Newsletter - Summer 2012
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My Blue Mountain Center boathouse painting studio

Considering that I'm calling the above photo from early last fall "news", I guess I'm doing well with my promise to send newsletters only infrequently. Is there anything more paralyzing than a constantly overstuffed inbox? Admittedly, an overlong newsletter might be as bad - so I will make this as terse as I can without transforming it into something dangerously close to a vowelless, dysfunctional tweet. This is not a product of my thumbs after all. Technically speaking.

And... with the hubbub of Memorial Day fast approaching and the pandemonium of summer activities set to swarm calendars coast-to-coast, could I have chosen a better time to alert you about another date to circle? I think not.

Here's what's up:

FIRST UP: SOLO SHOW. Groveland Gallery in Minneapolis will host my second solo exhibition at the gallery from June1 through July 14th. Titled "Here and There," the landscapes in the show depict a range of locales, but the center of gravity is given to Midwestern and northern themes. The show opens with a public (i.e., YOU-are-invited) reception on Friday evening, June 1st, from 5 - 8pm.

This means of course that there are new works available and posted. The link to that page will be automatically sent to you if you signed up for the available works notification.

REPORT FROM A PRIOR "NEXT ITEM". Last email, I wrote that I would be spending September in the Adirondacks on an artist residency. It was an unforgettably wonderful month of working in a converted boathouse studio (pictured above) and having gourmet meals each day with more than a dozen new friends around the table at the rustic and grand Blue Mountain Center in Blue Mountain Lake. Some of the paintings in the June/July Groveland show were worked on there. A local mink showed up one day to sniff around my work (the furry critic is pictured below). "Not enough crayfish in the paintings."

photo of art critic is courtesy of fast-acting Naoe Suzuki

NEXT ITEM: SOLO MUSEUM SHOWS. On the topic of solo exhibitions, I am arranging with two museums, one in California and one in western New York, to exhibit a body of work I have been gathering for years, and for which I will be doing a good bit of field work this summer in wilderness areas around the country. The shows are slated for 2013 and in 2014. Details later.

NEXT ITEM: DEPARTMENT OF STATE. I was recently spotlighted on the front page of the Arts in Embassies website for the U.S. Department of State. It may still feature me, though they promised they would change it soon enough.
http://www.art.state.gov/
Here is the permalink [http://www.art.state.gov/artistdetail.aspx?id=102356] to the same material, where works are listed from some of the 15 embassies to which dozens of my paintings were sent for exhibition over the past two decades.

NEXT ITEM: TEACHING/LECTURE. I am a Visiting Artist for a few days at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in late May. This is the same place where, 24 years ago, the administration let me walk away with an MFA degree in Painting. Imagine that. I'll just have to trust that I wasn't invited there so they could ask for it back. In the meantime, I will present a powerpoint talk which is open to the general public, at 9am, Tuesday, May 22, on campus at the Morris University Center. In addition I will work with a plein air painting class for that day and the next.

NEXT ITEM: TNC MAINE. In June, The Nature Conservancy in Maine is winding up a five-year campaign with a gala celebration. This is probably supposed to be a secret in a way, but they will be using a painting of mine as a sort of "keynote image" for the occasion. I should keep this to myself. Just between you and me, then.

ALL OTHER ITEMS. There is of course more to report and to say, but I would rather not overwhelm. Small is beautiful, or at least less boring. However, for more info, I do personally - if eventually - answer emailed questions. And you can always bookmark my site's front page or calendar page where I post news items as they come up. There is no doubt something there now you need to see.

My quickest best,

Thomas

Don't forget to visit these good folks to see my paintings:
Ann Korologos Gallery, Basalt, CO
Bonfoey Gallery, Cleveland, OH
Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME
Gross McCleaf Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Winfield Gallery, in Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA