Two miles from home in our little town of Three Rivers, a little art show in a little dining room of a little restaurant and a little space to show a little art on a nice fall day. (A long incomplete sentence!)
This is the view behind the place where the show was. In the trees across the river is the Three Rivers Arts Center, where there will be another show soon.
Another upcoming event for this Central California Artist. November is my busiest month of the year! Who would have guessed this?
The Senior League Holiday Bazaar has been happening for many years at the local Veterans Memorial Building. It used to seem podunk to me, and now I appreciate it as a great low-key event in which there is time to really visit with the visitors. (Department of Redundancy Dept. here)
There is a great variety of vendors, although it tends to be heavy in the jewelry department. Each year there are different folks showing and selling their wares, and others who return faithfully.
Oh wait. This is supposed to be about shopping! Hope to see you there. . .
Hidden in the Leaves is the title of a show sponsored by the Arts Alliance of Three Rivers. At last count there were 17 Three Rivers artists participating. The show hangs in the dining room of Sierra Subs, along the highway in Three Rivers just before you see the Shell gas sign. (Easier to spot than an address!)
Here’s a link to a little thing about it: Fresno Bee Events Page
First Saturday Three Rivers: Its opening reception is Saturday, November 7 and I will be there, set up in the courtyard, showing, and selling from 11:00 until 2:30 . (That’s tomorrow if you are reading this on Friday, November 6.)
Three of my oil paintings are in the show, and one is two are already sold!
Stop by, say hi, order a FABULOUS lunch, sit near the river, look at the paintings, introduce yourself to me, browse through my stuff, hang loose and be cool. Or, buy something. Just have a good time!
Yesterday I showed you the tile mosaic work of my friend The Tiling Genius here in Three Rivers.
I learned from him two ways to make stepping stones. I previously stumbled onto each of these methods on my own, but he had all the right materials, tools and techniques. It makes a difference, and I expect to start marching around the yard and tearing apart all my substandard stepping stones in the future.
He is a retired engineer and has built molds for the poured concrete type of stones. These don’t allow for much planning – pound the mud into the mold, and tap your stuff into it! Of course there is much more, but I won’t bore you with the details. The molds are removable by taking them apart – no wonder my version of this was substandard.
Here are my 3 – the large one in its mold, and edges of the other two, which were made on preformed stepping stones. That was my default method, but Mr. Tiling Genius The Retired Engineer had many improved techniques using tools I’d never heard of for making them far superior to my earlier attempts.
In addition, he had zillions of wonderful items from which to choose!
Here are my two on preformed concrete, pre-grouting.
Take a look at all the different ones from the workshop. Mr. Tiling Genius told us we didn’t need to create masterpieces for our first attempts, but I think it happened anyway.
It is sort of a given in The Art World that taking workshops is a great thing. I haven’t attended many and am not sure this is the sort of workshop that will advance my career.
But, it advanced my personal happiness, and that is worth something. I love to learn new things!
A handful of years ago I went on a tear making mosaic stepping stones. By “on a tear”, I mean ninja crazy! (In spite of not knowing what that means, it continues to crop up in my vocabulary.) I made about 12 dozen stepping stones, tile-mosaic’ed (no idea if that is actually a verb or how to turn it into past tense) a lamp post, a drinking fountain, several tables, a step, a bird bath and a bowling ball.
I guessed how to do this. Found some stuff and tried it. Tried different stuff and different methods. Sold some. Gave some away. Scattered them all over my yard. Ninja crazy!
Now, many of them have tiles that are popping loose. This is annoying, disappointing and ugly.
There is a man in Three Rivers who is a genius at tile mosaic. His wife was a ceramicist, and after she died, he continued his tiling projects. He began making his own objects in her kiln, continued a project they had begun, and now teaches an occasional workshop.
I attended the workshop in the hopes of learning the right way to do this.
Before I show you what I made, look at what the tiling genius has around his place.
This has symbols for Nancy’s potter’s wheel, her glazing color samples and her kiln.
Oops. Out of time. I’ll show you what I made tomorrow.
One afternoon I was painting in the workshop. Trail Guy stopped his work on the house to rest a bit. What am I working on?
Another Kaweah Post Office, because it is my policy to always have one ready to go. Pomegranates because they are beautiful to paint and sell well.
Trail Guy reported a bear sighting. So, I went to investigate. They are so fascinating to watch – something about their size or furriness or proportions or way of moving or something. Here, you can see for yourself. If you want to see a bear any day of the week in Three Rivers, you can just go driving around and find one! Truly!
Okay, bear break over – back to work. Get painting again, Central California Artist in Bear Country.
The eBay painting went to a very happy lady!
Chuck’s painting progressed quickly.
This is a photograph of it while it was drying. Hang on, Chuck, it’s coming soon!
My Favorite Customer bought this painting and I split the sale with the Kaweah Post Office fund.
Several friends gave cash toward the project. Some of them received a package of these cards. (The others didn’t receive cards because I was caught by surprise and didn’t have them with me.)
Something just occurred to me as I think about this project: EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO CONTRIBUTED IS NOT FROM THREE RIVERS!!
Isn’t that amazing? That may be part of what has blown me away – so many people from other places have a soft place in their hearts for the Three Rivers landmark of the Kaweah Post Office.
The Kaweah Post Office is one of our only landmark structures in Three Rivers. I am working to help meet the insurance deductible to rebuild it because a big limb from a valley oak tree smashed the roof. (We are quite rural – perhaps a bear was in the tree eating acorns and caused the limb to break . . . I wasn’t there, but it could have happened that way!)
There is an auction on eBay to sell my painting of the Post Office; I will split the proceeds with them. (I gotta earn something here, dear readers – selling art is how I make my living!) It ends tomorrow, Friday, October 9, at noon. See it by clicking this link.
A nice man named Chuck told me he wants to participate with $200, but he just doesn’t shop on eBay. No worries, Chuck. I understand those types of boundaries, because I don’t play on Facebook.
So, I offered to repaint it for him for $100 and give $100 to the Post Office (that size normally sells for $150.)
Chuck upped his donation to $150 to the Post Office, so I got busy immediately. Here is how it looked after the first session on the canvas.
Normally, I don’t draw the image in pencil first. Instead, I block it out with my paint brush and correct the proportions with each successive layer of paint.
Because I will show Chuck a photo of the progress once a week on this blog, I wanted it to look better at each stage than paintings usually do. If he saw my normal sloppy way of beginning, he might get scared and withdraw his offer!
Thank you, Chuck (and don’t be scared!)
Mister Black is the name I give to the ravens I paint. There are two so far, painted because of the Raven Festival in Three Rivers.
Three Rivers does something special-ish on the first Saturday of each month. A new theme is chosen each month, and for October, it is ravens.
The amazing Nadi Spencer had the idea of a raven theme and took it a little further than just a normal First Saturday. October is a busy month for me, so I haven’t been around for the festivities.
However, I have done a painting for 2 years now. This is the first Mister Black.
In this is this year’s version he was looking out from atop that pole (which was actually white and fiberglass.)
At Sierra Subs and Salads in Three Rivers is a show of the raven artwork. You can learn more on the First Saturday Three Rivers page.
Gotta go paint now!
I am perpetually fed up with artists getting asked to donate to good causes. In May of 2014, I posted “An Artist Bloviates about Donations” on LinkedIn. My hope was to encourage fund raisers to find other methods besides asking those who are often at the bottom rungs of the financial ladder.
Under the list of “Reasons to Donate”, #1 was “An artist loves the cause and wants to help.” I currently have a cause I love and want to help.
Tulare County, where I live, is poor, rural, and in Central California. It is far from Los Angeles, San Francisco or the Silicon Valley. We are not rich either in money nor in landmarks.
One of our favorite historic structures is the Kaweah Post Office, a tiny wooden structure just outside of Three Rivers. It is 125 years old and still in operation!
Because we are also not currently rich in rainfall, many of our trees are very stressed. A giant oak above our little Kaweah Post Office lost a limb which smashed the roof and porch of the landmark we love.
The building is publicly appreciated, but privately owned. There is insurance, but it comes with a large deductible.
So, I am auctioning the above oil painting on eBay. In keeping with my principles about artists not giving away their work, I will donate half of the proceeds toward the restoration of the Kaweah Post Office.
A few notes:
1. Kaweah is the name of the rivers of Three Rivers. (South, Middle and North Forks of the Kaweah make up the three. . . never mind about the Marble and East forks – our forebears had to draw the line somewhere!)
2. It is pronounced “Kuh – WEE – uh” (not to be confused with “The River Kwai”)
3. The auction listing is “Original Oil Painting of Kaweah Post Office”.
4. The painting is 10×10″ on wrapped canvas, ready to hang.
5. The auction went live at 12:02 on September 29 and remains up for 10 days.
Now, let’s see how this bloviating artist’s version of raising money turns out!