Your Reception Primer

As you know, you (yes, you!) are invited to the opening reception for Transitions, an exhibit of paintings by yours truly, and ceramic pieces by Sharon T. Ohmberger. The date of the reception is Friday July 3^rd, from 5:30 to 8:00pm, the exhibit is available to the public the entire month of July at The Burkholder Project.

It’s been interesting and informative to hear people respond to their invitations.

A close acquaintance of Handsome Husband revealed that he was not likely to attend. This strapping enforcer of the law said with obvious worry, “I dunno what to do at these things!” This from a man whose hands are considered lethal weapons.

To this question Handsome Husband and I offer a primer of sorts.  Forthwith is a step-by-step how-to for the uninitiated exhibit-goer:

What to wear:

Keep in mind that this particular opening reception is being held in Nebraska in July. The Burkholder Project is located in the Haymarket area near downtown Lincoln, where the only shade comes from 3-story brick buildings. The temperature is likely to be in the lower 400’s. Dress comfortably. Flip-flops and t-shirt are fine, tie is optional.

Conversation starters:

Hellow is a good way to start. Other topics include the temperature, parking, or ‘Them Huskers’ (if you’re a Nebraskan, you know what that means). Open-ended remarks are excellent ways to begin, such as, “Tell me about this”, or “Is this a place near (name any city you can think of)”. “This one is lovely; this is my favorite; this one reminds me of (name your favorite uncle or vacation place)” are excellent ways to begin a conversation.

Conversation enders:

“My great grandma used to paint like this, or, I don’t get it” are not helpful.  “Gee, I can’t even draw a stick figure!” has been heard before. At least a million times before. If you feel one of those remarks piling up behind your lips, shove a cookie in your mouth.

Speaking of cookies :

                           

You will most likely be invited to have a nibble of something and a glass of cheap wine. This is an art reception. Pinkies out.

 Mostly though, dear reader, stroll through the various rooms and hallways that house the art. The Burkholder Project is a 3-level gallery filled with excellent artists and creations. Consider what you see, how it was made, why, and with what.  Remember, the artist would love to visit with you about what they’ve made, so asking a question is fine. Should their explanation take longer than you’re comfortable with, feel free to fake a phone call and stride quickly away. Feel free to ad lib here.

Keep an open mind, you may actually find something that would make you happy every time you see it in your home. If you’re not sure,  consider coming back in a few days when the crowd has thinned and visit with a knowledgeable salesperson. They will answer any questions or concerns you  may have. By then a discriminating collector may have already claimed your favorite art piece though so be prepared to live with crushing disappointment.

There you have it. Practice makes perfect, so let's start you on a regimen of opening receptions beginning with Transitions at The Burkholder Project on Friday July 3rd. 

The Burkholder Project July Exhibit

Taking my laptop to the computer spa the day of a big art exhibit opening reception was not well thought out.

My plan was faulty from the beginning. Coming from a small town, it isn't unusual to combine purposes; drive into The Big City and squeeze everything you can out of the day; pick up some groceries, shop for curtains, try on shoes, stop at the lumber yard, get a hair cut, drop off the computer for a quick check and head for your very own opening reception at the art gallery.  It was the quick computer check part that got me. Turns out there's no such thing.

Another glitch in my plan arose at the public library. Turns out I can look at porn right next to the 2nd grader who is playing a shoot'em-up computer game, and I can download just about anything a human being can think up, but I, upstanding citizen and all around delightful person, cannot upload images to my public blog. Harumpf.

So here I am, a little late but still determined to share a really lovely evening at The Burkholder Project . 

Without further ado, images from the evening -

 Ceramic artist Sharon Ohmberger and I shared exhibit space in the main hall. Despite our different ways of looking at the world, our artwork combined to make a very beautiful display.

 

A quiet moment before the doors opened for the evening, and then...

The halls of The Burkholder Project filled with friends, family and art lovers.

It was a wonderful evening. I'm honored to share exhibit space with Sharon. She's a pro. 

You've got just 10 more days to enjoy our exhibit, as well as the collections of  Karen Krull Robart in the Skylight Gallery, Tom Quest and Susan Hart in the Outback Gallery, and dozens of wonderfully talented artists in studios throughout the building.

Are We Having Fun Yet?

During a recent conversation I was asked a question that I wasn't quite sure how to answer.  "Are you still having fun", she asked, "or has your art become just a job now?"

c2014 Patricia Scarborough  Labor and Plenty  22x28 oil

Does anyone ever ask their grocer, dentist or plumber if they are having fun at work?  

"How’s the accounting business? Still fun? Or has it become just another column of numbers?"

For some reason it seems that the result of all creative activity is supposed to be “fun!” As in, the final product should bring delight and happiness and enhance the furniture. Or sit on a shelf and attract attention. Or be cute and induce smiles and satisfaction, like a home-made rocking horse or patio planter.

If it doesn’t engender a smile; if the final product is thoughtful, or a challenge, or discordant somehow, or maybe there’s a little whining that goes along with it, a problem has arisen, now…well, now it’s just a job.

(As if having a job creating things is unfortunate.)

Here’s what I wish I had said:

“Fun is what I have when I’m hanging out with friends and family. As far as my studio work, I am challenged and frustrated and delighted and I can hardly wait to get to work every morning. I am successful just often enough to think I can work out to a satisfying conclusion the problems I’ve set for myself. I am frustrated with my inadequacies and stunned at my (occasional) brilliance. There are elements of my day that I find less than thrilling, like picking titles and prices and keeping records. I'm sure all jobs have that same problem. Yet when I squeeze tubes of paint into piles on my palette, or set out my pastel boxes, my heart quickens and I feel a satisfaction deep in my bones that tells me I’m where I’m supposed to be.”

So, yeah, I'm having fun and I've got a job. And I'm having fun at my job. Thanks for asking.

See the results of my efforts, and the efforts of fellow artists Sharon Ohmberger, Karen Krull Robart, Tom Quest, Susan Hart and many others at The Burkholder Project in Lincoln, Ne. beginning July 2nd through July 31st.  Come say hellow at our opening reception, Friday July 11 from 7 - 9 pm.

 

Day Trips Review

Greetings Friends -

If you've been paying any attention at all, you know I opened a new collection last Friday evening at The Burkholder Project with ceramic artist Sharon Ohmberger.  Also exhibiting their work were
Karen Krull Robart in the Skylight Gallery, Susan Hart and Tom Quest in the Outback Gallery, and Albert Maxey and Herschell Turner in the Special Exhibit Room. 

Yes, it's a big place.

I heard many times during the evening, "Hey, you been workin' hard!" 

Yes, I have.

What does it take, exactly, to get an exhibit like this up and running?  It's fairly simple, really.

First, you get yourself a Handsome Husband. Without HH, none of this would be any fun.

 Me and the Big Double H. Thanks for the photo, Mary!

Spend several months challenging yourself to make the finest art you're capable of making.

Then get yourself a friend, mentor and gallery owner...

Anne Burkholder and me

Don't forget the details...

Ready? Pick up from Warren, your Framer Extraordinaire, wrap carefully and deliver to your gallery space!

Be sure to work with a terrific artist and all around delightful person...

Sharon Ohmberger setting up earlier in the week

Ta da!



Open the doors and spend a lovely evening with friends and patrons, who will hopefully become one and the same!





Be sure to thank those folks who work hard behind the scenes making sure you look good:

Anne Burkholder, Lisa Holmquist, Pam King, Warren Cradduck, Handsome Husband and others who put up with my whining...then

spend the next day relaxing and being grateful! 

Day Trips

I've been hard at it, putting the last swipes of  color on canvas for an exhibit I hang in just a few short days.

I'd been struggling with ideas and themes for an exhibit that had been scheduled for several months. You know how it is when you look hard for something and it just doesn't make itself known?  Like Sir Isaac Newton; he spent all that time looking for a good idea without success, then when he least expected, an apple fell on his head and -'poof' - there it was, gravity.

Handsome Husband and I were out for a much needed breath of fresh air early this spring. We'd been cooped up for weeks due to typical Nebraska winter weather; grey, windy and c-c-c-c-cold. On this day, however, the sun shone brilliantly against a warming blue sky and we hopped in the car to see what had happened around the county since the last snowstorm. 

As HH and I drove the roads around our town we saw life rising in the meadows and fields, creeks and river bottoms. Grey turned to gold, pink, coral. Honestly, it's this way every spring and yet, every year it is a delightful surprise; the loveliness that unfolds so often right before our eyes in the routine of our days. And there it was; my great idea.  I had quit looking for a theme, and it was right there in front of me. What I see every day, drive by, through or around in the course of my life. Day Trips.

We plan magnificent vacations and travel for days and fly a thousand miles to see something new, we read of exotic locations that leave us wishing we were anywhere but here. Yet sometimes 'here', that place within a few minutes of home, is lovely too; rich with color, texture and mystery.

 

©2013Patricia Scarborough  Harvested   12 x 12 oil

Day Trips is a call to attention, a kind suggestion that you, I, all of us, tuck our pads, pods, phones and readers away for awhile and lift our eyes to the world in front of us, right where we are.

Day Trips is an exhibit of new work opening at The Burkholder Project in Lincoln, Ne. on July 3rd, and available for viewing through July 31st, 2013.  I'm sharing exhibit space with ceramic artist Sharon Ohmberger. Our opening reception is during Lincoln's First Friday Art Walk on Friday, July 5th from 7 - 9pm. Looking forward to seeing you there!

I Been Robbed

I have been burgled.

Thieves have struck Scarborough Acres.  One day all was well, the next - ‘poof’ - the goods were gone.  By the light of a waning moon burglars had not simply left their mark, they had taken it with them, along with my stuff.

Gone, split, disappeared, with no hope of a return.  All that was left were a few tangled wisps of gold mixed with shards and splinters.

I’ve seen the culprits. They’ve been hanging around, always on the lookout for something they can get away with. They’ve been getting bolder lately, standing out in the open, watching. We certainly didn’t expect this.

This was bold and brazen. This was in your face.  This was eat the fat blossom right off the top of the sunflower stalk and sprinkle what was left at the base just to let me know he/she/it could.

I plant sunflowers every year. Local farmers are baffled by my insistence on planting these – in their opinions - giant weeds. Our rural friends spend a great deal of time and energy ridding their fields of these golden giants and can’t understand why someone would purposefully plant a garden full. (I plant milkweed too. Gotta feed the butterflies.) Me, I love watching them grow from gangly youngsters to towering kings of all they survey. It’s a pleasure to be greeted each morning with such wide open delight circled in a tousled amber crown.

Not this year, however.  Under cover of darkness, a thief or thieves actually removed the heads of nearly my entire crop. Evidently dessert was not on the menu, the only tops left are hardly a mouthful, even for a small, hungry creature of the night.

The thing is, it didn’t need to happen. I’d have shared. The plan has always been to grow a batch of big fat sunflowers, then enjoy a plein air painting extravaganza  just a few steps from my back door.  When I had my fill of painting golden halos against blue skies and the heads began to droop I would have stepped aside and welcomed any number of birds or squirrels, which ever got there first.

2010 Patricia Scarborough Square 16 - Sunflowers  Private Collection

2011 Patricia Scarborough  Salute!  Available at Graham Gallery

Someone cut in line, and now I’ve been robbed, raided, bamboozled even. (Maybe not bamboozled. I just like the word.)  There goes the neighborhood. If I want to go on my usual August sunflower painting jag I'm going to have to go hunting for them far beyond the comfort of my yard.

Looking for sunflowers for 2012

While you're waiting for my sunflower paintings from the summer of 2012, stop by The Burkholder Project in Lincoln, Ne. You've got 2 more weeks to see "Common Ground" featuring your intrepid sunflower painter and ceramic artist Sharon Ohmberger. It's worth a peak. Quick! Before it's gone!

See What I See

This weekend I’m in the final stages of preparation for an exhibit with ceramic artist Sharon Ohmberger at The Burkholder Project.  

One of the little pleasures I allow myself when preparing for an exhibit is to haul all the potential artwork into one room and spread it out. Every piece is all spiffed up and rubbing elbows with its neighbor like kin a holiday family photo.

This is the time Handsome Husband and I take stock of my latest efforts. Today, popping up all over my living room like happy sunflowers are 20 paintings that – if I must say so myself – look pretty darned good. 

©2012 Patricia Scarborough Hayfields, Looking Back  11 x 14 oil

The last couple of years I’ve had a steady pace of exhibiting; some group shows, a few juried, even a couple of solo exhibits. The only way to pull that off is to paint – a lot. And I’m telling you, you can’t show up at an easel that many times and not come away with something.

What I’ve come away with is a different, fresh way of interpreting what I’ve been painting for a couple of decades. Not to worry, I’m still very much a landscape painter, and there’s no doubt these are landscape paintings. It’s that I come to them with a clearer understanding of what I want to show you when I look over the hills and fields of south central Nebraska.

©2012 Patricia Scarborough  Meander  12 x 16 oil

Come see for yourself. I’m happy to invite you to The Burkholder Project, 719 P St in Lincoln, Ne to see this exhibit, which will hang from July 2 through the 31^st.  If you're feeling cooped up, join us for Lincoln’s First Friday Art Walk from 7 – 9pm.  the Haymarket District is a great place to spend a Friday evening. It might be toasty, the weather's been fierce lately, but you can slip across the street for a cool drink or an ice cream and hang out with other art lovers.

Come see what I see.

Electronic Dust Bunnies - 0

Greetings All -


All technical difficulties have been overcome and dealt with.  The problem?  Well, it's...uh...technical. Electronical stuff.


As you recall, last week I was reduced to describing a painting for you. the image I intended to share was trapped somewhere between my camera and your computer screen, caught and kept prisoner by a giant electronic dust bunny. The irony of it all was that I had hoped to coast for a week by merely posting an image and then putting my feet up.  As it turned out, I ended up spending a couple of hours describing this painting to you out of shear determination to not be beaten by computer bugs. 


Let's try it again, shall we?

Pictures are so  much better than words, wouldn't you agree?

 

©2012 Patricia Scarborough Cool Shallows 16 x 20 oil

See this and other paintings at The Burkholder Project, 719 P St. in Lincoln, Ne. during the month of July.  I'll be sharing exhibit space with ceramic artist Sharon Ohmberger.  Our opening reception will be Friday, July 6th from 7 - 9:00 pm. 

Stop by and see what a thousand words will get you.

Scarborough - 1, Electronic Dust Bunnies - 0

A Thousand Words

Well, this is beyond annoying.

My plan this week was to show you an oil painting I completed this week. It’s for my exhibit, with  ceramic artist Sharon Ohmberger, at The Burkholder Project opening on July 3^rd.

(Insert image of fabulous picture here)

However, my camera seems to have eaten my photograph.

For unexplainable reasons I cannot retrieve the image from my camera, feed it to my computer and upload it into the World Wide Web for all to see.  It’s there, I promise, somewhere in the wiring or circuitry. Hiding behind an electron or something.

(Image of me wild-eyed,  shaking camera)

And what’s really frustrating is that I was hoping to slide by on just that photograph. I was planning on enticing you with a simple image. Skip the words. A clever way to take the week off.

(Insert image of me with my feet up)

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Let’s just see, shall we?

Imagine a 16 x 20 format.  A line of distant trees on the far side of a river, painted in cool, dull greens about a third of the way from the top. Moving through the green are marks of dull lavender to give interest and subtlety. Where it meets a river, few slashes of dull yellow paint to indicate a rough bank. 

(Insert close-up of fabulous marks on fabulous painting.)

On the left at about midpoint are three gangly trees on a spit of land. They remind me of teenage boys, all skinny and elbow-y and a week overdue for a haircut.

(Insert another close-up...)

On the right, across an inlet, stand 7 of their friends, their feet hidden in dashes of rich green paint. The trunks of the trees are dull purples and greens, sunlit with short strokes of pinky-orange.

(...and another.)

Tucked into the dark green at the base of the trees are patches of more intense orangey- pink patches. Up close they are globs of paint. From across the room they become warm rocks and sand.

(Too many?)

A clear sky in prussian blue mixed with ultramarine weaves in and out of the trees, a puff of clouds accenting the trunks on the left.

The same blues are seen in dashes of paint taking up the bottom third of the painting.  How to describe shallow running water tumbling over stones? This area is created from dashes of dark blues and greens mingling with brighter variations of the same hues. Heavy paint marks of orange and pink meant to be sunlit rocks erupting from the water’s surface interrupt the march of blue lines angling toward the middle of the painting.  From there they blend quietly into the smoother marks of the river flowing beyond the tree line.

(Really, this one requires a close-up, maybe two.)

So far I've shared only the big landmarks. I’ve used up just a third of my allotted thousand words.  It would take that many and more to describe the nuances of color and brush stroke that I’ve yet to share.  Even twice that many words wouldn’t suffice.  There’s a reason I’m not a writer.

(This is where I would have posted a perfectly taken photo of this fabulous painting. You'd have been impressed.)

Allow me a few days to figure out the problem. When I do, I promise to share the image as planned. With as few words as possible.