the dirt

2018 was a crazy busy year filled with travel and art adventures and I loved every minute of it but I’m intentionally starting off 2019 a little slower. Taking a few days to rest up, get my body on the correct time zone and be thoughtful about what is to come this year. The first things I did on the first day of the year was take a morning mile long swim in a 52 degree ocean- freezing but exhilarating- followed by a hike with family and friends. Not a bad way to start off my promise to spend as much time as possible outdoors! That said, I do have quite a few art adventures in the works already…

First exhibit of the new year will be at Pajaro Valley Gallery for Take-Aways, Art-to-Go! in Watsonville where I’ll have small works for sale and I’ve collaborated with sculptor Jamie Abbott to make sculptural necklaces – they are so fun! Be sure to check out this exhibit when it opens January 23rd.

Larger work is getting shipped off in a few weeks to Cebera Gallery in Kansas City which is a pretty exciting line up of ceramic artists to join the ranks of. AND, I’ll also be headed to Florida towards the end of the month for a site visit on a potentially big public art project- fingers crossed for that one! So with all of that planned just for this month, a few days of taking it easy feels like a good choice. Hope you are all easing into the new year as well too!

After a very long journey, I arrived in the lovely town of Mariestad of the shorefront of Lake Vänern. The hours of sunlight are very limited here this time of year and the drizzly weather makes for fabulously moody skies. I spent the first few days getting over the worst of the jet lag by getting a lay of the land, walking through the nature reserves and watching the locals prepare for the upcoming holiday season. The location for my artwork will be in the Universitetsparken where the University of Gothenburg holds their horticulture program. It seems like the perfect place for my Umbels to reside.

My time in Sweden has not just been spent staring off at scenic vistas, in my few days here so far I’ve unpacked my crate (everything survived- yay!), I have most of the flowers attached to the metal structures, the location of the Umbels has been selected, so the holes for the bases were dug and lighting placement was also chosen. The next few days involve sanding down the connection point of epoxy between the ceramic and the metal so that it’s a smooth transition between the structure and the flowers and  then painting the transition to match. There’s also a few interviews with the local news who are interested in my crazy sputnik looking flowers and then it’s looking like Friday morning will be the official final placement. I really can’t say enough about the kommun (municipality) of Mariestad that has answered every question, solved every hiccup in the process at every turn and been so compliant to the artists choice in how steps are taken. I think I’ve been very spoiled here with this amazing public art committee. Final installation pics are coming soon!