Time Out for Filming!

Me... trying to get comfortable with the idea of being in front of cameras. EEK!

Sorry to leave you all high and dry with the sparrow linocut-in-progress, but things were just not dry enough for me to tackle the last color pass before I went to Florida.

Florida! Where spring is so far along that the sandhill cranes already have good-sized chicks. I spent two weeks working with filmaker, photographer, and (IMHO) technical genius Drew Fulton, who is producing a complete Learn Linocut online course for me. There is still much to do: editing the 5+ terabytes of footage, writing the accompanying course document, organizing the online community for course students to interact with each other. We anticipate a mid-July release... don't worry, I'll tell you all about it when it's ready!

A three-block multi-block linocut demonstration for the course...

This morning I'm back in Maine, trying to catch up with all the tasks that accumulate whilst one is away from home and studio. Tomorrow I have to drive up to Rockland to take down a show, so it will be the weekend before I can wrap up those darn chipping sparrows, but they WILL be done before Monday.

The surprisingly nice thing about being back in Maine, where it's still gray and brown and snow lingers in the shadows is that it feels like I get a second spring. This is good, because from now until October things really ramp up.... and being in Florida, where it's practically summer already, was making me a bit panicked about time.

I've got three exhibitions opening in the next three weeks and fresh work to get to galleries in both Maine and Colorado. Plus I'm preparing for a solo exhibition at the Museum of America Bird Art in Massachusetts! Drew was kind enough to include an interview with me in our shooting schedule, which will narrate a video piece for that show. We shot it the last day of my trip, delightfully outdoors instead of in the studio. Well, it was delightful until the bugs started biting. Thanks for not being perfect, Florida. It could have made my return to Maine a bit awkward if you had been.

Filmaker Drew Fulton, lured into position in front of the cameras for a change.

PS: Lest you think we were all work and no play, we did take breaks to go birding in some of the great forest and park spaces around Gainesville. And of course we saw 'gators. Because, you know. Florida.

Black-crowned night heron

Common gallinule (formerly moorhen, formerly gallinule)

American alligator. A big'un.

58th Art & the Animal at the James Museum

Wheee! I'm just back from a quick trip to St. Petersburg, Florida, for the Society of Animal Artists' 58th Art & the Animal exhibition, which debuted this year at the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art.

Part of the beautiful installation at the James Museum

The James is a brand new museum and Art & the Animal is their first "special" exhibition beyond their permanent collection. They did a gorgeous job of hanging the show, and the staff and docents were a delight to work with. My heartfelt thanks go out to everyone involved with putting the show and the weekend events together.

Find the linocut in great company. I'm surrounded by the work of fabulous
artists: Bill Alther, Cindy House, Chris Bacon, Sue Adair, James Coe.

I admit to some trepidation about making the journey to Florida. Two previous visits were less than stellar experiences (one qualified as absolutely wretched), and the weather forecast called for 90 degrees and humid.  But I'm happy to say that my misgivings quickly vanished, particularly since I was able to spend time with good friends and colleagues.. AND even meet a fellow printmaker I've "known" online for several years but never met in person. Ain't that grand?

One morning I was up well before daylight to join friends on a birding expedition. Bird artists gotta look at birds sometimes, right? But seriously. How are we going to find any birds in this?...

Um. I thought we were going birding "in the morning." How come it's
so dark out, guys?

The early departure was to travel to a location where it might be possible to spot the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. Local information said dawn gave us our best possibility of success, so off we went in full darkness in hopes of arriving just at sunrise. We were successful in travel but not in woodpecker-finding. Still it was a great morning to be out in the Florida pines.

Birders in their natural habitat

At a second location we found a few more birds, but more importantly we found gators. Alligators, that is. We were standing on a bridge looking down a waterway when I realized with a start that there were alligators on the shoreline. D'oh! Florida. I forgot about them gators.

This photo can be embiggened a bit to find the gators. There are two.

I hadn't brought my "real" camera along on the trip, so unfortunately I don't have any pictures of birds! Ah, well. It's possible I'll be back down that way in December and next time I'll be fully outfitted for bird-finding expedition.

So what's up for the remainder of this week? I'm planning to be back in the studio tomorrow and Friday, and Saturday I'll be teaching a short field sketching workshop at Gilsland Farm Audubon Center near Portland. The workshop is sold out, but I do have an exhibition of over 20 linocuts installed at the Farm right now... so stop on by if you're in the neighborhood.