Another Opening Of Another Show

We have an awfully nice artists' cooperative and gallery called Soulard Art Market. They have monthly shows in which I occasionally participate. Nobody ever buys my stuff. It's either too weird or too expensive. I've got, um, certain standards, print with high quality ink and paper and use acid-free mats and UV resistant acrylic. You get what you pay for, except nobody wants to pay that much.

There are three of my pieces in the show (this, this and this) that opened Friday night. The theme was From The Pavement, anything to do with the streets. The man in the top picture is studying my work (buy it, dammit, buy it!). Madeleine went to her first art show. We'll have more about her reaction to the exhibits in tomorrow's Madeleine Monday after some colorful subjects.                   

By Invitation

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Last night saw the opening of the spring invitational photography show at Soulard Art Market, a gallery in the eponymous neighborhood. Below, a visitor gazes longingly at the entries of your humble blogger. Buy it, damn you, buy it!

Portrait of Ivan

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This from a week ago, at the opening of the Labor of Love Show at Soulard Art Market. You see Ivan at a lot of arts events. His wife, Jane, is one of the resident artists at SAM and has been featured here in our artists' portraits series. Ivan also works on veterans' issues. If you are interested, stop by the fundraiser he helped organize for Guitars For Vets on Sunday, March 20 at 4 PM at BB's Jazz Blues and Soups, 700 S. Broadway. It's worth looking at that link to see the good these people do.

Wascally wabbits today on Downtown St. Louis 365.

Labor Of Love

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The opening night reception for the Labor of Love art show took place last night at Soulard Art Market. As I mentioned yesterday, I have one photograph in the show. It was never explained whether the labor of love referred to the process of creating art or the subject of the work or art. I went with the second approach in a photo of chanting Tibetan Buddhist monks.

There was a big crowd and a lot to see. It may have been too intense for some people.

How mixed up can architecture be? See today's post on Downtown St. Louis 365.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists: Jane Martin

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Jane Martin is one of the resident artists at Soulard Art Market, where I sometimes participate in group shows. (I'll be exhibiting there in September.) She has been on the blog once before when I ran into her at our wacky Tomatofest, where there is an annual attempt to make the world's largest bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. Her work is African-inspired but in this picture she looks like she could be reciting Shakespeare.

Art Market

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Soulard Art Market, where I've exhibited a couple of times, had a reception last night for social media types interested in the arts. Never thought of it this way, but I guess I am social media. SAM has some new resident artists and I met a couple. This is T. Matthew Pierson, cartoonist, illustrator and fine art painter with attitude. It's worth your time to review his stuff.

Some good shooting in STL this weekend. Citygarden celebrates its first anniversary today with a Flamingo Festival. The place is strewn with toy pink flamingos that kids can pick up and have their way with. Tomorrow brings the World's Largest Catsup Bottle Festival under the world's largest catsup (or do you prefer ketchup? Questions like this only arise in English) bottle in nearby Collinsville, Illinois. Time magazine named this as one of the top 10 quirky local festivals in the U.S. Quirky is too mild a word.

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Portraits of St. Louis Artists - Scott Beatty

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We come to the end of the series of portraits of artists and their work I shot recently at Soulard Art Market. This might be the best photograph of the set, considerations of the artists and art work aside. I was making a comical effort to light most of these portraits with off-camera remote-controlled flashes, something I'm just learning. This one, however, worked well.

Beatty is an interesting guy. He spent twenty years in the navy as a submarine crewman, mostly in reconnaissance. He told me just briefly (security, you know) about picking up Navy Seals in the open ocean, with no knowledge of where they came from or the nature of their mission. His artistic project is called Vision For Vets (web site in production). This particular work is called Voyage of Faith. The craftsmanship is amazing, as you can see in the lower picture. Each of those tiny screw eyes had to be set in precisely made pilot holes made with a micro-drill. The local supplier ran out of the part and Beatty had to make the rest himself from brass wire.

WHAT PLEASED ME YESTERDAY: I had a disability hearing for a man with a complex combination of insulin-dependent diabetes with diabetic neuropathy and kidney disease, circulatory disorder in his legs, heart disease and sleep apnea. Yet he continued to work as a systems analyst until a layoff. The number of doctors he has seen is enormous. We pulled it all together and worked it out with the judge on the spot. He really needs the help. Job well done. WHAT I FORGOT YESTERDAY: on St. Patrick's Day 36 years ago, I met a young woman in a raucous bar. She remembered it when we woke up this morning.

TOMORROW: Thursday Arch Series, plus a new Arch photo on Gateway.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists - Christy Jones

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A tree woman holding, oh, I don't know: birds? flowers? bath scrubs with blue ribbons? I was so busy fiddling with lighting a subject in a large, bright window (a part of photography in which I have very modest skills) that I forgot to ask about it, forgot, even, to ask the name of the work. (Dope slap.) Jones just told me that the title is Empty Nest. It's an awfully creative idea. You can't fool mother nature but you can fool me.

HOW MANY PICTURES I TOOK ON SUNDAY: 0. I spent most of the day catching up on day-job work and editing recent photos. HOW MANY PICTURES I TOOK SATURDAY AT THE ST. PATRICK'S DAY PARADE: 1,178. I swear, my right index finger is gonna fall off.

TOMORROW: we interrupt this series of portraits for St. Patrick's Day with some Irish words of wisdom.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists - Thomas Shepherd

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Thomas Shepherd, a photographer, has the unique position of having been featured on this blog twice. I first met him last summer, during St. Louis' annual artists open studio weekend. He has his own space at Soulard Art Market and that's where I photographed him both times. Click here for the post about him on July 27, 2008.

Shepherd always seems to have a puckish quality when I meet him and his work is full of appropriate wonder. Check out a selection of his work here. Doesn't he look cool in the tuxedo?

WHEN IS THE NEXT FIFTEEN MINUTES OF FAME? Now. Soulard Art Market did a little feature about me and this series on the gallery blog. Click here.

TOMORROW: St. Louis artists' portraits continues as Christy Jones mixes her media.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists - Michael Matthes

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Michael Matthes won the Juror's Choice Award in the recent show at Soulard Art Market for the painting on the wall behind him. I like it a lot: Mondrian shapes, Frankenthaler colors and Dizzy Gillespie rhythm. Matthes is slowly and carefully developing the display of his art. He is working on a web site but it's not ready yet. I'll add a link here later on when I learn it's online. He will be the featured artist at an upcoming show at SAM. I'll note that when available, too. He's intense and has a lot to say, but says it quietly.

WHAT WAS FUN AND DIFFERENT LAST NIGHT: We went to a performance of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance at the Touhill Center. It contains one of the wittiest songs ever written for the English-speaking musical theater (or should i say theatre?). Anyway, click here.

TOMORROW: Thomas Shepherd, photographer

Portraits of St. Louis Artists - Barbara Merlotti

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I met Barbara Merlotti when she came by Soulard Art Market to pick up the two works on the wall behind her. Merlotti's personal history and artistic style are complex. Rather than having me try to summarize it, I recommend that you read her artistic statement and biography. The work is small-scale, often postcard size, which produces considerable intimacy. The examples in the gallery on her web site strike me as charged, mysterious self-portraits, each with a different emotional tone. The pictures on the wall here are different, drawn with chalk pastel, speaking of lushness, rhythm and fertility.

WHAT I'M CONSIDERING: taking a little sabbatical from the blog. In your first year of law school in the US, you usually learn a bunch of old English legal maxims, since that's the source of our system. One of them says that "the law is a jealous mistress," that is, we can be entrapped by our responsibilities. You could say the same of a daily photo blog. Nobody needs the headache of two mistresses. The second anniversary of this adventure is coming soon - of course I'll stay daily for that.

TOMORROW: portraits of St. Louis artists continues with Michael Matthes, painter.

Portraits of St. Louis Artists - Garrett Roberts

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As promised, we are stating a little series of portarits of the artists I met at the Soulard Art Market gallery last Sunday. Garrett Roberts is a photographer who has permanent space there (so you can go check it out any time). His mix of images done in infrared, hand-colored or shot with a Holga is fascinating. I just love his photo in the bottom picture, a cartoonish bowler passing in front of the Arch in a parade, shot with a Holga. Garrett, hold that one for me. I'd like to buy it the next time I'm at SAM.

Do yourself a favor and browse through Roberts' web site here.

WHO WAS THAT POTENTIAL NEW CLIENT WHO CALLED ME YESTERDAY? A former lawyer who is picking away on a Ph.D. thesis in constitutional history. Don't get a lot of that. Awful serious medical problems, though.

TOMORROW: the Thursday Arch Series is back from break, along with a new Arch photo on Gateway.

The Polaroid Kidd

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Still in the same eerie territory north of the Arch. This is a stairway to the back door of an abandoned industrial building. I'll never know, but I'd like to think these three words were written by a fierce photographer who won't let go of her or his chosen medium. The Polaroid Corporation no longer makes instant cameras. Fujifilm is the only company that still does.

WHAT'S THE OVERLOAD FACTOR: today is the annual full-day seminar sponsored by the St. Louis Camera Club, this year featuring Jim Richardson. Tomorrow, I've been asked to come by the Soulard Art Market gallery during teardown of their current show to photograph the artists and their work. There's a lot of day-job work to do. And I haven't done any local shooting in a few weeks. Better not sleep in.

TOMORROW: Industrial Revolution.