chase the light

Jill and I headed over in the rain this morning to hit the Brewery Artwalk [LINK]. It’s a twice annual event at the downtown brewery complex where some of the artists open their studios for you to meet them and see their work. I wanted to get there early so that if anything caught my eye I could snatch it up. The first 10 or so studios we went into were just crap but it slowly got better and almost redeemed itself by the end. I say almost because I still left underwhelmed by the quality of work. Robert Peluce [LINK] was the one standout artist I wanted to see and meet but sadly he passed away last Monday. There were some candles lit at the front door of his studios. About a month ago I had gone over to the Glass Garage Gallery [LINK] to see some of his work and inquired about one I liked. It was unfortunately at their sister gallery in Florida at the moment but could be shipped out if I’d like it. So I hesitated and decided to see what he might have, if anything, at the Artwalk and then choose something at that point. Now he’s gone, an absolutely amazing artist that will be missed. Beyond that 90% of the artists were pure crap and you wonder how they can say they’re artists with a straight face. Of course I love people in my paintings so that eliminates almost all of the abstract artists for me. One girls’ studio was beautifully painted all in angels, but not very interesting beyond that, and Christian Ristow [LINK] created these mechanicals monsters that are pretty incredible. You can see what his show is all about here [LINK]. I also got to meet Mat Gleason [LINK] who is the publisher of the local magazine Coagula [LINK]. I recognized him immediately from his photo on the website. I happened upon his website about 6 months ago and love his take on a lot of what goes on in the art world. Celebrity sighting of the day was Donna Mills [LINK], who played Abby Fairgate Cunningham Ewing Sumner on Knots Landing. A Cunningham on TV, had to put that in there. Then we ate lunch at Sharkey’s, went home and I dozed in a 2 hour food coma. A little video… [VIDEO LINK]