21 C Museum Hotel Louisville (September 9, 2014)

The last artwork that impressed me from my gallery hop in Louisville was an installation by Ned Kahn in the 21C Museum Hotel. This place is full of alot of good artwork throughout its walls and gallery. The piece I was most impressed was an installation outside but could be viewed through windows from inside the building. It was called ‘Cloud Rings’. It consisted of three black boxes that produced smoke rings in intervals that popped out and drifted up into the sky. Below are two photographs showing the piece. I remember that when I smoked cigarettes, I used to blow smoke rings all the time and I got pretty good at it. Most people were not very good at it and it was hard to get a nice perfect smoke ring. This artwork produced very clean, and very round perfect smoke rings. I loved seeing them pop out so perfectly round and then slowly dissipate as the drifted up.

Cressman Center for Visual Art – Louisville (August 29, 2014)

Below are some other pieces of art that caught my attention in my one day visit to Louisville. The work was exhibited in the Cressman Center for Visual Art. The work was by Helen Tegeler. She created felted wool sculptures which had some element of glass in each one. I thought the use of these two very separate mediums worked very elegantly together. Below are several photographs of her work.

Louisville Art Exhibits – Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft (August 21, 2014)

I visited Louisville last weekend to see as much of the Louisville Art Exhibits as I could in a day.

Below are photographs from and exhibit titled “Second Life” at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Crafts. I was intrigued with the art by Jennifer Angus. She created a decorative wall piece made up entirely of insects mounted to the wall. It was impressive to see all these specimens mounted with insect pins on the gallery wall.

She will be giving a talk at the museum on August 30th at 2:30 pm titled, “Designing with Insects”. Check it out if you like her work. Below are a few photographs.

Oil Painting (August 12, 2014)

I was looking through an older sketchbook and came across this sketch with a can of Sterno. I actually painted this in oil paint and have posted the final oil painting below. Last summer I gave this painting away to an old fire sculptor friend of mine in Sweden. I am always interested in how the idea looks right from the sketchbook and then how the final piece turns out.

Animal Letterform (August 1, 2014)

I saw this thing on the screen door to my front door.When I looked closely I noticed that it was a bug. This bug looks like a capital ‘T’. How strange that an animal can resemble a letterform. With a little research I found out it is a moth – it is called a plume moth. I wonder what other creatures are out there that I am not aware of.

I posted a photo of it on my screen door below.

Dinner Bell Character (July 23, 2014)

Many times I have no idea where I get my ideas. Alot of times I just start doodling and then see what it looks like to me and then emphasize that. Below is an example of a character – possibly for animating – that is based on a dinner bell. Perhaps its shape just reminded me of a cartoon character. Or maybe I was subtly influenced by the Taco Bell logo. Do you see any similarities?

Doo Op – Accidental Poetry (July 17, 2014)

Occasionally I notice an instance of poetry that is totally accidental. The photograph below is an example of that.

This is a button in an elevator in which the paint has worn off some of the letters by being pushed so many times. The button when it was new read DOOR OPEN but now it reads DOO OP. I always get a kick of this DO OP button and imagine all the various things that could happen by pressing the DOO OP button.

Ghoulardi T-shirt (July 9, 2014)

I recently finished the artwork for a group of people who grew up with an unlikely hero called Ghoulardi. He was a fictional late night host who was a hipster and developed many ‘catch phrases’ such as ‘stay sick’, ‘turn blue’ ‘stay cool’, ‘ova dey’, ‘turn blue you purple knif’ (knif is fink spelled backwards). He was played by Ernie Anderson who went on to become an announcer in Los Angeles. He was a beatnick character and very popular because he used to denegrade the B movies he was playing and even interrupt the movie by superimposing his floating head. This is what I did with the t-shirt – I superimposed his floating head over the (modified) Soap Box Derby logo. Ghoulardi was recently given a nod by the band the Black Keys with their 2014 album titled,” Turn Blue”. Below is the t-shirt, it is an inside joke for a number of people.

Migration Sketch and Final Art (July 1, 2014)

I recently finished another vector painting. I have attached a copy of my initial sketch and a copy of the second larger sketch and then finished art below. I call the piece “Migrating Flock Adopts an Orphan”. You can see the different iterations that my art goes through from beginning to end.

Caesar Creek Dam (June 27, 2014)

I thought this dam at Caesar Creek was quite interesting so I took a couple of photos of it. They are posted below.