What we experience along the way

I was returning to Spokane from a figure painting workshop at the Blanchard Community Center in Idaho and came across this really cool looking vacant/for sale church in Spirit Lake. Of course, I had to pull over and take some shots of the angles and lines it presented. Wouldn't you have done the same?

I love the serendipity of driving along and seeing some photograph-worthy subject matter I might not have had an opportunity to explore otherwise.

I realize I don't allow myself the time to wander just to be open to those happy happenstances. Winter is setting in and my forays into the mountains might be a bit limited for the season, but there are other places I can safely wander in the meantime. I simply need to fill the gas tank, make sure my camera battery is charge and block out time to go where the whim takes me.

Spirit Lake ID October 2015
Print information available on inquiry

I currently have eleven photographs on display at Park Place in Spokane Valley. They will be up for the rest of November 2015. The photo below is one of my prints on 14"x14"gallery wrap canvas.

Snowy Winter in the Country
2014  $100
Shipping Available

Instagram @Flaming_Rust Feature

I enjoy seeking out and photographing grungy, rusty "treasures" and every so often, like yesterday, I receive recognition for such. These four images of mine were selected for the solo @Flaming_Rust feature grid! I'm ecstatic!

@Flaming_Rust is an excellent Instagram gallery for all sorts of deteriorating and rusting objects. I urge you to check out their feed, awesome! You'll be amazed at all of the colors of rust!

Sunset Rust

Daybreak Deterioration

Riddled With Rust

Gate Post

All of the above images are available for purchase at my Etsy shop www.kweststudio8.etsy.com

I greatly appreciate the hard-working hubs and galleries on Instagram where so many of us find a forum for our gritty, grimy visions of artistic expression!

Photographing While Waiting in Spokane Traffic

I had attended an event in downtown Spokane and was heading home. While out and about I normally snap a couple of photographs with my iPhone for my IG. I hadn't encountered anything to that point, so I decided since there were a number of stoplights between where I was and home, I would photograph something whenever I was stopped, waiting for the light to change to green.

I just pointed my camera out the window and  *click* There wasn't time to decide what best to shoot. Simply stop for the traffic ahead of me and spontaneously shoot ... whatever.

It was simple. It was fun. I won't make a habit of it, BUT it was freeing to do something totally unstructured, impulsive. Well, not totally unstructured ... I did crop them after I got home.

Here are five of the "Waiting for the Stoplight to Change to Green" photographs:

Trying to identify the why

Over the years, I've been known to paint a wide range of subjects. I've learned much from each, but recently I've had an inner nudge to really get down and dirty into painting landscapes.

I've tried to understand the why of this decision. With unlimited subject matter at hand, why focus my efforts on the land?

I've driven across the continental United States and repeatedly have been awed by the flow of one land formation into another from state to state, even from one area of the same state to another. There's a compelling movement of land mass, water, foliage, forest, desert, plains, mountain peak.

If one lives in one area for all of their life, I think they might not experience the extent of that incredible motion, the flow and change of the land.

A new friend asked me to articulate what I hoped to "say" with my landscapes, and I was stumped for an answer. I glibly responded with, "I'm an earth sign Virgo."  Perhaps my resolve to try this is too fresh and unformed. I thought of the geometric shapes to be explored, playing with a different palette of colors, but such technical considerations fell short. The heart of the matter wasn't yet identified.

Then yesterday I came across a quote by photographer Annie Leibovitz:

"I wish that all of nature's magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed."

Bingo! I realized that, with the medium of acrylic paint on canvas, I hope to convey my interpretation of the living energy of the land.

Here I go!

Gluten Free Art, Please

At the request of Jeanine, the owner of Cole's Fine Foods, I showed up with four of my acrylic paintings for display to sell. She was delighted with what I brought and we quickly had all four paintings up on the walls where she wanted them.

However, Jeanine kept going back to one of the paintings, a landscape. She said she liked the painting, but there was just something about it that was off-putting. She couldn't identify why. After discussing, it hit both of us that it was a painting of fields, very probably wheat fields this being Spokane.

That was it! Jeanine has Celiac disease and her bakery is totally gluten free! She was subliminally reacting to the "wheat" in the painting! We had a good laugh about it, and of course I removed that painting.

Next day I brought back a replacement painting. Jeanine's happy. I'm happy.

First time I've ever had a painting rejected because it wasn't gluten free!

"Fields" 16x20 acrylic painting $125

Jeanine happy with "Sunflower"

Cole's Fine Foods, 521 Holland Ave, Spokane WA 99218 ... Family Owned.Great Food.Gluten Free!

A Featured Artist at Wild Wild West Show in Spokane WA

I'm excited to have been invited to be one of the featured artists at the Wild Wild West Show at Manic Moon & More Gallery in Spokane, WA. I'm SUPER excited that Ric Gendron will be one of the other artists featured. I've been a fan of his work since I first encountered it about four years ago.

As some of you are aware, I've been posting a lot of images of Rust and Decay to Instagram. This has been an offshoot of my Bondo Series of photographs started when I lived in Redlands, California during the 1990s.  My Instagram photos, however, are solely iPhone photography in a square format.

I thought it would be interesting to present these Instagram photographs as tangible prints. I wanted to do something a little out of my comfort zone, so I've had the rust and decay images selected for the Wild Wild West Show printed on stretched canvas. I'm delighted with how well they've turned out and am curious to see how they'll be received.

The show opens Friday, May 15, 2015 at Manic Moon & More Gallery on Augusta (just off Monroe) in Spokane. Besides Ric Gendron's paintings and my photographs, there will be many works of art by other talented Manic Moon & More artists. It's going to be a terrific show! Gallery hours: Tues-Sat 11:00-5:00.

I'm going to include several of my images that will be in this show. If you want to see the rest of my iPhone images in this show, just let me know. All works are for purchase! Please feel free to contact me at kweststudio8@yahoo.com with any questions about the Wild Wild West Show, or about the images themselves.

You can view my entire Instagram gallery of iPhone images @kweststudio8. Let me know what you think; I'd love to hear from you!

Memory Wheel 14"x 14" Stretched Canvas $100

Orange Peel 14"x14" Stretched Canvas $100

Chain Link Corrugation 14"x14"Stretched Canvas $100

Elk Skull 14"x14"Stretched Canvas $100

Frenchy's Corset 14"x14"Stretched Canvas $100

Paint Shreds in Pink 14"x14"Stretched Canvas $100