Views from our Windows

My mantra in this blog has been "What am I gonna do with all my old pictures?"
I'm putting a collection of 12 old Old Colorado City paintings and drawings in a special one-time art sale to benefit the Old Colorado City History Center, the Friday of Founders' Weekend, Aug. 7, 5-8 p.m. at the center. I really appreciate this opportunity to get that number of pictures actually possibly moved.
The final 4 pictures (I think) I've chosen to put in that sale are my favorites, the last of the views of Sacred Heart Church I've painted from our upstairs bedroom windows since '76. It's great having a good view.

Cinco de Mayo '98, oil 30" x 40"


Sacred Heart and Cheyenne Mountain, acrylics 20" x 28", 1987


Sacred Heart in Winter, acrylics 18" x 24", 1976


Sacred Heart in Summer, acrylics 18" x 24", 1977


And then no sooner did I get these pictures ready for sale, I discovered about 8-12 more old drawings of Colorado Springs that are from this same era, just sitting in an old folder in our crawl space waiting to be matted and framed. I wonder if I can get them ready for this sale at the history center?
Is there no end to this?

Old Colorado City Pictures

I am going to exhibit and have a special one-time sale of as many as 12 of my Old Colorado City pictures, on Friday, Aug. 7, 5 - 8 p.m. at the History Center, One South 24th St., Colorado Springs, 80904 (719) 636-1225. You're all invited to enjoy an Open House at the center, with wine and cheese, as part of the first friday Old Colorado City Artwalk. The next day are the Founders' Day events and the Sesquicentennial Celebration of Old Colorado City, 1859-2009. Sales of my artwork will benefit the history center. Prices will range from $95 to $795. Art includes:

Pikes Peak from Old Colorado City, oil 24" x 36", 1998



Pikes Peak from Bancroft Park, acrylic 24" x 36", 1980



Sacred Heart Church, oil 18" x 24", 1996



Two Old Twins, guache 18" x 24", 1987



Mattress Factory, ink & watercolor 14" x 15", 1996



Old Town Rehabs, Ink 18" x 24", 1985



General Palmer & Mrs. Garrison, Ink 18" x 24", 1981



Party Table, Ink 9" x 12", 2009



I'll have four more pictures to add in my next post.

Free Art

In my quest to get my old art off my walls I've gone to two places in Old Colorado City where I already have artwork on display: the local Carnegie Library, and the Old Colorado City History Center. This old part of Colorado Springs is a National Historic area, and the business district, which is only a few blocks from where we live, is gradually becoming more art-oriented. In addition to my giving art to my family, in the past few years I've given an oil painting to each of those places.
The Carnegie Library, where all our family (and Judy's Chickadee Child Care kids) have always walked to, had its centennial celebration recently, and as they had an old illustration of mine already hanging in the library, I was asked to make a picture for them to use for the celebration and to raise funds for its renovation, which is now done. I was happy to paint a picture for them, in return for all they've done for my family.

The Red Balloon, 18" x 24" acrylic/oil


The Old Colorado City History Center is on one side of Bancroft Park, while the Carnegie Library is on another side. I knew that the library might be scheduling exhibits for 2010, which entailed submitting artwork to be juried, but instead I walked across the park to the history center. Local icon Dave Hughes secured the old church years ago for the history center, and has turned the Historical Society (OCCHS) into an active part of the local community.
I started my art career in the 1970s making posters, maps and illustrations for Dave. He used one of my ink illustrations as the logo for OCCHS, and a few years ago I painted a large oil of the church in order to give them a color logo and help usher them into the modern world of color advertising.

Old Town Holy Day, 30" x 40" oil


The weekend of August 7-8 is the Sesquicentennial Celebration of Old Colorado City, and Dave Hughes and OCCHS have been instrumental in making that into a big Founders' Day weekend that will draw lots of people to Bancroft Park. I produced a flyer for them to use for the Arts and Crafts event in Bancroft Park this Saturday, June 20, and I will help them with flyers for Founders' Day.

A couple weeks ago I mentioned to Dave that I've got a dozen old paintings and drawings of Old Colorado City, and I asked him if OCCHS could help me sell those, that I would even be willing to give OCCHS the majority of the sales. I would advertise such a sale with "Proceeds to Benefit the Old Colorado City History Center." Dave and the society president Joanne Karlson have taken my proposal under consideration.

Included in the sale I want to include the cartoon that I featured in another flyer I've done for OCCHS for their July Old Fashioned Ice Cream Social.

So now as I wait to hear from Dave and Joanne, I'm wondering if I've done the right thing. I've actually offered to give them a commission of 60% or higher. Is this just another form of giving away my art? Am I nuts? What do you think I should do?

Thick Oil Painting

My mission is to do something with my old pictures that are just hanging around. Since starting this blog I've had no success, but I'm certainly working on it.
We just got back from a great driving trip to see our family in Farmington NM. No, they have no more room on their walls for more artwork--Emli is an artist herself, and so are her boys; Paul's a poet. I've always given artwork to all our family, it's been "cheap man's gifts" for me to give.

I did hang in their hallway the last two ink and watercolor portraits of their boys, that I gave them for Christmas: William Jaeger, above, and Thorin Jaeger, right.

And I had time to study the Christmas present I gave them the Christmas before that, a large thick oil of Shiprock, where they took us on a trip a couple years ago.
Shiprock (shown below) was an experiment, I always wanted to goosh onto on my pallette all my reds (14), purples (14), yellows (11) and oranges (7), and use them all as fast as I could, slapping them on with all my brushes, not mixing them, getting them as thick as possible while still letting the underlying acrylic colors show through, not worrying about drawing. So that's what I did, it was a frantic painting frenzy that was lots of fun.


I was trying to emulate the style of our favorite artist, Darren Vigil Grey, a New Mexico painter who uses thick acrylics to create myth-like scenes of pure, frantic color.
I always loved Kandinsky and those wild expressionists, I bummed my way to galleries around Europe, in Germany, Belgium, Spain, England and France to see original thick paintings. I even got kicked out of the Louvre for touching a thick Rembrandt (that oil was definitely dry). My bad!
As I studied the oils on Shiprock in my daughter's living room, I discovered that lots of them were still wet, the thicker layers were firm on top but soft when you gently pushed them. I love the sculptural quality of oils, I don't use any medium and don't varnish or protect the finished canvases. The paintings are literally alive and vibrant, and subtly change over the years.
Next post I want to talk about some other art I gave away in the past couple years, especially since I may find a way to move a dozen more of my old pictures.

The Ubiquitous Waiting List

Yesterday I took 5 works into Arati Artist's Gallery, a co-op of 19 artists who had their monthly meeting this morning.
In addition to my new Old Town Mazatlan painting and West St. Elmo, I took:

Holy Taos Mountain, oil 30" x 48"


San Jose de Gracia church at Las Trampas, NM, oil 20" x 30"


Geronimo, walnut carving, 10" x 20"


I took the carving in mainly as an amusement, it was my least expensive item, they have good 3-d displays at Arati but no carvings, and I've got a few old carved Indian heads just sitting around, waiting for me to do something with them. They're a little bit like puppets, I find myself talking to them, and even talking for them like a ventriloquist when I'm holding them.
Anyhow, before noon I got a pleasant phone call from Janet Oyler, an excellent scenic watercolorist whom I talked with a few times over the past week, and she explained I'd not been chosen but it was "very close", that there were 5 artists vying for the one opening and that others had been on their waiting list. She asked if I would like to be added to their waiting list, and I said by all means.
The ubiquitous waiting list. "It could be a month or a year," Jan said.
I felt relief because then I could continue goofing off, but then as I returned those pictures to their walls and the carving to its empty spot I realized that once again I was faced with my same old question:
What am I gonna do with all these pictures (and carvings)?

What am I gonna do with my new paintings?

Do painters even have logos? I'm gonna quit worrying about my header.
In the past several wet, cold months I've put my basement studio back in shape and I've finally started painting again.

I went back to work on the two Mazatlan pictures I started in acrylics last year after we got back from Mexico. I oil paint on top of acrylics and use acrylics like gesso.

I finally made a place for my oils and have got them organized, including putting up a 4-bulb fluorescent light above my pallette so I can actually see what I'm doing.

And I've started a 3' x 4' canvas of Arches National Monument, where we just went a couple months ago.

When Judy Ekstrom saw the mess I'd made down there she asked the 2 pertinent questions that are the drivers for this blog:
"What are you gonna do with those new paintings? What are your plans to move the paintings you've got?" 
I had to admit I had no plans at all, but it's clear that if I'm gonna keep painting I do have to make space to hang em.
And to hang em I'm gonna have to do something about all the pictures already on my walls.
So my immediate plan is to take my most recent picture and try to get it into a gallery. It's a view of Old Town Mazatlan.

Luckily, there is a local gallery only a few blocks away that has an opening for an artist. I'm going to try to join Arati Artists Gallery. They're going to look at five of my works, which I have to take over there tomorrow afternoon.
Arati Artists (http://www.aratiartists.com/) is well known to me, they're just a few blocks away on Colorado Ave, a pretty good location for them. They started in 1977 just as I was starting selling art, it was a recession and my heavy equipment operating job had ended, I was substituting  in schools and scrambling for work. I joined them for a few months in '78 until I went to work for the National Carvers Museum. The fact that they've been open all this time is impressive.
Their commission is 25% and they charge $50 a month membership, in effect renting me about a 10' x 10' spot on their wall. In return they want me to man the gallery at least 5 half-days a month. For a fee they'll add me to their website. I'll find out after tomorrow if I can join.

Plein Air Painting

For my new Galloping Goose header I found the only picture of me actually oil painting plein air at St Elmo, Colorado, an old ghost town that burned in 2003. My good friend and sister-in-law Judy Wise took that photo in 2002, when we were all on a big hiking trip (okay, I wasn't even planning on hiking). I had two 30' x 40" canvases attached to a 6' cedar garden pyramid as an easle, which I hauled in the back of my pickup with my oil palette and a big tarp in case of rain. Judy Wise was stranded, wondering where John had gone in their car with her drawing book, they'd gone to hike way above treeline, when a huge rain/hail/wind storm hit. That's where I learned that plein air painting really can suck. With Judy's help I got the easle into the back of my truck and tied down the tarp over the wet oil and then we just sat in the cab during that storm, wondering how anyone out there was ever gonna survive. When John et. al finally returned they were in a lot better shape than we were.

I still have those two paintings framed nicely on my basement wall, which brings me to ask a third question to the two I started this blog with:

3. Where and how do you sell old paintings? 

Often galleries such as the Business of Art Center in Manitou Springs only want you to hang new work, no older than two years. I think those two old paintings must have some value, at least historically as these views no longer exist as they did.

Here are those paintings, East and West St. Elmo, oil, 30" x 40".

As I continue, I hope to answer my three questions:

1. What are you gonna do with all those old pictures you have?

2. Where are you gonna put those new pictures you're starting?

3. How do you sell old paintings and drawings?

Please don't call me Galloping Goose

It's not my Handle, it's my Logo. My device, or hook. I just thought of it as I was making this blog on bogspot -- er, blogspot, and it asked me for the name of this blog.

I use that because of the old narrow gauge Galloping Goose that daily roared and clacked through the back acreage of the silver fox farm I was born on in Ridgway, Colorado, in the lee of Mt. Sneffels. My brother and I played on those tracks, it was all very formative.

I'm starting this blog because my good friend and sister-in-law Judy Wise urged me to. I asked her -- and I ask you, the so-called reader -- two pertinent questions:

1. What do you do with all those old framed paintings and drawings that you just found in your attic/cellar?

2. Where are you gonna put those new paintings/drawings you're starting?

Those are certainly my questions, which I'm going to attempt to answer through this blog.

Thanks for bearing with me, I have to see my thoughts in print so that I know what my thoughts are. 

Here's one of those pesky old paintings that I simply have to get rid of so I have a place to hang the new paintings I've already started. Pikes Peak from Old Colorado City, '98 (actually started years before), 24" x 36", oil.