Another visit to the MacGown studio by some local artists

This past Saturday was gorgeous! Following several days and nights of frigid temps, we were rewarded with mid 60's temps on Saturday. After lunch I got a call from the wild and wacky abstract painter Paul Buckley, whose studio I had visited a few weeks back. He wondered if he and Libby Pollard, another awesome local artist, could come by and visit a while. Joseph and I were just hanging out, so that sounded great. We gave them the tour, starting in the house.

Libby Pollard! 

Yep, those two wandered around looking at both my art and Joseph's. They both particularly liked Joseph's painting/collage piece that he did on wood. Looks crazy and super cool framed. That's it in the above photo on lower right. Libby also appreciated my loose mosaics made with bits of fossilized shells, such as the one above Joseph's two pieces in the above photo. Libby, like Paul, does fantastic abstract paintings, but also creates beautiful mosaics with pieces of glass she cuts herself.

One of Libby's colorful paintings

After checking out various things in the house, including several of my collaborative pieces, we headed down the hill to the studio. Along the way, I showed them my cedar tikis that I carved a few years back. Then, we hit the studio! Man, let me tell you, our studio is full! Anybody want to donate a 3000 sq. ft. building to the cause?

Studio! 

Lots to see in here for sure. We showed them some highlights, mostly relatively recent pieces, and talked a bit about techniques and stuff.

A watercolor and ink picture that I recently started. Its about 40 inches tall. Coming along.

Some of Joseph's recently matted pieces. 

Anyway, it was a pretty cool visit! Its is always inspiring to talk with other artists. We are now trying to figure out ways of putting on some local art shows. Tentatively, it is looking like Joseph and I will have a small exhibition with Laurie Burton at her gallery space on Jackson Street. Thinking about early May! If this works out, then hopefully we can match up others to have some rotating shows. We also talked about a potential outdoor afternoon show, perhaps in my yard when the flowers are blooming in the spring. Could be interesting. 

In other art news this weekend, Joseph had a one on one art portfolio scholarship interview with some folks at Millsaps University on Friday. He said he felt like it went well. Guess we will see. Millsaps is one of the colleges he has been thinking about. At this point, its a matter of putting together various scholarships and deciding which school would be the best fit for him. This particular interview was pretty cool in that he got to talk to the interviewers in pers rather than simply sending in digital images. This is an awesome way to do it! He not only showed them framed and matted images, but also several photos, a CD that he designed and made the music for, and an short film that he made with his own music in the background. 

Blue Joseph, self portrait by Joseph MacGown

Saturday morn was a continuation of sorts for Joseph, as he attended an Academic Insight event at MSU at the College of Art, Architecture, and Design. They had some folks talking about the program here and various opportunities that are available. Unfortunately, the visit did not include a comprehensive tour of the facilities, nor were many of the faculty on hand for the visit. Even so, he said he enjoyed it. 

Joseph has lots of ideas, and has been making the most of his free time lately creating music and art. He is talking about writing a couple of books, one a poetry type deal, and the other an art book. Cool. He is really starting to develop his own style lately, and is sketching and otherwise engaged in doing some type of art much of the time. I like the way he is going. He is not trying to do things in somebody else's style, and he is not worried about trying to making something look exactly like reality. His art is more emotional, visceral. Get a feeling of something, get it down. And weird, he is a weird dude. I can relate to that. 

One of several of Joseph's quick weird sketches

Savannah College of Art and Design Visit

Took the artsy Joseph kid to the Savannah College of Art and Design to check out the school during SCAD days and partake in a really cool XC recruiting visit set up by the coach. Arrived in town Thursday night and heading out midday Sunday. Man, this place is rocking as far as art goes! The facilities and basic equipment and supplies are just incredible for all of the many art programs offered here. Not, to mention, Savannah is just a really cool town.

at dusk near the SCAD Art Museum

SCAD Admissions Building

Cool buildin 

another cool building

cool church

SCAD also has a pretty good XC team that is only going to get better with the gungho awesome running joker coach guy Patrick Reagan now leading the runners. This hyper little dude is awesome fast and appears to be able to get his runners faster as well! To get the full experience, the XC coach had the recruits running together in various parts of town, hanging out with the team some, and actually spending a couple of nights in a dorm. Pretty cool.

While here, we also toured various facilities such as the painting and drawing building in Alexander Hall and the film and sound design building. Crazy awesome places. The art being done by these students is very good too, which indicates that some decent instructors are here. I like the fact that there was a tremendous diversity of artwork being done. In other words, everything did not look alike.

awesome hanging thing done by a student

Joseph looking at awesome hanging thing

in one of the film studios

film studio

poster design for a movie written and done by students 

getting a spiel about the wonderful film dept. by a former MSU grad

Editing classroom populated by IMacs

Student art

Lobby of Alexander Hall

Light Bulb Sculpture

corridor in ceramics wing

corridor with ceramic art examples by students 

one of the ceramics rooms  

one of the print making rooms

one of many hallways full of art in the ginormous Alexander Hall, which used to be some kind of warehouse

A beautiful print about 20 X 30 inches. I cannot convey in words how beautiful this piece was!

student art

Student sculpture (wood with bandaids)

large painting by student 

more art in another hallway

cool painting! 

paintings

hallway with art

for those who like the use of white space, check this out

nice expressive portrait 

large pen drawing

some Asian styled art

more student art

student art 

Asian landscapes

We even experienced the college dining experience, eating at two different cafeterias: The Hive and J. O. s. Both served excellent food with healthy choices such as vegetarian and organic selections being the norm. With on staff chefs, some rather tasty entree's were served as well. For hungry runner dudes, the fact that these were all you could eat buffets was an added bonus.

Anyway, its a long drive to Savannah, but a pretty cool place!

Some folks visit my studio

A couple of art folks came out to my house and studio Saturday morning to check out some of my art and maybe get an idea of how I do things. And, Joseph, who has been really getting into the art scene lately, also had some trippy stuff and ideas to show. The two visitors were Laurie Burton, local artist and Tania Mottos, a young lady from El Salvador who is doing an internship here in Starkville. Joseph and I visited Laurie's studio last weekend, so she seemed pretty excited to be checking out our space and art. 

After apparently driving down a couple of wrong roads, which is not unusual when people visit us for the first time due to strange intertwining country roads in the area, they arrived. And in a fancy car! Convertible Camaro. Don't see many of those out on these gravel roads. It was very cool. I got Joseph to take a picture of me in front of it!

Laurie's fancy car!

I started the tour with my house, so they could check some art that I had made using the local fossil shells and cedar, and also some of my collaborative work that I have done with other artists from around the world. Laurie was really digging the fossil shell mosaics, and you could see the wheels turning in her head. Laurie makes really cool mosaics with glass and other things.

As we headed outside, I showed them my handmade cedar benches and carved tikis. Fairly cool in a basic primitive way and quite different from the art that I typically do. We finally made it to the studio, where both Joseph and I showed them some of our art and talked about some of our methods. We both like to explore different media and techniques. Sometimes the results are pretty good, sometimes, we just make a mess!

Joseph, Laurie, and Tania - one of my "Fish" paintings in the center

Laurie, me, and Tania - one of Joseph's collages at right

Looking at stuff

things happening in the studio...

What in the works? What's happening in the studio? Stuff. Several things going on in this first photo below. The picture on the left has been through several incarnations, and I still have no idea where its going. You can see a close up of part of it below. Sort of demonic looking angel creature with rays of light emanating from its head. Demonic angel. Haha. I guess that's an oxymoron. If you believe in demons, then you already know they are angels. In the middle, a collaboration I am doing with Elli Gotzi. Not quite done, and not sure I like where I am going with it. But, skunk. Of course, on the right, a crazy fly with weird things happening in the background. Faahhhh. Upper right, bird/bat thing I started about 12 years ago. Its watercolor and ink on Claybord. 

fly and things

part of painting/drawing deal from left side of above photo

On this table (photo below), a new watercolor ink thing in the same style and color as my recently finished "Convergence" piece. Above and partially covered by that piece is a spray paint/acrylic paint beginning. Hopefully, something will come out of it! 

take a walk on the weird side

elephant man? just started

More or less finished this largish fish painting. Its 2 X 4 feet, acrylic paint, spray paint, and housepaint on primed masonite. Why? Because, I love dem fishes man. They are so weird. Right? Manic fish painting. 

Fish, 2 X 4 feet, acrylic on wood

Another photo of the same image. Notice the colored pencil portrait on the wall
that I did of Joseph (did this about 5 years ago)

Joseph has stuff going on as well. Because, that's what we do man. Yeah. he likes the collage action. Also, drawing weird stuff. Combine the two, and play some crazy music, and you start to enter the mind of Joseph the strange singing running boy who paints weird things and writes stories about the unknown and obscure.

painting/collage that Joseph is working on

The piece below (by Joseph) is a pretty interesting image. The colored pastel picture is matted with a hand painted matte. I say hand painted, but its not just paint. Raised areas were created with Elmer's glue. Gives this matte a unique effect. 

One of Joseph's pastel pictures with a handpainted matte

First step to something new, primed some wood. About ready for a second coat. These are Joseph's, but its not an uncommon scene for me either.

primed birch plywood, have to wait to see what he comes up with