St Ives

So just how many months do have 28 days? Did you cut through the logical misdirection? They all have 28 days! No one said how many have only 28 days. It’s like the old St Ives riddle, the rats, cats, kits and wives were not going to St Ives.

That’s the problems with life in the dawn of the twenty second century, there are so many distractions it is easy to overlook the obvious.

So what are you doing with your art?

Are you looking for that one killer inspiration which will magically cut through all of the juror’s doubts and make your image the one and only one which they just have to award Best in Show?

You do know there isn’t any such thing. Just like all of those cats, rats, kits and wives, there’s just you going to St Ives.

That killer inspiration is everywhere you look. You just have to decide to make it the image you want to make magic with.

As usual if you want a job done right ask a busy person. The busiest person in the art world around Coos Bay is S.L. Donaldson, she manages to get juried in to shows all around the area while maintaining the Art Happenings News Letter, writing grants and finding time to reinvent an art event which now holds a much broader appeal for participation.

How are you going to address the Chair-ity show? To tell the truth there are so many correct answers that there just isn’t room to cover them all and that’s just from a visual perspective. Now the event is open to poets and there is more than one or two with enough ego and passion to think that they just might have a special thing or two to contribute.

How come no one thought of opening up the event like this before? It can’t be that artists are so narrow and possessive that they don’t want anyone else to play in their sand box. No, it has to be the trip to St Ives rearing its ugly head again, there are just visual ways to express charity and only through visual images can the event be a celebration of all of the efforts to make this slice of heaven a better place to live.

But Ms Donaldson has taken that limited view and broken it all to pieces. Now you can do that imaging thing or you can take pen in hand and make some noise with the keyboard and try to offer a new way of finding the generosity buried in our collective hearts.

Hmmmmmm? That must be the same thing as knowing the trick to the trip to St Ives. If you know that there is only one person going then it is easy.

But are there other things that could do with a broader look?

Always.

Let’s take a look at the fantastic Expressions West show at the Coos Art Museum. Now the show is different from some of the past shows and there are pieces which have a different choice of expression but isn’t that what the whole concept is about, Expressions?

Sure there are always going to be opinions which do not agree with the choices of the juror. (It would be so much easier if only they would ask me first but then someone would say that my taste is not the sort of thing which should represent the art community of the South Coast and they’d be right, but I’d be a lot happier about the choices and that’s the whole point isn’t it? You can only please the person doing the selection and if they happen to get it right for anyone else that’s just a bonus.)

The show is fantastic and you should go and take a look. Maybe it will whisper a new direction in your ear.

We are sitting on the cusp of South Coast Summer and there are so many things changing right now that any artists should be overwhelmed with ideas and images just screaming for their attention.

Do you like sun drenched landscapes or are you still in the mood for the cool colors of early spring? You have both right now and all of the attendant things which make both seasons full of delights. Ever spend an hour or two watching a chipmunk fattening up? They are the most delicious of the wild rats and they have a wonderful way of getting darker as they fill up on roots and seeds. Our own little Munk started out sort of sandy and now is red as a brick. He’s redder than the squirrel and almost as big and the two of them are providing my cats with endless entertainment.

And the empty feeder where I used to mount a corn ear has been covered with moss and now has a green coat which makes it look like aged bronze and it is just begging for another pass through my camera and I will make time to get out there and get a few pictures, but there are so many things demanding my eye that it is terribly hard to decide what I want to do next.

Maybe that’s the problem, I am still counting cats, kits, rats and wives and I haven’t made a single step toward St Ives.