Thinking and Working Warm

"Wooded Lane, No.3"

oil painting - © Bruce A. Morrison 

My first post of 2018...where does time go?  A perpetual question I know I'll have on my mind until my last breath...

It's been drier than usual and fairly cold the last couple weeks, but all-in-all not really so bad for winter here...oops should not say this out loud!  I have been trying to start work once again in the studio, I guess you could say I've been goofing off - too many things to distract me, but I have been earnestly trying to decide where to begin and what to start.

I have a yet "unofficial" solo exhibit coming up in 2019...to make this work I will need to be productive this year and into the next!  I say unofficial because the invitation was given me and a date has yet to be set or even officially agreed upon. But right now I am proceeding with beginning the process that this requires.  I last had two solo exhibits in 2012 so haven't been pressed with this responsibility for a while.

I began my work toward this process with the above oil painting, still drying on the easel as I write.  "Wooded Lane, No.3" is a small oil landscape painting of a location about 10 miles south of us, as the crow flies.  It is the same location I painted at for a plein air show last August.  This was done from some photo studies I took at that time.  

My wife asked me a very pertinent question when I talked of posting the image on social media, one I had already contemplated.  That was "Should you be showing your work before your solo exhibit?"  Good question and as I mentioned, given a good deal of thought.

I guess I replied something like this (don't remember my exact response) - "If I show no work on social media for the next 18 months it would be like dropping out of art...if I am an artist, I think I need people to know I am still working; although I am taking an 18 month hiatus I shouldn't give former collectors and clients (and  friends) the idea I have "quit" working all together.  I really feel that once all the work I endeavor to produce over the next 18 months hangs together in a gallery/museum setting, the work should take on a new life.  Besides - seeing work "in person and in the flesh" is much more interesting than the paintings, drawings and photographs "teased out" online over the next year and a half!"

Also I need to let people know that these works are for sale, as always...I don't collect my work, I do it because this is my profession.  But obviously things have to be worked out in sales of this painting or any other works produced for an exhibit 18 months from now - so please do not hesitate to express your interest in any artwork I am creating at this time and into the future!

I hope you enjoy seeing what I'm up to...that means the world to me!  Please stop back and visit this blog when you have a moment, and better yet - don't ever hesitate to visit the studio and check in on me!  I love to visit with folks who soon become my friends, its a blessing.

I hope this painting helps warms you now in mid January!!!  Take Care.