FCCA hanging at the Historic Silversmith house

Sunday was a rainy day to transport paintings, but we did it and the FCCA show is hung and looks fantastic. Anne has one side of the space and I have the other. Our work is drastically different from one another, but I think it works great. Something for everyone, I hope.

The Member's Gallery in in the basement of the house. You can see the old beams in the ceiling supporting the main level floor. Because the basement walls are stone, our hanging system consists of a wooden strip all the way around the top of the walls and using fishing line to suspend the works.

Because this is an artist run organization, Anne and I will also be responsible for the food and drink. This is something I really enjoy, so I am looking forward to a trip to Trader Joe's for great unique food and good, inexpensive wine. The upstairs gallery is also opening a juried show and it is First Friday, which means the area galleries are also opening shows, so we should have a lot of traffic.

The gallery is housed in the Silversmith house in densely historic Fredericksburg. Built in 1785, the house sits right on the Rappahannock River in old town. In 1961, in danger of being torn down, it was bought be the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation and eventually became the property of the Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts.

Thanks to everyone for sending well wishes for the show.

Thoughtful Thursday

Over a period of a few years, the figure has disappeared from my painting. I have thought a lot about this over the months wondering why animals have become the centerpiece of my life's work. In my artist statement, I speak of a love affair with animals from an early age:

"As a child, my three-ring binder full of drawings of horses was a prized possession. In my mind, horses have a mystical, almost phantom-like quality that I became drawn to from an early age. I became transfixed just seeing one in an open field. Today, I recognize this mark in all animals as the fingerprint of the infinite imagination of the Creator. There is a kind of communion that takes place between me and God when painting or in the presence of animals."

Even reading it now, there is a sense of incompleteness to those words, something deeper that I cannot seem to excavate. I suppose it is a journey of sorts and as I find out more about myself, which I believe is expressed in choice of subject, I then understand the connection increasingly. It is very much like peeling an onion. The intimacy with which I feel connected to the work can be very overwhelming. Why? Such mysteries of the human soul.......

I had a hard time getting to sleep last night after seeing a film short about the fate of racehorses once their careers are over, and I feel rather heavy-hearted and introspective today. I see inconsistencies in myself and asking some very hard questions has been a long time coming. Information is power, but it is also often quite painful.

With Dunny