Saturday, January 16, 2010

Thinking big.

Hi yall. As I sip another scalding hot cup of Colombian coffee, draw up the plans, and prepare for another day of painting, I think back to the innocent days of 1983. My Bugs Bunny drawings were a sensation, a huge hit. They made it to that great museum of creative achievement- Grandma's refrigerator. I set the bar... I could never revert to stick figures and blobby happy faces. So how, how does one compete with the standard set by Bugs Bunny, all tufted ears and carrot and whiskers? Airplanes. I wowed them with TWA jetliner drawings. Then I discovered markers, and, lookout!

A solo exhibition at gallery Hoffman LaChance in March, and a three-artist show in April demand such a trajectory. This is a new phase in development; after a drawn-out move to a land far, far away, I've snapped back into action, working on something quite new. The idea of an installation is a novel format to me, fascinating when done well. It will be most certainly a challenge to craft, synthesize, assemble, disassemble, and reassemble, originating in this distant, rural Illinois "bunker" of a studio, to be realized along with several of my panels and other surprises at Hoffman and LaChance's Maplewood gallery. I am excited, though, pumped up, game face on, and more than ready to tackle the next stage in developing my aesthetic output.

-jrab