Open Studio Sale Black Friday and Small Business Saturday

Friends: Think about giving your self or others on your Christmas list original art for Christmas. My studio at the Charlotte Art League will be open on Black Friday (9 to 5) and Small Business Saturday (11 to 4). I have been productive during the virus, so I have original drawings and paintings to fit any budget from $45 and up. All my current drawings and paintings focus on climate change and nature. Below are a few examples. Many of these pieces come from my hikes along the Mountain to Sea Trail and the Blue Ridge Parkway. I hope to see you there! 

Charlotte Art League, 4100 Raleigh Street

Friday November 27, 9 am to 5 PM.

Saturday, November 28, 11am to 4 PM

Black Eyed Susans on the Mountain to Sea Trail

This field is so beautiful, I have returned several times to it. It is along both the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Mountain to Sea Trail. The field is full of flowers and grasses. These are color pencil sketches I have completed recently. Some are my normal level of realism, but others are more abstract and simple. 

McColl Center Benefit Silent Auction Begins TODAY!

The McColl Center’s Benefit Art Sale is THIS Thursday! The Silent Auction begins Tuesday October 27th. Your ticket to the sale + auction on October 29 supports artists like me. Get $20 off with my code ARTIST20 now! McCollcenter.org/benefit-art-sale-2020

@mccollcenter  #mccollcenter

 

McColl Center’s Benefit Art Sale is THIS Thursday!

The McColl Center’s Benefit Art Sale is THIS Thursday! Your ticket to the sale + auction on October 29 supports artists like me. Get $20 off with my code ARTIST20 now! One of my Tree Series of drawings is part of the silent auction.

mccollcenter.org/benefit-art-sale-2020

@mccollcenter

#mccollcenter

Trees on a Billboard Let's Hope

The above is my entry to Art Pop for 2020. I hope I get in. Below is the statement I wrote to go with it. 

My art has been informed by climate change, the public’s familiarity with drawing and the universality of trees.

Using graphite drawing, textured rubbing, and gestural marks, which look spontaneous but in fact, carefully placed. Intense texture-heavy areas allow for what a tree feels like. My drawing allows for artistic freedom while stimulating the mind to what branches may even smell like.

Our community sees trees as an abstract concept, and not as important for each neighborhood’s natural space, parks and greenways. I hope my drawings, exposed to thousands of people in the Charlotte area through Art Pop, will diffuse climate and nature into Charlotte’s soul as well as the community’s discourse.

Winter Storm Returns

This is the painting that started it all for me professionally as an artist. This is part of a series I painted of a Steeple Chase field in Louisville Kentucky. The field was at the end of the street where my wife Maura grew up. As part of the exhibition, my 1st in a gallery, I made a print of this painting which sold out. However, one print has returned to me. Its nice to see it again.  

Nature Reconsidered Exhibit Juror's Statement

 

It was nice to win 1^st Place in the Nature Reconsidered Exhibition. The Juror's Statement by Myles Calvert, Assistant Professor – Printmaking, College of Visual and Performing Arts, Winthrop University is very well written. 

Considerations such as warm paper hue, make this graphite drawing / textured rubbing, a stand out work. Gestural marks, which are seemingly spontaneous are, in fact, carefully considered and logically placed. Areas of intense detail allow for a restful area of photographic calm, before moving to texture-heavy offerings of what a tree should feel like. The drawing allows for artistic freedom but does not fall short of pairing a refreshing use of positive / negative space and stimulating the mind to what branches may even smell like. A familiar image ratio combined with unusual cropping, dictates a contemporary expression of a truly explored and historical subject.

This statement reminds me of how my friend Don Michael can write about art!