Finally, Denali! and hello 2016

Well, it's 2016, and this year I pledge to post at least weekly on my blog (ha, ha, good one!)
But seriously, I need to at least catch up on my so called life, and announce that I have finally conquered "The Great One". Yes—Denali has finally capitulated to my ten year blitz of applications to their artist-in-residence program and decided it was easier to just accept me and get it over with.

So sometime this summer I'll be heading Back to Alaska II, this time to the interior and land of big mountains, grizzlies, and wolves. I will have a cabin with no electricity, but long, long days. No running water, but braided rivers. No wifi, but, but . . . I think I can handle it, a detox will be cleansing.

 

It's especially exciting to be going in the National Park Service Centennial Year and the year the true name of the mountain is acknowledged. More about that when I hear more. So far, I just have this letter to assure me I'm not imagining it.

• • • 

February 1 is the first anniversary of being sprung from my day-job in the newspaper business into the wide open landscape of unemployment. One of my greatest fantasies was having one year, just one year, without the day job. So how did I spend the year of my dreams? Well, mostly trying to figure out how to make some money. To that end, I brushed up on my web design skills and started a web design business (need a website?), took an advance wordpress class, drank the social media kool-aid and set up a few workshops (more about that as I'm trolling for students). I also applied for 2 real jobs, one I wanted, one I didn't. Interesting to go on my first interviews in over 20 years. I didn't get offered either, but nice to know I'm no longer the nervous wreck I used to be when in the hot seat.

My main 2015 accomplishment was two exhibits of work from my residencies in the Tongass and Chugach National Forests. How I could have hung those shows if I was still doing the 9-5 I don't know, it was a panicky scramble at the end as it was, but I think it came out pretty well!

I exhibited in group shows at Gallery X, the Newport Art Museum, Save the Bay and am excited to be represented by a new gallery, the Charlestown Gallery in South County. I hope to deliver more work (with the perk of side trips to the beach) this summer.

So, I kind of fulfilled one New Year's resolution, which was to re-start my blog on January 1. My second resolution was to stop procrastinating. Like I said, kind of.

Hope you all have a great, happy, healthy, adventurous and peaceful 2016, and the same goes for the other 7.3 billion people in the world who don't follow this blog.

War is over. If you want it.
Peace.

Denali spelled any other way means Denial...

Ok, I’m over my silent sulk. Yes, I was once again rejected from Denali, and no encouraging notes this time either. In fact, they said that due to the high level of applicants, they even added a few more slots. Which doesn’t exactly make me feel better, since I DIDN’T GET ONE OF THOSE NEW SLOTS EITHER! Oh well, will I give up? Probably not, it's a great program, and there is still the VOW program that I can try again. Alaska is not going to get rid of me that easily.

And I missed my window of opportunity for both an End-of-the-Year Wrap-Up and/or a Welcome-the -New-Year optimistic outlook. Wasn’t that clever? So now it’s mid January, the holiday take-over is done,  and its time to take these dark cold days to catch up and get back on track.

And, a few things are going on…. I have a show up at the Bert Gallery, mostly of National Park/Forest AIR work. The exhibit now is in a sort of a work-in-progress/sneak-preview phase so if you’re interest in viewing it in January, best to call to see if the gallery is open. The official opening is February 20, and the show will be up through March (Except the week of the 10th).  More and less confusing details to come!

Also, because it’s not cold enough in RI, I’ve decided to accept an invitation from a friend to share a lakeside cabin in Vermont in February for a winter painting getaway. Luckily it has big windows that look out on the lake, so if we feel wimpy we can paint inside, but it might be fun to see at what temperature oil paints freeze and paint "en aire glacial". And, maybe I can work on my journals during those long Vermont nights. (What, you say? No, really, I'm really going to finish them this time....)

Escaping the web

I've taken a break from website building long enough to get back in the studio for at least a few nights. Working on a painting that combines icebergs in Prince William Sound, with a Collard Lizard from the Petrified Forest, and hands from a Grunewald painting. Thus the clay appendages on my easel. Will it work? Perhaps not, but I'll probably post it anyway.

I'm in the process of migrating Kathyhodge.com over to a new web host, which may mean it's down for a few days. Hopefully I can do it without losing my email for more than a day. If by any chance you want to get in touch with me and it's not working, you can always leave a message on my facebook page, or in the comments.

Nothing much else to say, except I'm glad that the National Parks and Forests are back open. Hopefully it means my application to Denali National Park is back on the agenda. After all, the seventh attempt is the charm!

Denial, Wax and Water...

Toboggan Beach, Alaska  oil/canvas 40x30in

That bridge I was going to cross if I was accepted for a residency at Denali? Well, I probably won't be crossing it this year. I heard the decision much sooner than I expected (which thankfully cuts short the suspense) but unfortunately I was not a finalist. I did, however, make 2nd runner up. The bronze medal, sort of. Which is actually quite flattering considering how few are chosen. And I was very appreciative of the personal note and nice words on my work. So, since I don't imagine two people will be crazy enough to turn down the residency,  I will try again next year, with more Alaska paintings.  And of course, I have the Grand Canyon residency to look forward to, which isn't too shabby!

But coming back down to earth, or as I like to call it, Rhode Island, I have nine paintings from my shoemaker series  in a group show called Knowledge Is Power at the URI Extension campus downtown Providence. Thursday, Oct. 18 *!Gallery Night!* is the opening, from 5 to 9.

Which is probably it for the exhibits for awhile, but I'm glad to have gotten some studio time in recently, especially as it is still warm enough to work without preheating my studio for two hours. The insulation is going up little by little though, and I hope to make workable this winter, as I need to paint like a maniac for about a year for two planned exhibits in the fall of 2013.

I'm also going to heat up the griddle for experimentation in encaustic. I've long been interested in learning the archaic hot wax technique so finally broke down and took a class at RISD. My first piece was, how shall I say it, a total mess, failure—a piece so ugly that passing bees made a wide berth around it and denied any part in supplying the beeswax for the monstrosity. So I have high hopes for the medium. Especially as I am thinking of using it in a multimedia painting with my disappointing piece from a previous glass casting class. I rise to the challenge!

And even more inspiring, with my slick little yellow kayak, just purchased used 2 weeks ago, I can go anywhere and do anything! As long as I have at least 6 inches of water, and no small craft warning. I can even go back to kayaking the fiords of Alaska, if the next application I send out for another Voices of the Wilderness residency is accepted. Just try keeping me out of Alaska!

A Grand surprise!

The letter began as all rejections do,

Dear Artist,
...A thank you for submitting...
....A bit about how many worthy applications were received and how difficult it was to pick just a few...
....An appreciation of the work that went into submitting an application...

"rejected" I muttered to my husband.

But then, in the next sentence, the letter took an unexpected twist. The word "congratulations" jumped out at me and I realized I was accepted as one of the 2013 artists in residence at Grand Canyon National Park!

I had visited the north rim on a tourist-vacation-loop, breezing by Bryce, Zion, North Rim, Canyon de Chelly, Monument Valley and Petrified Forest in two weeks, so as you might imagine didn't really have time to really explore any one of the parks, but this residency allows an artist to stay for 3 weeks in a little cabin 1/4 mile from the North Rim of the canyon.

PHOTO/NPS

Not content with my good fortune, I've also greedily sent out an application, once again, for Denali National Park. How I'll manage it if I get both...well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Since I've been rejected many times from Denali, I certainly am not packing my Xtratufs yet, but if I apply EVERY year they may accept me just to stop the pestering.

Speaking of Xtratufs, I was thrilled that the wilderness rangers I hung out with in Alaska were in RI long enough for us to be able to get together for dinner. One of the Rangers who is also an accomplished clay artist, Barbara Lydon, surprised me with this super cool Xtratuf ceramic vase! It will take an honored place on my mantle to remind me of my good Alaskan friends and my kayaking adventure.

Back on the smaller corner of the planet, I'm in another group show at the URI Feinstein Gallery called Knowledge is Power. I went over the the Shepard Building at lunch to check it out and there is some really interesting work there, it is definitely worth a look

The Opening reception is on Gallery Night,  October 18, from 5-9pm, and it's up until October 31.

Un-Rejected! Alaska here I come!

I've been wanting to write this post for a week, but I've almost been afraid to talk about it, because it's just such an amazing turn of events and rather daunting. But remember how I've been applying for years to get an artist residency in Denali National Park in Alaska and came tantalizingly close but ultimately was rejected? And remember how I discovered a new one this year in the Ford's Terror Wilderness in the Tongass National Forest near Juneau and was rejected from that one as well? You don't? Well what luck, there's links! But seriously, a few weeks after getting a rejection letter from Tongass, while on the Bioblitz, I got a phone call from the ranger in charge of the program saying she had transferred to Prince William Sound (just south of Anchorage) and wanted to start up another program there, and ASKED ME TO BE THEIR FIRST ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE! 

 

This residency is similar to the Tongass program  but will start out in Girdwood, AK (above) in August, where I and a Ranger from the National Forest Service will gear up for a 7-day tour of Prince William Sound, traveling by sea kayak and camping next to glaciers. The list of gear they sent me goes to 2-pages and includes wool sweaters, Xtratuf boots, waterproof pants, jacket, gloves and camera case. Did I mention it was kind of daunting? Did I mention I've only been in a kayak (and not the sea kind) a couple of times? Did I mention that I've only been camping twice in recent memory, and both times in the congenial society of the Bioblitz? Did I mention I just had knee surgery? Well, I certainly didn't bring any of that up in my application! But at least I'm grateful I've been hitting the gym pretty regular-like since January (one of those rare resolutions that stuck), and I'm going to take a sea-kayak lesson soon, and they do say "Extensive backcountry/kayaking experience is not necessary for this residency, just capability". I do think I will be capable of doing anything they tell me to, as long as they have the expertise, and you don't find much better expertise than the National Forest Service Rangers! I'll find out more about it when the ranger who will be in charge of me gets back from "the field" next week. I'll need to spend a few days in Anchorage too, so if anyone has recommendations on cheap but decent hotels I could use some!

In all my residencies I've really enjoyed interacting with the rangers and have respected their knowledge of the environments they work in and their efforts to preserve it, dealing with so many issues that the public isn't even aware of most of the time, but this is the first time I will actually spent the entire residency working so closely with them. I can't believe what a great opportunity this is!

Oh yeah, and I'm going to do some art too.

How would you like your rejection?

I can't decide what kind of rejection I like the best; an email message or the kind that comes back in the S.A.S.E dutifully included in the application.

I suspect the email version will become the new standard, as everything moves online. I do like how much easier it is on the application side, but after waiting forever to get a response, it's somehow more satisfying to open an envelope, see the nice thick paper with the rejector's letterhead, throw it aside, then retrieve it to add to the file of rejection letters. So what do I do now — print my rejection emails to add to my file? 

That would be silly. I think I will.

Anyway, I've been thinking about this because I got two email rejections in two days. The first was...sniff...the Denali artist residency (I don't really cry on my emails—it's not good for the keyboard).  In previous postal rejections I've had little notes slipped inside telling me how close I came, and to try again. This email began with "Thank you for applying..." Always a very bad sign. Then came the standard Don't-Feel-Too-Bad tag line... "We had many strong applications from all over the U.S. and abroad, making this year’s selection especially difficult." So after thinking I was ALMOST heading north for the last few application cycles, I'm now feeling Denali is further away than ever.

The second rejection was from a local group show, no big deal really, but it's a place I always feel a bit surprised to be rejected from.

But I still have my show at Bert coming up next month, and yesterday I was contacted out of the blue about another exhibit opportunity. More on both of those later...

The business of painting, hold the paint...

I was hoping to have my next installment of my Great Dunes journal by the next time I posted, and it's close, but not done yet. Sorry to keep you in suspense (as you say—oh, there's more?) But, if they're not literary masterpieces, it's still good for me to labor over them. I did write down my impressions every day while out there, but in trying to make something of it, and going over it again and again, it really helps me sort out the experience and remember my residencies more richly.

I got an email this week from the latest residency I've applied for — Denali National Park— but was afraid to click on it, being at work and all, and not wanting to switch my mood from stupefaction to disappointment. But it was just a notification that I'll hear in the next few weeks, so there's still hope!

Meanwhile I've been working on a video for my upcoming show at the Bert Gallery in January. They've been filming interviews with the artists to go along with their recent shows, and the thought of having to go on about my work in front of a camera made me immediately volunteer to work with my husband (a filmmaker) to come up with a little video that hopefully will be more interesting than my talking head. So we returned to the shoemaker's shop and took some shots, and will film in my studio, and perhaps I can edit it together in something approaching a coherent piece.

Some of the pressure is off for now though. I found out I misunderstood about the Providence Art Window gig, the letter asked if I COULD install by December, it didn't say I would be SCHEDULED  to install in December.  So it's still on, but sometime in the future...and out of my head for now, where it's safer.
I am in a holiday show at Imago gallery in Warren though. I submitted these 3 little paintings of the Badlands National Park, so stop by their lovely new gallery if you get a chance.
My pieces are recession priced...such a bargain! Warren was hopping last weekend when I went, too. Granted it was the lighting festival, but it really is getting to be a very arty scene there, and it will look so festive with the colored (not snooty white) lights strung across Main St.

Dunes for Denali

Well, my Denali application is, not "in-the-mail", but in the internet ether I guess. Now I just have to wait an endless amount of time to hear if I got this latest artist residency. I never really understand why it takes so long, sometimes months, to process the applications. Can't they just have a meeting, like, the week after the deadline and pick someone? Then just email, or mail, their decision the next week? That's only two weeks, but I must be missing something about the process, so I'll be patient...

These are three of the six paintings I needed for my application (click on them to view larger), all from my Great Sand Dunes National Park residency. Two of them are of Medano Creek, a very shallow stream of water which runs from the mountains and along the base of the dunes. In late September, when I was there, it had retreated to the east and was rather lazily pushing forward only
to be absorbed into the dry sand of the wide creek bed, which gives a clue to how large Medano gets in spring and early summer. I wish I'd had the chance to take an entire day to hike up it further, but time ran out on me.

Denali's digital deadline

I'm still trying to pull some Great Sand Dunes art and writing together to post, but have been working all week on finishing a few small paintings for my Denali application, which is due this weekend. 

It helps that I can submit my application electronically. Now I can work up to the last minute without taking slides, rushing the film to one of the few one-day slide processing labs, re-taking the slides because they came out too-blue, too-yellow, too-dark, too light, too-skewed, or too-glarey, developing them again, masking them with silver tape, making tiny little labels, putting them in a slidesheet, carefully printing my application, putting them all in a 9x12 envelope with a return 9x12 inside, going to the post office to get it weighed, putting return postage on the inside envelope, and FINALLY, getting it in the mail, hopefully to be delivered by the deadline date.

The Denali application uses a website called CAFE. It's a bit exact about how you need to format your digital images, but once you submit one set for an application, it keeps them on file so you can reuse them to apply for other opportunities. The only downside is that they don't have too many listings yet. It's a great idea though, so I hope it catches on.

So, until I get caught up and scan in some new dune images,  I'll just post a "lunch sketch" from a few years ago.

Thinking about my next artist residency...

Here's another little sketch (4"x6") I made out in the Great Dunes. I'm working on six larger oils, trying to finish them in time to use a few in my application for an artist residency in Denali National Park in Alaska. Every year for the past 5 years or so I've applied for this one, every year I'm told I made the "short list" and to try again. So I do. Wish me luck this time!

• • •

In preparation for my upcoming exhibit at the Bert Gallery I'm updating the Shoemaker section of my website to enlarge the images and correct some loading issues.  So far I've revamped the painting slideshow, see the NEW! AND IMPROVED! version HERE.