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In the Wake of Cuernavaca

I'm less than two days back from a four-week trip to Mexico to visit my brother. I feel lucky to have been able to experience central Mexico so thoroughly, living in his lovely and super comfy house within walking distance of the city center of Cuernavaca, known as the City of Eternal Spring. It was lush with a profusion of fruits and plants that thrive in that tropical climate...and I was told that it will be much prettier and more verdant when the dry season ends and daily rains begin to fall. Delicious.

My brother is the perfect host and made me quite comfortable, setting me up in my own spacious guest room with great light and a table to paint on with the few supplies I'd brought. He gave me personal tours of the most important, beautiful, and interesting places in and around the Cuernavaca -- including a couple days in D.F. (Mexico City, aka Districto Federal) to sample the Aztec ruins and some of the city's famous murals. We attended an art opening hosted by the Cuernavaca Newcomers Group, which consists of mostly English-speaking foreign nationals who have retired there.

One of my brother's friends shared a story with me about being told by a mystic that she is a tree, providing for others as a tree provides for it's environment. I found the metaphor so rich that it inspired me to sketch the mango trees in Cuernvaca's parks and gardens -- the image here being one of the fruits of that venture. The timing was right, because I'd been sketching central Texas live oaks for a commission piece, and the mangos provided a welcome diversion.

I enjoyed my time in Mexico so much that I'm already thinking of returning. But for now, I'm back in Portland and it's a great time to be here, with spring present in earnest and summer fast approaching. I'm beginning to ramp up for two shows in June -- one in Spokane and one in Lake Oswego -- so expect an announcement of those shows soon.

 

Sketchbook Page
(click image to enlarge)

Lewis & Clark  vs.  The Oregon Trail

I love analogies. As we sit at Oregon's doorstep, waking up this morning in a small-town RV site just outside Oregon's eastern state line, I wonder whether our journey is more analogous to Lewis & Clark, with all the exploration and wondrous discovery we've done along the way, or to the settlers who traveled the Oregon Trail, since we're carrying everything we own with us as we make our way to a new life in the Pacific Northwest. Regardless, it's an exciting journey, and we're getting very near the end.

For those of you who don't already know, I packed up my south Austin studio and moved out in early February. Mimi and I sold, donated, or gave away most of what remained in storage, squirreling away the must-keep stuff in Laluna (our Airstream travel trailer) or in Squeaker (my art van). We are loaded to the gills -- but not overloaded (should anyone reading this be a state or federal highway official). We departed Austin's Pecan Grove RV Park on March 6 and wended our way through New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Idaho, visiting some fabulous national parks along the way and even managing to hook up with some long-time RV friends.

Once we arrive in Portland, either today (if we take the northern route via interstate highway) or tomorrow (by taking the southern, mountain highway route), we will need to hit the ground running, as we both have much to do beyond the basics of finding a place to stay and getting generally settled. Mimi starts work at her exciting, new Mt. Rainier National Park job in a couple weeks (she will no longer be at Ohanapecosh), and I have a large commission to complete as well as June show for which to prepare. I haven't painted productively in many weeks, so it will feel good to get back to solid studio work.

I hope this explains the dearth of updates on curtislong.com since December -- 2007 has been a busy year so far with little to report in terms of my art progresss. I'm not sure what the summer holds, so if you don't see updates here, I'd recommend you visit my blog, for although I'm not much of a blogger -- my posts are infrequent and irregular -- it's easier to create quick updates there than on my web site, so that's where I generally put them.

Thanks to everyone who made our departure from Austin go smoothly, including those artists among you who helped me clear out my studio by buying tools, shelving, supplies, and books. I'm really glad that so much of our stuff went to good homes.

Armadillo Bazaar - Day 18

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Just kidding about the Day 18 thing. Yes, today is the 18th day since the Bazaar opened, but it closed at 11 PM two evenings ago (on Christmas Eve). Mimi and I arrived home a few minutes past 2:30 on Christmas morning, after wearily packing up my artwork, tearing down the booth walls, lights, and displays, and loading everything in the van. As has become our post-Armadillo Christmas Day tradition, we slept in and spent the day lounging around watching Christmas movies and doing a bit of cooking and baking.

I’m happy with the way the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar went for me this year. My sales were down a bit from my previous 4-year average, but I have some strong leads on follow-up sales and commissions. Plus, I really had a nice time at the Bazaar this year. It’s always a pleasure to visit with friends and patrons, and each year I feel more a part of the Armadillo “family” that has been growing since the event’s inception 31 years ago. Shoot, I’m happy for simply having gotten through the 16-day show without getting sick! The Austin Music Hall is not what you’d call a healthy place to spend 12 hours a day. Typically many of the artists and booth-sitters get sick sometime during the Bazaar, but illness didn’t seem to be such a problem this year. Future shows may prove to be healthier for us, as the Austin Music Hall is due to be remodeled starting any day now. The new structure is slated be a sleek, modern structure with a restaurant, a second level for seating and exhibits, and hopefully new, clean, allergen-free ductwork! Construction is due for completion in June, so even if it finishes behind schedule, next December’s Bazaar should be held in a newly remodeled space.

I took a straw poll of vendors’ sales at the Bazaar and got widely scattered results, from record-breaking highs to well below-average sales. The responses varied randomly between craft and fine art, so there were no noticeable patterns. Attendance was down early in the show, but it increased as the show progressed. In the end, overall Bazaar attendance was down only 4% or so from 2005 (a record-breaking high attendance year). This is a pretty impressive turn-out, considering the parking challenges faced by Bazaar-goers this year. So, during teardown at midnight on Sunday, the Hall was filled with a fairly jovial bunch of vendors.

Armadillo Day 6

A few minutes ago, the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar opened it’s doors for Day 6 of this year’s 16-day event. Attendance of the event seems a little slow this year, and that feeling has been corroborated by the hourly ticket sales figures which are tracking behind previous years. The obvious culprit is the parking and traffic issues caused by construction of the new 360 Tower and the Ballet Austin building right next door. But the Armadillo devotees who come here every year — many of them several times a year — are not daunted by a few cranes and guys in hardhats, and most artists and artisans at the Bazaar are having strong sales despite the droop in door figures.

For my part, I’m happy to have already sold my featured Austin piece, Live Music Capitol of the World, which I showed in-progress in a previous post. I didn’t even get a chance to post it to my web gallery before it was picked up by an enthusiastic Austin couple. There are still ten shopping days until Christmas, so if you haven’t come by to say hello, yet, be sure to put us on your list of holiday stops.

Incidentally, Todd Van Duren — a talented Austin-based ceramicist — is sharing my booth again this year. We’re splitting the 12-hour work days so that neither of us is there all the time. If you want to visit my booth while I’m there, here’s my tentative schedule:

Thu 12/14 — 6-11 PM
Fri 12/15 — 2-8 PM
Sat 12/16 — 11-8 PM
Sun 12/17 — 11-3 PM, 6-11 PM
Mon 12/18 — 11-2, 6-11 PM
Tue 12/19 — 11-2, 6-11 PM
Wed 12/20 — 11-2, 6-11 PM
Thu 12/21 — 11-2, 6-11 PM
Fri 12/22 — 11-8 PM
Sat 12/23 — All Day (subject to physical endurance)
Sun 12/24 — All Day (subject to physical endurance)

Hope you can make it out! If not, have a great holiday season!

Armadillo Bazaar Opens Today

The Austin Music Hall will be rocking with the sounds of Ray Benson, Eliza Gilkyson, and Slaid Cleaves today, not to mention the hum of happy holiday shoppers and beaming vendors.  The place is stocked with arts & crafts galore, excellent food and drink, and a fun, family friendly atmosphere to boot!  If you're in Austin, come join the fun! 

Armadillo Christmas Bazaar

December 9 - 24, 2006
11 AM - 11 PM daily

Austin Music Hall, 3rd & Nueces

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Another CD Cover!

Aimee Hurst of Fort Worth, Texas, has released a CD of solo instrumental piano work titled This Shining Night: Songs of Contemplation and Inspiration.  I am pleased to have my artwork gracing the cover (Autumn Music, Shenandoah) and inside jacket (Concerto) of this album.

ACL Fest

It's a big week in Austin...and not just because of the UT/Ohio State game.  Austin City Limits 4th annual music festival will be rockin' Zilker Park this weekend, and the town will be once again vibrating with music fans.  I want to take this opportunity to plug locally owned gallery and gift store, Wild About Music, who will have a booth at ACL Fest.  They've shown and sold my work for five years and are great folks, so check out their booth if you go to the music festival or their store on 6th Street if you don't.

CD Cover Art

The guys in Django's Moustache have done me the honor of featuring my artwork on their new music CD South Austin Gypsy Jazz.  Check out their music (and the artwork) at djangosmoustache.com. 

Be sure to click the Turn Music On link so you can listen while you browse.

Focus: Madison

I'm finishing up last-minute preparations for the Madison Art Fair on the Square in Wisconsin this coming weekend.  Tomorrow, I will celebrate Independence Day by jumping in my van and heading north.  The new paintings I mentioned in my April news update are varnished and ready for prime time.  It's always exciting to roll out new work, but even more exciting when it's a body of work very different from previous work.  Normally I would update my web gallery with most of my new images prior to the show, but I figure I've been secretive about these new paintings for so long that I might as well keep them under wraps until the show opens.  I'll post image updates when I get back to Texas.

The old me

DVD Cover Art

A big thanks to my friends, Milton Sullivan and Lea Rothrock, who have put together a documentary video about paranoid schizophrenia, and are using my image April's Fool for the cover art.

Life Comes at You Fast

I was on my way home from Studio N on my daily bicycle 'commute' a few weeks ago when I did a silly thing that altered my normal life for the near future -- as I was negotiating a speed-bump, I waved at an acquaintance.  Bad idea.  The impact of the speed-bump and the loose gravel in the gutter beyond contributed to my front wheel twisting 90-degrees and me being thrown over the handle bars to land like a ton of bricks on my left shoulder.  I was wearing a heavy daypack which no doubt added to the severity of the blow and kept me from rolling.  I was wearing my helmet, a good thing as it earned a nasty tarmac dent.  Stunned, I eventually extricated myself from my bike and stood up, immediately aware that something was not right with my left shoulder. 

I was only 50 yards or so from home at that point, so I was able to walk to Laluna as the wavees pushed my bike and carried my backpack.  Mimi drove me to the Emergency Room for x-rays confirming that I had a severe broken collar break.  A week later I had surgery to install a titanium plate, splicing the two pieces of clavicle bone together.  The healing process seems to be going smoothly.  I'm doing my best to eat the right things to promote bone and tissue regrowth, and I'm taking a 'cocktail' of supplements and vitamins and drinking a 'calcium tea' concoction.  I think it's working -- my shoulder feels stronger each day -- and I'm looking forward to wowwing the surgeon with my follow-up x-ray next week. 

Fortunately, it's my left shoulder that was injured and I'm right-handed, so I've been able to continue to work this past month, albeit more slowly than usual.  Unfortunately, it kept me from finishing my Green Gate.  Dang!

UCP Day Design

United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Dane County (Madison, WI) has selected my image Yellow Silos with Purple Cow to grace the posters, t-shirts, and promotional materials for their UCP Day 2006 celebration in May. I am flattered at their request and excited to play a role in the event.

Yellow Silos with Purple Cow

SXSW

The annual South by Southwest Music Festival has descended upon Austin, and our fair city is crawling with small clusters of people dressed in black.  It's a great time of year to be here because the place is just electric with activity.  This is truly Austin at it's finest.  All the city's establishments -- including the print, TV, and radio media -- put on their best faces and offer festival-goers oodles of bonus tidbits, like live in-store/in-studio performances, interviews, and such.  In fact, if you live outside of Austin and would like to experience a bit of the excitement generated by SXSW, I'd recommend tuning into the live webcasts of performances during the day at KUT and KGSR.

Something like 1400 musical acts perform during the five nights of sanctioned SXSW showcases, but hundreds of other bands (and poets and comedians, etc.) play at the many spin-off events hosted in clubs, restaurants, galleries, warehouses, parking lots, on grassy lawns...you name it.  And most of the non-SXSW events are free.  And to top it off, the weather is perfect this year:  not hot, not cold, not rainy (so far).

Last evening, my buddy Scott and I walked to Jo's Hot Coffee & Good Food on South Congress, hoping to get there in time to catch Kacy Crowley and Elana James.  But alas we were too late.  We hooked up with another friend and watched the blues set by Gary Primich (with scorching blues harp) followed by a rockin' bluegrass show by The Weary Boys.  We stuck around to hear The Small Stars, because Scott had heard that it was a 'project' of one of the members of Fastball.  When Small Stars first took the stage, we didn't recognize any of them as being from Fastball...but they'd tricked us.  After a short warm-up of loungy background comping, the camp-meister Buddy Llama (with his jet-black hair in pig-tails) introduced Vic Odin and Guy Fantasy (Miles Zuniga's alter ego), who took the stage in high Vegas style, completing the band and kicking off a set of theatrical, funny, and well-orchestrated borderland lounge-rock.  They attracted quite a crowd and proved themselves to be adept entertainers.

Wayne Newton would have been proud.

Since we both had to work today (like I'm supposed to be doing right now), we called it an early evening, but not before enjoying a few Tin Pan Alley standards crooned by the sexy-voiced Kathryn Edmonson, performing with Slim Richie and the Cat's Meow.  Upright bass, archtop guitar, and diva.  The perfect combo. 

Green Gates of Austin

Austin Green Art is planning for Earth Day 2006, which falls on Saturday, April 22.  (Event details here).  I've been helping build Green Gates structures for the event, so I submitted three designs for the competition hosted by Gallery Lombardi last weekend.  One of my proposals was selected to be built for the Earth Day event.  So now I'm praying to that patron saint of massive public art projects, Christo, for inspiration.

Tthis green gates project of mine is not huge, but it's a start.  It is a public art project.  And it's larger than I normally work on my canvases (and certainly heavier).  The logistics of collecting 156 used drinking water bottles of the same size, stringing them together so they hang evenly, filling with colored water, and then getting them hung -- all 200 pounds of them -- from the 12-foot-high cross-bar...well, it's gonna be a fun project!  If you're interested in helping out, let me know.  We may be fabricating the bottle piece at the Austin Fine Arts Festival on April 1 & 2 and then installing it on the cedar gate a couple weeks later.

Holidaze

We arrived in Austin early this month, exactly six months after leaving town with Laluna in-tow for another year on the road.  It's always nice to return to Austin after a long time away, particularly at this time of year when the central Texas weather is so lovely, compared to places north...

Now I'm in the midst of the annual mad rush, working furiously to get new pieces completed for my two December shows.  This was a good year for me sales-wise and my inventory of paintings is low, meaning I am under pressure to create new works to fill the empty spaces.  Or not.  There would be nothing wrong with a tastefully hung booth featuring only a few outstanding pieces, right?  (I have to keep telling myself that, or I'll go crazy!)

The biggest news for me this season is that I've invited Todd Van Duren to share my Armadillo booth space with me.  Todd does fabulous ceramic sculptures using the basic house as his fundamental building block.  I look forward to working with Todd and I hope you'll stop by the booth to meet him.  He and I will be splitting time in the booth, so if you are intent on seeing either one of us, you should call or email to make sure of our schedule that particular day.

2nd Place Award

I exhibited a few pieces at the Packwood Art & Music Festival in Packwood, WA, last month.  One piece, TV-MA (Explicit Sax and Graphic Violins), received a People's Choice Award of 2nd Place in the Mixed Media category.  It's not a large festival, but there was some really nice work there, so I am flattered by the award.

AWOL at the Whole in the Knight

Bad bad spoonerism for a night at the Hole in the Wall, and possibly a sub-conscious reference to what may happen to your speech if you drink too much beer while listening to live music (not that I would ever do that).  One evening last week a couple buddies and I met at the Hole in the Wall to groove to the terrific voice and poetic songwriting of Kacy Crowley.  We were not disappointed, as Kacy and her band gave a powerful performance.  She's no folkie singer-songwriter.  Sure, she's a poet.  And she can conjure intense emotion and paint vivid pictures with her music, like a good folkie.  But she's definitely a rocker when she wants to be.  Kacy is one of Austin's underrated treasures.

That evening, we also saw Elana Fremerman and her trio.  This is Elana's new act since parting ways with the Hot Club of Cowtown, and I must say that I like her better this way:  in command of her own band.  Don't get me wrong, Hot Club was a hot act, but after seeing Elana this week I sense that she was maybe a bit overshadowed by the other members of that trio.  Her new trio doesn't have a CD out yet, but so far they're playing a lot of the Hot Club standards, which is a not a bad thing.  Definitely a good show to catch.

New Links Page

I've added a new page to my web site that will grow with time as I encounter links that I want to 'advertise.'  Is this a purely selfless act?  Of course not!  I've heard the talk about Google scores, and I want to make sure that my site is at the top of the list when you search for 'Curtis Long'!  And I want to do my part to raise the scores of people whose work I admire.

So if you feel benevolent and have a moment to add a link to my web gallery on your web site, by all means...don't let me stop you!

Under the Volcano
The Last Days of Pompeii in Packwood

Mimi and her fellow Park Rangers closed the doors of the Ohanapecosh Visitor Center today for the last time this season.  Most of Mt. Rainier National Park is in the process of shutting down for the winter, with the seasonal rangers (like Mimi) finishing up their terms and leaving for parts unknown.  In fact, most rangers have left already -- the ranks began to thin in August.  This must be the precise reason for which the word bittersweet was coined:  it's exciting to be moving on to new adventures, but at the same time it's sad to admit that another wonderful summer is over and to say goodbye to new friends that now seem like old buddies.

Mimi and I will be hitching up Laluna and hitting the open road before the weekend.  Our ultimate destination is Austin, but our precise travel schedule is still smooshy.  We know we'll be stopping in Portland and Ashland (Oregon) for a couple days each, just to get our last Oregon fix before we put the Pacific Northwest behind us.

Studio Update

After arriving back in Packwood from Minneapolis, I spent a few weeks working at about half-capacity.  It's not as thought Midwest Summer Tour '5 was all that stressful, but for some reason I felt like kicking back and relaxing a bit.  (I'm sure that having a 4-month break before my next show had nothing to do with it.)  In my defense there have been distractions.  We were fortunate enough to have guests to entertain for a couple weekends this summer.  It was a fun to catch up with old friends and show them around.  And because of them, I spent more time hiking Mt. Rainier than I would otherwise...always a good thing, as it's such an awesome place. 

Since the closing of the Packwood lumber mill a few years ago, it's not been easy to make a living in Packwood (not to imply that logging is an easy way to make a living).  Those who live here absolutely love this part of the world, and those that are not independently wealthy have to be creative to be able to stay here and survive.  Packwood in some ways reminds me of Cicely, Alaska, the imaginary modern-day frontier town depicted in the TV series Northern Exposure (which incidentally was filmed less than 100 miles from here).  I haven't met any astronauts, yet, but there are some pretty colorful characters here...and many of them retire to Butter Butte Coffee Co for their dose of liquid sunshine.  In fact, Jeb's coffee shop has become something of a watering hole for Packwood's illuminati.  Okay, so maybe they're not illuminati per se [sounds like a Latin inscription], but they drink fancy coffee drinks and are kind enough to tell me they like my artwork.  I'd be foolish to say they are anything but enlightened!

Locals that I've been fortunate enough to meet -- most of them at Butter Butte -- include a saw-blade sharpener who works at the nearby lumber mill (and races SCCA cars as a hobby), a photographer who doubles as a courier for Mt. Rainier National Park, a young biologist who spends his summers traipsing through forests and streams to take readings on in-situ water data sensors (for environmental studies) and his winters on the White Pass Ski Patrol, and a fine-art wood-carver who spends his summers fighting forest fires as far away as Alaska.  I've also met a retired professional artist (oil painter in SoCal for 40 years), a retired classical violinist (who played for a while in the Houston Symphony and sat in with the Austin Symphony on occasion), and the Packwood gift-shop proprieter who doubles as florist and cabin-watcher.

Ya gotta be creative to live here.

Midwest Summer Tour '5 a Success!

My trip to Wisconsin and Minnesota for art festivals this summer went smoothly and was quite worth the time, effort, and expense.  I truly enjoyed having my sister along for our drive across the Rockies, and she seemed to have fun helping set up and work my booth for the Madison Art Fair on the Square.  She'd not seen the mysterious and enigmatic inner machinations of the art festival world, and I think she liked it!  Also, it was nice to be back in Madison (as always) and spend some time there.

While it was difficult leaving Madison after only a couple weeks, relocating to Minneapolis was not a sacrifice, as it turns out.  I thoroughly enjoyed my 3-week stay in the Twin Cities and had a good show at the Uptown Art Fair.  I was even lucky enough to have a soundtrack for the experience:  early on I discovered The Current -- 89.3 FM, a six-month-old venture by Minnesota Public Radio that features around-the-clock music, mostly cutting-edge stuff (thus the name) heavily dosed with selections by acts local to Minnesota.  It's an excellent radio station with one of the most exciting formats I've ever encountered.  (For you Austinites, imagine KUT's Eklektikos all day every day, with more focus on contemporary and local music.)  You can -- and should -- check out The Current via live webcast at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/services/thecurrent/