Friday, January 15, 2010

Taking the Show on the Road

I've got an exhibition of my tornado paintings going up at the Dayton Visual Arts Center this winter. I'll be sharing the front gallery space with sculptor/installation artist Michael Bashaw, who's putting together a large scale tornado shaped piece for the show. All of this is being done in partnership with the Victoria Theatre Association, who are rightly excited about the opening of the musical "Wicked" on February 17th (are you sensing a theme here?) .

Well, yesterday was art moving day, and in keeping with the "behind the scenes" theme I started in my previous post, I thought I'd share some snapshots of how things went.

Below is what 38 paintings look like when they're boxed up and ready to load into a car. Framed, my largest paintings are probably only 12" x 18" inches. That makes transport fairly easy. I can't imagine what a hassle it must be to have to move and store large works.


The gallery itself is a lovely storefront operation in downtown Dayton.


I was lucky to schedule my drop-off on a Thursday, since that meant I could participate in the weekly "Art Lunch". This is an apparently long-standing tradition in Dayton where artists meet to share work, provide feedback, and generally chat about what they've been up to. I was glad to be a part of it. Also, guess what the most common question is after people find out you paint tornadoes?

I'll give you a hint, it's "Why tornadoes?".

I unpacked a few pieces while I was there, but I didn't stick around for the install. They have a good team at DVAC, and I trust them to come up with a nice presentation. These works can be tricky to hang since the subject matter, size, style, and framing are all very similar. I hate to use the word monotonous when I'm talking about my paintings, but the fact is when you get a bunch of them together, they can be!


I'll likely post some images once the show is hung. I'll make sure I get some shots of Michael's installation too. It looks good now, but I was reluctant to post pictures of it in progress. The opening reception is on Friday February 5th, and then Michael and I are scheduled to give a gallery talk on Thursday February 11th. Everyone likes to hear artists talk about their work, right?

...right?

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