The Ralph Art Blog

Tom Reynolds Trio

2011-12-11T15:12:00.002-06:00

We dropped in at this month's Kimbell After Hours (2nd Saturday of every month) to hear the Tom Reynolds Trio. They were amazingly (but not surprisingly) good! I missed their first set but the set we heard was brilliant - composed primarily of swing and other jazz, performed by Tom (on guitar), with Andy Crisanti on clarinet and an outstanding bass player (whose name I did not catch).

I've known Tom since our sons were in Boy Scouts together years ago, and he's a prince of a fellow, in addition to being a phenomenal guitar player. Andy Crisanti was once principal clarinetist with the Ft Worth Symphony before retiring. He said he'd gone full circle, since he started out playing swing back in the 1940's.

A thoroughly enjoyable time. Tom plays frequently at the Scat Lounge in Fort Worth, as well as putting in appearances elsewhere in the DFW area.

Thank, Tom!

The Portrait Project

2011-10-26T23:04:00.005-05:00

A few years (quite a few, actually) I decided to start a project that I referred to (in my mind) as "One Hundred Portraits." After the first dozen or so, I decided it was just "the Portrait Project."

The goal was, loosely stated, to do a portrait of everyone I knew. Talk about a never-ending task. Regardless, I've completed around 50 (give or take).

Last fall my good friend Leo Wesson, who I've known and worked with for over 30 years, came over and shot a massive number of works on paper for me on his digital camera. Among the stuff he shot were most of the portraits. After much screwing around, I've finally posted my favorites on the Ralph Art website.

The pieces that comprise the project follow a fairly standard format: all are more or less mug-shots, and are on 22 x 30 rag paper. Not all are paintings; quite a few were done as drawings.

It's been fun, and I'm certainly not finished (I meet new people every day), but only a few people have seen them, and usually only a handful of the pieces at that. If you know me, you probably know quite a few of the people in these works.

A big thanks (again) to Leo, who made this possible.

Enjoy!

New: John on the Ice blog

2011-08-19T17:25:00.003-05:00

Rather than posting stuff on this site, I decided to set up another blog for updates about John's Antarctica adventure. It's called John on the Ice (clever, I know). This way folks won't have to wade through my ponderous pontifications about Art and the like, when all they really wanted to know was how John is doing.

By the way, by my clock, he's enroute to Los Angeles now from Denver, where he had his company orientation. He departs from Los Angeles later this evening for Auckland, New Zealand.

The Penguin has departed

2011-08-16T17:02:00.000-05:00

A quick note: oldest son John departed this afternoon for Antarctica, where he'll be working for six months (doing food service for the inhabitants of McMurdo Station).

His first stop is Denver, where he'll do a couple of days of training in Denver. From there, after a brief layover, he'll fly to New Zealand. The final leg of his journey, from Christchurch, NZ, to McMurdo, Antarctica, will be aboard a military transport plane.

McMurdo Station, on Ross Island (on the southwest corner of Ross Sea), is the operational hub and logistics center for the United States Antarctic Program, which in turn is part of the National Science Foundation. McMurdo is the largest installation on the continent and is the gateway to all other US bases.

During the active (summer) season, around 1,200 people are based there. They are just entering the spring season down there; average highs for September are -5 F, and average lows are -20 F. December is the warmest time of the year - average highs are around 30 F, with lows down to 21 F.

Curious about the weather? Check the McMurdo webcam.

He'll be there until March of 2012. It should be a great adventure.

New 4th of July painting

2011-07-06T20:39:00.001-05:00

Well, I finished this on the weekend of the 4th. I started it about
nine months ago. Also: I'm not so much finished as I am tired of
screwing with it. Maybe it will grow on me. I don't dislike it as much
as I did 3 weeks ago so there's hope.

(Photo taken with my iPhone, which is why it looks so crappy.)

Saturday May 14 is Spring Arts Goggle

2011-05-13T22:24:00.001-05:00

Don't forget, Saturday May 14 is the spring edition of the twice yearly Arts Goggle on Fort Worth's Near (or is it Mid) South Side. In years past most of the action was concentrated along Magnolia Avenue between 8th Ave and Hemphill but it's slowly spread in all directions.

Lots of art and music, lots of fun. Printed handouts are available at most venues and locations of events can be found on the web. DFW.com has musical lineups, and Fort Worth South has a printable PDF of both art and music programs. Facebook has a page as well.

My old friend John Moore has a closing reception at Arts 5th Ave which I will be attending, and I'm told a friend will be playing at Shaws's, so chances are I'll be there at some point. In addition to the art and music, this is a great opportunity to see some of the redeveloped spaces in the area.

Be there or be square!

29th Annual Art in the Metroplex Competition

2011-05-08T22:48:00.001-05:00

Received in the mail:

The 29^th Annual Art in the Metroplex Visual Arts Competition "Call for Entries" are now being mailed out to Dallas, Tarrant and surrounding counties. The non-profit Art in the Metroplex is held in the Moudy Gallery at Texas Christian University. Over $2,000 in prize money will be awarded at a reception and award ceremony September 10, 2011 at 2:30 p.m. by the juror.

This year's juror, Toby Kamps, is the Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the renowned Menil Collection in Houston. During his last post as the Senior Curator of the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston, Mr. Kamps' exhibition "The Old, Weird America" won the award for "Best Thematic Show Nationally" from the U.S. chapter of the International Association of Art Critics. His previous posts also include the senior curator of the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati and Director of the Institute of Contemporary Art and assistant professor at Maine College of Art. As curator and department head at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, he led the collections committee and was active in identifying and presenting works of art for acquisition.

If you are not on the TCU Art in the Metroplex mailing list, call 817-257-7643, or check the TCU website for links to Slideroom.com:

www.artandarthistory.tcu.e du/events_art_inthe_metroplex.asp

The entry fee is $35 and allows up to three pieces of work. Work and fee must be submitted online by Wednesday, July 20, 2010.

Contacts:       Christina Rees
                        Curator, The Art Galleries at TCU
                        817-257-7638

                        Kerry Pacillio
                        Gallery Assistant, The Art Galleries at TCU
                        817-257-2588
                        kerry.mathis@tcu.edu

John Moore at Arts Fifth Avenue

2011-04-10T12:52:00.000-05:00

My old friend John C. Moore has a new show over at Arts Fifth Avenue here in Fort Worth, which opened last night. It is, not surprisingly, wonderful.

He's pulled in some themes he worked with in his Hip Pocket production, On The Origins of the Specifics (look for fossils and the HMS Beagle), as well as some other classically Moorian imagery. Dorothy and I showed up at around 8 PM last night and already 7 pieces had been sold.

Along with John, there were some great work by Dale Connor and Wally Night.

In addition to seeing John, I also ran into old friend Beth F. and Robert E, who I'd not seen in a long time. A great event. Catch it while you can. There is a closing event scheduled for Spring Arts Google on Saturday, May 14.

PS: here's my own John Moore painting.

New drawings from the sketchbook series now online

2011-02-07T07:17:00.001-06:00

I just updated the Sketchbook page on the Ralph Art website. New images are under the Cats, Children and Interior tabs. Most of these images date back to when John and Edward were very young (1986-1992).

Next: I've got a bunch of new digital photos of works on paper (thanks, Leo!) which I'll be processing over the next month or so. Includes lots of pieces from my ongoing portrait project.

A new acquisition for the collection

2011-02-01T13:00:00.000-06:00

As of Sunday, I became the proud owner of a painting by my old friend, John C. Moore, who is a fabulous artist. You can see more of his art on his Facebook page.

Here's my treasure. I'm currently trying to find a decent place to hang it in my house.

Please note I shot this with my iPhone so I could post this quickly. The actual painting is a far better thing than my crappy photo.

Thank you so much John for sharing this with me!

Photo Shoot!

2010-11-15T09:06:00.001-06:00

Over the weekend my good friend, Leo Wesson, professional photographer and cook extraordinaire, came over and spent the greater part of the day shooting digital images of works on paper. I'd documented some of these using my crappy digital camera, but Leo came over and took really good pictures (he is a trained professional, after all).

He'd shot art for me in the past on film - mostly 4 x 5 transparencies. This was a lot faster and easier since once we did the lighting set up, the shoot was, for the most part, just a matter of swapping one piece out for the next until we finished (the advantage of standardizing the size you work in). We probably shot close to a hundred pieces. I lost count after a while.

Once I get the digital files back from him I'll be selecting my favorites and posting them online - probably over the holidays. Among the things I'm looking at putting up are image from my portrait series, none of which have ever been exhibited.

I first met Leo some 30 years ago, when I freelanced for Pier 1 Imports where he was in house photographer, and we've worked together on a number of projects together. He is a hell of a photographer. Besides the fun of working with a long-time friend, the biggest joy in doing this was seeing some artworks I haven't looked at in 15 - 20 year in some cases.

Thanks, Leo!

In memory of Pat Sloan...

2010-10-19T22:56:00.000-05:00

Monday I got word that my dear friend, business partner and mentor Pat Sloan passed away over the weekend.

Our lives first crossed at Pier 1 Imports, where she was my supervisor in the marketing/advertising department. We all had nicknames (I was Ralph) and for some reason, lost to my memory, she was dubbed "Patsy Bob." She possessed an infectious smile and enthusiastic approach to all challenges.

We both eventually left but stayed in touch. At the reception for one of her daughters' wedding, she said she was ready for a new challenge (this was around 1994). I said there was this new thing called the world wide web...

We positioned ourselves as web designers (back then if you knew what HTML stood for, you could call yourself a web designer), and landed Michaels Stores as our first client. We did all of our initial presentations on layout pads in marker and somehow beat out the Richards Group, probably because we had no idea how to price ourselves. Since Pat was a much better designer than I, my role morphed into that of technical support, although for some of the really heavy coding, we pulled in Matt Tomlinson, an amazingly bright TCU student.

Pat's backyard guest house office became our command headquarters. Her dog Bosley was appointed office manager. Much of what I know about project planning I learned from her. She included everything when bidding a job.

My youngest son, Edward (in preschool at the time) loved to visit Pat because she had a never-ending supply of exotic pens she would generously give him.

The Michaels gig lasted about 5 years, during which time we were responsible for all creative and technical support on the site. We did some amazingly fun stuff: store locator, on-line greeting cards, coloring books, midi-jukeboxes, holiday games -- all long before this type of thing was common. When they finally saw the value of the site and took it in-house, they hired 47 people to do the work the 3 of us had done.

My favorite quote from those days came from something that became a bit of a in-joke. A client once asked her about some technical issue and she replied, "We can do that, can't you Ron?"

After Michaels, we worked on a variety of other small projects, but the first dot-com bubble was drawing to a close. When the bubble burst, new work got increasingly hard to find. I took a position in Bell Helicopter's eBusiness group and Pat re-focused her talents on print advertising. We continued to stay in touch, although our schedules and respective family responsibilities made those get-togethers less frequent.

The last several years of Pat's life she taught graphic design at TCU, where she was a popular lecturer. Despite ongoing health issues she never seemed to loose her sunny outlook. The academic world has lost a great source of wisdom.

Her design sense was a reflection of her personality: witty, stylish, and full of fun.

Good night, Patsy Bob. We'll miss you.

Marion Butts Website

2010-09-22T08:46:00.001-05:00

I recently finished designing and developing the Marion Butts: Lens on Dallas website for the Dallas Public Library which is now visible. The site features a gallery of over 1,800 images taken by Marion Butts, a pioneering black photojournalist, as well as a collection of lesson plans for 7th grade history teachers. The gallery portion of the site was built using the open source Gallery Project software.

Fear of bad art

2010-06-01T00:03:00.001-05:00

In most paintings I do that are the least bit ambitious (i.e. they'll take me more than one session to complete), there is inevitably a moment when I stare at the unfinished piece and say to my self, "What on earth was I thinking?" This sense of dread is fairly paralysis-inducing, and I do well to spend more than 20 minutes at a stretch before I have to flee from the evidence of my own inadequacy as a painter.

I'm sort of to that point right now.

Although not huge, my current painting is the largest I've done in a long time, as well as being one of the more complex. While individual areas have some nice work, as a whole it feels rather clumsy and cobbled together.

What keeps me going is knowing most of my better paintings hit this low spot where I can't stand them. It's a necessary part of the journey.

Knowing this doesn't make it any easier though.

On a side note, I'm about ready to pronounce the previous painting finished. I hope to shoot a picture this week and post it.

Henry Whiddon - Rest in Peace

2010-05-05T20:45:00.000-05:00

I got a message on the answering machine the other day that delivered the sad news that Henry Whiddon, UNT Art Professor Emeritus, had passed from this veil of tears.

Henry had been one of my professors when I was in graduate school at UNT and eventually served as my thesis advisor, as well as my mentor, role model and friend.

At the time I started graduate school, I had just finished working eight year in advertising, with the result that I had developed an unfortunate sense of emotional detachment from my work.

I did stuff I thought was clever that I didn't really care much about.

Henry was not the only one to see through this lack of involvement, but he was the one patient enough to talk about it; usually with roundabout parables and analogies that made his point with kindness and gentleness without bitch-slapping. He had a rare gift for telling you things you needed to hear, both good and not so good, but with a kindness that never left you feeling beat up or defeated. His sense of calm was infectious and much appreciated.

I called Chris Goebel, who'd left me the answering machine message and we regaled each other with our memories of Henry. Chris had been an undergraduate at Texas Wesleyan College (now University) when Henry was chairman of the Art Department. It sounds like they had the kind of freedom that comes from not being noticed.

Reading the online obituary I learned a few things I'd never known about my former teacher: he'd worked as a senior set designer for the Atlanta Municipal Summer Theater while a grad student at the University of Georgia. TWC hired him when he was only 30.

By the time I'd washed up on his academic shore he was in mid fifties (ironically, where I am now). He never lost his appreciation for the silliness of life but could, at the same time, conjure up these little life-altering suggestions. I remember once, when I'd used up my store of clever (i.e. crappy, contrived) ideas for paintings, he recommended I go find a copy of The Golden Bough by James Frazer. When you get stuck, he told me, turn to any page at random and start reading -- you're bound to find something to inspire you. I took his advice and found an idea I used for 3 years.

Now when I teach, it is his encouraging, kind and patient manner that I attempt to emulate when giving feedback to my students. I don't always succeed, but at least I know what I should be doing.

God bless you, Henry, where ever you are.

Repair job

2010-05-03T22:40:00.001-05:00

I finally got around to doing a little painting repair this weekend.

Background: we had an old painting my wife's aunt had done many years ago. Somehow in its travels it managed to acquire an inch long tear, no doubt from something poking it. The painting wasn't valuable in a monetary sense, but it had sentimental value. I said I'd repair it.

Before going much further I consulted the source of all wisdom, my ancient copy of Ralph Mayer's Artist's Handbook of Materials and Techniques. Among the chapters is one on conservation, which includes a section on repairs. It became my road map for this project.

Mayer described the technique, which involved sticking a primed canvas patch on the back of the tear using a heated beeswax/resin mixture, with a little Venice turpentine thrown in for good measure. You coat the hot wax mix on the primed side of the patch, stick it down, then press with a warm iron.

After cutting away the brown craft paper dust barrier from the back, I found getting getting the brads holding the stretcher in the frame out to be more of a challenge than I was willing to undertake. I decided to do the repairs without removing the stretcher from the frame.

The canvas was medium weight linen (linen? nice!) which had developed some slack as well as moderate deterioration. Something I'd learned from my IT career: avoid scope creep. Since I couldn't get the painting out of the frame, I was going to have to live with the slack and restrict this project to fixing the tear. I used a nail clipper to trim back some loose threads from the tear.

Next I rounded up the ingredients for the wax adhesive: unbleached beeswax, rosin, Venice turpentine. Best advice: mail order these; you will likely not find all of them at your local art supply store. The beeswax I found in batik dyeing supplies -- a one pound brick of it. Needless to say, I have a lot left over. Venice turpentine was a little harder. Toughest was the resin (an alternate is damar varnish -- crystals, not the liquid). I eventually got a piece of violin bow rosin (rosin = resin) which, in a leap of faith, I decided would do just fine.

Once I gathered my ingredients and courage, I measured the resin and wax into a small flat can (a tuna can would be perfect after washing): 5 part wax to 3 parts resin. My mixture was a little wax heavy because I didn't have a lot of resin. I put about an inch of water in a sauce pan, floated the tuna can in it and turned on the heat.

Previously, I'd cut a 5 inch diameter patch out of an unused primed stretched canvas damaged in shipping. Scrap pre-primed canvas would have worked as well.. Word of advice: don't put the water on to boil and leave it unattended to cut your patch.

The water started boiling and the wax, then the resin slowly melted. I gently stirred it with a brush handle to get the two components to mix. The few impurities from the resin I fished out with the brush handle. Once it was thoroughly liquid, I raced outside with the saucepan to my workspace and stirred in the 1 part of Venice turpentine.

Find a brush you can afford to sacrifice if possible; cleaning the mixture out is not a guaranteed thing. I found an old brush and painted the mix onto the primed side of the patch. Once out of the hot water bath it became solid pretty quickly.

I stuck the patch down on the raw backside of the canvas. To aid in placement, I'd previously sketched a circle around the tear. Once in place, I used a clear roller to press it in place, with a piece of card-stock between the patch and the roller. Mayer recommends using a warm, not hot, iron, but I was a little leery of one more thing to coordinate with all this hot wax business. The roller seemed to work adequately. If it hadn't, the iron was plan "B." You want to make sure you have a solid surface to press against to avoid cracking the paint on the canvas.

Just to be on the safe side, I gave the patch a couple of hours to set. The tear, while definitely visible, was now structurally stable and well-adhered to the piece I'd cut to back it.

Fortunately the damaged area was background and not a focal point. I mixed a little oil paint, thinning it with turpentine and in-painted the tear. My goal was not so much to make the repaired place invisible as to simply make it less noticable upon casual examination. When in doubt, make the in-painting less saturated and less detailed. My only regret is that I failed to take process photos documenting the steps I took.

The finished result, while not perfect, was good enough to impress my best beloved.

Ted Pillsbury : 1943 - 2010

2010-03-27T11:05:00.000-05:00

Ted Pillsbury, longtime director of the Kimbell Art Museum passed away on Thursday of an apparent heart attack at age 66. Most in the art world would probably agree he was largely responsible for making the Kimbell into a world class museum.

Edmund P. Pillsbury, who held a doctorate in Italian Renaissance art from the Courtauld Institute of Art, served as museum director from 1980 to 1998, and was responsible for numerous important acquisitions and major exhibitions.

The Dallas Morning News website has good overview of his career as does the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. KERA has posted a video of a 1998 interview with Dr. Pillsbury.

New painting - Porch Musicians

2010-03-10T22:20:00.000-06:00

Just finished a painting tonight.

At least I think it's finished. Sometimes I'll look at something after it's cooled off for a few days and discover I was wrong about it being finished (or not finished). Mostly I'm tired of working on this, which is often a big factor in deciding when something is done.

To hedge my bets, I may do another version later.

I've decided my next painting is going to be a variation on the portrait of Dorothy I recently completed. I want one that doesn't look so much like a "we named this building after her" kind of portrait, if that makes any sense.

Shot with my iPhone, which is why it looks crappy.

First batch of sketchbook drawings now live

2010-02-22T00:41:00.001-06:00

I just uploaded the first batch of sketchbook drawings to the Ralph Art Website. You'll find them under Art > Sketchbooks on the dropdown menu.

So far I've scanned over 70 pages (though not all will be sent to the website). This first lot has 27 images, listed under the categories People, Places, Stuff. The next batch will include Children, Cats and Interiors. Given what I do, that almost covers it.

Since I do these primarily for my own amusement, most of these have never been seen before.

Enjoy!

The Sketchbooks

2010-02-19T21:55:00.000-06:00

As if I don't have enough to distract me, I've decided to scan a bunch of my old sketchbooks/drawing pads. Part of this is for a larger project, part of it is so I can post a section on the Ralph Art Website with images from the sketchbooks. Regardless, I currently have about 25 images scanned, corrected and sized. That's probably a third of what I've got.

Of course not all are fit for public display, but there you are. The majority of them are from about 15 - 20 years ago. Below is a sample drawing, done in Glasgow in 1985 at the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.

Taking risks

2010-02-16T10:07:00.001-06:00

After numerous delays (one can always find an excuse not to paint if one wants to) I started a new painting yesterday -- this one in oils.

I got off to an encouraging start.

This is sometimes a dangerous thing, since I've found I'll often start playing it safe after a good start, for fear of screwing the thing up. Often my best pieces emerge from the ashes of a really awful one: once I've reached the point where I feel like I can't make it any worse, I'm ready to do anything. Out of that willingness to take risks comes the exceptional work.

Playing it safe almost always guarantees a mediocre result. Better to take a chance on spectacular failure.

New Mobile version of the Ralph Art Blog

2010-02-15T00:26:00.000-06:00

I just finished and uploaded a mobile version of the Ralph Art Blog. It started out being an iPhone specific version but I've added additional simplified generic support to other devices as well. Be warned I'm continuing to tinker with it so things may change somewhat. The URL will not change.

If you are viewing with an iPhone, you can save it as a web app -- I've got an icon prepared.

To get to it, go to: http://mobile.ralphart.com

Enjoy!

Ralph Art Website redesign now live

2010-02-08T07:53:00.001-06:00

I finished coding the Ralph Art Website redesign over the weekend and posted it to the server this morning. If you see any errors or brokenness, please post a comment to the blog and let me know.

Some of the things I was shooting for:

A more simple, cleaner design -- I'd gotten tired of the big brown graphic on the left side. It made the site feel claustrophobic.
Cleaner code base -- the previous design's CSS had gotten a little out of hand and was rather spaghetti-like. There's more work to do on this but maintenance will be easier.
More mobile friendly -- the new design should play nicer with mobile devices, especially the iPhone. Previously there were numerous display issues.
Better integration with the Ralph Art Blog -- I'm using the Google Feeds APIs to pull content out of the blog and re-use it on the site. This makes adding new content really easy.

Still to come: the iPhone / mobile versions of the Ralph Art Blog. These will also use the Google Feeds API to build out the pages.

Coming soon: yet another facelift

2010-02-06T10:09:00.000-06:00

It was only last fall that I gave the Ralph Art Website a facelift and I'm thinking about doing it again.

I've gotten a bit tired of the 1930's vibe that originally inspired the look -- primarily the big posterized view on the left side of the content. Initially I thought it looked sort of cool but now...not so much. It's also a big waste of space.

Some pages (primarily the home page) don't play nice with all browsers. The final factor is I want to be able to make it more mobile device friendly (currently looks like hell in my iPhone) which will entail a big cascading stylesheet revision. So it's back to the drawing board.

This time the redesign won't be quite as radical. I've decided I like the header I knocked out for the re-design of the Ralph Art Blog, so that will replace the current header. I'll also make the content area a little wider. Once I've done that I'm planning to make it so it looks better in mobile devices ("cell phones" for those of you who are not forced to use techno-buzz).

The iPhone version of the blog is close to completion (working on that this weekend) and I hope to have the main site done by next weekend. Unless I'm inspired to paint, and then who knows.

Keeping my fingers crossed.

Portrait of Dorothy

2010-01-23T15:46:00.000-06:00

Working on a portrait of Dorothy.

I shot a picture of her at Lilli's Bistro on Magnolia a couple of weeks ago with my phone. In the photo she had a real Georgia O'Keefe quality that I liked a lot and I decided it would make a good painting. In my mind I had this fantasy painting this would turn into.

Wrong.

The actual painting is not much like the one I envisioned. The fantasy painting was built out of decisive, masterly brushstrokes and thick, sculptural paint. The one I ended up with was not quite that way. Which is not to say I don't like this painting -- it just isn't the painting I expected.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches.

Painting photo shot with my iPhone, which is why it's rather a crappy reproduction.

New: Ralph Art Design mobile view

2010-01-21T10:41:00.001-06:00

I'm experimenting with the Ralph Art Design blog.

Here's a mobile device friendly view courtesy of Google Reader. This should work with most cellphones, including the iPhone. I'll be adding a link for this view in the site in the next several days.

Have fun!

New painting - JCM

2010-01-17T17:33:00.000-06:00

I've worked on and off for several years on a series of portraits of eveyone I know. Just finished the latest -- one of my oldest friends from my TCU days. If you know me you'll probably know who this is, if not, I'll never tell.

Fall 2009 Arts Goggle

2009-10-04T21:36:00.000-05:00

Fall 2009 Arts Goggle has come and gone. Despite minimal publicity and intermittent rain, we had a good turn out at the office of Courage and Renewal North Texas.

I got there about 3:00 in the afternoon. The rain at that point was fairly light and we already had small but steady stream of visitors. As the rain picked up, traffic fell off. Because the rain cooled things off we were able to open the windows and enjoy the breeze.

As afternoon drifted to evening, the rains slacked off and the visitors picked up. A number of friends from Broadway Baptist came by, though a competing event (that I would have attended myself, should I not have been otherwise committed) kept a number of folks away. Quite few old TCU cohorts and work friends made their way over.

Catching up with old friends was probably the most enjoyable part of the evening. Usually I do that at other people's art events; it was a nice change to have my art on the walls. If I'd bothered to price things I think I would have sold several pieces (I've got a couple of people I need to get back to on that topic).

We finally closed up shop around 9:15. I stopped off at the venue my brother was volunteering for and ended up giving their evening's guitarist a break by playing for about 15 minutes. The audience consisted of the other volunteers who didn't seem to mind one way or the other whether I was there. I go home about 10:30 to discover the neighbors had "pigged" me (local joke) -- part of the pigging included a bottle of Tanquery gin.

All in all, the evening was a success. The CRNT people were as nice as could be, the space (an old converted house) was well-suited to my rather domestic scenes. I've taken the show down (this was a one night only event) and am now in search of my next venue.

Thanks to all who came by or made this possible.

Mailing list for updates

2009-10-04T21:03:00.000-05:00

I've set up a mailing list to send out updates about shows, blogposts and the like. If you're interested, send me an email and I'll add your address. If, perchance, you grow weary of hearing about me, just send me another and I'll cheerfully remove it.

For more information, see the updates page on the Ralph Art website.

Recent Paintings - Fall 2009

2009-09-26T11:20:00.000-05:00

On view October 3, 2009, 3:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Offices of Courage & Renewal North Texas
1229 7th Ave. (Corner of W. Magnolia, just west of Benito's)
Fort Worth, TX 76104

I'm showing a handful of new (and maybe a couple of old) paintings next week during the Fall 2009 Southside Arts Goggle. This will be the first time I've exhibited in around 10 years. About time, you might say.

These will be on display at the offices of Courage & Renewal - North Texas, located at 1229 7th Ave. (Corner of W. Magnolia, just west of Benito's). In addition to my work, C&RNT will also be showing photographs by Donna Bearden and sculptures by Wayne Martin.

In years past Arts Goggle has coincided with Fort Worth Gallery night, but this fall takes place on October 3, 2009, from 3:00 pm to 10:00 pm. I'm intending to be there most of the time (with a little break at some point for dinner).

For those who've never done it, Arts Goggle is basically a street festival. There will be lots of art in non-traditional venues, music, food and general good fun. It's the sort of thing you can park and wander from venue to venue quite easily.

For those who are directionally challenged, here's a map to the office of C&RNT (click to pull up the full Google map):

50 First Dates vs. Same Time, Next Year

2009-09-06T23:10:00.001-05:00

A friend, responding to a recent Twitter post, asked me the difference between the mindset of working in acrylics vs. working in oils. Before I start, let me say I've worked in both, and both can be very satisfying -- so this is not an endorsement of one over the other.

The short reply I gave was that acrylics were 50 First Dates, and oils were Same Time, Next Year.

In 50 First Dates, the character of Drew Barrymore has no memory of the day before, placing considerable challenges on Adam Sandler, who is courting her. Likewise, with acrylics, the paint is dry in an hour; there is no direct interaction between each layer of paint. Once the water evaporates, you're done.

Which can be good, especially for smaller pieces. There is a clean freshness to working in acrylics; you can (almost immediately) overpaint without having to think about how underlayers are going to react. I tend to work in layers of thin transparent paint, building up layers and gradually working more thickly.

The movie Same Time, Next Year chronicles a 24 year affair, consummated once a year. And so it is with oils: nothing is every truly forgotten. Each time you take the brush up you continue the previous conversation. Your past is always waiting to catch up with you.

You can go back in and rework, remove and repaint anything. On the other hand, doing too much results in a jumble of mud. Many's the time I've gone in after a session, disgusted with the day's output, and wiped it down with a turpentine soaked rag. I've done this to work I've done two weeks ago.

The funny thing is, it is not really erasing. A ghost of what you did, what you learned and how you failed remains: to haunt you, to guide you. And that layer of wiped paint somehow retains some sort of psychic energy. Some of the best painting I've ever done was on top of a wiped down canvas.

As acrylics dry, they become sticky, and impossible to rework. Because they are water-based, they more strongly resemble working in watercolor or gouache. Most (not all) of my acrylics are works on paper.

Oils continue to be slick and workable for a long time (unless you use an alkyd painting medium). Because of the longer drying time, one has to consider thinking of how to manage the paint layers. With enough turpentine, you can work back into almost any paint film, whether you intend to or not.

Not sure if this answered any questions, but if all it did was generate more questions I've succeeded on one level.

New oil painting and website update

2009-08-31T01:26:00.000-05:00

I decided I was finished with the oil painting I'd been working on. You can see it below.

People occasionally ask me how I know I'm finished. My stock answer is it's when I realize that there is nothing I can do that will improve the painting. Unfortunately I've continued well past that point in numerous paintings.

I also spent the greater part of this evening scanning old slides to go up on the Ralph Art website redesign. I'd tried this earlier with an old UMAX scanner I've had for too long. I ended up opting to use a much older Nikon LS 1000 slide scanner, which did a much better job.

Upon reflection, I've decided to do a rolling relaunch of the site, which means it may not be finished, but it will be finished enough. Part of this was predicated on the fact that the current site is largely unfinished and the new site is a vast improvement, especially when it comes to maintenance.

The updated Ralph Art Website - sneak preview

2009-08-09T08:44:00.000-05:00

I've spent most of the weekend working on the updated design of the Ralph Art Website Project, which is, though functional, pretty dog-ugly in my estimation. Need an excuse? I was in a hurry when I switched web-hosting providers.

This one makes extensive use of the JQuery library, which lets me bolt on some functionality (menus, slideshows and the like) that would take me forever to code manually. As befits my station in life, I've made extensive use of CSS to control the look and feel of the site. No tables and spacer gifs!

I've gotten the basic shell coded out (along with the homepage). Now I've just got to create the rest of the pages for the shell. Simple, right? I've got a lot of scanning to do to feed the image bank of art.

My goal is to get this thing on line before Fall Gallery Night 2009. And yes, I'll have a handful of smaller pieces up during Arts Goggle.

And now your moment of Zen....

Two more restaurant paintings

2009-07-29T23:55:00.000-05:00

Here are two more restaurant paintings, one just completed, the other from last year. Both are 22 x 30, acrylic on paper.

First, just completed...

And from last year...

After shooting these it became painfully obvious I needed a new process for shooting photos of art.

Fort Worth Guitar Guild Music Festival at the Modern

2009-07-28T23:37:00.000-05:00

We went to the first concert of the 2009 Fort Worth Guitar Guild Music Festival at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Tonight's performance featured Elliot Frank playing pieces by J. S. Bach, Isaac Albeniz, Agustin Barrios and contemporary composer Andrew Zohn. The second half of the program featured Guitar Guild founder and Festival organizer Mitch Werverka, who played pieces by Guiliani and contemporary composers Jorge Ritter Navarro and Ernesto Garcia de Leon.

What a great concert. More music at the Modern on Thursday, July 30 when Marko Feri performs, and Saturday, August 1 when Richard Todd and Jeffery McFadden and Andrew Zohn are on stage. Check the Fort Worth Guitar Guild Music Festival site for more information. All performances are at 8 PM. Admission to the two remaining concerts is $20.

There are also Master Classes being offered in conjunction with the Festival. Check the Guitar Guild website or stop by Ft Worth Orchestral Hall on Trail Lake Drive, Wednesday through Friday, 9 AM to 3:30 PM.

The Guitar Guild has also, for the last eleven years, sponsored a recital series at the Fort Worth Public Library, featuring young performers from the area. I've gone to quite a few of these -- well worth the trip. Admission to these is free. Note: if you've gone to these in the past, this year they will be held at the FW Central Library downtown rather than at the Southwest Regional Library.

Updates -- and Twitter!

2009-07-28T07:52:00.001-05:00

I figured out how to make it a little easier to update blog entries, so hopefully I'll be updating this site more often. I've also set up a Twitter account, which you can see at http://twitter.com/RalphArt (be aware that "RalphArt" is case sensitive).

In the next day or two I'll try and post some photos of some paintings I've finished this year.

New restaurant painting

2008-10-12T12:58:00.000-05:00

I've been working on a series of (for lack of a better term) restaurant paintings: people in restaurants, sitting around the table. I finished another yesterday and thought I'd post it. This is Dorothy and Ed at Caro's.

Acrylic on rag paper, approximately 22 x 30 inches.

Arts Goggle

2008-09-08T23:45:00.000-05:00

I'm ashamed to say, despite living in the Mid-South neighborhood (Fairmount, to be exact), I've not fully immersed myself in the twice-yearly Arts Goggle. Oh, I always manage to hit one or two places, but that's about it.

I hereby pledge to more fully support this noble and egalitarian endeavor.

Part of the problem is that Arts Goggle always coincides with Gallery Night weekend and I don't usually have the energy to do both. This year's Gallery Night I only managed to hit 3 places out of the 3 or so dozen that had activities. Next Spring, I plan to take off half a day on that Friday so as to have the time to get into the swing of things. Some habits are good things.

One interesting outcome of this year's Gallery Night was that I tentatively agreed to do an exhibition for next Fall's Goggle. This means some serious time spent in the studio. Of course a lot can happen between then and now, but at the very least, this will encourage me to spend (more) time in the studio.

More to come as I start the process of putting together a body of new work.

Fall Gallery Night 2008

2008-09-07T23:23:00.000-05:00

Dorothy and I hit Arts Google and Gallery Night this weekend and as usual I had a great time catching up with old friends, though the evening tends to remind me that my art career is currently in remission.

Impressions:

Bill Campbell's gallery continues to the most consistently classy place in town - we started our journey from there on Saturday. Crowded as all get out as always (Bill's place is always hopping). Robert McAn's Identity Theory is the current downstairs show. McAn's pieces are made of shredded bits of his personal life: old mail, bills, and the like. Despite the obvious commentary on the push and pull of privacy issues and the proliferation of our personal information in the information age, the pieces have an intriguingly physical aspect to them: they are interesting and attractive objects.

The Fort Worth Community Art Center may well be the best thing to happen to the Fort Worth art scene. It is a street bazaar: there are always at least half a dozen exhibitions going on at once. You may hate one and find the one in the next room absolutely captivating. My personal faves: Ann Ekstrom's tight hyper-real compositions (to call them 'still-lifes' doesn't do them justice), Nancy Lamb's glossy post-photographic depictions of people enjoying night life, and Ron Tomlinson's always astonishingly virtuoso paintings of (there's no other way to say this) random shit.

Artspace111, just east of downtown, has turned into one of the best spaces for contemporary art in Fort Worth. The industrial vibe suits it, and now that it is a commercial venture (rather than an artist's coop), they've cleaned up some of the rough edges. The sculpture garden and outside patio is a small bit of perfection in this downtown spot. Featured artist Ed Blackburn's current work continues and extends his neo-pop approach with an overtly political subtext.

Final thought: Arts Google, a Southside arts event, gets bigger every year. I only managed to get to 2 places Friday, but next year I'm going commit to fully explore this new phenomena.

Impressionists show at the Kimbell

2008-07-01T21:57:00.000-05:00

Managed to squeeze into the member preview of the new Impressionists show at the Kimbell Art Museum. It's good show--a darned good show. I dare say it will be crowded as sin for the next couple of months, since hey--who doesn't love the Impressionists?

This show is a small chunk of the Chicago Art Institute's collection, come to visit us in Fort Worth whilst the Art Institute does a little remodeling. Better to get it out in the public eye than put it in cold storage. That being said, this isn't the second string, although some of the best known works stayed home. Still, with a collection like the Art Institute, there is an awful lot to choose from. In addition to the usual superstars like Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Degas, Van Gogh and Gauguin, there are a healthy assortment of some their peers and influences.

The centerpiece of the show for me was Paris Street: Rainy Day by Gustave Caillebotte. Like several other pieces in the show, the composition shows the influence of the budding art of photography: while retaining some deliberately formal elements (e.g. the lamp post visually splitting the scene neatly in half), there is a certain casualness in the placement of figures and the point of view that is photographic.

This new sense of photographic "found" composition is in evidence in a number of other works: specifically the paintings and drawings of Degas, which are incredibly modern. Compare this to Van Gogh's Bedroom at Arles, which despite its brilliant color, is fairly conservative compositionally.

I enjoyed seeing the Frédéric Bazille and the Pizzarros. I have a terrible confession: Renoir bores me to death. Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando is one of the few painting by Renoir I enjoy. The rest: mushy eye-candy.

There is much else to see, and I suspect the galleries will be crowded -- not the best way to view art. Seeing it in the middle of a week (after things have calmed down) is probably your best bet.

I lived in Chicago for a number of years. Seeing this was like a family reunion.

Art in the Metroplex Call for Entries

2008-06-12T06:49:00.001-05:00

Got a flier in the mail for the 26th Art in the Metroplex Competition the other day.

Entry deadline is Monday, June 30, 2008. The exhibition itself is September 6 - October 2, 2008.

Details are available at the TCU Art Department website: http://www.artandarthistory.tcu.edu

The juror is Eleanor Heartney, a contributing editor to Art in America and Artpress, and an art writer for assorted other national publications.

Spring Gallery Night, 2008

2008-03-28T00:43:00.000-05:00

We are almost upon the Spring Edition of Gallery Night 2008 here in Ft. Worth and since I haven't written to the Ralph Art blog in forever, it seemed like a good time to mention a couple of my favorite art venues.

William Campbell Contemporary Gallery
Bill must have started the gallery when he was still in diapers, since it has been a staple of the Ft. Worth art community since I was in school. A great space, well-located, run by a couple of folks with fabulous taste. What more could a person ask? I always see countless friends, who always ask the embarrassing question: "are you painting these days?" Julie Lazarus will have paintings, mixed media and blown glass works in the downstairs space; gallery artists will have work upstairs.

Artspace111
Once an artist-run gallery in a fairly raw industrial space just northeast of downtown, Artspace111 is now a commercial gallery, showing (as best I can tell) the same stable of artists that exhibited in its previous incarnation. While still possessed of a slight hint of post-industrial funk, the space has been cleaned up, slicked up, and (best of all) air-conditioned. The current show includes pieces by Michael Bane, Alice Bateman, Linda Blackburn, Ed Blackburn, Dan Blagg, Dennis Blagg, Ann Ekstrom, John Frost, John Hartley, Etty Horowitz, Nancy Lamb, Leslie Lanzotti, Jim Malone, Sue McCans, Jo-Ann Mulroy, J.C. Pace, Chris Powell and Eric Stevens.

Fort Worth Contemporary Arts Gallery
...is a new (opened in February) space run by the TCU Art Department in a strip center at 2900 W. Berry St., just south of the TCU campus. I managed to make it to the inaugural show where a carnival atmosphere reigned. Looks like it could be an interesting addition to the art mix.

See you in Gallery Land!

Update : CVS versioning

2007-10-06T23:13:00.000-05:00

I'm continuing to work on the updated code for the redesigned website. To simplify the task of managing updates, I set up a CVS server, which does versioning control so I can work on different machines and not get stuff out of sync as I jump from one machine to the other, as I am want to do.

Although a bit of a pain, this will be a big help in the long run. It occurred to me this morning that I could be using this to keep track of my fiction; I tend to generate a lot of versions of things. My colleague/friend Dave Davis turned me on to this tool -- thanks, Dave!

Redesign: phase 2

2007-09-20T06:56:00.000-05:00

Okay - I'll admit it: the current Ralph Art Website Project redesign was sort of thrown together at the last minute. I successfully reskinned the old site and cleared out some old stuff, but I didn't address the bigger issue of organization.

What is really needed is a new Information Architecture. As one of my former cohorts pointed out, there's really no well-defined metaphor for the structure of the thing. Add to that new content that I'd like to add and how that will fit in.

The struggle for me is my left-brain/right-brain interests are hard to present in a orderly fashion. Probably the reason my studio/office looks the way it does.

Some features in the works:

Expanded gallery of thumbnail/images
Some design case-studies
Images that can be used as desktop backgrounds
Scans of some of my sketchbooks

Still struggling to find a way to include my random thoughts and observations.

Ralph Art Blog -- now online

2007-09-16T10:52:00.000-05:00

As I was planning the Ralph Art website redesign, I always had as part of my master plan setting up a blog. Elsewhere I've had a Blogspot blog for several years (it shall go nameless for reason apparent for those of you who have visited it) and wanted to set one up and integrate it with the new site.

I just spent the morning (as well as a major part of last night) going in and heavily modifying the Blogspot template html so the look and feel matched the site. I did leave the Blogspot bar along the top (could have removed it, but Terms of Service and all...) but other that I've got a pretty good match.

The latest piece was my discovery last night (around 1:00 AM) that Google has created an AJAX API that allows one to insert RSS feeds into web pages using JavaScript. That may not mean a lot to non-codeheads, but it's a pretty amazing feat. I spent considerable time a couple of weeks ago around trying to do the same sort of thing, encountering considerable obstacles.

Now, loyal visitors and or the curious can see a short digest of recent blog posts right on the main page of the Ralph Art website.

Once again, Thank You Google!

New website

2007-09-14T13:55:00.000-05:00

I'm in the final throws of relaunching the Ralph Art website. I've switched hosting services - now I'm using Polurnet, out of Montreal (now that I have a son in Canada I feel like sending even more money across the border.

I'm also linking to this blog, which I'll go through and re-skin to match the Ralph Art website.

More to come later.

Cheers!