My Turn

As I get ready for the Big Brothers Big Sisters Southwest Flair A-Fair starting this Friday, I have been enjoying having a few days in the studio to make new vessels. Knowing my time was limited, I have focused on small vessels, which I always love. There is real sweetness in making things that just fit in a cupped hand. At the same time, I have been trying to finish a slightly more ambitious piece, a mesquite jar inspired by a revisiting of the classic book How to Wrap Five Eggs, about Japanese packaging. I am making a lid of shaped and dyed half-inch oak boards. As soon as the finish cures (which seems to be taking longer than expected—perhaps because of the dye I used—namely, Fiebing’s black leather dye), I will glue the handles to the lid and the vessel will be ready to go. The body of the jar is simple but handsome. I wirebrushed the exterior of the mesquite to give it an almost clay feel.

Ben McNitt of the Tucson Citizen just posted a piece on his “Artistic Tucson” blog about me. Please feel free to comment on the blog post—comments boosts readership, apparently. The item even appeared briefly on the msnbc.com Local News feed.

Whoa. Our opening at Flux Gallery on Friday night was overwhelming. We had hundreds of people come out, a constant crowd from 5 o’clock on. The crowd didn’t begin to thin until around 8:30, after the lovely string quartet had packed up and the food was down to crumbs. (Did people not realize we still had wine left?) No doubt the article that ran in the Arizona Daily Star Friday morning helped draw folks beyond our combined mailing lists.

People seemed enthusiastic about the artwork. We were certainly proud. If I can brag a little, the space looked great. Steven did a great job of hanging and displaying the work in a way that let each work both be its best self and complement the pieces surrounding it.
I didn’t take photographs, but you can see some of Karen’s shots here.

I just finished the three-day Patagonia Fall Festival and am proud to say that I won the Jury Award for the “best example of artistry or craftsmanship.” The show is in a pleasant venue and is well organized, with wonderful administrators and staff and good support for exhibitors, and I recommend it for artists and crafters with a lot of work under, say, $100. Unfortunately for me and others—and this may well just reflect the times we’re in—there didn’t seem to be a lot of high-end buyers in attendance. Even so, doing shows like this one is affirming. I received two of the highest compliments I have ever received for my work: One customer confessed to wanting to cry seeing my work; another said that being in my booth felt “like home.” Touching people in this way through my art is why I do this. Namaste.

Figuring out the nuts-and-bolts of operating the gallery is a process, for sure. After a couple of weeks of being open a few evenings per week, to try to catch dinner customers from the two restaurants at Plaza Palomino (Luna Bella and La Placita), we have decided to shift to days, in conformance with the majority of the other businesses in the plaza. We are having to adjust our individual schedules to accommodate the change, so we may be a bit irregular for a little while, but we are trying to have the gallery open now Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Every Saturday there is a farmers’ market at the plaza (with an increasing emphasis on art), so we want to be open then, as well as during special events, such as the upcoming Southwest Flair A-Fair, a three-day art and crafts festival sponsored by Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tucson. That will be October 30 through November 1. More on that as we get closer to it.