July 2022: Taking Stock

 After starting the year with a frenetic pace, I find myself in a mid-year pause. Now, that long-anticipated Attleboro Arts Museum show is over with its cross-country trips and I’ve finished the Tree of Life mural at The Next Best Thing to Being There shop, I am taking stock of my life with family, friends and community — right at the midpoint of the year, with Summer Solstice just behind us and July on the horizon. Right now, it’s feeling pretty good just to live day to day without any enormous events or projects looming ahead.

New Work

As the pace has slowed in June, I was finally able to complete Hexagram 43 in the ongoing I Ching series and begin Virginia in the Postcards to America series. Hexagram 43 will be showing for the first time at Ghostwolf Gallery, stop by on First Friday, June 1 from 5-8pm! The amazing Kelli Judkins-Cooper will be the featured artist.

Hexagram 43: Truth to Power • Acrylic on Panel • 30 x 30 inches

Like a lake rising over its banks— truth must be spoken to the powerful. The yin and yang lines of this hexagram are combined with an image of Maat, the Egyptian goddess of truth, who is holding the rod of truth and speaking to Pharaoh. While in the background the Roman goddess Veritas holds her mirror to reflect the truth back to the viewer. In the I Ching series, symbolic and mythological imagery from variety of traditions are combined with the yin and yang lines of the I Ching. The I Ching is the 2,000-year-old Chinese divination system which forms the basis of the Tao.

Detail from the underdrawing of VIRGINIA: is for Warriors
 

The well known highly successful tourist slogan for the state of Virginia is Virginia is for Lovers. However Virginia, next door to Washington D.C., is home to more military-related installations than any other state including the CIA, the Pentagon, the world’s largest naval base in Norfolk, the Marine base in Quantico, Arlington National Cementery, It also gets the second most department of defense dollars, with Texas in first place and California in third place, which are both larger states.

New Sign for The Next Best Thing to Being There

 The summer I was eighteen, I spent the summer with a youth group in Grants, New Mexico, and one of the highlights of the summer, besides climbing Mount Taylor every weekend and falling in love with the area, was working with a local sign painter putting my calligraphy skills to use in freehand sign painting. It was fun to revisit those skills all these years later and create a sign that complements the completed mural. Please visit this extraordinary shop at 1315 Mountain NW in Albuquerque which specializes in free trade gifts around the world as well as items from local artists including myself.

 

 

Save the Date!

Let’s Get Metaphysical! is coming to Tortuga Gallery in October
featuring artists Jona Lou Batt, Jennifer DeSantis, Roe LiBretto, Sonia Luévano,
KD Neeley, Caitlin Padilla, Carol Roullard and Denise Weaver Ross

 
 
 

Stay healthy and safe!