My show, THIS LAND is coming so soon. I’m installing it in two weeks. Ready or not? Don’t worry, I’m ready. Not that anyone is worried.

In fact, I just finished wrapping all my paintings for transit so they don’t get ruined when I cram them into the back of my car. It’s also so they don’t get dirty when we move them around on the gallery floor. We’ll be figuring out where they’ll be going before unwrapping and hanging them. I have a basic layout but you never know how it will look until you see it in the flesh.

All that’s left for me to do is to continue drawing all the way up to installation day. Drawings, drawings, drawings. The more, the better, I think. I guess I’m not so worried about them being original pieces instead of printouts anymore—tack holes and all. It will be a good contrast because I’m also doing a few colored pencil pieces.

There will be installers there to help, but all three of us artists will be there on installation day one. Kelly Berg, who is exhibiting in the back gallery, also has some kind of complex three-dimensional installation going that she says will take her all day to install. And we are arriving at the gallery at the same time. I didn’t account for that. I’ll need someone’s help putting up my large vinyl before I can start on my own installation. I’m hoping I can get the help I need when I need it. Or, I’ll just have to wait for someone when they’re available. Or, maybe I can do it on my own. I’m not sure.

Debbie McAfee is showing in the little gallery. She’ll be arriving later in the day. Her installation is more straightforward. She’s been spending a ton of time making her work much easier to hang—hand-sewing velcro on the backs of her quilted pieces so they can stick to the wall.

In the meantime, I recently did a trade with artist Anna Stump. I got one of her painted rabbits on a small chunk of concrete. I love it! She just got a write-up in Artillery Magazine that features one of them (not the one I got), but it’s a great article.

In exchange, I made her a special trailer piece in her favorite color on a Thomas Bros. map page covering her house in Twentynine Palms. I think she liked it:

I’ve also been working on the two paintings I have going in my studio, slow but steady. (These pictures are dark and blurry because it’s still dark outside—it’s four in the morning!) One is from my new series of family photos and the other is an additive/extension of the “sketchbook paintings” (Memoir) that I’m still not settled on a name for yet. I’ve been calling them Out of the Question for now. These are all the “weirder” ones that go back ten years, but I’ve been trying to build a newer body of that work.

Now I need to abandon these again, as I should get back to the drawings for the upcoming show.

Whelp, until next time…