After a very busy Spring that included MoPrint and a death in the family, I recently did Summer Art Market. SAM is both a big party/social event, and a grind as the years lengthen, which is why it’s my only truly large show left. I do enjoy seeing everyone ( and the sales tend to be strong ), but it does take a lot out of you.
Homestead, Monotype, 2023 15×11″. From my series of boxes, exploring all a box could be. In this case, a home, which is more than a house, but a formative place.
I won’t do it forever, of course, though I do plan to do it as long as I can physically manage. And I took a year off a little while back, so that I could build inventory, which helps make things smoother in the run-up. I also worked hard to prepare for MoPrint earlier this year, so there was fairly new work, of all sizes, to display. Much of it has involved the theme of boxes, a simple metaphor for life’s accumulations, whether physical or intangible, not to mention death’s first stop over.
I was reminded of this with the recent loss of my father. A home, another sort of box, can feel awfully empty when the loved ones are gone, no matter how much memorabilia it holds. These things were in the back of my mind as I explored the meaning of boxes in studio this year. Art is so valuable for letting the spirit ponder, and speak.
Box With Object, Monotype, 30×18″. The ghostly, heart-like object in the box felt like a faint call from somewhere. This print came together very quickly in the Fall of ’23.
The Summer Art Market is a great time to catch up with people. It’s relaxed, the weather is usually good. and I’m certainly not going anywhere. In this case, after a very busy half year, my thematic projects are probably resolved for now, and I’ll probably explore other themes in the Fall. So it took on the quality of a celebration. A huge street fair party that has at its center the creative spirit. I’m proud to say that I have students in the show, some of whom outsell me. I try to get to all of the artists I know, to say hello, but that’s actually pretty impossible.
Burning Box, Monotype, 20×13″, 2024. The fire to create does not ebb as the years go on. It may represent a cry of the heart perhaps.
In a more career-oriented part of my life this show was a chance to reach out, and possibly grow an audience. Now it feels like a chance to have a conversation, and remind people that an artist’s work is never done.
Thanks to everyone who came by my booth during the show! It went quite well, and as usually happens, I wound up going shopping during the quiet time on Sunday morning. I bought a couple of pieces, I could easily have bought a couple more. It’s a great place to shop for art!
I didn’t have far to go to find this piece by Mark Friday; he was in the booth next to mine.
I have the luxury of time lately, which is very good for art. A regular studio routine is great for following up on ideas, and midweek days to work on framing, etc, without feeling rushed or stressed by deadlines, makes one feel more professional.
The weather has been vivid. I’m taking more walks, looking at birds, watching the clouds roll in. Of course, I’ve always believed that an appreciation of ‘now’, a certain presence in the moment, is valuable in the studio. It’s wonderful in daily life as well.
Nights have been mostly about reading, and I’ve chided myself for ‘wasting’ my streaming subscriptions by not flipping on the TV and catching up on my odd series, such as Dickinson ( a Hip-Hop-infused mash up of Puritan retro futurist takes on the poet’s life ), and Upstart Crow ( Shakespeare gets the Black Adder treatment). You can see the problem here- my favorite TV shows only remind me of how much there is to read!
I’ve been organizing my studio/workroom to make a more pleasant place to frame art and work on the computer. It’s less like a storage/ creative dumping ground, and there’s more room to work on projects, which can then remain out until the next time I’m ready to work on them. I wound up with a better set up for quick photos, too:
Homestead, Monotype, 2023 15×11″. From my series of boxes, exploring all a box could be.
#MoPrint24 is bubbling into existence as we speak. The main organizers are working on not just next year’s event, which looks better than ever, but serious organizational issues that will strengthen it for years to come. I’m not as involved in that as I used to be.
I am trying to contribute, in my own way, by helping to organize the ASLD Print Fair event at the school. That is also in process already, and will accelerate in Fall, after the 800-pound gorilla that is SAM is fed.
I have several classes going on, mostly for kids. My next adult class starts July 11, and is registering now. It’s called Monotype Portfolio, for people with a bit of printmaking experience and is registering now. Here’s the link: https://reg135.imperisoft.com/asld/ProgramDetail/3239303238/Registration.aspx
The demos often reflect what I’m currently working on myself, which is certainly valuable dialog for me, and I hope others craving those kinds of conversation- hard to find- will feel free to join us. If you are curious about MoPrint, or just want to talk about books, there’s plenty of time for that as well.
What I’ve been reading is a wider range of fiction, non-fiction, as always, modern and older comics. I’m thinking of starting a separate, pop culture-oriented blog for my reading and bookstore adventures, and converting this one to all art. I perceive this as more professional, although posting regularly is always a challenge. Also, diverse readings certainly inform my creative explorations, and would certainly continue to pop up here.
Examples of things I’m reading lately: The Sot-Weed Factor, by John Barth, a hilarious picaresque that skewers the essential venality at the heart of Puritan America, and led directly to one of my all time favorite novels, Mason & Dixon, by Pynchon.Jews In American Comics, which explores the ethnic, European roots of this historically repressed medium, which naturally goes a long way toward explaining why the repression. I also finally located an affordable copy of the seminal Kramers Ergot #4, a landmark publication for the Fort Thunder group, as well as other avant grade cartoonists. Until Fall, after the Summer Art Market, I won’t really have time to launch a new blog, so I may go into a bit more depth about these books here later.
On a related note, my dictum that ‘a good walk ends in a used bookstore‘ ( it used to be ‘bar’, of course, and there was a “Bookbar” in my neighborhood, a great idea which failed of incompetent management ), has become a mantra. In that vein, I’m inserting a mini-review here of the recently relocated Fahrenheit’s Books.
The new one, several blocks farther down South Broadway, on Antique Row, is larger and less dingy. It’s still cluttered, which some people like, and why not? -it allows them to display more books, and the selection was superior even before. As an example, I quickly found Jews In American Comics and a William Gaddis novel, A Frolic of His Own, in clean copies for great prices. It goes along with my obsession with obscure comics criticism, and Post Modern Brick fiction ( see: Barth and Pynchon, above ). You can’t find these in most bookstores.
There is a sort of simpatico curatorial consciousness to stores like this, and Kilgore, On 13th. There, I found But Is It Art?, a book I’ve been wanting to read. I don’t read as many art books as I used to, partly because I can find plenty of germane concepts in PMBs, where I don’t feel as derivative. Sot-Weed is one of the early PMBs, and Gaddis also was a pioneer, though Frolic comes much later. A store across the street form Fahrenheit’s specializes in nice clean, collectible copies of mysteries and histories, etc. It’s less about the reading, although, I like clean copies, and I collect some of them. There’s such a thing as not enough clutter!
By comparison, another cluttered store, Westside Books, caps off a lot of walks, as it’s near me, and I like to support neighborhood business. But it’s dusty, poorly laid out, and choked with outdated redundancies, which make browsing a chore. Fahrenheit’s is much more mindful in their selection, and user friendly.
I can’t go there every week, as I would just buy 2 or three books every time. But here’s a shout out to a wonderful place to finish a bus ride/walk.
This parasol, among many others by League affiliated artists, will be for sale at the Summer Art Market 2022, August 27-28.
I’m not doing a booth at the Summer Art Market this year. After about 25 years or more of doing it, I wanted to take a break.
That doesn’t mean I won’t be there. I plan on being there, volunteering and posting on social media. And my artwork will be there too, at least one of them: I offered to paint a parasol/sunshade that will be on sale there to benefit the school programs.
The photo I made in a Square app for shooting things for sale on one of their web store pages. I wish I could make it work for flat art as wall as this 3D object, but I’m working on it, and may have more to share in time for the show.
Other News:
Registration for my first Fall class, Monotype Starter, a beginners class that runs Tuesday evenings in September, opens August 9 here: asld.org. Search under “Instructors ” for Joe Higgins.
I’m working on larger works with my free time not preparing for the show. It goes slowly, but you can always see it by private appointment. Click on “Contact” in the menu bar above.
This monotype is one of several ghosts and variants I created from a trace monotype image I did in 2021. The chair imagery is simple, but lends itself to multiple treatments and suggests to me a state of being in the present, with the asterisk suggesting more info to come, or in other words, change. It’s about presence. Showing at Art Gym imPressed show, March 24-April 17.
It’s been a busy, snowy run-up to #moprint2022. But the pandemic seems to be easing, at least in the vaccinated parts of the state, so we can keep our fingers crossed that this one will go off as planned, unlike 2020.
I committed to a lot of events, which has kept me running, but it’ll be fun if it all comes off. Note: I do not anticipate doing the Summer Art Market this year, to give myself a break, and to re-fill my inventory. So MoPrint may be the best opportunity to see work by me this year. Of course, you can always contact me (above) for a private showing. Here’s as complete a list as I can give right now:
February 26, 4 PM: Opening for Print Educators of Colorado show at Lincoln Center, Ft. Collins. I have 2 pieces in the show and anticipate being there for the opening. The show runs through April 9.
March 4, 5:30-8:30 PM: Opening for ASLD Print Fair Exhibition, Art Students League of Denver, 200 Grant St. I’ll have 1-2 pieces in the show. There are free demos by ASLD faculty and artists upstairs. I will be here most of the night.
March 4, 5-10 PM, Trve Brewing, Broadway and 2nd, Black Ink fundraiser for MoPrint. I will have an edition of 20 lino cuts available at a ridiculously low price of $10 apiece, along with 60 other artists. It all benefits Month of Printmaking. I will be here for part of the night.
March 5, 10-4 PM: ASLD Print Fair Pop Up Portfolio show and free artists demos at ASLD 200 Grant. I will have a portfolio of selected prints available for sale, and I’ll be here all day. Prints are an affordable way to start a collection!
March 11, 5-10 PM, Core New Art Space. A show of many techniques in printmaking, that I juried from a national call for entries. Show runs through March 27. I will be at the opening, at least for the later hours.
March 12, 1-4 PM, MoPrint Open Portfolio, Denver Botanic Gardens, Mitchell Hall. This is also a portfolio show, so no framed work, and mostly small pieces that I can display on a table. I predict prices will be very affordable.
March 19, 11-4 PM. I will be doing a demo this year at the MoPrint Print Jam at the Denver Art Museum, Martin Building Creative Hub. There will be 14 separate demos ( by various artists, in various techniques), and 3 workshops you can participate in. My demo will be at 11 AM.
March 24, 5-8 PM, imPressed, opening for juried sprint show, Art Gym. I will have one medium sized piece in the show, and I plan to attend the opening. Show runs through April 17.
All info is on the MoPrint.org website, along with all of the other Moprint-associated events. I will be seeing as many as I can; hope to see you there!
“No one, I think, is in my tree..” That wasn’t on my mind when I made this, but I just watched the “Get Back” movie, so I couldn’t help it. “Tree with Moonrise”, Monotype, 2021
It was a busy holiday season because of medical appointments. Most were catch up on things deferred during lockdown, or even earlier. I’m hoping it will pay off this year with a more active lifestyle, including travel.
2022 won’t wait however. Here are some things I have planned for this year:
MoPrint 2022! It was cancelled in ’20 as COVID came roaring in. We’re hoping this one will have better luck.
MoPrint events I’m helping organize: Art Students League Print Fair, March 4-5, Demos, portfolio show and month-long exhibit. ASLD.org
MoPrint shows I will be exhibiting in: Art Students League Members Exhibit, March 4-28; Print Educators of Colorado, 2022, Lincoln Center, Ft. Collins
MoPrint Shows I will be jurying: Core Gallery Details TBA- I will post these
MoPrint fundraiser where my work will be offered:
Other shows my work will be offered: ArtMA childhood cancer benefit gala at the Denver Design Center, February 12
Classes offered: A full complement, from sampler, to beginners, to experienced, about one per month, beginning with an online class on ‘Monotypes At Home’ which is registering now and begins next week.
Kids Class offered: My ‘Mad Science Monotypes’ art camp returns July 5-8 for 14-17 yo
I’m still monitoring print studio sessions at the League many Sundays and Fridays. $15 a session, a screaming deal. Register online
Look for an interview to be posted by Voyage Denver in their ‘Inspiring Stories’ section.
Most of these take place January-March, making for a frantic start to the year, which is always true during MoPrint years. After that will be much more relaxed as I am not planning to do the Summer Art Market this year. Yes, this will be the first one I’ve missed in over 20 years, although I won’t really be missing it as I’m planning to volunteer.
I felt like a break would be good for recharging my batteries and refilling my portfolio. I also intend to explore other options such as online sales, videos and even ebooks. These are things I’ve dabbled in, but never had time to pursue properly.
While this blog was less than regular this crazy Fall. I will try to update regularly, so check back. I haven’t updated my ‘Workshops’ page yet with a full ’22 schedule, but will try to do that next week. I have many book blurbs from all my holiday reading while isolating and convalescing, too.
I wish everyone a happy, prosperous, safe New Year. Fingers crossed, we’ll begin to emerge from several very dark years and there will be opportunities for all to pursue fulfilling lives.
‘Wishful Thinking’, Monotype, 26×20, 2021. A similar print found a new home as part of a UCHealth program at the Summer Art Market.
The Summer Art Market returned, about 14 months late, after the COVID shutdown. People were clearly glad to see it come back. Attendance was crowded on Saturday morning, and steady for the rest of the weekend, with only the afternoon heat really slowing things down. The sales were strong for most artists I spoke to.
It was no different for me, as the show was an all-time high. That makes all the work of framing and wrapping, packing and hydrating worthwhile, but it’s been over 25 years of doing it, and I’m going to take a year off next year, in all probability. It’ll be nice to recharge the batteries, and the steady time in the studio has been very rewarding, so a year of simply doing new work without regard to what might sell could be a tonic. I’ll undoubtedly volunteer to enjoy the vibe, and for the first time, see the whole show.
As for now, I’m going right back in the studio, as I was really pleased with the way things were going, and was a bit reluctant to stop for the show. I’ll be monitoring the print room most Fridays and Sundays this Fall, which is when I work on my own things.
Other than that, I’m planning a relaxing autumn. Restaurants and shopping now seem safer, at least in this area, and like many who attended the show, working on freshening up my house will be a nice distraction. I’m postponing travel till Spring, hoping things will stabilize.
Reading is always a go-to activity in my house, and while I’ve been too busy to attempt any major works, I’ve been reading enough lighter things to post some blurbs. That will be next.
It’s ironic to note that as the reopening of quarantined restaurants, bars and businesses presents options for going out after a long lockdown, the heat has made leaving the house quite unappealing. Viruses and global warming have made our world resemble a Steve Erickson novel.
My own narrative this Winter/Spring has included a health issue- no, not that one in the news- a lovely condition where one’s autoimmune system attacks your own joints and muscles, making going anywhere, even to the fridge for a drink, painful. Thanks to treatment, that’s now manageable, and I’m back in the studio, if not in the bars.
I haven’t titled this one yet, and it’s not even dry yet: monotype, 14×20″ 2021. It contains up-cycled relief and drypoint elements, along with stencil and resist elements. As such, it qualifies as a bit of an experiment or study, which is why no title immediately presented itself. By ‘up-cycled’, I mean clipped and shaped bits of material such as styrofoam or Mylar or Tetrapak cooking broth containers etched and inked as if a traditional linocut, or metal drypoint plate. These can be top-rolled or spot-rolled to create variations of hue, even when only using two colors. I’ll post further previews of works available at the Art Students League Summer Art Market in future posts.
And I’m preparing for the Summer Art Market, now postponed to August 26-7, and distanced and limited to a few thousand visitors. As I was incapacitated for March/April, this postponement has been a fortunate twist. It was not fortunate for a friend- we’ll call her Susie- who went down to visit my booth during the traditional weekend, this last one, and found a quiet intersection in front of the school.
Don’t be like Susie! Read my blog for further updates.
Classes are also ongoing as people begin to venture out. A teen camp in July is full, and an adult evening class is registering now. The print room is religiously cleaned and distanced, and we’re going on a year without any reported re-closures or incidents. You may attend without a mask if you are vaccinated. Evenings in the print room are cool and pleasant.
Other than that, It’s been a lot of what I’ve come to think of as ‘comfort’ reading and viewing, with soccer books and telecasts a prominent feature. International football is returning with the Euro Championship, and with the US national team winning its own continental championship. I also re-read The Ball Is Round, by David Goldblatt, a history of the game from a somewhat Marxist/cultural perspective that is even more rewarding with a second run-through. I post on reading and pop cultural matters to break up the content presented here, and I may work up a post on that soon.
Stay safe and be cool! #sam2021 #asldprintmakers #monotypes
The Summer Art Market is back! It will of course be different as a result of the pandemic, and I’ll be posting about it several times before it returns, August 26-27. I’m going to be in a very similar spot to where I have been in past shows, which is right near the school’s main entrance at 2nd Avenue and Grant. I’m not publicizing the booth number yet, as the restrictions on attendance and number of artists are fluid, so the booth numbers may change, though the location will remain the same.
First note the dates. The old second weekend in June slot was too soon and too uncertain, so August was chosen. I’m glad, as the studio was closed for several months, and it’s given me time to make more work.
Second, and most important, the event will be smaller, per city guidelines. This may also be subject to change. There’s a limit to how many artists and visitors will be allowed in, 5,000 people as of now. This is about a 6th of the normal crowd, IIRC. It will allow for distancing.
To control for crowd size, a reservation system is being set up, and thus the show is expected to sellout before it opens. If you’d like to see the show, please consider reserving early. There will be a nominal $5 charge for reservations. The festival is the school’s major fundraiser, and will help them recoup lost revenues from the reduction in booth fees.
For more info, go tothe school’s website. I have not seen a link for registration yet, and will post it here when I do. I’m having photos of new work done, and will post previews soon.
Classes:
I have several classes scheduled for Summer. An online teen camp from June 20-25 is registering right now. There is also a live teen camp in July which is full, but again, guidelines for class numbers may change, so getting on the wait list can’t hurt.
Tomorrow, June 8, begins registration for my adult evening class, Monotype Starter, which is a beginner’s class that gives you all the basics of printing monotypes and also certifies you to use the studio on your own. Registration link for that class is here. Numbers for adult classes are currently limited, so don’t delay. Again, however, changing guidelines may open more spots, especially as unlike kids, adults have generally been vaccinated.
More general info on all my classes is under ‘Workshops’ on the menu at top. I’m hoping to see some people this Summer, and I’m sure I’m not the only one!
In this strange, dreamy plague limbo, I guess I thought that my blog would emerge from its own. There’s plenty of time to write, after all. A bit of restlessness has infected my reading, and that’s carried over to writing, I guess.
There’s a lot of both happening, actually, but short pieces seem to be the mode. I’m actually tackling long term tasks- house projects, aid applications, financial tidying, with steady success, but if I thought I’d re-read Ullysses during the shut down that’s not what’s happening. Yet.
We don’t know what will happen this summer as political leaders and medical experts wrangle over when and how to open the country up, and I can’t really tell you much on my various art projects. I did compose a reading list post along with this one, separated out to make it more searchable, and I’ll post that in the next couple of days. This is intended to update my art doings since the lockdown cancelled all of my MoPrint shows.
The Summer Art Market, like everything else, is in limbo. It won’t happen during its regular early June slot, we were informed of that. The League is consulting with the city about a later date this summer, but a city official quoted on Denverite.com has already made remarks discounting a normal schedule of festivals and events this summer, so I don’t know how much faith to place in a postponed SAM. If it does happen, much studio time has been lost, so it would probably involve less new work, and perhaps filling in with older work from the flat files.
I still have quite of work in quarantine, however, at least 16 pieces. This includes 2 prospective sales, which I can only hope are still consummated after this all ends. If they don’t, I’m not sure how I might describe that lost income on an unemployment app. I think it will all work out, but here’s a reminder to spare a thought for the self employed as you make your way through the post-virus political landscape. Our bureaucratic infrastructure is designed to ignore them.
One of my cancelled shows, quarantined in a closed gallery, in a weird limbo of its own- the house section in To The Lighthouse is the unavoidable mental image every time I think of this- may be extended through early summer. This is assuming there is a citywide opening of some form this summer I haven’t been good with the social media, but I will try to post updates. It all depends on what the world looks like if people stop dying, but a gallery might seem to be a place a brave socially distant new world could tentatively open up to.
I did complete a video about Making Monotypes At Home, which is here. It’s my first longer art video, a medium I’ve been intending to explore. As you might expect, it’s kind of a mess. The pay was not glorious, though welcome, of course, so I took it in the spirit of an internship in making art videos. I’ll get back to that sooner than later. Last time I did a (short) video around 2010, I didn’t make time for advancing my craft so I never made more. Like many things it requires repetition to learn, and I want to pursue it.
More than ever, I’m rueing the dysfunctional Woo Commerce freeware on which I wasted my time this winter. It verges on a scam- they have paid software which you can install, and which is supported, I’m sure. The freeware comes with WordPress and was obviously mailed in to fulfill a community promise, and definitely not supported. I have a couple of choices- cave into the scam and just get the paid version, or go on the discussion boards and see if there’s a work around to the crappy freeware. But I will probably have lots of time to do that. Another virus project to keep me occupied.
What does happen after the quarantine ends? Hmm. I’m trying to see this time as a reset, a chance to look at everything I’ve been doing, and how it could be done better. I hope people will see that as a good way to approach the quarantine as a whole. The way we work and commute, the way we protect our planet, the way we treat our ‘essential’ workers ( the word ‘essential’ now exposed as a synonym for low paid and powerless), and from my perspective, the social net as it applies to self employed creatives. Do we really benefit from going ‘back to normal’?
Strange Garden, 1/1, 2004, 42×72″. A sparse bouquet of goopy, sickly flowers with a metallic scaffolding. What exactly was I thinking? Sometimes, I don’t. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
