Bonus Gratitude!

A special bonus gratitude session to round out the series. There's someone very special I haven't yet mentioned in my gratitude series.

You.

Thank you for reading this. Thank you for visiting my website. Thank you for sharing your kind words of encouragement. Thank you for saying hello, for your handshake, for your smile.

Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for coming to see my shows. Thank you for sharing your stories about how you connect with my work. Thank you for bringing my art into your home and making what I do a part of your life.

Thank you for supporting an artist, any artist. Thank you for taking the time to look at art. Thank you for looking.

You are my supporter, my patron, my colleague, my collaborator, my friend.

Thank you.

Do we know eachother yet? I would love to connect with you. Sign up and let's stay in touch!

What  - and who - are you thankful for? Express your gratitude in the comments below.

Read Coffee, Sleep, Paper - In Gratitude, Part 1 Read Boundaries, Bracelets, and Biz Coaches - In Gratitude, Part 2 Read Monkeys, Quilts, and Toilet Art - In Gratitude, Part 3 Read It's the Little Things - In Gratitude, Part 4

Through The Lens at the Navajo Nation Museum

My dear friend Mely Mitchell is one of the artists in the upcoming exhibition Through The Lens, a photographic examination of historical and contemporary Navajo culture.

This show will be at the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock, Arizona from August 28 through March 27 2010.

Yay Mely!

Romy, Ink on Paper, 2009

Romy, pigma micron on Rives BFK, 22 x 28 inches, 2009. Click image to see it on Flickr.

This portrait of romy owens (whom you may have read about here) was created for the Seeing Other People show earlier this year. This piece will also be in the 24 Works On Paper show.

Yes, it did take a long time, about 40 hours.

Special thanks to Kelsey Karper for getting the photo for me.

Leigh, by Paho, by Sarah

Leigh, by Paho, by Sarah. Acrylic on found fabric, 6.5 x 7 inches, 2009.05.14 Click the image to visit it on Flickr.

Being a gallery artist means scheduling shows months or even years ahead of time, which means I am more or less under deadline all the time (even if that deadline is a long way off). That's good for me, I work well with a fixed timeline. But sometimes I get bogged down in the middle of a series and need to change gears.

That's where Leigh came from. In a fit of frustration the other day, I pulled out some small canvases and went to work getting wet paint all over them. This painting is from a photo of Leigh Merrill taken by Paho Mann (two friends of mine from college).

Paho Mann and Dylan Bradway, My Famous Friends

Untitled (Re-inhabited Circle-K Store, Albuquerque), photograph by Paho Mann. Click image to visit the artist's website.
Two things happened on the internet this week. (That's right, just two. This blog post makes three.) Two of my artist friends, Dylan Bradway and Paho Mann, have been recognized on blogs with startlingly high readerships.

Dylan Bradway is an up-and-comer here in Oklahoma City. In addition to quality graphic design (such as the catalog for Art 365), he creates evocative paintings incorporating stylized characters and street-influenced calligraphic line. He and his partner-in-life Amanda Weathers-Bradway recently set up shop in OKC's Plaza District.

This morning I got a text from Dylan instructing me to "check out Juxtapoz.com." Sure enough, the Juxtapoz blog is featuring a group show of train car designs that includes a piece by Dylan. (That guy in the green hoodie on the red car? That's Dylan's.) The Train Car Project will be on display at Papa B Studios in Brooklyn, October 10-22.

Paho Mann is an old friend and colleague from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. A precise formalist photographer, Paho has long been interested in typologies -- objects that are of a category and also have unique characteristics. My favorite series of his is the re-inhabited Circle K stores, a staple of Albuquerque's accidental non-architecture.
This week Paho's Junk Drawer series was discovered by a New York Times blog called The Moment, a kind of digital-state-of-the-union roundup, followed by Kottke.org. Here is a transcript of the email I sent him upon learning this news:

YOU HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED BY THE NYTIMES BLOG AND [redacted] JASON KOTTKE DUUUUUUUDE THE ENTIRE INTERNET KNOWS YOU NOW OMFG YOU ARE FAMOUS

Splendid job, guys. Keep it up.