Please save the date for the opening reception of Industrial Strength on second Thursday at SAM Gallery, September 14 from 6-7:30 PM. This show presents the work of painters Kellie Talbot, Kate Protage and myself, exploring our three very different interpretations of the industrial landscape.

Late last year when SAM Gallery suggested I propose a show the idea for “Industrial Strength” quickly surfaced. I have long been fascinated by the dramatic and heroic scale of industrial infrastructure, whether it involves trainyards, cement plants and construction sites, or the stubborn and implacable charm of the slightly less heroic dumpster. The urban landscape is papered with the beauty of accidental surface, composed of error overlayered with more error, moments of intention and endless revision. This pentimento is, in any language, a story. I love the challenge of marrying surface and atmosphere with structure, and here in the northwest we have it all: more cranes than any other city in the USA  and more Northwest Mystic Cloud Cover™, not to mention two epic mountain ranges, the Duwamish River, a lake, a bay and the vast expanse of Puget Sound. Against this backdrop the machinery of industry has never looked so good. [Read more…]