Weekend One: success all around!

Yes- so much success on so many levels- I am so happy this week as all of the artists at Gstudio had a successful first weekend of open studios. For me, 9 paintings. For my oh so wonderful studio mate Reuben, selling some key paintings, wonderful.
So this week, following up with clients interested in commissions, payments and starting up and finishing up paintings before the next weekend. Just a snippet for now. I'll post again next week after I wake up from my coma of exhaustion sometime around wednesday with the final reflection of open studios. Weekend two awaits! Wish me luck!

Ready, Set

Yes, we here at Gstudio are ready for our close-up as Nora Desmond would say to Mr. DeMille. We artists are definitely on that level of crazy, and in anticipation of a show like this one, a big art-palooza of one, we go a little further into crazy.
I wonderful friend/food blogger for winecountry.com did a blog on our group this week and Liz of Gstudio and I agreed: we knew we were crazy, but had never seen anyone actually say it. In print.
Oh well, at this stage of my life, um, at this, ehem, age of my life, I'm happy with me and I won't be attempting to change that part of me other than the natural evolution of myself. As it should.

Wish me luck on the show! Hope to see you there, K

Why do I paint fruit and vineyards?

I am always struck by not the question itself, but rather the need for the question. The simple answer: The simple beauty and depth of the subject. Case in point: the plum. Buy one or pick one, take it home and for five minutes notice how many colors you see and how deeply the colors seem to go.

I don't think I need to write any more about that.

lisa's riva'

this image is for my dear friend Lisa to see. So if you're not Lisa, please, avert your eyes.
It's called "Napa Riva' Summa' Yes, you read that right and you may interpret any which way you please.

a painter is a painter is a painter

In washington right now, three weeks- extending my time out of my studio for virtually the entire lenghth of our "summer" In quotes because summer, when one has kids is the time period between the last day of school and the first day of the coming school year. Two months, quite unlike the summer of my youth: Three.
So, my brother, the local rockstar around these parts tells me he's putting a primer coat on a building that he's recently built on his property. I'm happy to desert my children, walk over at dinner time and paint in the corners on a coat of primer coat so Mike can continue with the roller and not stop and start like one would do if they were alone with the job.
I miss painting and really, primer coat, final coat, paint anything: I'm happy. It puts me in that state of mind that I am in the studio. A slight ache in my post surgery hand and sheer happiness.

2 months to go till open studio

So, in preparation to open studios here in Napa, at Gstudio we're getting the ball rolling as they say. Talking postcards, press releases and oh, yes...making art.
What will I be doing this weekend? Flying to Washington to visit my parents. With my boys. To eat copious amounts of marshmallows roasted over dad's buick sized fire-pit. (the eating of marshmallows will be done mainly by my boys and my mother.
Yes, three weeks I'll be there, just away from the studio long enough to know that when I return, yes, the shit will hit the fan.
But there you have it. And I am looking forward to it.

more from the studio

The very thing that makes these paintings luminous is the very thing that makes them the most difficult of models to photograph...
this plum painting is 36x48"