Show Season

 

 Working hard and focused. Not even drinking! With everything that has happened to me in the last year and a half, just painting and walking the straight and narrow has been good for me. I am planning on this being my last year of a full summer tour, and even designed a tshirt. The granary has been transformed into a gallery space, lots of sweat equity and electrical help from my Dad. Hopefully in August we will have an opening, have a few final details to finish up. The plan is after the gallery officially opens to just spend less time on the the road. Mainly I feel like I owe it to myself and Katie to knock this off. In the future I plan on doing select shows here and there, who knows. I just want to do less work and better work-just like every other artist I know does. But right now I have lots of work and am getting ready for the last big push. Here is my show schedule so far:

May 3-5 Brookside Art Annual, Kansas City, MO

June 8-9 Old Town Art Fair, Chicago, IL

June 14-16 Lakefront Festival Of The Arts, Milwaukee WI

June 28-30 Des Moines Art Festival, Des Moines, IA

July 18-20 Ann Arbor Art Fair- the Original, Ann Arbor, MI

Aug 10th Charlevoix Waterfront Art Fair, Charlevoix, MI

Oct 4-6 St. James Art Festival, Louisville, KY

I have applied for a couple more shows and will add to the schedule need be. This time of year I do miss seeing fair goers, clients, and my friends. We look forward to seeing everyone again!

More New Work

 Trying to live a balanced life, exercise and paint up a storm. Wish me luck. More new available work that is on my available work page. I will be pumping this more now that we are representing ourselves.

Last week we cleaned out the lower level of our granary, which is now my new favorite place in the world. On schedule for having it open in the spring.

This painting is from a series I am doin from a recent trip to central Illinois.

Back In Business

Professionally I had a wonderful year and am incredibly grateful to all the people that helped my get along, including Theodore Hamm's. That said, I am glad it's coming to an end. I have a frozen shoulder but its getting better. I am painting again at my own pace, and the thing is healing up. On my available works page old and new work is posted and more will be coming soon. We are excited to open up our gallery in the spring after it gets cleaned out. Right now painting is helping me grieve and process. I won't say how many shows I will be doing next year, all I know is I am happy to paint at my own pace without a gallery yelling at me, without a deadline or any commitments. Instead of just getting though something, I feel momentum finally building again. Feels good. I don't feel much pressure to do anything other than be myself and work at my own pace with an acceptance of the consequences of my life decisions. In some weird ways I think I am more dialed in and better than ever. Without knowing what comes next, I certainly am comfortably enthused.

KC

 Heading to KC tonight. I am fried and have been for months, but the light is at the end of the tunnel.Two shows, Plaza and St James Court and I am done for a while. This has been one of the most challenging years of my life and I need a break. My arm feels like it is going to fall off. Physically my body needs a break. After this I am semi-retired or whatever you want to call it. In the spring we are going to open up our gallery to the public, at least on a limited or by appointment basis. I don't know how many shows I am doing next year, as many as I have work for without sacrificing the balance in my life. I am done with that shit. I will paint over the winter at my own pace and make work at my own pace. Work on other themes and ideas. Edit my book. I don't entirely know and I don't care, it will figure itself out. I am not worried about it.

That said, I still love what I am doing, and think I am doing it as well as ever. Here are a few heading to KC, including our new yellow barn. Once again thank you to everyone who has supported me through this long year.

                              

Half way home

 So, we are half way through our show season. I want to say thank you to everyone who has come out to support us. We have never been this exhausted and worn down before. Every good conversation, hello, hug or purchase of a painting has greatly helped us get through this tough stretch. I can honestly say I have given all I can to my family and my career and I am greatly looking forward to some down time. 

I will be in:

Uptown Art Fair, Minneapolis Aug 4-6

Charlevoix Waterfront Art Festival Aug 12

Plaza Art Fair, Kansas City Sept 22-24

St. James Court Art Festival, Louisville Oct 6-8

Oddly enough my work feels just as good as ever, whatever that means. I have things I want to do with painting, but it means slowing down. After this stretch of shows I will only be showing when I want and where I want, period. At our own pace. I will not be saying goodbye to shows, but I will never push myself to the point my body is breaking down ever again.  That said, I feel so blessed to be an artist, and with the path my life has taken. Doing the shows is very bonding. All the doors that have been opened to me, the friendships created and fullness of life has gotten through this last year. I am very satisfied with how things are going despite some major family losses.

On the way back from Ann Arbor, Katie was driving and I saw this cloud. So naturally I found a piece of scrap paper in the van and did I sketch of it. The drawing became this painting. This is my process. Olde School. I prefer to feel the image of the cloud rather than scientifically render it. Clearly I am an emotional person, and that is what needs to exit my body through the act of painting. Notice all the license plates we wrote down on the piece of scrap paper. Yes, we are dorks and always play the license plate game when traveling. So many times in painting, it is the abstract idea that creates the painting. A mood. A color. A shape.

Follow me on...

 I loathe this, but I am now on instagram. Not me personally but our gallery. So you can follow us at OUR gallery now, which is exciting for us. The name of the gallery is Painting Is Dead Gallery. If you are art educated I hope you laughed at that. We still have a sense of humor...

Once we get some more time and we will be posting more work available on our websites and doing that in concert with instagram. But considering all that has happened to us, we feel lucky just to have done some shows and gotten to this point. We have had no time to update or post work online, but we will once things settle down some. Our next show is Ann Arbor The Original July 20-22.

For anyone wanting to follow us on social media it is #Paintingisdeadgallery on Instagram.

Trying to make it to safety

                This week I found myself in a church in Milwaukee for a mass celebrating the life of Father Mike Hammer. Father Mike bought a painting from me, conducted the funeral for Katies dad, married Katie's mom and dad, remained lifelong friends with the Musolff family, oh and by the way, founded the Catholic AIDS Outreach Ministry. He was a legend, and the capacity crowd at St. John The Evangelist Church in Milwaukee testified to that. Words like compassion, love, empathy, mercy were not merely lip service, they were lived. I liked hearing those words, I miss my family's matriarchs.
              

      My life has been abundant, and after the last few months I feel haggard. I was too busy to  update my website, weed whack, fix my van, exercise, floss,  or stop drinking. And yet life went on, big changes sprang forth and we are almost over the hump. We got half our land planted in prairie(some rain would help),  and the grainery is being turned into a gallery. So as of now we are NOT represented by a gallery. We feel free. Being represented by a gallery so near the farm ended up being more and more of a conflict. We want to do work that is at times more difficult to sell, and we don't need the added stress of dealing with a gallery. So we are representing ourselves. The gallery itself will not be ready until probably next spring, but it is lookin' awesome. If you have ever bought work from us, this is where the money has gone. The circa 1900 grainery and other outbuildings all are resided and reroofed and good for the next generation or two. The foundations all got fixed too. This place has felt like a construction site. Whenever we get time to clean it all up this place will be looking sharp and I am very proud of that. This has been a lifelong dream of mine, and it feels damn good to live the dream.