To Santa Fe

Judy Wise and John Prescott left for home this afternoon, after a wonderful 5-day trip to Santa Fe. We're full of great memories, and we feel both refreshed and inspired.

Colorado Springs is 6 hours from Santa Fe. We went the scenic route, via San Luis where we had lunch in the convenient Coffee House Cafe. From left is John, Judy, our daughter Christine, Judy Ekstrom and son-in-law Rick Munoz.
Last weekend was the Indian Market, and our aim was to see as much artwork as possible.

Judy Wise is a treasure to view art with, she has an eye for finding great works and then can tell you easily what makes them so good. One high point of our trip was the first day, on Canyon Road in the Winterowd Fine Art Gallery. She led us to three works by Don Quade, large, colorful mixed media panels based on journaling. Above, Judy Ekstrom and Judy Wise view "Journal of the Butterfly," 48" x 72".

Here they're viewing two 48" x 48" panels by Don Quade, "Journaling July" and "Meadow."

She led us into another room with works by Michelle William from Houston, not the gorgeous large yellow paintings but the two smaller plexi-framed paintings.

She was very taken with those works by Michelle.

We got another look at one of Michelle's works on our way out.

And when we got back to our motel we discovered that Judy had purchased one of Michelle's mixed media on metal paintings.
Be sure to see Judy Wise's blog for more information.

The next day we went straight to the Plaza to view the Indian Market booths. More about this later.
I want to thank Judy and John, as well as Chris and Rick and Judy Ekstrom, for a marvelous, unforgettable time.

The Big Show was a Success!

I'm pleased to report that my art show and special one-time sale last Friday at the Old Colorado City History Center was a great success, with a fine turnout and excellent sales.


I did make the entrance to the center more obvious, with 4 homemade posters that at least let people know what was going on inside. I nailed another poster on the tree down on the corner, directing people in this direction (and I did take down all the posters afterwards). Since the history center was one block off the avenue where all the other artwalk galleries were located, we were concerned that people might not know where we were. Joanne Karlson even had a volunteer standing down there handing out flyers part of the time. Those were all efforts that paid off.


I cleaned up the main display and put a large spotlight on it, which made a pretty dramatic entrance to the display that got everyone's attention. Four of these five paintings sold.


It was a beautiful evening and people came from all over. The interior of the history center was quite attractive, and the evening sun coming in through the old church windows was gorgeous.


There was lots of room for people to mill around and to look at the history exhibits as well as the art.


The old church pews were set around the edge of the space and lots of people spent their time just sitting and socializing on the comfortable seats. In the photo I'm picking out another red dot from my folder so that one of the super volunteers, Jan deChadenades, could affix it to another sold picture, to the amusement of our neighbors, Jane and Kurt Weiss from Texas, and Barbara and Joe Vuillemin from Arizona. Jane and Barbara purchased the two views of Sacred Heart in the winter and in the summer, both of which had the back yard of their home just down the street in them.


The displays were easy to look at and even the pictures on the back display were well lit. Here's Paul Jaeger, my son-in-law from New Mexico, deciding which picture to buy.


Judy Ekstrom and I stand with Ann Washburn in front of the picture she purchased. Ann lives just down the street from us, and was very happy to have the scene of Pikes Peak from Old Colorado City on her wall.


Nearly everyone I invited showed up. Here's Judy with Kaye Grant, the Marketing Director for Services at the Air Force Academy. Kaye was my boss for nearly 20 years. She was pleased to purchase a picture. Serving wine was volunteer Werner Karlson, who also helped clean up afterwards.


Kaye and I were happy to see each other. She's still working at the Academy, from which I retired over a year ago.


My old friend and fellow painter Warren Schroeder came with his girlfriend Jeannie. He'd long waited for me to have a show, now I'm waiting on him to have one.


Long-time friend Betsy Evans goes through the box of prints I had made, while Jan watches. I produced 60 prints, 5 of each picture, and put them in clear plastic envelopes. They were very popular and 35 sold.


Here I am talking with another long-time friend, Fred Clark, the President of Warren Tool Co. and a long-time sponsor of the old National Carvers Museum.
I give my sincere thanks to everyone for helping me with this show, it's gone a long way to accomplishing one of my goals in this blog: to figure out how to sell my old paintings so that I can have room on my walls for new ones. I especially want to thank my long-time friend and co-worker Todd Ryan, who took most of these pictures.

The Final Show

Tomorrow is the day of my big show and special one-time sale at the Old Colorado City History Center, Friday, Aug. 7, 5-8 p.m. I took all of my paintings and drawings to the center to set up on Tuesday.


As I look at this photo of the entrance to the center I immediately see I need some posters out there, but because of my lack of foresight and planning it's now too late to make anything of any size. I'll see what I can do tomorrow (famous last words) to at least put up some signs. I have printed and distributed several hundred flyers, all in color, but nothing big.
Setting up this exhibit has been all-consuming. When I first started on Tuesday I used the history center's big 8' square heavy display that was designed to be kept erect by two 18" panels on each end which turned opposite 90 degree directions. But when I had two pictures on it, held by "invisible" plastic line, the entire display simply fell over with a tremendous crash, totally shattering one frame and glass (but not hurting the picture, which I reframed that evening). A few people were inside the center viewing the history exhibits and volunteering help. Luckily no one got mooshed (colloquial term for smashed flat).
So I rushed to Bruno's Rentals and managed to put up another 8' x 10' display by the next day.


Hanging the pictures on that metal frame on both sides of black drapes was not easy, they wouldn't hang straight and I finally had to string extra plastic lines horizontally to help hold the pictures steady. At least the lighting isn't too bad, with a good spotlight to shine on the front display.


As I look at this photo I see I've got to clean that display up by removing those two silly signs with arrows, as well as that flyer display. The back side of the draped display panel is problematical, but I don't see what more I can do to make it look better. I'm embarrassed by how sloppy this all appears. Two pictures are on tripods and lack good light.


I did add one more painting, a picture of Sacred Heart Church I found in my cellar, showing the effect of the terrrific lightning blast in a 1995 summer storm, which threw the east cupola and cross into the middle of Colorado Ave.


I finally got over there in October to make an illustration of how it still looked, and while I was there a latino family was having a celebration. They even posed for me. I only saved this picture because it was my first effort to make a rendering in oil, it's another picture I'm very eager to get rid of.
I'll let you know how the show and sale goes.

Art Show Countdown

This is the first day of a very busy last week until my art show, this Friday Aug. 7, 5-8 p.m. at the Old Colorado City History Center. This is my first actual scheme to accomplish the one main goal that was the reason I started this blog: to get rid of all the old pictures I've had on my walls for years.
I've now got my first 12 pictures completely ready (I am working on a few more, but more about that next blog) and I've actually moved them out of my basement studio and have them (once again) displayed on our living room walls.



We invited our next door neighbors over a couple days ago to see the art, since I'd sent them an invitation and they replied by apologizing for being unable to make the art show, but that since their back yard was in four of those paintings, they did want to have "first choice" of the pictures. I want to thank Barbara Vuillemin, who will return after the show to take Sacred Heart in the Summer '77 (lower right corner in the photo) back home to Tucson Arizona with them.
I love finding good homes for my pictures.