Spring Art Show Weather

PICT0023

I know it’s time to start really getting ready for early outdoor art shows each year when I see green grass, flowers and fresh snow in the morning. Montana follows the official season starting dates more so than states farther south, so our outdoor summer shows don’t even start until July. This year, like I sometimes do, I’m getting a start on the season by heading south to do a show in May. (My more gung-ho artists friends often do shows in the south all winter long. I prefer to take a winter break.)

PICT0022Heading south, at least as far as I go, doesn’t guarantee good weather though. Several years ago I did the Brookside Art Annual in Kansas City the first week of May. The first day was canceled due to snow, the first they’d had that time of year in almost a century. I could have stayed home in Montana if I’d wanted that kind of abuse! (Usually by then the Midwest is more worried about tornadoes than snow.)

More recently I participated in the Downtown Denver Arts Festival later in May and had quite good weather. (Those booths more exposed to the wind that blew down one day might have a different opinion about the weather that weekend.) Of course Denver weather can be iffy this time of year too, but I’ve decided to head back and see what the weather gods throw at us this time.

If you’re in the Denver area, check out this top-rated Colorado show. It’s May 22-24 on the grounds of the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Bring your umbrella, sunscreen, your flip-flops, and a parka and play weather roulette with the artists.

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POTD: Nine O’Clock Shadows

POTD: Nine O'Clock ShadowsNine O’Clock Shadows
Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona
2015

The morning shadows on the front of the Painted Desert Inn suggest a row of those vertical wall mount sundials you see now and then. I don’t know how accurate these viga shadows would be at actually telling time over the long term but they seem reasonably accurate for the day the photo was taken. At sunrise that day (approximately 6:30 a.m.) the shadows would have been nearly horizontal on the left (west) side of the vigas. At noon they would presumably be pointing almost straight down, assuming the wall was facing directly south as it seemed to be. Since 9:40 a.m. when I took this photo is about midway between sunrise and noon, it makes sense that the shadow would form about a 45 degree angle, half-way between horizontal and vertical. (Perhaps one of my brother’s science and mathematically inclined students would like verify my logic for some extra credit in his class?)

Whether or not they could tell time accurately, I enjoyed the repetitive pattern of the shadows in the rather minimalistic scene.

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POTD: Down the Middle

POTD: Down the MiddleDown the Middle
Tucson, Arizona
2015

I always enjoyed the gnarled old Russian Olive trees on the University of Arizona campus when I was in graduate school there way too many years ago (40 to be more precise). My photography interests were rather dormant back then so I never photographed them back then, but I remedied that on our visit in March. I believe the last four decades are more noticeable on me than they are on these trees; they look very much the same as I remember them back then.

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Under the Gum Tree

Under the Gum Tree is a “literary micro-magazine” that is published both electronically and in hard copy. They specialize in creative nonfiction writing and also the visual arts. Recently they asked me if they could publish some of my work, in particular parts of my Lives Real and Imagined project.

When I got my hard copies of the magazine I was impressed with the quality of the presentation, both of my work and that of Gale Hart, the visual other artist in that issue. They may be a small outfit but they do an impressive job. My work presents as well there as it did when it was published in Lenswork magazine in 2013. (Technically the printed images in Lenswork are of better quality, that is just one aspect of how work comes across in a magazine.)

In conjunction with the publication, the magazine interviewed me via email. If you are so inclined, you can read the results on their blog here.

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