i finally got back to work today after the high activity period of preparations for my space gallery exhibition. my first little painting, in watercolor and gouache, was a lttle goat. it will be hung on the wall of my recently born grand daughter’s bedroom in greece, where i’ll ship it. there will be one other small animal painting i’ll make for her, perhaps tomorrow.
organizing watercolor/collages / my opening on friday, april 22, space gallery /
6:12 PM: so glad i finally went through that pile of watercolor/gouache/collages. i found quite a few exciting ones that i had totally forgotten about. the hard part is that now i have to individually photograph and catalogue them. they’ve all been photographed when they were fresh, but i haven’t kept good records, so they’re not all in one folder as they should be. this is an example of one of them, which is cut off in this photograph i shot quickly before leaving the studio for the house. it’s inspired, as are many of them, by my plein air creek paintings.
one of the many works i re-discovered today
a stack of paintings i’m going through today that have been sitting on my file cabinet for many months
1:19 PM: now that my exhibition has opened today I decided to go through a big stack of watercolor/gouache/collage paintings from 2020-22. I separated them into 3 piles. one consists of pieces that are candidates for one or more gallery shows i’m planning. my next step will be to photograph and file them all at the same time i’m reaching out to galleries I haven’t yet worked with.
10:49 AM: this past friday at my opening, at 5:30 i gave a short talk, followed by my eye surgeon, dr. seibold of the u. of colrado deptartment of ophthalmology. the exhibition opened at 6pm and was very well attended, including many friends, old and new, fellow artists, of course dr. seibold, and timothy j. standring, deputy director of collections and programs at the denver art museum, who himself is a beautiful watercolor artist. some sales took place, and there will be more during the 5 weeks the exhibition is up. on may 6th, there’s a second event known as “first friday, when i’ll be giving another talk and guiding visitors through my work.
with dr. seibold at the space gallery opening on april 22
my opening at space gallery 2 days ago / a painting that should have made it in! /
6:19 PM: on friday at 5:30 i gave a short talk, followed by my eye surgeon, dr. seibold of the u. of colrado deptartment of ophthalmology. the exhibition opened at 6pm and was very well attended, including many friends, old and new, fellow artists and timothy j. standring, deputy director of collections and programs at the denver art museum, who himself is a beautiful watercolor artist. some sales took place, and there will be more during the 5 weeks the exhibition is up. on may 6th, there’s a second event known as “first friday, when i’ll be giving another talk and guiding visitors through my work.
packing the paintings & loading them into our suv /
4:36 PM: yesterday was devoted to organizing my watercolor/collages and my polyptych series & packing them in groupings. i had to make sure the watercolor/collages, which are under glass were well protected with bubble wrap. this afternoon mikela & i loaded all 26 of them carefully into the back of our suv, leaving just enough room fot the small overnight bags we’ll be taking with us. you can view most of them on the fist page of this site.
our first stop tomorrow will be space gallery, where we’ll get help unloading & bringing them in. they’lll be hung tomorrow night for the opening on friday at 6 pm we’ll drive back up on may 6th for the first friday event, when i’ll give a talk.
the first thing i’ll do once i’m back in my studio will be to clean up the mess: rolls of tape, pieces of bubble wrap, tools scattered everywhere…..and then i’ll dive back in, starting a new series for my museum show in aspen opening september 28. and what will that series be? stay tuned.
packing up the watercolor/collages for the show on friday /
packing up the watercolor/collages to transport to the gallery on thursday fro the opening on friday
2:49 PM: today i’m spending the day packing the watercolor/collages to take to denver on thursday fo the opening on friday. it’s a bigger job than I anticipated, and i’ll have to go get some bubble wrap tomorrow to make sure none of the glass breaks. but i’m excited now that it’s getting closer!
4/16/22 watercolor/collage continued /
4/16/22 watercolor/collage as it looked at the end of my painting day
4:02 PM: I made more changes and am cooked for the day. here she is:
4/16/22 watercolor/collage as it looked moments ago
12:50 PM: i’m taking 4/16/22 watercolor/collage 10 3/4x 23” to the next stage of development today. I added a few collaged areas on the far right and upper central parts of the composition. i’m still working, so i’ll stop here & post later this afternoon.
at on 4/16/22 watercolor/collage
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3:32 PM: ANO KATO means topsy-turvy in greek. the series began with the painting you see on the right, titled parade. it's based on photographs i took of a parade in athens in 2009. it was shown in my 2010 solo show at skoufa gallery, athens, and is now in a private collection. it was the inspiration for a series of paintings based upon images as seen from above, which as always been a passion of mine. the ANO KATO exhibition took place in houston, texas at gremillion & co. fine art in november, 2015.
starting a new watercolor/collage /
4/16/22 watercolor/collage 10 3/4x 23” as it looked at 3pm today
2:40 PM: this morning I started work on 4/16/2022 watercolor/collage, which is 10 3/4x 23” and has a brother and a sister the same dimensions. two of them will make it into the exhibition, depending on how this one turns out. as of right now, it has many of the same figures as it’s next of kin. let’s see how it develops. we’ll be walking up the trail shortly, so I may stop here. R is coming over at 8 am to work on framing the remainder of the frames, so I should be able to get an early start.
4/15/22 watercolor/collage framed / crestone conglomerate / artist statement /
4/15/22 watercolor/collage, which i framed yesterday and will be included in my I FLY exhibition.
a crestone conglomerate rock outside my studio
8:19 am: yesterday afternoon i took a walk around my studio, just to get a little fresh air, and photographed this crestone conglomerate rock. these rocks, which are everywhere in our landscape they are the result of “are a good indication of what the landscape looked like 200-300 million years ago when they were formed…..but it contains much older rocks.”
so as we walk the rails or even go shopping in town, we are constantly reminded of where we came from.
yesterday afternoon, after my little walk, i framed 4/15/2022 watercolor/collage, one of the approximately 12 watercolor/collages that will be hung in my upcoming exhibition, opening this coming friday at space gallery in denver.
BELOW is my artist statement, which is being emailed out by the gallery.
After watching the closing celebration following the 2020 Tokyo Olympics I could barely contain my feelings. I felt like I could fly! These paintings are inspired by the beautifully costumed figures in that celebration. They are dancing, jumping, singing; they look like they are flying, or about to.
Around that time, I had a very challenging health scare. When I learned that my sight would be saved through the ground breaking surgery performed by Dr. Seibold, once again I felt like I could fly! Thus the title: I FLY, with the subtitle in Greek: PETAOW. As a gesture of gratitude, this exhibition is a benefit, with a large portion of sales going to the University of Colorado Dept of Ophthalmology, where it will support research.
My mentor, when I lived in Greece, once said to me, "All good or great painting is abstract." It has taken me decades to integrate that comment. These paintings reflect an important stage in that process.
This new work integrates a number of directions and styles I've experimented with over time. Abstraction and realism join, and elements of collage disrupt predictability, allowing the viewer to create their own interpretation of each composition, and return again and again to a new experience.
Mark making has been going on as far back as we know; on rocks, cave walls, paper, canvas....children are arguably best at it. Unencumbered by belief systems, they simply follow their spirit and move their arms and hands accordingly. Every time I enter my studio, I remember this.
4/14/2022 watercolor/collage /
4/14/2022 watercolor/collage as it looked moments ago, at 3:09 PM
3:09 PM: I got rid of most of that bright yellow in the upper center, as well as that black above it, which was definitely too intense & made a few other changes.
4/14/2022 watercolor/collage as it looked at 2:30pm today
2:29 PM: this is a revision of a piece I did back in February and had sitting in the house. it was kind of pale, and definitely needed more. so instead of starting a ne horizontal, which was mikela’s commission, I decided to work on this one first, in part as a warm up, since I haven’t painted in 2-3 days due to the framing I was doing.
i’m not sure about that yellow in the upper center, so i’m going to sit with it for a bit & see what I want to do.
BELOW: the before and after. maybe I should have left it alone? let me sit with it a while.
