Something about turning fifty has triggered all kinds of changes in my life! One is that I’ve felt a strong urge to teach. I’ve been asked about offering workshops, and want to do that at some time in the future. In the meantime, I approached the University of South Alabama’s Continuing Education department, and have been working with Sue Allison in that office to develop a course aimed at beginners. (It starts September 24, runs for six weeks and I learned yesterday that there is room for only one more student.) I plan to teach still life using the underpainting and glazing technique I learned many years ago from Jack Dempsey, the late, great professor of painting at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. 
Later I may offer landscape painting, but right now I want to test my theory that anybody on the street can walk in and learn the craft of painting. Kind of like learning a song on the piano–you can do it if someone is right there telling you how–and you’re willing to practice.
Each session is only two hours long and so I’ve been testing ways to get the basic ideas across efficiently. One of these ways will probably include some slides of the various stages the painting goes through from start to finish. To do that, I’ve been exploring Power Point and Adobe’s Captivate programs and thinking about how to supplement what I am saying and doing, but not repeat myself.
While I paint in a very traditional way, I love discovering ways technology can assist the art-making process! In my own work, I’ve added a monitor and laptop to my studio setup in the past year and appreciate how I can zoom in on details, darken or lighten areas, and color correct immediately. Of course, photography is not nature, so I make drawings and color notes as well. But the minute changes in a cloud formation are impossible to capture any other way–so it’s a wonderful tool.
Places East of Here, no. 14, oil on canvas, 60″ x 60″
are inspired by areas along the causeway that I’ve been photographing for the past twenty-five years. I’ve noticed changes occurring from sediment flowing into the bay and also damage from recent storms. But my paintings are more about the beauty I find there, so maybe the environmental message suggested by the show’s title slips into the viewer’s consciousness under the radar, so to speak.
ely, he was right. I chose this painting, Late Music on Dante Street, for the show because of the obvious color note, and, despite recent efforts to protect it, the city seems doomed.
Artists for Conservation, Art in Embassies Program
Two interesting invitations lately: one is to join the group, Artists for Conservation, an international group, based in Canada. From their website (link in Places I Like at the right) “The organization’s mission is to support wildlife and habitat conservation, biodiversity, sustainability and environmental education through art that celebrates our natural heritage.”
Maps We Carry, 2009, oil on canvas & wood, 15″x 15″ (at Cole Pratt Gallery)
The other invitation is from assistant curator Claire D’Alba of the Art in Embassies Program to particpate in that program by lending a couple of paintings for the residence of the ambassador to Romania (link at right.) It seems the new ambassador is from Alabama, and one of my delta scenes that represents his home state might also make him feel a little more at home. It’s an honor, though tying up two paintings for two and a half years is difficult. But I’ve commited to do it–and I will certainly be in good company with all the other artists the program has shown in the past.