The Bellevue Artsfair starts this Friday and I couldn’t be happier. It’s been a long break between shows for summer, so I’m anxious to get back. And Bellevue is one of the best!

This year I’m thrilled to be showing my oil paintings along with my pastels for the first time in Bellevue. And I will have a lot of them after I take down the Metamorphosis show from the Kress Gallery on Wednesday. Show weeks are always busy, but this is especially crazy… after spending today framing and delivering my Alice in Wonderland piece to the Tinman Gallery, I have to take down shows at Pacific Garden Design tomorrow and the Kress on Wednesday before loading the car for the show. Plus the usual million little pre-show details like price tags and artwork lists. And covering my entire studio in plastic so my upstairs neighbor can sand his floors.

SO. Anyway. If you’re in the Seattle/Bellevue area this Friday-Saturday-Sunday, come by the Artsfair! It’s an amazing show and I will have more new and different work than ever before. The details:

Bellevue Arts Museum ArtsFair
When: July 23 – 25, 2010
Where: Bellevue Square parking garage, 510 Bellevue Way NE, Bellevue, WA
Hours: Friday – Saturday, 9:30 a.m. – 9:30 p.m., Sunday 9:30 a.m. – 6 p.m.
What I’m bringing: Pastels and Oils
Booth # J-08

And now for something else completely different… an Alice-in-Wonderland-inspired piece titled Why Not? which I’ve just completed for the Tinman Gallery‘s second annual Oz-vitational. Huh? Well, Year One was an Oz-vitational. This year all of the artwork will be inspired by the childrens’ classic, Alice in Wonderland. (Much to the relief of the artists who participated in Year One, I’m sure. Fresh inspiration!)

I’m embarrassed to admit that I had never read Alice in Wonderland nor even seen a movie version until receiving this assignment. I tried both several times as a child and never quite made it through for one reason or another. Luckily for me, a fresh movie came out on DVD just in time for my research. Better still, this particular movie had a CGI Tweedledum and Tweeedledee played by/modeled after the hilarious Matt Lucas, from the seriously funny Little Britain USA.

Anyway, back to my point if I had one. I did stop laughing just long enough to catch an approximately four-second reference to Alice and the Red Queen painting white roses red, and there was my idea. Roses dripping with shiny red paint, forming the shape of the Red Queen’s heart surrounded by white roses yet to be painted. This piece and “Alice” works by many wonderful artists will be available for purchase at the show.

The Alice in Wonderland Invitational runs from July 30 through August 21. Opening reception is from 5 – 9 p.m. Friday, August 30.

The Tinman Gallery is located in Spokane’s historic Garland District at 811 West Garland Avenue.

Next week I plan to revisit my Raintree sketches in oil. I’m curious to see how they will turn out. The little pastel sketches reminded me of a combination of a 1940s barkcloth print and my older bunchgrass pieces–which I’ve never painted in oil. Here’s looking forward to next week and a new challenge!

After last year I was absolutely done with my art fair booth. No more changes. Ha.

As always on the long trip back from Sausalito last year, Paul and I, sick of tedious setups and tear-downs, discussed how we could make things easier. Of course it would be easiest to just skip all the extra stuff I’ve added, set up the Pro Panels and be done with it. But if you have read my previous stories (rants? storants?) about how all of that came to be, you may understand that at this point I am kind of attached to the look.

So how, without sacrificing the basic feel of the booth, to make things easier? Well, we came up with a plan. And although this plan will admittedly make life easier in future, it did definitely NOT make my life easier the past few weeks.

First order of business was to redesign the naugahyde “baseboards.” The current ones were frankly a giant pain in the ass to unpack, wrap on the walls, then unwrap and re-pack for every show. Worse yet, despite all my loving care and handmade individual flannel bags (yes really), they were starting to look pretty bad. The stain that I spent weeks putting on over the past few years was, predictably, coming off.

 I think it was Paul who came up with the idea to make one permanent “baseboard” per wall that stayed on at all times—brilliant! So, back to the upholstery store for about a mile of new, copper naugahyde that DID NOT NEED TO BE STAINED. Yay. Then I had only to cut then sew about 300 (really maybe 16) loops of the stuff, pop them on the bottoms of the walls, and hot glue foam inside to keep them from sagging. Oh, then go back to the upholstery store for 15 yards of bungee cord to keep them from sliding down from the weight of the foam. And… six months later… Done! (OK, so the breakdown on that was actually 5-1/2 months of procrastination and maybe two weeks of actual work. But still.)

 Then, on to the wooden top rails. They looked pretty nice and were in good shape, but had problems of their own. They were unwieldy to transport, and my original design severely limited wall arrangement options. Every year I made more and more rails to gain a few more possible booth layouts, until eventually at each show we ended up storing almost as many as we used. They needed to be modular, to be one-size-fits-all. I took on this problem, and after a few days came up with a design inspired by a combination of Greene and Greene’s Gamble House stairwell and Tinkertoys.

The new design had one separate top rail for each wall, all the same, all interchangeable. Various simple connectors—straight, corner, and end pieces—would hold everything together. The scary part: the new rails would be made from the old ones. After that first chop there would be no turning back. Terrified, I procrastinated even longer than for the baseboards. But with a show just a few weeks away I was out of time. Luckily, after a week or so more of cutting, routing, drilling, sanding and staining, I now have a simple lightweight system that looks surprisingly not so different from the original. And as a special bonus, I still have all of my fingers! Hooray!

Finally, Major Booth Revision Number Three is complete. Today I took advantage of my trial run to take some booth photos for next year’s show entries (see top of this post). So that’s it then. No more booth revisions. No “Evolution Part Four.” That’s a promise to me.

Want more? Read Evolution of an Art Fair Booth Part 1 and Part 2.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve stretched no fewer than twenty four of my 6″ mini canvases. Needless to say, I’ve got it dialed in fairly well by now. But I realized that I probably have all the tiny canvases that I need (or have time to paint) this year. And I also realized that by next year I might have absolutely no idea how I did them, because I’m like that. Like what, you ask? Worrying? Forgetful? Mildly obsessive? Yes.

So without further ado, here are my notes on stretching tiny gallery wrap canvases. Or any gallery wrap canvases, if you use bigger stuff.

I started with a 6″ x 6″ x 2″ deep canvas stretcher (I have them made by a framing wholesaler), and an 18″ square of canvas from which 5-1/4″ squares have been removed at the corners. When the stretcher is centered on the canvas this leaves about 5/8″ from the sides of the stretcher to the cut edges of the corners.

Once the canvas is centered, I pull up each side and place one staple in its center, on the back of the stretcher frame, being careful to stretch the fabric as tightly as possible from side to side. I pick a side and continue to staple all the way across. I then repeat this on the opposite side, again stretching the canvas as tightly as possible. After stretching two opposite sides, I then fold the sides of those flaps around the frame and place a staple in each one (4 staples total). This keeps the fabric flat as you fold over the remaining two sides.

After completing the first two sides, I trim the fabric on the stapled edges to about 3/4″ from the staples to reduce the bulk on the back of the canvas. After this is done I pinch together excess fabric at each corner (starting at least 1/4″ away from the frame) and trim it off.

After this is done it is time to staple the last two sides. I fold up the canvas flaps, using the edge of my scissors to tuck the corner in tightly as I fold the flap under. The edge of the folded flap should run neatly along the corner edge of the frame. After folding each edge, I pull the canvas tight and staple the rest of the side to the folded corners.

Almost done! Once the sides are completely stapled, I have only to trim the excess fabric near the staples… and give the folded fabric at the corners a few good taps with my hammer to “iron” them flat. Voila! The canvases are ready for gesso.

Note: you may have noticed in the photo I am wearing gloves. I am not just wearing gloves, I am wearing gloves over other gloves with a band-aid on my middle left top knuckle. If you stretch more than a canvas or two in a day, you will understand why.

Now after all this business about going big, it’s time to go the other direction. Last week I ordered some tiny canvas stretchers the same depth as my large canvases, making some nice, chunky little 6″ x 6″ x 2″ supports for a dozen soon-to-be paintings.

I’ve always really enjoyed small work. I love the idea of tucking an original painting into a bookcase, a mantel, a windowsill or a hundred other unexpected spots.

Since I began selling at art fairs, I’ve always included some miniature version of my work in an effort to make original art available for a relatively low price (and for those avid collectors without another inch of available wall space). Although I did offer some reproductions of my work the first year, I decided to discontinue them and focus exclusively on original art. While the miniature originals may not be quite so potentially profitable as repros, I feel good about making them. I also find that I get along much better with my printmaking neighbors at shows.

Up to now my only miniature works have been in pastel, but since I began showing oils, it followed that I should make oil minis as well. The little canvases pictured at left will be my first efforts. I’ve always loved the almost-sculptural look of chunky, cubular little paintings. I’m so excited to see how they turn out. I’ll post some favorites soon!

It’s been one thing after another lately. I just got over my cold in time to hack my (formerly) working thumb with a kitchen knife. Well, technically I didn’t really hack myself. I just bumped the knife so that it spun like a top off of the counter, making contact on its way to the floor. In any case, the big awkward bandage is not helpful when it comes to painting. Benched again.

Pretty frustrating since I was on a roll with oil painting. But, it’s given me time to think about the reason for that roll.

A few months ago, as I mentioned ad nauseam at the time, I gave myself the project of painting my 3′ x 9′ triptych, Las Lunas (detail, above). It took some weeks to do it and it was pretty daunting since the biggest paintings of my professional career up to that point had been four feet on the long side. But it was really interesting to work on such a large scale (I clamped the canvases together as I painted so it was effectively one big painting).

While it didn’t seem too terribly different from other paintings at the time, it did have an interesting effect afterward. Every painting I’ve done since has seemed really small. And by small I mean manageable, doable, un-intimidating. Easy.

Ever since that one big painting, there has been a significant shift in the way I paint. I’m faster, more fearless at it. I mix the paint and get it on the canvas and don’t worry so much about whether it is right. Oddly, though, it is right far more often than it used to be. It’s as if that big painting filled some sort of requirement to get me to the next level. It put my regular work in perspective.

So, if I am making some sort of a point about my experience here, I guess it is this: do something that scares you. Work outside your comfort zone. If you do, you might just find that your comfort zone is a lot bigger when you are done.

Things feel a little scattered now… I have the neverending cold and only made it to the studio sporadically this week. I did manage to complete my oil version of Springrise (above), which felt pretty good under the circumstances. It was one of those paintings that just falls off the fingers, then in what should have been the last few minutes I went too far with part of it and had to wipe it down and start over—twice. I was afraid I wouldn’t finish at all today which was pretty annoying considering I expected to walk in, dab at it a few times and walk away victorious. I just kept thinking of John Singer Sargent as I wiped at it with my Gamsol-soaked rag… he is reputed to have wiped down parts of his amazing paintings multiple times to keep that “fresh” look to his brushstrokes. It’s scary, but it works. I ended up somewhat happier in the end. Sargent, on the other hand, ended up with Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. Onward.

And now for something completely different…

It’s not really news per se, but I just got my acceptance email for Art in the High Desert. After last year’s Benchmark Award, I knew I would be in the show, but I have to say it’s still exciting to get that “Congratulations!” email. Especially if you are a Big Dork. But I’m not naming names.

More on the subject of Big Dorks…

I’m loving my studio right now. It is packed with fresh art, just like it usually is this time of year. I think it’s more noticeable this time, perhaps, because unlike my previous studio, it started out big and empty. A 10′ x 11′ room can only look so empty with two shelving units, a desk, a table, a taboret, two easels, two air purifiers, photographic light stands, a roll of canvas, a chair, a few rugs and various and sundry leftover drawings. But 675 square feet can swallow up all that plus that much more again and still seem cavernous. Which is why I was hit with a little teeny tiny bit of dread recently… soon there will be festivals and shows to hang and all the paintings will be gone and it will be empty again. Which is always just a little bit sad.

For photos of the studio as it looked last week,