My Ceramic Display at the Phippen

My Ceramic display

No body is left behind - Coati mundi family

Three Graces - Sonoran Desert Toads

A Hary Situation

Secrets Shared - Racoons

Fox Glow

Nearly full ensemble

Phippen Museum Western Art Show and Sale in Prescott

The 51st Annual Phippen Museum Western Art Show & Sale will be held over Memorial Day weekend, May 24-26, 2025, at the Yavapai County Courthouse Plaza in downtown Prescott, Arizona. This beloved event is one of the nation's premier Western art gatherings, offering fine art, live demonstrations. My booth ill be on the corner of Montezuma and Gurley Str.

All our Pretty Snakes

With my pottery, I ran into problems when I used the local sand as temper. So I'm now grinding up old clay flower pots to make grog. That is very hard work and maybe good exercise for me, but I doubt that it is good for my little corn grinder. Anyway, today when I poored collected old sherds on my metate for pre-crushing, a little snake slithered away. My sherd collection had been sitting quietly since I last used some for plant-potting, so it may even have wintered in there, who knows. Slender (like a pencil, at about a foot long) and cryptically patterned with two larger dark aereas behind its head - the first Night Snake (Hypsiglena torquata) that I've found on our property. It slipped quickly away, so the photo is not my own. It's snake sp. number 13 for oour place! King, Longnose, Patchnose, 4 Rattlers, Thread, Racer, Sonor. Whip, Gopher. Only the 4 rattler spp are significantly venomous to humans.

Primitive Pottery, my new passion

After years of mainly painting watercolors I found my way back to threedimentional work using natural materials. The is clay and pigments that I dig at several locations around Tucson. The method follows the technique of Ancestral Puebloans of the southwest. I joined workshops by Kelly Kayenta and Andy Ward to learn clay and pigment preparation and open firing. I loved working on Anasazi style vessels, especially polychromes, but eventually moved on to sculptural work, more in line with my usual art work that is strongly influenced by my interest in the local fauna. After all, I am a biologist

New Tiles for the Fall Shows

I just prepared some new tiles for the fall season. They look very interesting and combine my interests in Art and Science. Of course all the other tiles of my watercolors will also be available again See you in October!

Pet Rocks revisited

I used to paint hundreds of rocks - making them into cats and wolves and rattlesnakes and selling them at art fairs. But when we moved away from the beach in CA, finding smooth pebbles became difficult. Carrying them to art fairs also became a real drag. My greatest problem: I'd spend every minute between shows on replenishing my inventory, with no time left for serious painting and no option to make any prints. So I gave up on this venue, even though the rocks were still selling like the proverbial hot-cakes. But Facebug brings up old memories and my fb friends saw pictures of old rock pets. So requests came in. But they were not for generic cats or wild-life, they were requests for portraits of individual dogs. I should have thought twice about that challenge. But one pair of dogs was super cute and the photos were usable. So I found a rock in our backyard and started sketching:

After the first dog, the Pomeranian Jazz, was painted and I liked him, I was afraid that the second portrait as sketched would destroy the first. Luckily acryllic paint is forgiving, so I whited out the sketch and turned the little face.

After fleshing out Molly's little Papillion Face I liked the outcome, even if one has to look at them from 2 different angles to do them both justice. That's the curse of a curved surface.

Most importantly, the owner loves it. Success!

4th Avenue Winter Street Fair, Tucson, 2021

The 4th Avenue Winter Street Fair in Tucson was cancelled 3 times because of the pandemic, but this early December it took place, with crowds, food and drink, masks and no masks, wireless problems with many creditcards, but over all a great mood.

While the set up on Friday morning happened during a heavy shower and ankle-deep water between the van and the booth, dry socks and a different pair of boots took care of that. By the time the show opened the sky was clear and the sun rather warm. And that weather held. Tiles are my best seller at the moment. My display is now devoted to them and to larger canvas prints. No more hundreds of 8x10 inch little blocks, those are now in little bins. My paper mache Hummingbirds may be a distraction? But I sold a few.

When the first credit card was being used, I had no ATT coverage on my wifi. It turned out that all artists using tablets for their 'squares' had that problem. So olfashioned paper slips from the manual slider days came out. But not all customers are comfortable with that anymore. Well, it's more of a risk for the seller really. On Saturday morning, the lovely people of the Presbyterian Church accross from my booth provided me access to their network. That saved the show.