A little help from my friends...

Random Thought of Children,
24 x 30 inch, Mixed Media on Canvas.

Last night I delivered the painting I am donating to Vintage Albuquerque's fund raiser for youth arts programs.  This is a collaboration with my two children, Tinsaye (7) and Isabel (13).  I delivered it to Kate Gerwin at Casa Vieja.  My wife and I then had dinner in the bar.  We get ready to leave and Kate had comped our meal.  Thank you Kate!  I am a bit intimidated as Vintage Albuquerque has some high dollar artists donating to their fundraiser, but none featuring children's work.

Tomorrow is the Templeton Family Reunion in Love Grove, Texas.  How I so wanted to go this year.  But time and money proved an obstacle.  I spent many a summer and holidays there in the Texas Hill Country.  We'd visit my 100 year old great grand mother in her cabin, heated by wood, cooked on wood, well pump handle at the kitchen sink, outhouse out back and those willow chairs on the porch where she'd sit and dip snuff.   I was a teenager before I learned you could buy drinking glasses and not rely on used Garrett Snuff jars.

Wild Horse Harry,
30 x 24 inch, Acrylic on Canvas
(sold)

Our ferrier is coming this morning to trim the horse's hooves.  He is quite a character.  He is called Wild Horse Harry.  Story goes he got his start trimming hooves on bucking broncs in the rodeo.  You don't appreciate his skills as a horseman until you ride in a buckboard with him and see how he quietly commands a team of Belgium mares with just soft voice commands.

Work on paintings continues.  I hate it when the masking tape fails to mask, now I have to adjust.  I am working extremely hard to raise my game.  There is a level of professionalism and quality I don't consistently attain.  How I respect those who seem to do it with ease.   Since I am doing more and more transparent work, I have been experimenting with lots of techniques.  I am slowly switching over and using more and more soft body acrylics.  If anything ever sells, I'll stock up and expand my pallet of soft body paints.

Geronimo's Cadillac

Window Series, Geronimo, Acrylic on Canvas

As you can see, I redesigned my blog spot.  The background is the famous photo of Geronimo in a Cadillac.  The photo was taken, as I understand, on a ranch in north east Oklahoma.  Geronimo was imprisoned at Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma.  This iconic image has provided both artists and songwriters inspiration.  It does speak to the tragedy that was the nomadic plains tribes as they confronted western civilization.

I am back in the studio painting every day.  The weather has been favorable but the winds are still with us.  I am about 5 ideas ahead of actual work.  It gets hard to stay on task when the ideas come faster than you can execute them.  There are 3 more paintings in the series I am doing and I already have ideas for 2 more from what I am calling my "Dick and Jane" series.  This beats the opposite, when the well of creativity is dry!

I often remind people you can't judge history from a current point of view.  Context is everything.  On this new series I once again am working with iconic images from my childhood and putting them in a contemporary context.  Sometimes this points to the truth in some icons and the absurdity in others.

In recent posts, I spoke of my faith only to notice a rash of religious ads on my blog.  I wonder if I talk about the joys of beer and my love of good IPA's, will the ads change?  We'll see...

Up From the Grave he Arose...

It was early Easter Morning and my son was waiting for his mom to get up before gathering Easter Eggs...  oops, Spring Spheres.  A quick glance at the headlines could have made one wonder about the very existence of a God, much less a God who would come to earth in the form of man and die for mankind.  But this is the miracle of Easter.  "You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come."

"But Woodrow Wilson said..." 30 x 40 inch
Mixed Media on Panel

In 1917, President Woodrow Wilson addressed Congress to tell them that World War One was, "...the war to end all wars."  I think he was wrong.  World War One cost France and entire generation of young men.  As with our Civil War, we fought one war with the tactics of the last and the weapons of the next.  Trench warfare with the advent of the machine gun was insane, yet generals continued to send waves of men to slaughter.  In our recent conflicts, we have attempted to fight clean video game type wars at great cost of American Blood.  

My father used to warn me, "fight only those battles worth winning."  Sound advice for both a son and a leader.

Low in the grave he lay, Jesus my Savior

I miss the old hymns.  This is the first verse of "Up from the Grave He Arose."  Low in the grave is an appropriate line for Good Friday.  I find it perplexing how we are attempting to remove Easter from the equation and the hope it represents.  My son's name is Tinsaye.  In Amharic, his native Ethiopian language, it means Resurrection or Easter.  That was one of the reasons we kept his Ethiopian name, for what it meant and what it represented for his life here in America.  Now Easter Eggs are "Spring Spheres"?

I once defined Easter Sunday, along with Christmas Sunday as Apostasy Appreciation Day.  My father was a Baptist preacher for many years and on those two Sundays, church members who hadn't seen the inside of the church all year suddenly appeared in all their finery, Easter hats and all.  When was the last time you actually went out and bought an Easter hat? 

Yesterday, I almost ruined the painting I had been working on all week.  I was very stressed about it.  Sometimes we overload ourselves in life.  Fixing dinner, repairing the bicycle, yard work, dinner for friends, brother in law's visit, doing art.

His Eye is on the sparrow...

It was dark when I went out to the studio this morning.  Our two cats, Professor Longhair and Pretty Boy Pink Floyd were sitting on the back porch, both staring up intently at the ceiling oblivious to my presence.  Our barn sparrows have returned.  They nest on our back porch every year, often building their nest in the most inconvenient place.   The two mates were perched there, one on a nail and the other on the porch light.  They love the horse hair for their nests, weaving it with straw and mud.  The cats sat motionless, drooling.

I did get a little painting done this morning.  Where is the time?

Another sleepy dusty desert day...

Once again, the spring winds blew.  Spring is here though.  The hummingbirds are back at my feeders.  I love to sit and watch them.  There is always a dominate one who hovers in the branches and dive bombs as other birds approach.  The feeders have to be kept spread out so he can't control all of them.

It is still too dusty to paint outside.  Now my fruitless mulberries are dropping their strange little green blossoms.  I am so anxious to paint but all the work I have remaining is flat work and I need to work outside.  The piece I am most excited about is a piece called, "Woodrow Wilson said..."  Here is the raw image before I started.

In a 1917 address to Congress, Woodrow Wilson declared World War One to be the "war to end all wars."  Then of course, Jesus said, "Do not be troubled for there will be wars and rumors of war."

Then I have a painting called, "Pink Buffalo" started.  So many ideas and so little time.

I do have an idea for a guerrilla marketing campaign.  I printed bumper stickers and cards the merely say, "Got Art...  www.hiramditty.com"  Market research indicates most art is bought by 40 year old plus white males of means.  I am asking my friends in large cities with art communities to drop my cards in high end restaurants, art galleries, museums and other art haunts.  The goal is to drive customers to the web site.  I have also asked my collectors for testimonials to post on the site.  I am holding on a gallery push until later. A much larger body of work is needed, besides I have to hammer the dents out of my cast iron athletic supporter.

But if you'd like a "www.hiramditty.com" magnetic bumper sticker and 20 business cards let me know.

Monday Monday

Yesterday was a tough day.  Got to church but didn't do me much good, I was a bear all day.  I have grown to detest contemporary Christian music.  Like really bad pop music.  I like the old hymns.  The old Gospel, "Old" Chuckwagon Gang, Louvin Brothers.  My mom loved Tennessee Ernie Ford.  Dad loved the Chuckwagon Gang.  I miss my Mennonite Church, but too far to drive on Sunday am.  I keep telling my wife we should become Amish, she'd get all the horse work she'd want.  She's not buying it.

Oh well, the wind blew all day Sunday stirring up dust so I got no painting done.  Very frustrating.  The ideas are strong now, but time is so limited.  Then I have a got a $1K worth of framing to get all these ready to sell.

I am pleased with the painting I have going.  I am really working to keep it simple.  When Ken Burns did his Jazz series on PBS he played a Jazz section from Louis Armstrong's early days and then the same section late in his life.  He played it with half the notes.  He had refined it to its essence.  This quote on writing was attributed to John Prine, but I am not sure, however, take a blank piece of paper and remove everything that doesn't belong.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

Our son awoke us at 5 am.  Something about the cats screaming.  I got up and both of them came running. No damage.  I wish I could go back to bed and sleep but at my age, those days have passed.  I took my wife out for a drink and snack to one of the restaurants where they hang my paintings.  I had to reprice a couple.  We had to "share" and appetizer.  My loving wife is a food nazi.

I have 3 or 4 paintings started.  I am out of room in my garage studio.  I hope the weather is nice this afternoon as I need to move outdoors to paint.  But if the wind blows it blows the dirt too.  I am excited about where my new work is taking me.  I am experimenting with new materials and mediums.  I also have two more traditional works on the sketch pad...  I am frustrated with sales, yet excited about new work...
Georgia O'Keeffe said what drove her to paint was that each painting was not perfect or what she wanted so she no sooner finished a work then she had to start a new one.  She's right, very seldom do I feel I got it right so I start a new one immediately.

The waitress at the restaurant said someone was interested in buying one of the paintings at the "Range Cafe."  Hope so, been a dry spell on art sales.

Typical Sunday morning, I'll have to cook breakfast soon.  When my son gets hungry he has little patience.  He was after all a starving boy from Africa.  Then I'll watch Sunday Morning with Charles Karalt or is it Osgood now.  Then we'll go to church.  I have to clean the chicken coop today.  We need to put out tomatoes.  Last year I waited too long and the night before the first freeze we picked 30 pounds of green tomatoes.  the large ones I fried, the smaller hard ones I canned.  I love pickled green tomato relish.  Took out a second mortgage yesterday and bought a chuck roast for Sunday dinner, slow roast with leeks, onions, celery, carrots, potatoes...  mmmm  I hope I get some painting done today!

They tell me I need to Blog

Everyone I talk to, art friends, art consultants say I need to start a blog and develop a "tribe." Well, here we go.

It's a Saturday morning and I am going to be starting housework in a minute, my wife is working this morning. I hope to get into the studio for an hour or two today. I have 4 painting going at once and I am excited about the direction my work is taking. I am working in 3 genres now. My new photo collage, tradition for a show I am doing later this spring. Casa Vieja, a local restaurant has offered me a show in the bar. It will be Places and Faces of Corrales. I have some nice ideas for it.

Here is one of the paintings. This is the 200 year old adobe church 2 blocks from my house. It has been painted by almost ever artist in town. I hope I did it justice. I photographed it several times during the day, sorta a Monet Haystacks thing.

Two recent major influences have been JP Morrison and Mateo Romero. I love their work and having seen it in person, I realized I had to raise my game. So that is what I am doing.