TomWolfeArt

Springtime in the Rockies

Well, between the snowy days and the sunny days the green grass is making enough headway for me to move the horses to summer pasture, a sure sign that spring is springing in Montana. The snowy days have made for good painting and I have kept busy getting ready for the summer show in Red Lodge. Once again I am having trouble uploading the photos but will keep trying and hopefully you will be able to see what I am up to. The folks over at the Depot Gallery in Red Lodge have been plenty busy as well. They have taken the painting of the elk in Mountain Pastures and made posters, prints and a giant banner to stretch across Main Street for the summer crowds. It is getting kind of exciting to think about the show and is a good reason to stay at the easel. On other art fronts it was a good month for print sales. Remember, I can make you a print for Mother's Day, Father's Day or any other reason you might be looking for a gift so just click on some art and find something you like. I will send them matted and framed or just as they are.

At the moment I am in Scottsdale, Az., and this morning rode my bicycle over to the studio of Paolo Soleri. He is about 90 years old now but when I was a kid my father used to talk about him. He made a name for himself in the 60's and 70's as a futurist thinker. He also made, among other things, a special kind of bell that captivated my dad's interest to the point that he used to come home from the office and head straight to his shop to cast these beautiful bronze bells in the style of Soleri. I have a couple of them at home and now that dad has passed on whenever one of them blows in the wind and rings it's rich tones I automatically am reminded of my father and tell him hello. It's as if he is saying hi from the other side. Well, at Soleri's studio today I was surrounded by hundreds of these beautiful bells and got a good dose of Dad. It was very fine and I enjoyed the experience very much.

Well, that's about it for now. I am working while I am down here and if I can get the photos to upload I will show you what I am up to. In the meantime I hope your spring is unfolding to your satisfaction and that the world is treating you well. Thank you for including me in your day.

 

 Post script: I was finally able to upload last months New Work so now if you click on it you can see what I was up to there. I have been busy with some watercolors and will upload some of them as well in the next day or so. Thanks for your patience.

 

 

 

Almost Spring

Wow! March was quite a month. Beside the usual living that needs to be done there was the annual local Quick Draw and Fundraiser. This was my 19th year.( I have a pile of coffee cups to prove it.) For a little local fundraiser we did pretty good I think. The final tally was $22,430.00 for the evening. It goes toward college schoarships for the kids.

Beside the Quick Draw there were a couple of commission pieces to get out of the way and I was busy was getting the 30x40 oil signature piece for the Red Lodge Artful Event finished. Some of the board members came over to check out my progress for the show so of course I had to clean the cabin. This proved a plus as I found a lot of stuff that had been missing since the last time I cleaned, whenever that was... Anyway, they gave the painting thumbs up so I took it over to Red Lodge to be made into prints and posters for the show. Save the date by the way: July 14, 2012. It is a fun art show where Deborah and the girls at the Art Guild's Depot Gallery put on one great fandango.It lasts all day culminating in the big auction. The food alone is worth going for but you will also get to watch about thirty artists working to finish pieces in about three sun filled morning hours. Then in the afternoon there is a little apps. and wine party under the Zocalo after which we all move to the big tent to sit down to dinner after which they auction off the work. A silent auction is also ongoing. I have been in this show before, too, but am very honored to have such a part in it this year. The colors didn't reproduce very well but you can seer the painting in New Work on this site.

Some of the other art stuff this month included teaching 17 high school students an art class. It is part of a program the school has come up with to introduce the kids to art by having working artists show up and work with them for a couple of weeks. I think I got as much or more out of the experience as the students. They were a fun, refreshing bunch of young people who made me chuckle more than once.

I have been working on getting a series of giclee prints together for the FishtailArtStudio.com website. You will be able to check them out there soon.

I took a little time out to go over to Bozeman where I met up with Lynn for a weekend of gallery hopping. They have a fun art scene over there and the drive along the Yellowstone was breathtaking. By the way, Lynn is going to have a wall at the Artful Event for a series of her photos from around the world in the travel writing business. You can preview her work on her web site FamilyTravel.com.

I painted a little watercolor of a horse as a study for another horse I have decided to add to The Morning Comute painting. I will upload that and an oil landscape I am working on when they are done.

Well, that about does it for now. Like I said, save July 14 for Red Lodge. It will be great to see you there.

Back in Montana

From the title you may guess that I have returned to the state of my birth and am ensconced at the cabin. Well, you'd be right. I am so and today was a fine day at the easel. About 10 inches of snow fell yesterday and today was a good one to throw logs on the fire and smear paint around on a canvas. I am just about done with a 30x40 of some elk feeding into the evening light on a mountain not far from here. My backyard, the Beartooth Mountains, make up the background. I will get a photo up in New Work so you can see what I'm up to. When finished I hope it will work for the signature piece in the Red Lodge show next summer.

The trip home from the sunny south was a good one. The dogs and cat are getting to be good travelers. The main event of the trip came in the Kaibab Forest just north of the Grand Canyon. I recently read an article in the National Geographic about the Vermilion Cliffs of Arizona and the giant California Condors reintroduced there. I was ambling along down the two lane road without much traffic to worry about. There was about a foot of snow in the Ponderosa Pine forest but the road was good. Up ahead I spotted a few ravens on a carcass in the barrow pit and slowed to see if there might be a dead elk there. Suddenly the trees opened up and perched on a broken Ponderosa snag I saw what at first registered to be a vulture. He was just getting ready to take off and had his back to me. He turned his head to look at me and I thought wow! that's a big vulture. Then I noticed the number on his back and the head that must have been a foot long atop a body nearly four ft. tall. As the wings started to spread I noticed a number 13 painted on his back and I realized Wow!! That's a Condor. He was HUGE! ... and then I was past and there was nothing but trees and snow again. I told myself to stop and go back but argued that no, I'm a busy guy and had best get back to Montana. Then I realized: No way! That was a Condor. I've never seen one and turn this outfit around. Which is what I did. Unfortunately, he was gone. A regular vision on the old vision quest of life.

I'm home again now though, painting away and feeding the horses. I hope you like the elk scene when it's done. I'll get to more after that and keep you posted. Thanks for dropping by. I appreciate your being here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February in Scottsdale

   

          Thank you for dropping by. I hope this note finds you well and enjoying the way of things. It has been an interesting month here in Scottsdale. Most mornings start with a walk in the grassy parks of the Green Belt. The dogs still have their winter coats so they like to jump in the series of ponds along the bike path there. I admire their will to consistently swim after the ducks even though the chances of catching one are pretty slim. There is always room to dream though, right? I must admit however, mine may be a couple of the scruffiest pooches in the park. They are used to swimming rivers and charging through the mountains back home so when you run onto a couple of manicured poodles in the park our podunk country upbringing becomes pretty obvious. With Ginger being half timber wolf a lot of the folks are leary of associating with us at first, too. Yesterday a lady with a couple of exotic canines asked why my dogs were wet. I told her they jumped in the pond. At that she wrinkled up her nose, said something about how her groomer would certainly balk at her dogs if they showed up at the dog spa smelling like a duck pond. I had to admit, they get a little aromatic but the contented looks on their faces make it worth it. The lady said she took her dogs to the groomer at least once a week. I think mine are ahead of the game as they get to jump in pond every day…

     On other fronts I bought a bicycle for getting around. The bike paths go just about anywhere I need to go. My good buddy Ed Shay from Philly was in town for a meeting and treated us to a great evening at the Arizona Biltmore, a very cool resort designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The Scottsdale Art Center made for a fun evening, too, and Trailside Gallery was a good shot in the arm for inspiration. There were a few dinner parties with friends and I am giving art lessons to a couple of young fellows once a week. Still, for any of you who think I have been wavering from my goal, I want you to know I have been spending most of my time at the easel.

     I paint outside on the veranda and the temperatures have been in the low to mid seventies so it is most comfortable.  I hope you take time to check out New Work. So far most of the stuff has been small but at present I have a 24x36 oil on the canvas. The small water colors of horses are studies for this painting which I hope will serve as the signature piece in Red Lodge next summer. When I was a young man I worked as a wrangler in and around Jackson Hole and some of my favorite life memories stem from this period. I am still quite taken by the sound and power of a herd of running horses and as most of you know, this has been a reoccurring theme of mine over the years. I have never put them running in my old stomping grounds beneath the Tetons though. I used to love being the first one in the saddle each day and while everyone else was getting the stars out of their eyes over coffee I was flying along with the horses, gathering them for a day of hunting, packing, trail rides or whatever… In this painting I am trying to bring the sound, strength and beauty of those times alive on canvas. I will paint the Tetons in the morning light that shines up through the Gos Ventre valley every morning and lights the peaks with a magical glow.  I will post the when it is done so kindly check back in a week or two to see if I pull this off. Well, all this talk about the Tetons makes me want to get back to work. Thank you for being here. I appreciate your interest.

      

The Trail Led to Scottsdale

Thank you for dropping by. I hope the holiday season treated you well and that the New Year brings all the happiness and well being you can possibly stand. I was lucky enough to spend Christmas with family and as I drove home the sun was setting into the Beartooths across the Yellowstone. There must have been a big wind up there as snow plumes were blowing hundreds of feet in the air. From my vantage rolling west on I-90 they were backlit by the golden glow at the end of the day, looking like great solar flares and crowning the mountains in a fantastical fire, a sight fitting for Jesus’ birthday. I was enjoying the scene happy to know I was headed home to my cozy cabin in those mountains when I passed a billboard with one of my paintings on it advertising the Whitebird Gallery in Absarokee, Mt. It made me grateful and happy to be living my life where I am and making a living as a painter of pictures.

A couple days after New Year’s I said farewell to the horses (a friend will be watching them so don’t worry) loaded the truck with dogs, cat, brushes, easel, a load of wood and a pair of flip flops, said good bye to the snow and headed south where I find myself in sunny Scottsdale for another winter respite. It is a balmy 78 to 80 degrees during the day and I already finished a painting with another on the easel. My mission statement at the moment is to create a body of work for the big Artful Event in the Beartooths where I am featured artist next summer in Red Lodge. I hope many of you can make it to this fun fandango under the big tent. If you don’t, you can always find everything in New Work as it is uploaded when finished. I am uploading the first two pieces with this blog. They are smaller works and come out kind of blotchy on the web site but it will give you an idea of what I’m up to. I don’t know what the signature piece for the Red Lodge show will be and am interested in your opinions so please let me know when I see you or send them via the comment section on this site. The other part of my mission statement for this period is to prepare for a show as guest artist at the Sandstone Gallery in Billings and finish a few commissions for those kind enough to order them. Of course the annual Absarokee Quick Draw is in the mix and I will be teaching a 10 day art class in March as well so there is plenty to do here in the sunny south.

Just in case you think it is all work and no play here in the sunny south I bought a bicycle the other day and am having a ball riding it around. For example, tomorrow evening Lynn and I will ride down to Old Town Scottsdale for the gallery art walk and a bite to eat at one of the many funky eateries in there. A tough job but somebody has to do it. Of course I miss the cozy evenings by the fire back in the cabin in Montana as well as the driving winter blizzards and seven layers of clothes. However, I will try to survive here in the clutches of civilization as best I can…

Thanks for dropping by the site and I look forward to making it interesting for you by posting plenty of New Work in the next couple of months. Until then, Happy Trails!