have seen plenty of places that have buskers in the streets, subways, train stations, etc. but something makes this distinctly different – in this unhurried pace of life people take the time to sit and watch.  Not only is there art but there is audience everywhere! How/why is it that people have become too busy for this, hurrying past with one ear cocked?

And now Kyle and I are off to see some art –  two gallery openings, some street theater and our friend the cellist in one of our favorite restaurants.

 

Street theater in front of Teatro Juarez

 

From the book I am currently reading:

Starting to Wander: Living and Traveling in Central Mexico by Stephen Arthurs

“There were broad palatial rows of steps leading up to the entrance of the very opulent theater, but on this night (and on most nights as we later learned), the steps had been commandeered by the general public for use as bleachers for the sole purpose of watching entertainment just as medieval as the estudiantinas: street clowns. It seemed fitting somehow that the common people had turned their backs on the ostentatious grandeur of the Teatro Juárez, and were making their own amusements outside in the streets, the true home of mexican culture.”

 

Do you make enough time for art? What could change so that you did?

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Architecture as Teacher

February 1, 2012 by Chris | 1 Comment

There are a lot of poets in Guanajuato

I have been thinking about the poets a lot this last week. Having never known an ex-pat community anywhere else, I don’t know if this is unusual or the nature of those prone to leave the US. Perhaps poets are just naturally drawn to the magical town of Guanajuato. Or perhaps it is something about studying and living amongst another language. I know that Kyle and I have been speaking in a type of shorthand, both in English and in Spanish. When I am uncertain of the pronouns and all the little connector words, it seems that ideas get distilled down to the most basic elements. So much so that all of the complex ideas I had about life here in Guanajuato spilled out of my head in four simple lines this morning.

The Teacher

silently yield to one another.
move slightly to make passage.
patient in the steps.
there is room for everyone.

 

silently yield to one another

move slightly to make passage

patient in the steps

there is room for everyone

 

What do you think? Have you lived as an ex-pat?

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Pick of the week, January 23

January 23, 2012 by Chris | 0 Comments

My languages are so jumbled up right now all I have no words to offer, but please enjoy the piece of the week.

Mile Marker 220

Contact me to check availability.

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