Dots1   7x7"   Graphite on paper 

Dots2 Landscape    7x7"    Graphite on paper  

Dots3    7x7"   Graphite on paper

Dots4    7x7"   Graphite with red pastel highlights on paper

Happy Summer!
It arrives with this offering of a couple drawings that were inspired by an image in a dream. First came the title, which alas, I couldn't quite remember when I woke up, other than it was two words and both began with "P". Below is my representation of the image I clearly saw: six inverted triangles on a rust orange background, Triangles 2, below. The bottom image, Triangles 1, is a preliminary sketch I liked... Their meaning is unclear. Sometimes things just want to come through! You know how images percolate thru your psyche...  A couple days ago I was looking at a David Hockney painting of a southern california suburban lawn-scape with the sprinklers going, looking like little white V-shaped fans balancing against the greens. I'm not sure if that was the genesis? There is a certain erotic charge to them as well. It was nice getting reacquainted with my pencils. The process on these was much more vigorous and tactile than the more etheric, painted Veil series I've been doing of late.

Triangles 2   8x12" Graphite and colored pencil on paper   Available

Triangles 1   10x14"    Graphite on paper    Available

Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s vision for Over The River was conceived in 1992 and included 5.9 miles (9.5 kilometers) of silvery, luminous fabric panels to be suspended clear of and high above the water in eight distinct areas along a 42-mile (67.6 kilometer) stretch of the Arkansas River between Cañon City and Salida in south-central Colorado.

In August 1992, 1993 and 1994, in search of a site for the project, Christo and Jeanne-Claude and their team traveled 14,000 miles (22,530 kilometers) in the Rocky Mountains in the United States. On those trips, the team prospected eighty-nine rivers, in seven states, and six possible locations were found. After visiting the six sites again in the summer of 1996, the Arkansas River in Colorado was selected.

Christo received all federal, state and local permits necessary to realize Over The River in 2011, when the US Department of the Interior announced its Record of Decision. This federal action was the final step of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which is usually reserved for major infrastructures such as bridges, highways, dams and airports. The EIS for Over The River, the first ever completed for a work of art, began in the spring of 2009 and was prepared by the Bureau of Land Management, Royal Gorge Field Office, resulting in a 1,686 page comprehensive analysis.

In 2012, a local group opposed to this temporary work of art filed lawsuits against Colorado State Parks in State Court and against the United States Federal Government, Bureau of Land Management, in U.S. Federal Court. In January 2017, after pursuing Over The River, Project for the Arkansas River, State of Colorado for 20 years and going through five years of legal arguments, Christo decided to no longer wait on the outcome and devote all of his energy, time and resources into the realization of The Mastaba, Project for Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

For more info:  http://christojeanneclaude.net/projects/over-the-river

Alexander is in the house! This summer, several of his mobiles and stabiles grace the buildings and landscape of Denver's Botanic Gardens, (thru September 24th.) Its great to see his work again after I saw the exhibit, Calder and Abstraction: from Avant-garde to Iconic at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2014. We forget he was an American in Paris in the '30s and knew Picasso and Chagall. And later his works were a favorite of architects Mies Van de Rohe and Frank Lloyd Wright. It is the first outdoor exhibit of his work in a decade. Untitled, from 1976 is shown above in the left side of the panel. And shown at right is Incandescent, one of Teresa Booth Brown's wonderful mixed media abstract photo collages on display at the DBG's indoor Gates Garden Court Gallery. I was fortunate to previously view her show at Michael Warren Contemporary on Santa Fe.  Her exhibit at DBG is up thru August 6th. To mix the glories of art and nature, the Denver Botanic Gardens, is the place to be!
For more info: https://www.botanicgardens.org/art-exhibits/current-upcoming