The Making of Lore

The exhibit LORE opens on May 7th 2016 at Archimedes Gallery in Cannon Beach, Oregon.  I'm so glad to have been a part of this show with such a lovely location and lovely co-artists; the amazing Lana Crooks & MissMonster. The theme for this exhibit is the title, LORE. It entails an exploration of an abundance of local legends spawned from the natural mysteriousness of the beautiful Pacific Northwest. It took a while to get rolling but once I did, I ended up with more ideas than I could complete in time for the show. (Special thanks to the wonderful Archimedes Gallery for showing me such patience.) Instead of showing you the finished work (which you can see on my site in the "Exhibitions / LORE" page - available after May 7th's opening), I thought I'd share some of my much-less-put-together-but-fun-nonetheless sketches and explorations; especially some of the concepts that never came to fruition. I worked even more madly and messier than usual, but found the process just as interesting and worthwhile. I hope you will too. Off we go! In this first image below, the thought behind the levitating bear, and many of the other images I created for this exhibit, is the idea that there is a different sort of gravity in the mists of the Pacific Northwest.  As if weight and mass have little meaning and things are in a constant flux of density and abduction.  

  Now, this one below started off with a lot of intention but never made it to see the light of day. As a part of LORE I read a ton of incredible tall tales about the area. This one in particular was about a giant Sasquatch who enters the oceans and pulls out a 6ft sturgeon. He is instantaneously launched upon by a GIANT bear! The Sasquatch tears a tree from the ground and starts to pummel the bear with it in an epic battle for the fish. I loved the idea of these two furry beasts thrashing about in the waves and decided I was going to do this huge, dynamic painting of the scene.  In the end it turned out to be far too ambitious and felt out of sorts with the rest of my concepts and so, it never quite made it past this stage.  

  Here I was trying to decide on how to depict the battle, did I want the Sasquatch plowing head first into the bear like a linebacker? Or about to toss the bear overhead like some 'roided wrestler? I guess we'll never know...  

  This series below is all part of one tale.  These made it into the exhibit but I felt a little explanation might help you feel as attached to them as I do <3 This is the story of a forest sprite who suddenly became self aware.  With that, it felt overwhelmingly aware of it's aloneness. So it took a piece of the forest it cared for and poured all it's hope and love and loneliness into it. It searched for the perfect place to place it's seed, planted it by hand, hovered in wait, and finally was rewarded with a sprout!  

  These one's below I added because they crack me up.  These were clearly created in a late/early all-nighter stupor and somehow I still figured out what they were and completed paintings from them. Those are some hot mess sketches if I ever saw any >_<  

  For the largest painting in the series, this sketch is pulled right out of my book.  It is my little seed of hope - the first drawing that triggered the rest of the series for the pieces in this exhibit. It fought me the entire time I worked on the show and ended up being one of the last pieces I actually finished.  

  I explored a much different palette at first as you can see below.  I'm admittedly a little disappointed that I didn't pursue one of these directions. C'est la vie! Perhaps in another series.  

  'Squatch wife! I just wanted to do this one for fun - Bride of Sasquatch?! Love it.  It ended up being the very last piece I created and it happened in a RUSH! I almost counted it out to spare myself the stress but I am so glad I didn't. I really had fun with it and am pleased how it came out. Process pics below!  

The sketch below never made it into the exhibit but a version of it did called " My End Will Show You Yours".  There's something I rather like about this sketch and I'll most likely visit it again.  Mostly I thought I'd share because on this particular sketch I made notes about elements that I wanted to include in the image as well as potential image themes to use throughout the show.  I didn't get to use many of them and I am excited to apply them to future projects soon!

So that's all, if you've made it this far , thank you. I hope you'll also explore the page with the completed works and that if you live in the Oregon area, you'll take a beach day and go visit the pieces in person!