shooting from the passenger seat. i like the way the windshield crack appears near the white cross. on the way to a show at turman larison contemporary.

bing crosby visits yellowstone, one of willem volkersz's neon pieces at turman larison contemproary.

willem volkersz: short stories @ turman larison contemporary in helena, mt. 5pm artist talk. 6-8pm reception. willem is using neon again and i'm looking forward to seeing it.

i have some paintings in turman larison contemporary's current exhibition. if you're in helena, check out the show: 337 last chance gulch. up 'til june 8th.

street art painting, zihuatanejo. shot during my recent travels in mexico.

traveled home from mexico and l.a. via portland, oregon where my former painting prof, harold schlotzhauer, has a show @ the portland art museum. if you're in the area, check out his vivid and dynamic work. up until july 14. here's the p.a.m. write-up: using a complex system of digital imaging and hand-painting, harold schlotzhauer emblazons surfboards, snowboards, skateboard decks, and kites with dynamic pop imagery. having spent his formative years in california and now living and working in bozeman, mt., schlotzhauer’s love of water and snow sports energizes this eclectic presentation of works. no matter what shape or surface he chooses to work on, a mastery of formal compositional elements can be seen throughout. drawing from influences as diverse as japanese block printing, asian & american comic book imagery, & picasso’s synthetic cubism, schlotzhauer produces works of stunning originality.

shimmer across my studio wall. the split-tone is an anomaly generated by my phone camera.

tracy bone & j.c. campbell tonight @the filling station, bozeman, mt. more info on the award winning artists: 

http://www.ourstage.com/profile/jccampbell;  http://www.ourstage.com/epk/tracybone

a shout across time is part of the celebrating einstein week-long event: learn more about einstein and experience the world of relativity and gravitational waves. the night will feature a multimedia music performance featuring dancers, a live orchestra combined with gravitational wave sounds, and an original film that will include the scientific visualization of black hole collisions and gravitational waves. a shout across time will be streaming live on the montana PBS website. friday april 5 & saturday april 6, 7pm. emerson center for the arts and culture, free public event.

act 1: a shout across time, part of the celebrating einstein event, features headwaters dance company, presenting a "danced" lecture on the gravitational waves generated by black holes and groundbreaking advances in the devices used to detect them.  this folds into "epic," a dance inspired by the orbits of black holes, featuring five dancers and a former cirque-de-soleil aerialist.  in "epic," dancers roll and run, turn and leap beneath a luminescent, flying figure, who spins and swings to the space music of john murphy.

act 2. live interview with physicist jim Gates on friday, april 5, and with bernard schutz on saturday, April 6th. celebrating einstein organizer nico yunes conducts a live interview with one of the world’s experts on einstein’s theories.  the questions have been chosen by members of the celebrating einstein collaboration, which includes students and professors across many disciplines.  topics will range from einstein’s theories to philosophical questions about the meaning of success and the role of science in our culture.  friday’s show will include an interview with professor jim gates from the university of maryland, and saturday’s interview will be with professor bernard schutz from the albert einstein institute.

act 3. live symphony orchestra & original film.

celebrating einstein is a multidisciplinary outreach event centered around communicating the beauty and significance of einstein's theory to the general public. this event will be one of the first in the nation to celebrate the centennial anniversary of general relativity. celebrating einstein will culminate in events the first week of april of 2013 in bozeman, montana @ the emerson cultural center. all events are free and open to the public with seating available on a first come, first served basis. more info: http://www.einstein.montana.edu/index.html

golden surplus, mfa thesis exhibition by katie brown explores the ideology of farming. ceramic slab construction and feed corn installation questions overproduction in contemporary agri-­business and reflects on overuse of corn in the american food system. @ msu hec gallery, 4/1-4/7. reception: 4/4, 6:30-8:30pm

forever more than once: thesis exhibition by david peters @ the msu hec gallery. reception: 6:30-8:30. show up until 3/29.

white-on-white work in progress. i'm taking a break from encaustic work in sets & on boxes, and am working in oil w/cold wax medium on canvas. here's three of six.

i am volunteering for TEDx bozeman: dreamers who do. live stream or attend the TEDx talks this friday, 3/22 from 12:30-5:50pm @ the commons on baxter lane and love. more info: http://www.tedxbozeman.com/

interactive multi-media event by chris holten for his mfa sculpture/installation thesis exhibition second sight: continuum. hec gallery, msu school of art, 3/18-22. reception: 3/21, 6:30-8:30. 

snapshot of another work from my painting 1 class, by gunnar p. mixed-media on sheet rock installed on hallway wall. 

piece by gunnar p. - from my painting 1 class last fall.

thesis exhibition of lively mixed-media paintings by jessica mongeon. drift ascend @ msu's school of art - hec gallery. reception: thursday, 3/7, 6:30-8:30pm. check out more of jess's work on her web site: jessicamongeon.com

by david foster wallace (1962-2008), who's birthday is today:  "postmodern irony and cynicism's become an end in itself, a measure of hip sophistication and literary savvy. few artists dare to try to talk about ways of working toward redeeming what's wrong, because they'll look sentimental and naive to all the weary ironists. irony's gone from liberating to enslaving. ... the postmodern founders' patricidal work was great, but patricide produces orphans, and no amount of revelry can make up for the fact that writers my age have been literary orphans throughout our formative years."

sculptural exhibition based on memories of the holocaust opening tonight @ the jessie wilbur gallery in the emerson cultural center; in conjunction w/participating msu faculty lobby exhibition, "from memory". bozeman, mt.

large-scale paintings will remain up in the weaver room @ the emerson cultural center until 2/28/. below: nerve block 45

to see work by jon lodge, jane deschner @ the emerson cultuarl center in bozeman. lodge's,"SEQUENCE & PROGRESSION: eleven triptychs" is on display in the emerson's lobby gallery. deschner's work is in the wilber gallery & jerry iverson's (up 'til 2/28) in the weaver room.

jon lodge is a master of transforming the sound environment into eccentric visual statements akin to kinesthesia. he re-purposes materials from our ever-consuming culture, combines disparate objects and gives them new life as unique abstractions. lodge is attracted to working in a series, as evidenced by his current show featuring eleven wall hung triptychs. "fragmenting or expanding a work into multiples imbeds the work with a sense of evolution through the passing of time; this process resembles the experience of listening to or performing music, which is a source of inspiration in my work."

alialujah choir opened for & performed some songs w/portland cello project tonight. here's one of their more heartbreaking (in a good way) songs w/a compelling artistic video.

http://youtu.be/t_X29ja3BiQ

played reynolds recital hall @ msu tonight w/patti king. great acoustics & moving show, including covers  from beck's "beck hansen song reader". 

earlier recording w/patti king in spokane

video and installation artist, barry anderson, will give a presentation about his work tomorrow, monday, 1/14 @ 5:30pm in 215 cheever hall @ montana state university. open to the public.

if you didn't get to view ralph wiegmann's and my work in the holiday exhibitions at visions west gallery in bozeman or denver you can still see our work until the end january. below is a detail of states of matter, my relief series consisting of seven panels - oil, wax, pigment, graphite & resin on handmade wooden boxes. as always, shadows play an important role in my relief work (unfortunately, this wall is too textured).

my grandmother has passed, but i am remembering her today. her birthday. here's her passport photo as a young woman. grannynettte, age 19:

here's a lively mark vinci piece i saw at gebert contemporary in scottsdale, az before the new year. distracted driving, 60"x60", billboard on paper. i'm looking forward to showing my students working in collage painting his work.

went to az over new years. saw some good work at gebert contemporary in scottsdale. below; painting by andrea joki:

the giant baby (isn't that vierd), formerly near my family's farm in waddell, az, is gone. that suburban wall in the background was the beginning of that end.

happy new year. !feliz ano!

tom ferris photo. shot in montana.

student work, final project by jennifer r. portrait of grandmother, with keat's poem ode to a grecian urn.

from my intermediate drawing class, by will w.

some of my new work @ visions west - denver: states of matter, beeswax, pigment, graphite and resin on handmade wood panels. in the rocky mountains - and beyond - water comes in many forms. liquid, solid, gas and plasma exist as rain, snow, sleet, hail, groppel, ice, frost, hoarfrost, icebergs, glaciers, powder, boiler plate, rivers, lakes, streams, ponds, oceans, seas. la mer. while working on this series, i was also thinking about sea kayaking with icebergs in s.e. alaska and swimming in seas of the same color that are much further south. in the 1st, one could die within minutes if they fell in the water. in the other, you could spend all day in the water. 

i have new work in exhibitions at visions west galleries in bozeman & denver. bozeman opening saturday december 1st for christmas stroll, 4-8pm, 34 w. main, downtown bozeman. below: sextet, beeswax, pigment, graphite & resin on handmade wood panels.

beginning with underpainting, my painting 1 students just completed expressive self-portraits. last weekend @ the milwaukee art museum, i was fortunate to see rembrandt's self portrait; a true masterpiece.

robert irwin, milwaukee art museum. shadows play an important role in my work. i am always inspired seeing robert irwin's light & shadow play.

an artful way of slowing traffic, perhaps.

partial view of current faculty exhibition, "gathered thoughts". from left to right: jeffery conger - graphic design, josh deweese - ceramics, (hanging sculpture) denise riebe - 3D, me - painting & drawing, ralph wiegmann- drawing, suka warhub - printmaking. can you tell that ralph & i are dipping into the same paint box? (metaphorically).

london olympics banksy commentary

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last night @ pine creek cafe outside of livingston in paradise valley.

saw the kristen martincic & joseph pintz exhibition @ turman larison contemporary in helena, mt on fri. i am always moved by kristen's work. here is an exert from her artist statement about it: "I push the boundaries of privacy and expose vulnerability by examining what typically lies hidden beneath the surface.  In my prints, sculpture, and installations, garments become a surrogate for the human form, hovering between skin and clothing, intimacy and exposure.  My artwork uses subtle hints of awkwardness and longing to communicate the honesty and beauty of everyday moments, and to make the viewer keenly aware of their own sense of self."

this is my snapshot of the transit of venus yesterday. we projected the image of the sun - with the dark spot of venus traveling across - through a pair of binoculars (using just one side) onto a piece of white paper, then photographed it around 5pm. the shot isn't as dramatic as nasa's but it was fun do project the event in real time.

gebert contemporary in scottsdale, along w/bentley gallery and lisa sette gallery, always have strong artwork. here's a mike weber piece from his show @ gebert.

richard notkin's powerful, last syllable, ceramic wall piece in the missoula art museum's montana triennial.

went to missoula art museum's opening for the montana triennial friday night. this painting of ralph's, sequent # 2, was in the missoulian article about the exhibition.

phoenix art museum installation by peter wegner: made from 1.4 million pieces of recycled colored paper mounted on two sides of the same wall. this is the sunshine side of guillotine of sunshine, guillotine of shade:

the non-venomous king snake is a constrictor that eats rodents and rattlesnakes. more r's & r's seem to be pushed onto the family farm in waddell, az since urban sprawl is eating their habitat. check out matthew moore's work about urban sprawl in the area: http://www.urbanplough.com/

went to the phoenix art museum while in az to see matt moore's recent exhibition, the land grew quiet, about urban sprawl and the loss of farmland, particularly his family's farm in waddell, arizona, nearby where my grandparents farmed citrus and where i am from.

tonight!

bozeman film festival presents pina, a film for pina bausch by wem wenders, april 23 @ 6:30 & 8:45. details/tickets @ BFF: http://www.bozemanfilmfestival.org/

photographs @ deichtorhallen 4/14 - 8/5 in hamburg @ the falckenberg collection.

wem wenders photographs opened @ deichtorhallen in hamburg 4/14. below is his street corner, butte, montana, shot in butte while filming don't come knocking in 2003.

in the spirit of classic french cafe art, and having worked with many artists/bicycle enthusiasts, paul budnitz (budnitz bicycles) created an on-line bicycle art gallery. here's one of the new posters: