First Thursday, First Friday x 2

SB: Oil on Canvas 40" x 40 "

First Thursday of April--next week, April 3, will be the official reception for my solo show at Souk. This event's date has changed a couple of times due to circumstances beyond my control, but I am delighted that it is finally happening!

This is one of the paintings I'm showing there. It is called, Waiting for the "All-Clear". Seeing a WWII bomb shelter sign in Bologna, Italy inspired this painting. The arrow in the sign was stenciled to look like a rocket bomb. It was weird to think that those were "our" allied bombs that people in Bologna had to shelter against.

For those who aren't old enough or have not read enough novels involving bomb shelters, the "All-Clear" is the signal that it is safe to leave the shelter. It took me two years and two canvases to paint this. The first canvas ended up as something quite different. Of course much of the painting's theme has to do with what was going on in my life at the time. Finally I reached my "All-Clear" and I was able to complete the painting!

Here's the information about the First Thursday Opening:

Where: Souk
322 NW 6th, Suite 200
Portland

When: April 3 from 6:30-9 PM


Thanks to all who offered suggestions to my plight of double-booking myself for First Friday this coming month. On April 4th I'll be showing work at The Art of Your Life Studio by Yelena Matusevich and also some of my recent work. Cindy, an amazing artist and loving person, offered to stand in for me at that show while I attend part of The Diptych Show at Brian Marki Gallery. I will be at Art of Your Life during the latter part of that show. This is a great solution. (I had looked into cloning, but couldn't find anyone on craigslist who offered this service.) Thanks, Cindy!!

SB: Teatro Mixed Media on Claybord--from The Art of Your Life Show

Yelena Matusevich is a Russian who now lives in Alaska with her family. She is an energetic, intense, brilliant, and diverse artist who also has a life as an exemplary professor of French Literature. Here are a few of her bona fides:

Usibelli Teaching Excellence Award, 2007
UAF Outstanding Advisor Award, 2003
CLA Excellence in Teaching Award, 2002

in 2005 - Visiting Fellow at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (India).

Main research interests: French and European late medieval and early modern periods, history of European thought.

Major Publications:
Books: The Golden Age of French Mysticism, in French (Paris-Milan, 2004)
Writing Medieval History: Essays in Memory of Aron Gurevich, (Brill Academic Publishers, forthcoming in Summer 2008).
Book chapters in: Spirituality in the Age of Cusanus, (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2002), pp. 237-265; Joan of Arc and Spirituality, New Middle Ages series, (Palgrave/St.Martin’s Press, 2003), pp. 167-183; A Companion to Jean Gerson, (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2006), pp. 357-400

17 other articles.

Can you believe she has time to do this and paint also, as well as run after a young child? Come see the show and enjoy her gifted, unusual work! First Friday, The Art of Your Life Studio, 1210 SE Oak St., 6-9 PM.

Yelena Matusevich

The Eternal Easter by YM


Provencal Mandarins by YM

I've written at length already on this blog about The Diptych Show which opens on two coasts April 4. The West Coast group, International Encaustic Artists will show here in Portland, and our collaborators, New England Encaustic Artists will open at the Whitney Gallery in Portland Maine. Part of my job for the show as a participant has been to collect and compile artist statements about the process of collaborating on the diptychs with our diptych partners on the opposite coast. The consensus is that the process was challenging, demanding, and utterly wonderful! I am really looking forward to seeing many diptychs created by artists who have never met each other. I've seen lots of gorgeous pictures of these, but encaustic always looks tons better in person.

What: The Diptych Show
Where: Brian Marki Gallery
2236 NE Broadway, Portland
When: 6-9 PM
Who: International Encaustic Artists from Oregon and California, together with artists from New England Wax


All too soon my double duty will be over and it will be time to get ready for the Buckman Show and Sell on April 11. More on that later!

Happy April!