SOLD – Pastel Sea

I was on duty at the Artists’ Gallery on Saturday.  As one of the partners running this attractive space in Lambertville, NJ, being the manager for the day makes it feel like my gallery. First, I enjoy being around the work of the talented and creative people who accepted my application to join them a little over a year ago. Also though, I enjoy being able to meet the patrons, collectors, and art-lovers who come through our doors.

I can speak about the work of all the Artists’ Gallery artists. There is a vicarious thrill to connecting collectors to the work of any of our artist members. Of course if someone has stopped in front of my work, I am able to speak to them in a personal manner as well.

I have found a slightly different audience at the gallery than at some of the art and fine craft faires in which I participate. As a result, I sometimes hang different work at the gallery. One piece which has been at the gallery for weeks and has received positive comments, sold while I was there this past Saturday. 

A Maryland couple purchased the piece. It’s an image I made at dusk on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We talked about the image and what I was trying to convey. We compared our experiences while at the Outer Banks and spoke about the elements of the image that attracted them. It’s the kind of interaction that makes being an artist so personally rewarding at times.

It seemed like many of the visitors to the gallery on Saturday were from out of the area, Lambertville can be like that. In any case, Pastel Sea, which had a finished size of 22×28, is hanging on a different wall now.

****************************************************************

New Print and Canvas

January is a time for me to print new pieces which will now appear at both art/fine craft shows and at the Artists’ Gallery (Lambertville, NJ). The image below is a new work that I’ve titled Autumn Meander. It is an image I made here in Bucks County, PA this past fall and continues with a theme I’ve been developing - Paths. 

It is available on archival canvas at a size of 24×36 (ready to hang) for $495.00. It is a wonderful piece in this size and really allows you to lose yourself down the path. It does need to be seen in person!

**********************************************************

Nice Things

A couple recent emails I received made me feel especially good. One was from a co-worker of mine 10 years ago when I worked as a manager for an information service. In a short note I was told that when stress at the job got high, he would go to my website and enjoy the imagery there. He wrote to me “….your gallery pictures are great and they truly depict some of the most peaceful and tranquil scenes I have ever seen“. 

Mary E. wrote to me about two prints she purchased. Mary’s kind words were “These photos are so amazing and so alive, they feel more like members of my family than artwork.  I’m now in the process of doing some redecorating and am eager to include more of your work.”

How could lines that those not make one feel good and motivated! The wonderful thing too about notes like the above is that neither person had to write them. But they did!

One of the images mentioned by Mary is also one of my personal favorites, an image of a tree swallow:

**********************************************************

What’s My Line

This evening I spoke to the Bucks-Mont Art League, an arts group with a 60 year history. The group is composed of members working in a variety of mediums with a variety of backgrounds. They asked me to speak about myself as an artist and my creative process. This is something I am pretty comfortable doing and usually just have to be told to stop.

For these kinds of talks I like to bring a Fujica St605n camera, my first 35mm SLR. It’s a model that goes back about 30 years and was the model I learned photography with. I bring it to emphasise both the differences and similarities of the process over the period in which I have worked in the medium. Speaking this evening, I realized again just how much photographic history I have lived through. Photography has been around since 1839, in that time the process and materials and equipment have constantly been changing. At the same time, I am still fundamentally doing the same thing as they did back then; visualize an image and then control the size and duration of opening of an aperture.

***************************************************************

From the “Less is More” Department……

Winter is a monochromatic, highly graphic time of year for me (visually speaking). While I am very color oriented, I do enjoy the richness of deep blacks and have always liked silhouettes. In fact, all of my formal training in photography (high school and 4 semesters in college), was in black and white imagery.

I’ve also come to really appreciate simplicity in many things, including art. As a result I am more attuned to simple visual experiences and try to create them in my imagery. The image below is a piece made on an overcast winter day. It is composed closely emulating the “golden ratio”  but not consciously. It is the composition that I felt strongest about while in the field, it was just a response.

The birds, with their organic roundness, break up the lines created by the fine bifurcation of the tree branches. There is no overlap among the birds, each is distinct. This distinction is of utmost importance in a silhouette to maintain subject recognition and compositional strength. The birds are Cedar Waxwings. But that doesn’t matter much to the image other than that waxwings have such  sharply shaped features.

(c) 2010 Paul Grecian - http://www.paulgrecianphoto.com

************************************************************

This Way and That….

Winter has become my favorite time to work on bird images. The lack of foliage opens up the brush for making clean compositions. The birds seem to move a bit more slowly as well (of course so do I).

The male White-throated Sparrow is a common fellow but actually quite handsome with his yellow lores, white throat and black eyestripes. The rich browns of his feathers also set him off from the wintry background.

What I really enjoy about this image is that I have two of these birds and that they are posed opposite to each other. Their posture in some ways mimics the pattern of the branches and so helps repeat the form of their perch.

***************************************************************

A Photographer’s Most Important Filter

The word “filter” has many connotations, but within the medium of photography we usually think of just a couple. A filter is either something placed in front of a lens, or a Photoshop function. When photography is rendered as an art form however, the most important “filter” is the photographer themself.

I came across a quote reading an exhibit catalogue (yea, I’m a bit weird that way). The quote was by the painter Randal M. Durra (b. 1958, USA) – “When an artist filters the world through his heart and mind, he is closer to the truth and experience of nature” I love coming across great quotes that speak so clearly to something I have long felt but could not verbalize. And this quote really hit home, I think it is the reason I began photographing 30 years ago. Having to apply my own filter to the world allows me to see it and experience it in a way that only I can. But most importantly, it allows me to experience it in a way that I may have missed otherwise.

Mill Windows

***************************************************************