A Room With a View

My  little gallery/studio room is finished, at least as much as anything is ever finished in my life.  Life is all about change, additions and subtractions, making things do and making them comfortable.  Sometime this Spring I will add a window or at least replace the door to the back with one that has a openable window.

 Three big blueberry plants outside the front entry.

The ventilation would be nice and I would have more natural lighting.  The main door has a window in it that looks towards the garden and my little plunge pool so I do have a view.

   I like my new room.  The floor (thank you SoozeeQ!) came out great, colorful, hodgepodge, historical and very much "me".  Two coats of "wet-look lacquer" will keep it nice and easy to clean.  More spilled paint will just make it even better.

 The room is waiting for me.

   Mostly it is warm and I love that!  Oregon has cold, rainy winters and it is freezing now.  I have begun the process of moving in, sorting this and that, finding places for things.

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 Soozee's Floor!

 It is my "shop side", the other side of this wall where I can make money and do the metal art I know how to do.  I have no fantacies about creating an income from this gallery side but it will be warm and inviting and offer me another opportunity to try something different.  It will also offer an enticing place to seduce customers!  I will find some metal art to put in this room.
I think my photos are getting screwed up so I will stop for today!  The last one which will probably appear HUGE here but I have lost it is one of my office door, the back door and the door to my "junk room" that I haven't entered yet! yipes!

You can always find me HERE

Don't Trust Anyone Over Thirty

That is my generation, who said that?  I am officially a "part of the problem" today.  It is my birthday and,
man o man, it creeps up on you!  I am 65 today!  and on... Medicare!  That is like saying I am a patient when I am not even sick!  I can get Senior Citizen's Discounts! and I think, a free fishing license!
   I remember my daughter once had a sign posted on her door that said, "Old enough to know better, too young to care!" and I want that sign now, it fits me to a "T".  I am liking this age and pretty much do what I want.  Some days I do a lot and other days I don't accomplish a damned thing and I don't criticize me for it.
I am lucky to even be here.  My year 63 was the battle of my life with Cancer and I won that fight and the year 64 was pretty much spent getting my strength back.  There were many days, months, where I couldn't lift 20 pounds!
   I am younger now for sure.  It is as if I discovered some secret of youth, each day getting a little younger instead of older!  That is pretty cool and I am thankful for that!  Today is my birthday and I am welding up a storm!  Working! and I love it so much, banging and welding and grinding and cutting steel and making noise.
I am Alive!
   If 63 was Cancer and 64 getting stronger 65 will be different again.  I have my Tom-Tom now, I told you about that.  I might just go someplace, hit the road this Spring and do some travelling.  I am thinking about that.  and my Gallery is done!  My easels set up and blank canvasses on the wall, calling me, teasing me.
We will see what happens there.
   I am still after "the perfect tomato", so I will be doing that again this year.  I always save the seeds from the very best of the previous season.  That is the secret to getting older I think.  Saving the seeds and knowing which to throw away.  So much to do.  This will be a great day and just the very beginning into this 65th year.
What I do is HERE

Walls Tell No Tales

 Two coats, "Wet-Look Lacquer

...and Floors Leave Every Single Step.  The walls in a gallery studio need to be plain and simple, a soft white that offers no competition.  I have worked in a lot of bars and fancy night club restaurants and those ceilings are almost always a flat black, blending a mechanical background into nothingness.
We watch where we step giving floors a significant meaning to a room, like a foundation on which everything is built.
   I left the scars, the old paint, the spilled grout, its colorful history and after a proper cleaning applied the two coats of lacquer finish.  I like it.  It will be easy to clean, has a lot of memory and a feel of "do what you want", you can't hurt me!

 View from my office door

This is my clean room compared to the shop half on the other side of this wall but it is still a space for an artist.  It will get dirty.

   I have begun to hang things on the walls, mostly blank steel-framed canvasses as an encouragement for me to do something.  I want a lot of open room on the floor so there will not be much permanent furniture there, mostly stuff displayed, benches and tables that are for sale.

 Sink Counter top

   My easels and painting stations are still stuffed into my office and are eager to get out, wanting to call this room home.  Soon enough the floor will be really dry and there will be a lot of organizing to do, places to put paints and the over 200 brushes that I found at a garage sale.  I still haven't plumbed the sink.  Much to do!

    The sink counter top is brand new concrete and has no history. no browns, no rust, no scars of past abuse and this is a photo of what the green stain looks like on such a virgin area.
I like it but it is missing the character found in the floor.

I get to work for a few days on my "trip bar" for the deer fence but soon I will post the completed gallery photos.

You can always find me HERE

The Gallery Floor

   I have agonized over the gallery floor since I first thought of this project.  Well, I don't actually agonize over much but I have been thinking about it.  My shop on the other side of the gallery wall is a shop and looks like a shop and I am okay with that.  I want the gallery to be nice, clean, clear, warm, inviting, interesting.
For the longest time I was wanting a wooden floor.  My house has all wooden floors, no carpets anywhere except for the occasional throw rug.  They are really Persian Carpets made by the little hands of child labor but I didn't buy them.  They belonged to my mother.  Wooden floors are warm, easy to clean and I like the sound as feet walk on them.

 20 years of History on the floor

   Three things held me back.  1st, wooden floors would have cost me about $600 and I am pretty cheap, I admit that.  The second obstacle is me.  I am just dirty and I admit that too.  I can't imagine me in a clean white smock doing anything.  Paint will happen and I will drop it, I know.  The third is Soozee who suggested concrete stain and a lacquer finish.  So I got to thinking about that.

   I originally built this shop in 1991 as a wood shop.  It was full of planers and sanders and I was making cabinets and furniture and playing with wood stains.

 floor sections for sale, plus
shipping and handling fees.

About 1995 I invented "Stone Posts" and made them in the shop when the weather was cold and rainy. This was the introduction of cements and colored grouting to my concrete floor.  I had a big floor scraper I used to get the big chunks off but the evidence is there, a little always remains.  Then I discovered welding and filled my shop with grinders and cutters and the welder.  This puts a rust patina of fine steel particles deep into the pours of the concrete slab.

I could have scrapped and grounded and sanded this history off and begun this project with a clean slate, sort of speak.  But I didn't.  I bought some greenish acid etching stuff and mopped the floor with it, spilling it a little heavier here and there and adding the necessary drops to make me feel like Jason Pollack reincarnate.
He might have been crazy but he sure had fun!  The real colors won't appear until the floor is lacquered.
That will take some time.  I have to mop the floor about seven times and a couple times with amonia in order to neutralize the acid in the etching process.  The floor needs to be Ph neutral before you can apply the lacquer finish and this will take a couple days and then it has to dry, of course.  Maybe this weekend I can get the finish coat on it.
   It will be "Art History" for sure.  I will remember every stain, each blemish and every drop of blood.  I am sure my DNA is inextricably mixed into this new floor.  Maybe by Christmas I will be painting and add more history to this floor I walk on.

My  Official website is HERE

Some Photos

The Painting is Done! The lights are up and all of the doors are trimmed out.  The paper protecting the concrete floor is gone and most of the mess is cleaned up.  Next job is to empty the room of anything on the floor, put the ladders back, more clean up stuff.  I am going shopping today!  No, not cyber Monday, I am after concrete stain and some floor sealer.

   This is a table top I made 20 years ago when my metal shop was a wood shop. I want as much floor space as possible but can imagine working on a table. This is designed like an ironing board and folds up against the wall when not wanted.

The butterfly leg folds up tight against the table when against the wall.  Not wanting to wast space I might add some more metal art on the underside of this table to be seen only while it is against the wall.




The door is Blue because I had that paint.  The sink counter to the left is steel framed concrete with an old lamp column as a leg and one of my steel flower pots that used to be a light fixture but is now a sink.  It is a crazy life around my place, anything can be anything.

I am thinking of adding a shelf above this counter but that will be the only permanent type of fixtures in this little gallery space.  The rest is like a whore house, everything is for sale!

It won't be long now, I see the end in sight...for this room anyway!  Next I have to empty the "junk room" adjoining this little gallery space and then, god forbid, my office!

Soon though I will hang a sign:

"Customers Wanted...No Experience Necessary!"

Dirty Pictures

 It is latex paint.  I thik it will come off!

I have a couple artist friends and they won't send me dirty pictures of themselves.  It is interesting going to a gallery on opening night and seeing everyone decked out in their finest garb.  I know they didn't look like that when they were working.  My favorite pictures are faces and hands.  I guess you could call me a face kind of guy!  I love seeing artists work.  I like the concentration, the intensity and the emotions of it all.  The isolation where the entire world is forgotten to the task at hand.
   My little gallery is painted!  But there is still a lot to do.  Today is clean up day, pull the paper off the floor, sweep and vacumn.  Then I will do the finish electrical, switch covers and lighting.  I still have to trim out the doors and some baseboard molding and that will require even more painting.  The room itself is all white, very white at that as you can see.  The base molding will probably be white too but I will probably trim out the doors in different colors or maybe even slate.  I am still thinkig about that.

 I did get some on the walls, honest!

   Then I can do the floor and Soozee's suggestion wins out!  1st because she is cool and second because I am on a limitted budget.  I will stain the concrete floors and seal them with a masonry lacquer.  There will be tons of browns and rusty reds in the floor from years of steel work so I will use a greenish based stain and this will give it a mottled marble look.
   My shop is workable, my welding table clear and waiting for a job.  Now I have a beast to feed, all of this remodeling costs money everywhere I turn.  More paint, more this, more that.
But it is inspiring too.  It has never been so clean since the day I built it over 20 years ago.  Next I will attack my office and the adjoining junk room.  So much to do.  It might be Spring before this project is really over.

You can always visit me HERE

Scrambled Eggs

I have no idea how I got so much stuff.  We have a tendency to fill the space we occupy and I am certainly no different.  I have saved every tool I have ever owned, even the broken ones, thinking I might fix them some day.  I have a junk room in my shop, a little room about 6' x 10' and it is full to overflowing.  I no longer even know what is in there.  Now it is on my list of "things to do"!
   I had to move a lot of stuff around in order to create my little "gallery room" in my shop, a little 10' x 20' clean showroom where I can display my art and paint in the warmth.  My shop is now 10' smaller, leaving it about 18' x 20' and needing much organization.  I keep thinking that it will be nice when it is finished but the process is really interesting.  It is an accumulation of a lifetime.

 Junkyard Office

   This is probably one of the reasons that I have never moved.  I have lived here almost 40 years!  God, I would hate to do this to the house!  It was a simple fixer upper house with about 900 square feet when I bought it in 1972 and over the years I made additions, to the 2,200 square feet it is today.  There are rooms in my house that I have not been in for years!
   My Office is now a junk room, some stuff that might eventually find its way into my new gallery and just stuff to be sorted.  So much stuff.  I think I should become a "minimalist", put it all on "Craigslist" and narrow it down to the bare essentials.  I am seriously thinking about that.
   It is funny, I have made my living making additions for other people, bigger houses, more rooms for more stuff.  It is a trap that I am finding myself in!
I can understand, in concept at least, the idea of just chucking it all, getting a small RV and hitting the road!

 It has an echo to it.

Tempting sometimes!

Maybe if they had an RV with a shop in it? and a little Studio with its own Gallery? and a roof top organic garden?  There would be so much that I would miss.  So I improve the space I have and it changes as I change.
   When I was younger I wanted the bigger shop.  I needed the space to make lots of stuff, hundreds of feet of fencing, huge gates and large arbors.  Now I am thinking smaller is a good thing and have developed an interest in painting and a nice warm room is appealing to me.

 1st coat of tape on new wall

   Life is funny though and I suspect this new organization and nice display area will probably increase my business!  I can always add on to my shop...later!  It is convenient having these skills.  I just woke up one morning and decided to do this and now I am doing it.  It is really pretty easy, the directions are on the box.  You just have to deal with the mess of it all.

My Shop and Garden and "soon" my gallery will be HERE

This will take some time.

So I have begun my gallery space and remind myself that you have to break eggs to make omelettes!  Man, what a mess!  I have accumulated way too much stuff!
   I began this process by searching "Craigslist" for metal scrappers.  There are dozens in the town, people struggling to make ends meet and the druggies to be careful of because they will take more than you offer.

 Empty 200 sq. feet of gallery

It was "Veteran's Day" on Friday so I  found a Vet!  A Vietnam Vet no less, a guy about my own age, also on Social Security and trying to make ends meet and willing to work for what he needed.  It is a simple barter:  pick up my scrap steel and you can have it.  In two hours we had a corner of my shop clean and other metals from around my shop that weren't wanted any more.  We worked together and talked the entire time, just about the struggle of life and what to do.  What to do.  We are both the kind of people that have to be doing something.  Giving it to us is not what we want.  Even older people like to be productive.  And we were!  He ended up with a ton of scrap steel, stuff that I could have made use of but storing it became an issue.  I needed the space.  In two hours he made over $150.  Not too bad for old folk.
   My shop is 200 square feet smaller and stuff is piled upon stuff.  Everything is in my way.  I am left with a space about 20' x 18' and for now can barely walk in it.  I am at the point of "OMG, what have I done?"  It will take some time to rearrange and organize and make it workable, but I have to do this first.
The Gallery Space is a luxury, a nice heated space where I can play at painting and display in an uncluttered way some of my metal art.  This gallery space will be nice but it won't make me a dime.  I need my shop!
   Today I will move the big stuff around, free up my welding table and begin the process of creating a working space.  I really need to spend two weeks on my shop before I attack the little gallery space.  The shop will pay for the gallery and the gallery will pay for nothing!  Well, maybe.
   I definitely have two types of customers.  Most are happy with the mess caused by active fabrication, creating metal art in my shop, the smell of burnt steel and just the experience of seeing stuff happening.  This isn't a Doctor's office after all.  I do have other customers though, mostly (and a little criticism here!) women designers, "decorators" in high heels and really nice clothes and very clean hands!  I admit they are pretty uncomfortable here!  They are after curtain rods and little brackets, stuff more familiar wrapped in cellophane packaging.  They will be happy with my new gallery whenever I get it.
   It won't be too fast though.  I will insulate the wall I built next weekend and hang and tape the sheetrock but then it will move a bit slower.  I need to concentrate on my shop and some of what I want to do with the gallery space will be expensive.  I'll do it as the money comes in, one step at a time.  I need some nice lighting

 The view from my office door

and I so want to install really nice hardwood floors over the grungy concrete look that is there now.  And I still need that heater!  There is lots to do.  It is a project!
  I'll keep you posted!

More of what I do, my shop and garden is HERE

Time to Remodel My Shop

   I have the nicest "back yard shop" in town.  The main work area is 20' x 28' and then I have outside of these measurements, my 10' x 8' office and another storage area about 6' x 10'.  It is almost two story with a walkable attic the length of it where I store mostly empty cardboard boxes, light things easy to get up and down.  Lots of windows, lots of light, it is a nice space.
   It has seen a lot of work.  I could build 50' of Ornamental Iron fencing per day here or knock out a 16' Entry Gate in a single day.  This is where my arbors were invented.  It is where I created "Stone Posts Co." and was my route out of the construction industry.
   But I am tired of the huge jobs and can't muster the enthusiasm nor energy necessary to do them.  I can't imagine me without the shop so I will just rearrange it a bit, make it a little smaller.  I want to create a clean space, an area which I can heat during the winter months, a "fine art room" if you will, my own personal gallery space.  A place to paint!  I'll do it in stages as I can afford it but I am thinking I will make it really elegant with nicely finished walls and hardwood floors.  I will build a wall down a third of my shop creating a 10' x 20' gallery area right next to my office.  Heated!

 door to my office

   I am pretty impetuous and would start this project today except there is literally a ton of steel to move first, and a lot of tools, benches and equipment.  I have to begin by emptying this space!  and then there is always a job that will interfere.  I am in the middle of one now and have an installation to do tomorrow so it will be a couple weeks before I can get started.  But the idea is there, cooking in my brain.

My Shop and Gardens are HERE

What Will Replace Galleries?

   If there is a need then there is a way.  Galleries are closing their doors everywhere, all the time, all over the world.  This economic crunch we are in hurts artists even as it makes used car dealers come out of the woodwork.  There are two left in my town which once supported over a dozen.
   This is not necessarily a bad thing.  Galleries became a pretty expensive place to acquire art and once discovering the money chain of a particular artist it became a difficult place for new talents to emerge.  Like many things in life it became about money and art was lost in the transaction.  Once happy with a third of the cut they raised their commissions to 50% and I have seen them charge the artist 60%.  Galleries are the business world of art.  They control the style, the color and the design of just about everything.  They control the artist.
   They are being replaced as fast as they are going out of business.  It is still the commercial world that is offering new venues to artists but it is happening with every new building that is being built, every renovation
of existing buildings and in my town, with every existing bar and restaurant, every cafe, almost all public places where people gather.   Art is far more available now than it was twenty years ago.
   There are no empty walls.  Local art has become popular but you can still find an occasional McDonald's
with store bought mass-produced art on their walls.  Even there the walls are not blank.
   It is not as difficult to break into as you might suspect but the first rule is to have no fear.  Sometimes just asking is all it takes.  Many places like the idea of revolving art, changed out by you or someone else every couple of months or so.  Always something new to look at.  Most businesses will do this for free, not charging the artist any commission at all, other's might charge a minimal fee.
   Most of what I do is steel and pretty permanent but lots of businesses need railings, dividers, curtain rods, hat racks or whatever.  Some actually have huge budgets for this and get a pretty plain generic product for their money.  Sometimes, if the job interests me, I will simply ask them what they intend to do.  Often I can do it for the same amount of money but throw a ton of art into the project.
   Wineries are a great place to showcase your art too. They have caught onto this fact that they are destinations and often will charge the artist a fee but it is mostly a booth fee and not commission based so it is still a good deal for the artist.  Unlike a local market that might offer everything from organic food to pretzels,
people come to wineries and expect to find art.

   When one door closes another always opens.  Some of these new venues offer an opportunity for the artist to be there with his art and although we may not like actually selling it ourselves, our clients like this.  It is a shared enthusiasm and contagious, people feel as though they are buying a chunk of the artist along with the art.  That is true of course, we can't eat if we can't sell our wares!

Visit me HERE

Big Box Stores

I'll be the first one to admit I don't know crap about the painter's art.  I wouldn't know a good painting from a bad one but I find it all interesting.  I was in my local "Box Store" the other day and there they were!  On display and lined up row after row were "real paintings', about 3' X 4', on real canvass, imported "Art" from China!  Mostly modern abstracts too with brush strokes from wire brushes, blobs from pallet knives so thick they hadn't cured yet.  All on sale for $79.
   They have the colors right, earth shades, colors from the sun, stuff to match my couch, something for everyone!  This must be discouraging for artists, those of you who paint one painting at a time and agonize over each inch of your work.  These are "factory pieces", done in a warehouse, where one gessos, another does the background, someone else the splotches, and on down the line.
   Truly I cannot tell the difference.  I have friends who paint and sell their work in the four thousand dollar range and I can't distinguish their work from these $79 pieces!  One is purchased from a big box store and another from a gallery.
   I think there is something special about owning a piece you paid four thousand dollars for.  It becomes something to talk about and people like that.  Art buyers are a bit of  a gamblers too and like the stock market there is a chance for a good return on the investment.  A four thousand dollar painting is treated with more respect than its seventy nine dollar counterpart.
   It is no different in the metal arts.  All sorts of things are imported in the famous brown cardboard boxes.
It seems that every backyard in American has the same Costco $79 trellis.  I couldn't make one for $79 if I did it for free.  My materials cost more than that.  The powder coating costs more than that.
   I think that is one reason that some artists are producing really big pieces, say four feet by eight feet!  It narrows the playing field and is not in competition with the imported factory pieces.

Networking...

   Selling art is not so much who you know but rather who knows you.  If you hide and keep your stuff in a drawer, by one definition it will never become art and you will never sell.  Networking and the Internet is the modern way to do this but don't dismiss old fashioned leg work, people to people, one person at a time.
   My advertizing is all word of mouth now but I never fail to begin the conversation.
   One place often overlooked in this attempt to sell yourself is your old High School.  The love of gossip that you might have hated then can now be used to your advantage.  People like to talk.
   Sleepy towns can produce great people.  Clint Eastwood and Ken Kesey were both from my little town, Springfield, Oregon.  I was raised in Corvallis, Oregon, even a smaller town which has seen the rise of other now famous people.  I know a Movie Star, a Writer and an Artist, all from my little high school, all childhood friends.  Reconnecting with old classmates is another way to enlarge the circle of those who know you.
   My barber, my banker know what I do and have my business card on their wall.  I don't join clubs but that would be another way, some kind of opportunity to tell people what you do.
   I need the help of other people or I can't continue what I do.  The next sale allows for more materials for the next piece I have yet to think of.  People want to be helpful too.  My "stuff" has been in the lobby of my bank many times, it is the rack you might hang your hat on at my local barbers, and above your table at a local cafe I frequent.
More of my STUFF is here.

Connections...

People  who know people who know people.  That is the trick.  You don't do it by yourself.  Getting your art known is working the streets, yes, talking about yourself.  If people don't know it is really your fault.
Some of it is simple, you just have to be brazen and get over the embarrassment about self advertising.
When I am asked how I am doing, "How are you, Jerry?" I could respond with the expected "fine", but I never pass up the opportunity to let people know that I am a welder! I am an artist!  "Oh, I am busy! I just came up with this great idea and I am working on a commission!"  Most often people are curious and it is another opportunity to pass out my calling card.
    The strange thing about being an artist is it is not very different from any other profession.  People LIKE busy people, drift toward the positive and are attracted by your success.  It is a conversation stopper to say that nothing is happening, everything is slow, "I'm not doing nothing man!"  That just doesn't attract anything!
Years ago I discovered that I am busiest when I am working, that work begets work and days off beget

 My first gallery pieces!

nothing.
Years ago I was asked why my work wasn't in art galleries and the truth of the matter is I had just never thought about it.  It was not really something I was after.  My work sells out of my shop and I always "did" the Home Shows where I had an audience of upwards of 50,000 in a long weekend.  Galleries can charge 50% commission and I thought I didn't need them.
I did visit some one day out of boredom and a curiosity of what other artists were doing and what surprised me most were the prices!
People like the comfort and reassurance of buying from a gallery.

 My first experience at a local cafe.

Sort of, "it must be art" it was bought in an art gallery!  It was pretty easy to see what art galleries were MISSING.  None of them had interesting tables and pedestals to display their stuff.  I love it when I can go to a client's place and instantly see what I can do to improve it.  It makes my job so easy. The truth is any idiot could have made these tables but it was me who knew they were needed.  I discovered that once you are in a gallery you are IN a gallery and gallery people talk to gallery people and they know people who talk to people and all of a sudden people are talking about you!
   I didn't start with galleries but now I know I could have.  What stopped me was confidence.  I didn't know "those kind of people", didn't know the language, probably didn't have the right shoes!  I started with a little cafe and I was invited to hang my wares on their walls.  This is really a lot easier than you might think.  If it is not a chain, some kind of franchize with rules and regulations then these little cafes like to change their decorations and will be receptive to your art.  There is a little risk involved, the artist has to accept that their work could be damaged or even stolen so you have to weigh that but the exposure could be worth it.  And just to say, "yes, I am an artist, my work is here and here and here" is a bit of an accomplishment in itself.
   Once IN it is easy to jump from place to place, always bigger venues, bigger crowds, more acceptance.
That is when you realize there is such a thing as an "artist's tax" and you can quit working by the hour.
You learn things too, being exposed to the public, having your worked judged, ciritcised by others.  To me the best judge of art is cash.  I may love a piece but if I can't sell it I can't afford to make a better one.  I don't think being in a gallery means you have succumed to the color of the month, doing what is popular, standard and accepted.  If I had thought that I never would have gone there.  My stuff is too weird, never seen before stuff.  I really think it is as simple as convincing someone that they need what you do.
   I am not a painter, although, maybe one day... If that should ever happen I am absolutely bored with square and rectangular paintings!  I think the framing and matting industries have dictated these shapes for too long.  Galleries NEED paintings with wonderful, sexual, exciting shapes!
   When I visit a client or, on rare occasion visit a gallery, what I am on the look out for is when I lose focus.
Art is about direction, line of sight, lighting, color, texture, shape to make you feel, see something, or for a moment, to be something, about fantacy.  Sometimes it is easier to see when this isn't here and then fill that need.
You can get lost HERE

Times Four!

 Each panel is about 16" x 48"

These panels, consisting of a steel framed copper sheet, backed by stainless steel with a rose vine, will creat the walls to the front Entry of the outdoor gallery that I am creating for a client.
Imagine the front being 24 feet wide with a center entry of eight feet and a "wall section" about seven feet on either side.  These panels fit in a stucture that offers a panel, a vine by itself and then the other panel.  Impossible to get the right picture in my shop but I will install them today and although it will be a rainy day I'll get the "final picture" when I am done.
   I have had a lot of time on this project, on again and off again for over a year.  The delays were for digestion. letting the structure age, doing some landscaping and studying this birth process.  It is coming to an end now, sort of, I do have one more idea.

 Copper captures the light from a hundred different directions.

I always get the "final picture" in my head way before I build it.  If my brain had scraps of paper in it, it would be full.  I get ideas and just as quickly reject them until that final, end picture gets stuck in my mind.
   I am often asked if I can draw this picture?  Although it is firmly and crystal clear in my mind, I can't.  I can't do it because I am a really bad drawer and because, especially with the copper, it is ever changing, a shape shifter with what it does to light.  Move an inch and it will look entirely different.  I get the idea of it in my mind, its function and what it is supposed to do.
   We will see what happens today, how it looks when installed.  If this is supposed to stop your vision, give you pause and a sense of privacy, maybe I need one more thing? Something to make you curious and draw you in? We shall see.
You can always find me HERE

No, No, No, I bought it from a Gallery!

...and that by definition makes it art, right?  Who cares that galleries charge 50% commission? or some, 60%! It is the price of assurance, the price to make me comfortable. knowing that this canvass with a hundred tones of red will look good behind my couch and go with the rest of my furniture!  I am assured that art from a gallery is an investment.  The prices keep going up, twenty percent over last year!  I am going to make a fortune!
   In my town there are no "Gallerias", just plain galleries with no fancy names, "Galleria de la Rosa" for instance, just off the top of my head, some exotic name, maybe even French, huh?  These would probably be the 60% galleries and of course, would have better art!
   I don't think galleries will ever be obsolete.  I know you can buy this stuff off the internet, but frankly I wouldn't  know what I was buying.  Red is red to me and I know nothing of the determination and texture of brush strokes.
   Buying used cars from a car lot should be obsolete.  You can get these off the internet too but I need the belief that it was owned by a little old lady.
   I have learned a lot over the years from galleries, learned the babble and language and gushing enthusiasm,
the "art of display" and the fuction of a little cheap wine.  On an opening night if you are lucky enough to get a crowd there you can build up a frenzy like at an auction and people will actually pretend to know what they are looking at.  When I first entered the gallery market I had different prices, one price if you found it in my backyard and another price if it were in a gallery.  That was a big mistake, I was letting people in on the scam!
   The truth is, people think your art is better if you charge a lot for it.  There is a belief in the value of money spent.  If you charge not very much that is what clients think they are getting, not very much.  Galleries to art are like de Beers is to Diamonds.  They control the ebb and flow of what would otherwise be a deluge of paint on canvas coming at us like the Mississippi River.
   This week I am taking apart an old rototiller, every gear and cotter pin, nuts and bolts and tynes, all of it piece by piece. I will reassemble and configure this into a new life as something unintended and I will name it "Art"!  I love the madness of it all.
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The Job of an Artist

 Nice, but will it go with the couch?

I spent 35 years in construction and know that there is art in a good foundation.  Rafters cut to perfection have a clean, crisp look and provide strength to the finished, framed house, the biggest "art projects" that I have ever worked on.  A house can become the most expensive art a person will buy.
     Fifteen years ago when I developed an interest in art welding my sense of scale was reduced and I created smaller art pieces.  Steel is still expensive but has an intrinsic value whether the art is good or not.  It has value by the pound.  It is always an investment because the materials themselves have worth and will cost more next year.
     A year ago I discovered painting and am having a lot of fun with it but don't understand its value at all.
I have seen at garage sales what I consider perfectly acceptable works selling for less than the price of the canvass.  Painting is the cheapest art since popcorn.  You can paint some really big paintings for three dollars worth of paint.  I enjoy it.  It is fun.  It is creating poetry without language and images without restraint, but I don't understand it.

Night Scene

There is a marketing to the sales of paintings that is like no other.  Everyone knows that the nicest painting is on a thirty dollar canvas and contains three dollars worth of paint.
You can buy a thirty five thousand dollar car and the dealer might make $2,000 for his trouble.  You can buy a house and the commission might be 6% but expect to pay 50% to the gallery where you buy your paintings.  So, half the value of the painting is in hype.  It is in the wine tasting, the opening night, the rubbing shoulders, the gala event!  We buy a painting because we want a piece of this action, a taste of something we may dream about.
     Good artists work their trade and ingratiate themselves to galleries that work for them.  I am happy I discovered painting; it is a cheap way to fill the day but when you are used to selling art by the pound it is difficult to understand its value.

MORE PAINTINGS HERE

There are other ways to sell...

 a variety of tables that I made.

Home Shows are not the only way to sell. There are many others. I
sold my pieces in three different shops in my town and created a different style for each shop. One might get my arbors, another would have furniture and the third, "little art" and gallery pieces.
Each shop felt special and catered to. Retail shops and galleries have their own space restrictions and when I could I would develop items for sale which could be used to display other's artwork. I decorated these shops and they loved it.
    If I were a "real painter" I would have my work all over town! It is easier to do than you might think. Just ask!  There is blank wall space everywhere and I would make everywhere my gallery. I think my dentist and doctor and the little cafe I go to would all like art for their walls, especially if I offered to change it out every two or three months. People like changes, the unusual, to feel special. Everything in the business of selling is not about selling. Some is about name recognition and acceptance.  People think "if it's good enough for my doctor, then it will look good in my home".

 One of "My Ladies"

   

I once loaned one of the "Ladies" that I make to a local restaurant to display their own business cards on.  My cards were not there at all, no mention of my name.  But people ask. I made sure every waitress knew who made her and they would send me business and I would leave a big tip.
     If you have a fear of making something and not getting paid this will probably stop you and that is too bad. Fear will stop you every time.

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In Progress

 So this is a sculpture in progress.  It is about five feet by seven feet and four feet tall, except the lady who is six feet tall.  The pots will be cleaned and repainted and planted with cascading fuchsias. I am building it for a juried art competition for a gallery show in September.  The Theme is recycling/reuse and I think this will be appropriate. It is made of 100% scrap.  The center support is a huge muffler and the twisted steel, stuff I found, rusted and thrown into the scrap heap.  The flower pots were once porcelain over steel light fixtures from an old school gymnasium.
    If this doesn't get me into the show or if it doesn't sell, it will look great in my garden!

The lady is far from finished.  She needs a hat! and arms, of course

with lots of bracelets and jewelry, and fingers with rings!

The eyes are ball bearings, tossed for their imperfections.

The eyebrows are bicycle gears, ears are washers and earrings

are stainless steel logos from a motor home company that went

out of business.

The child is pretending to be holding this whole display up. He is happy with his strength!

I really agree with the philosophy of this show.
All this stuff was found at my local recycling scrap steel yard and all of it was on its way to China.
Ground and bailed for their reuse so we could buy more stuff from China!  It would be so easy to stop this process!  Just don't buy junk, that is all it would take. A philosophy of quality. The satisfaction of knowing that whoever made what we bought did it well and sold it at a fair price. Easy to say but difficult to do because deep down inside we want it cheap.  Funny about that.  We get what we pay for.
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Galleries are Closing...

The Art Galleries all up and down this valley I live in are closing their doors, one after the other, like a cold wind is coming. I have had my "stuff" in a couple of them and know they are run by caring and dedicated people. They are expensive to operate. The lease on the building, maintenance, employees, wine and food for opening nights, it all adds up. Most artists hate the process of selling their own work, haggling over dollars, reducing their art to a value per hour.

We need the enthusiasm of the gallery operators who can put the artist and client together.

Artists are hit first, hardest and longest by a recession. There is no room for art when the cupboards are bare and money is dwindling. We lose the galleries and some good artists because of this recession. They will find other things to do, putting their talents on hold. Survival becomes an issue.

I like to support artists in the little ways that I can. I buy nothing from China; I am not a good customer of Walmart. I buy cards and calendars and prints and hand-crafted items from artists who make these. Sometimes it is just encouragement. I think an artist might make $5 from a $25 calendar. I like to think that I encourage a dream.

The KEY to All My Sites is Here.

"A Candle Loses Nothing...

...by Lighting Another Candle." What a great quotation and I have no idea who first said it, making it all the better. Gifts should be free of expectations.

A lot of artists are secretive with their creations and won't share their methods, their recipes,

the way they do things. Color on metal, a particular patina can be a difficult process. It used to be a crime, punishable by death, to teach metallurgy or anything about the metal arts. A good sword was tempered by thrusting it into the stomach of a willing slave. It is difficult to get good help these days.

I like iron work that stops traffic or at least slows it down. The choice is to appreciate this art and wonder who made it or to drive on by without giving it a thought. In a shared gallery space

one good exhibit is not enough. The tempo is set by peoples' expectations. I want everyone to be their best and the crowd to move slowly.

I have been copied, sure, but more often I have raised the bar and given motive for other metal artists to do their best. Not so much better than I am but better than they were. I love the transition from being a fabricator to becoming an artist. It is an honor when they show me their work.

My Other Blog is Here.