Reviews Glowing

Well, the reviews are in, and what reviews they were!!!

I'm speaking of course of the show Catalog at Soil Art Gallery in Seattle Washington of which I'm a part.

Regina Hackett of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer graced the gallery with her presence and later fired off (newspaper lingo) a glowing report of the art that was assembled there.

Early in the Month

I think that the reviews were a little delayed on the show because EVERYBODY from Seattle was in Miami for the big ART SHOW there early this month that was very successful for EVERYBODY (except me and everybody else that didn't have success there) and so it took awhile for our show to kick in.

Anyway, here's the link:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/visualart/253107_inbrief23.html

Blah Blah Blah

You could read the whole thing if you're interested but it's blah blah blah until you get to the part about Edward Ancher Nelson (me).

Insight into Art

Here's what the insightful Regina Hackett has to say about Edward Ancher Nelson:

"Edward Ancher Nelson makes columns of words terminating in mobs of people, flesh becoming thought. "

Wow! This is BY FAR my best review yet, easily surpassing the "Edward Nelson paints the mundane" rave fired off by the Seattle Weekly or maybe The Stranger I ferget.

Statistics

Here are the statistics of the review:

Word Count: 15
Sentences: 1
Words per sentence: 15
Characters:84
Paragraphs: 1
Characters per word: 5.4
Sentences per paragraph: 1
Passive Sentences: 100%
Flesch Reading Ease: 50.6
Flesch Kincaid Grade Level: 9.9

Not bad. Not bad at all. Although I think Regina could work on her passive-tivity, that 100% total really stands out maybe something she should work on.

Hawaii

Hello!! we are back from Hawaii had a great time and discovered a new appreciation for "trade winds". Apparently they have nothing to do with "trading" which was great because we were a little worried that we had nothing to trade!

Except our socks. If I go again I'll probably pack a little different and I WON'T take a pair of socks for every day of the week.

Also, you don't need to take a shower while you're in Hawaii (really!) so all personal items along those lines need not be taken with you. Perhaps you need toothpaste however.

Really all you need is a pair of shorts, a couple of shirts, a swimming suit and sandals. That's it!

Here is a list of things we saw whilst on the island of Kauai.

1) a place called the "Bull Shed".

2) a restaurant called Lemongrass something. If you go here, DO NOT be a sucker and go for the romantic "dinner for two" that is "pushed" on you by the remarkably likeable caucasian waitress who says that they serve them "until they run out of them". And if you do go for the romantic "dinner for two" be sure and find out how much it costs.

3) white pickup trucks. EVERYBODY has a white pickup truck. We had a white Ford Focus which was a pretty nice car. However, you start to realize that practically all the cars on the island are rental cars and you start to realize that every car looks eggs-actly like yours. I had this great idea to start a rental company where you rent our cars that look native, like a beat up old van or something. That way, you feel more a part of the community and you are not "at risk" for having your car broken into. So like at the rental counter when you pick up the car they have an option in the rental agreement to "add a quart an oil upon return or have us add a quart of oil at $4.75 a quart".

4) Cops tailgating us. I think that everybody who visits the island are assigned a policeman who tailgates you around the island and makes sure that you travel at 25mph. 25 mph if you've ever driven that slow (I hadn't) is very slow especially with one of Kauai's finest on your bumper. After a few miles of this (which Julie can attest to) I would throw up my hands in frustration (Julie would grab the wheel) and say in frustration, "just get it over with -- just give us the damn ticket!" Perhaps I should make a suggestion to the Kauai Chamber of Commerce that the police issue traffic tickets on the first day of your stay that are good for your entire visit that you would post visibly on the dashboard of your car.

5) the BEST Christmas decorations ever. Kauaians seem to love to decorate their houses for Christmas and they have a very unusual style that was very attractive. The key point being to get as much on your house as possible, and to include a big blow up Santa Claus on your front lawn, one of which selfsames that wasn't quite working out correctly causing Julie to utter the classic quote, "Claus is down!"

6) Oceans can be very noisy. Both Julie and I remarked on before sleeping like a log last night upon our return at how quiet it was in Seattle. Kauai, for being a paradise, is as noisy at night as standing on airport tarmac while a 757 takes off. What with the ocean surf and what people on the island call roosters who crow like there's no tomorrow (or they crow like there IS a tomorrow) at all times of the night. And it isn't this cock a doodle doo thing either, I'd call it more of a screech. I guess ever since some Hurricane hit Kauai about ten years ago, roosters and chickens are all over the island, everywhere. The place is lousy with them and people alternately love them or hate them. I tended to be on the hate them side (but not really) and didn't sleep well as they screeched at each other. FYI: most people know about the roosters who crow when the sun rises but there are other roosters who crow when the sun sets, others who crow to announce that it's getting pretty hot out, others who crow that the sun is about to come up in about 4 hours to be sure that you're ready, others that crow because they're practicing, others that crow because they saw something interesting, others that crow because they're a little mad at the rooster down the way who tried to steal their chicken, others that crow who missed the sunrise and feel terrible about it and others that always have to have the last crow. It's a regular crow fest out there.

7) Nice weather is a lot less stressful. It's SO EASY to get up each day and not have to worry about dressing warmly...each day is as nice as the day before and after awhile you don't even think about it. It's just going to be nice and you can concentrate on other things, like boy did you see how leathery that person's skin is over there and boy that was some good bacon you just made don't care if it isn't good for me. Your hair (especially if you concentrate on never taking a shower) starts to look GREAT and you start to look relatively healthy with that nice tan (but not too much!) . That little breeze that is constantly lapping your face like a little puppy is about the nicest friggin' thing in the whole friggin' world and you begin to speak a kind of frigginpidgin whatsamatter wit your leatha facehole English that ever'bod can unstan itsa miracle!

8) Swimming in the ocean is the best! The water was cold but not too cold and it's salty! Who would've thunk it! There were a bunch of snorkelers out there looking at fish that were swimming around I guess around me which I didn't want to know about necessarily although I was told about them repeatedly by people from Wisconsin. Wow take a look at that one right by your thigh with the big teeth was NOT something that I wanted to even know about so I would not listen to them although I did hear that if the guy wasn't here in Kauai looking through water in paradise he would have been looking through ice in East Racine.

9) Snorkel Depot is the best name for a store ever although there was a place called Hair-rageous that I think is in the top ten. Ring Ring. Ed picks up the phone. "Snorkel Depot. This is Ed."

10) we saw one whale and three seals and a couple of mouses. The whale just jumped right out there on the horizon line he jumped a few times and that was great. The seals would come up on the beach and sit on the sand and Julie got a little worried, thought they were dying or somepin. After we saw it a few more times we got less worried and also we saw that they (the lifeguards, not the actual seal) actually had little signs that said stay away from the seal and would rope him off on the beach that we thought this must happen a lot. We saw a couple of mouses on our hike on the Na Pali coast (wow!) and a woman in a bikini next to me on the beach one day made this rooster like screech ACH! I just saw a mouse walk over your hand! kind of thing meaning me and my hand.

11) that's about it, now we're back in Seattle and longing for the portly shores of the west side of Kauai and thinking that our thin Hawaiian blood just can't handle this cold cold rainy weather.

12) the people who surf in Kauai are the nicest people.

13) Julie near the end of the week had seen and registered all the people on the island and at the airport as we were leaving told me where we had seen each person that was waiting for our flight.

14) Beer tastes good on Hawaii.

15) They've got a good fries recipe on the island. The french fries were the best we ever had.

16) You have to wait for the hostess in every restaurant you go in. No just sitting down.

17) Ono tastes like chicken.

18) The lobsters were flown in, they aren't native.

19) The Honolulu Advertiser is a great paper.

20) That's about it.

Jamey Series

Well, this guy in my studio building Jamey has quit art.

Maybe that's not eggs-actly right because he did say he was going to be doing digital art and working full time.

Painting Racket

But he's quitting the painting racket for good he says.

He said he had grown tired of the whole art scene and how he thought he had started painting for others or painting what he thought other people would like and had stopped painting for himself.

That was that. He quit and he gave away all his stuff, which included a few canvases that I took off his hands.

I really tried to give some of the canvases to other people too and other people did get some so I don't feel guilty (I feel a little guilty).

Push Comes to Shove

I can understand where Jamey is coming from, sometimes the world around you seems so hard to deal with, and people seem so unwilling to live their lives following artistic guidelines that I've thought about quitting too. I've thought about what it all means and I've thought that when push comes to shove, art isn't a top priority.

I mean, after 9-11 when things were ker-azy, it was hard to come into the studio and paint my little paintings of a horsey or something. There seemed to be much bigger things at work.

But I also think that if you're being an artist correctly, and by that I mean if you're a conduit between the world around you and the people of the world of which you are a part, you take the bad times with the good. Your only duty is to interpret the world you live in so that people can understand it better.

BIG Problems

You don't have to necessarily paint something like the Goya painting the Third of May either. http://www.artchive.com/artchive/G/goya/may_3rd.jpg.html. I think during difficult times, if you just work at being that conduit and nothing else, things take care of themselves. It's when you think about things too much, where your mind gets involved and tries to reason and rationalize that you really run into BIG problems.

To me, there is nothing at all wrong with painting for people. I think that's what you SHOULD do, paint for people. That's the whole idea. The most avant garde artists in the whole freakin' world connnected with their audience, they had to.

So when Jamey says he wasn't painting for himself, he was painting for other people, I think what he was saying was he was thinking too much about his paintings, he wasn't just letting them flow.

Irony (as I understand it)

The irony of the situation (if I understand irony which I've been told I don't) is that if he WERE able to paint for himself and go with the flow, he would connect with people around him MUCH MORE than he would in a situation where he tries to reason and figure out what people like and then do more of that.

In other words, when Jamey says he's not painting for himself what I think he really is saying is that he isn't painting for others. When he says he's painting for others, I think he really is saying that he's painting for himself.

I don't presume to know all that's going through Jamey's head and I'm sure I'm getting this all wrong or making it seem more simple than it really is. It's confusing, that's for sure. I don't blame Jamey for quitting, but I hope he reconsiders at some point because he's pretty good.

So I got about 4 canvases from Jamey, all of which I've started painting on. I call them the Jamey Series.

A couple of them already had paintings on them that I painted over. I felt kind of bad about that but what else are you going to do?

Sports Recap

Well, the wily Seahawks absolutely and yutterly annihilated the putrid Philadelphia Bagels (I mean Eagles) last night, 42-0.

This was unexpected to say the least.

We all thought that the Slimey Seahawks would slime another loss (even though they've only lost twice this year) because they were playing on the East Coast and because it was snowing.

Not to mention, every team in the east seems to have guys with bigger muskels on them than the Seahawks have on themselves. I don't know where they get them all but they got them.

Weight Training Emphasized on East Coast

Maybe weight training and nutrition are emphasized more on the east coast.

On the west coast we emphasize spirituality, and believe you me, the Seahawks have a ton of that.

Other than spirituality, The Seahawks also have some really fast guys, guys willing to go out there and pop somebody. That has become their nickname as it happens, Fast and Spiritual Guys Willing to Go Out and Pop Somebody.

Fast and Spiritual Guys Willing to Go Out and Pop Somebody are unafraid of the whole world knowing that they serve Apple Cider and Hot Chocolate on the sidelines.

That's the spiritual side showing.

Bagels Spitting

I'm sure if you were to look at the Bagels side of the field, they would be drinking nails over there. And they'd be spitting.

So what happened? How did these guys win that game?

Danged if anybody can explain it except that the Seahawks (stupendous) said that the Eagles were dissing them and the newspapers were dissing them and EVERYBODY was dissing them.

So they had to SHOW people they were great.

This is the old newspaper clipping on the bulletin board tactic that every coach uses from time to time that I find kind of offensive.

Saying Something Mean

The Sonics used to have a guy Benoit Benjamin that George Karl would always say to him that the opposing center had said something mean about him. And then the next game he would say it again, that the next opposing center had said something mean.. And the next game and so on.

Benoit Benjamin had his best year. But he thought nobody liked him.

Michael Jordon seemed to manufacture things to make himself mad so he would play better. ("Did you just FART in my presence?! Oh, there's going to be HELL to pay now!!")...

No Matter

But no matter, beating a team 42-0 is still pretty good even though I'd rank that second half as one of the most boring second halves I've ever seen.

Most Boring Second Halves
1) Last night

Poor ABC. That's what they get for not ever scheduling the Fast and Spiritual Guys Who like to Go Out and Pop Somebody. That's also what Al Michaels gets for saying bad things about Minneapolis during the world series that time.

Al Michaels Bio

Al Michaels is a jerk.

And he's severely overrated.

Julie thinks he was in some sort of scandal where he was caught licking somebody's toes.

I don't know about that. I don't think that's right but if anybody would do it, it would be him.

I swear he had some script writer write that sign off he's famous for after the Americans won the hockey in the Olympics.

Do you believe in miracles? No, but I do believe in a guy who can't write his own stuff and who's as boring as all get out.

Snowblast 2005

Snowblast 2005 has come and gone and boy were there stories to tell as well over 1/4 inch of the flurry white stuff accumulated in various high altitudes of the city.

KOMO high

KOMO newschannel 4, maintaining their high journalistic standards first realized and noted during
Whole Lotta Shakin' 2000 and continuing through Snow Alert 2001, The Big One 2002, Under Water 2003, and Will She Blow? 2004, reported that a guy in Olympia was out in the mess when he (and everybody else in the Puget Sound Area) was expressly told "to stay at home."

Bravery in the face of DEATH

That this guy braved the arctic conditions when he could've maybe slipped on the ice that was possible later in the day or stepped in a puddle is testament to the "Frontier Mentality" of the Northwest people that is very admirable.

However, as the weathercaster stated he still should have "stayed at home."

Frightening

Other frightening things happened during Snowblast 2005 that were very frightening including some people's cars slipping in the snow.

An old woman in Sequim (possibly the same woman who in Whole Lotta Shakin' 2000 reported that her teacups were rattling in the cupboard, but, no, none of them actually broke) gave a detailed account of a half "donut" that her car went into when she turned the corner.

Kids Frolicked for awhile

Kids played frolicking around until the snow melted later in the day and Snowblast 2005 was history.

That it only lasted about 3 hours DOES NOT mean it wasn't a Snowblast, because it was and it was intense for the 3 hours or so.

To see some of the snow stick a little on the grass was quite something and many people from around the Puget Sound area left work early, so you KNOW it was a Snowblast and quite a Snowblast too.

Got People Talking

People will be talking about Snowblast 2005 for a long long time. ("Remember how during Snowblast 2005 how our plants sorta drooped a little because of all the snow at 2pm but then were fine at 4pm? That was amazing!")

Mechanics and Art

I took our car in yesterday to have it worked on and I took it to these mechanics who work in a shop that I can see from my studio window.

Art and Gordy

Their names are Art and Gordy.

I find it funny that one of the mechanics is named Art like in art art right? But nobody else does. Maybe they just don't get it.

I want Art and Gordy to be good mechanics because it's so easy for me to bring the car in, but it's too early to tell. I think they're good though.

The Actual Problem

They explain the actual problem and they give me visual aids. For instance, the brakes were bad on the Subaru and Gordy showed me where the pads were very thin (Gordy frowned because I shouldn't let them get that bad) and if they had gotten much thinner I would have been paying a LOT more.

So if you hear a little metallic sound (which may or may not sound metallic depending on if you're a man or a woman) when you hit the brakes, bring it in immediately.

So I like them because they show me the problem.

Good Sign

Yesterday was another good sign because Gordy asked me if I was an artist. He knew the building I work in is full of them.

To me that's a very good sign, because how many people in this world are genuinely interested in anybody but themself?

A person who asks a good question is a person to patronize at least I think.

I explained to him that I had a show coming up and gave him one of the postcards (a postcard I might add that is very well done, it makes the show seem like it's going to be GREAT) and Gordy frowns at it and says so I could pick up some things for Christmas at the show, eh?

Nature of the Show

I say no, unless you have a pile of money or a taste for art made out of human hair. Not that I don't think he has money (he's got three hundred and sixty dollars for sure) or that he couldn't like pieces made out of human hair or that I think pieces made out of human hair aren't good.

I just didn't think he had the right idea about the nature of the show.

Sorta Pointed Out

It sorta pointed out to me that I think a lot of art is not connected to a LOT of people in this world, there are so many people just like Gordy that are interested in the world around themselves, know how to interact with people very successfully and just generally are great people but who live in a world that is totally foreign to the world of art, visual art in particular.

I mean if Picasso himself would've walked in there (without his shirt) with a bad muffler, Art and Gordy would show him the hole and get on his case for trying to fix it with a beer can without batting an eye.

You've got a bad boot too

That's too bad. There's are millions of people who don't look at visual art the same way they might listen to a song on the radio, or watch a good movie, or look at the problem of a cracked boot as you turn a corner (it's clicking now -- you'll know when it's time (I hope I do!) to get it fixed).

And I think they should look at visual art the same way they listen to a good song. I think people are sometimes afraid of visual art, afraid to say they don't like something and afraid when they do like something. I don't know why but it probably has something to do with Abstract Art and the general consensus among people that they could've done it themselves.

So I said I'd invite Art and Gordy to the next open house at our building.

Good Thing

Coincidentally, I read that night in an art magazine that Chris Ofilili made art that connected with more people than just the normal art world crowd and I thought that was a pretty good thing to have said about somebody's art.

http://www.britishcouncil.hr/slike/ofili.jpg

Ideas for Paintings

Here are some ideas for painting:

1) have a whole show of just ideas written on paper or something yet to be determined with maybe a quick little sketch of the idea. I got this idea about ideas I think from seeing that Robert Smithson sketch of his idea to have a floating island going around Manhattan pulled by a tugboat. Somebody actually did the idea, but the little sketch itself I thought was great and there's always a ton of little idea sketches you could choose from.

It might be good to get idea sketches from lots of different people and combine them in a show.

2) A woman with a halo of hatchets and hearts. I think I got this idea partly from my friend Chris who drew this great halo in his sketchbook with all these different things....I think sometimes an idea percolates and your brain combines one thing with another and eventually Voila! you have an idea to work on.

I worry sometimes that I steal ideas from other sources and I've just forgotten about it. There's this one idea I've had for a woman with a halo that reads Trouble Trouble Trouble going around in a circle that I think I've seen somewhere. At least the part connecting Woman with Trouble, maybe not the halo part.

3) I've had this idea for awhile of a bunch of faces in a long skinny watercolor, with an accompanying long skinny watercolor that has a story about each that kinda meanders around and mingles with the other stories. Also, an idea about a baseball team, kind of treated similarly. The logistics of this though have confounded me to this point.

4) A painting of a rock and roll band. You know, I've never really seen something like that so I thought it might be good. I've tried this idea before though and it always looks good at first but then when there's more detail it starts to lose energy. I might be a better painter now than I was before though, I might be able to pull it off. Either that or stop a lot earlier than I normally do.

5) a print of this sketch I did of the coffee at Les Schwab. I think it's about time to start doing some printing again, I've got a couple of other ideas about that too...

Introduction

Hello. This is me, Edward Ancher Nelson. (I use the middle name for artistic purposes but it really only serves to confuse people. Which I'm okay with.)

Show Upcoming
I've got a show upcoming at Soil Art Gallery in Seattle, be sure to check it out...

www.soilart.org

I'll be the guy with the big watercolors, watercolors so big they blot out the sun. See sample at the right there. Once a person who used to work at Daniel Smith said that I use watercolors the way they were intended which was quite a surprise to me. I think maybe she had a little too much to drink or something along those lines.

People from All Over
There are other people in the show from all over the place including Hollywood, Beijing, Brooklyn (EVERYBODY is from Brooklyn these days, I'm thinking of just SAYING I'm from Brooklyn to confuse matters further), Portland and Seattle. Also maybe somebody from Chicago.

How They Heard About It
I'm not sure how they all heard about it, I barely did.

Working with big watercolor is fun, the paper is great although every once in awhile it attacks me and I end up wearing it, all curled around me. An arches toga.

You sometimes have to laugh, that paper just has a mind of it's own.

It's also good I think to try something one way on it, like drawing something, and then having that not work out so you turn it a different way, but you still use the old lines.

Happens Every Single Time
That happens practically every single time.

I do all my drawing and painting on the wall, and I let the water drip down sometimes, let the paint run. I kinda like the idea of gravity playing a role in things, but not always.