Been trying to get back into the swing but I still have a lot of putting away to do. It’s more than I anticipated. I’ve also been slow in getting things organized. That’s okay though. I need my rest. There’s no real deadline to get everything back in order or anything, so why not?

I only need to get back to making art at some point. I’m fixing to get into an oil painting or two next. I’m thinking thoughts about it whilst resting. Thought clouds pass me by during naps.

Until then, I haven’t even brought my bigger easel back in from the garage. In fact, I only really have one side of the garage organized. All the work on paper is put away, nice and neatly. My flat files are organized again. I’m so proud of myself, especially the drawer I keep all my Artist’s books in.

The one’s that don’t fit neatly into this drawer go into a backup drawer here:

Looks organized enough to me.

I then spent a bunch of hours updating my book inventory on my website so that the pages reflect everything I have left, which aren’t all that many. I sold more at my open studios.

My other drawers are nice and neat too. Here are my Out of Reach screenprints. I still have a lot of those. And I’m about to make them $375 with free shipping. They’ve been $400 + shipping and insurance, but I decided to cut the cost. I can ship them in a tube.

I have been using those nifty little Ikea drawers for small prints and drawings. They are working out great:

So glad I bought these!

I decided I’m doing to do a little drawing installation for my solo show at Craig Krull Gallery, along with all the oil paintings and framed watercolors. They will all be rough sketches, preliminary drawings, and maybe some Plein air pieces with a few reference/location photographs mixed in. Kind of like what I did at the entrance to the tent in my Camp UTN multimedia installation. This was part of The Exodus Project.

It will be bigger than this display though, a bit more spaced out, and pinned to the wall with different kinds of thumbtacks and tape. I don’t know where in the gallery it will go yet, but I’ll probably have to spend the night out there to install it (I reckon). I’ll be too tired to drive back home afterward. It will be nice to be in Santa Monica for a day anyway.

The next oil paintings I have in mind may look a little different, but I’m hoping they will still go into the body of work I have slated for the show. It took me some time to photoshop this mockup of this first reference piece. But here is what I’m considering. It will be a sloppy oil painting of this basic idea:

If it turns out the way I envision it, I will do at least another similar one.

My solo exhibit, entitled This Land, still needs some deeper thought and study on my part. When I work toward a show, I see it as a full-body study of a given subject, kinda like a survey. In this case, I think land surveying is literally going to be a part of the text I wind up typing about since my show title has more than one meaning. It can be tied together with what and whose land this really is in Joshua Tree and general. If I had more copies of my Outlander book, I’d use that for the show too, since that would match the theme nicely as well.

That makes me wonder. Should I save the last one I have for this show and exhibit it? Maybe that’s a good idea.

Uh oh. More thoughts to consider while resting.