Art Catelogue

I have started a new project that I would like to tell you about; as if I didn't have more than enough projects already.  You may have noticed I haven't posted for a few days.  I have also been neglecting work on the second volume of my autobiography.  By the way the first volume should be hitting the bookstore shelves soon.  I got my courtesy copies and it came out great if I do say so.  You can check it with the link given below.

http://www.wheatmark.com/catalog/entry/Which-Road-Should-I-Follow-Volume-I-Growing-up-in-the-Country

Back to my new project.  As you know if you have been following my posts, I have been making art for a number of years.  I have used shows and exhibits as a way to acquaint the public with my work and the primary way to sell.  Age and health issues have shut down most of my participation in these venues, so I have decided to use the Internet and social media to fill that marketing void.  I still have work in galleries, but I have started assembling an Art Catalogue of my work.  This listing plus a symbolic polished resin chip will be made available upon requests from interested parties.  I am asking $2.00 as partial coverage of the cost of materials and mailing.  An example of a typical polished resin chip is shown below in enlarged view.  The chips will typically be one inch to one and a half inches in diameter. Please send request and $2.00 to: Apatchablue Catalogue, 554 E. Channel View Pl., Oro Valley, Arizona, USA 85737.  I will need your mailing address to send the package and an e-mail address in case I need to check with you on details.  My e-mail address is: <apatchablue3@comcast.net>.

              resin orb

The photo above show how the art will be presented in the catalogue.   Four pieces of art will be shown on each side of the 8 1/2 x 11 page.  There are 67 pieces currently available for the catalogue and as I finish new pieces they will be added. Be watching in the various social media for announcements about these new additions and other information about this project.  I'm excited about it and I hope you enjoy the catalogue even though you may choose not to invest in the art.

   *More detail on my art can be found at my website <www.apatchablue.com>
Also, my autobiography, volume 1, has more detail on the early period of my life.  The link to my books on the publisher's web site is:  http://www.wheatmark.com/catalog/entry/Which-Road-Should-I-Follow-Volume-I-Growing-up-in-the-Country   

Foamed Cedar e/P 20

I grew up in a part of Montana where the canyons were decorated with Juniper cedar trees as shown in the photo below.  We used the dead wood in our cook stove and heater.  It burned clean and produced good heat because of the oil it contained.  The straight pieces, either dead wood or green poles were cut for fence posts.  They lasted longer in the ground because they weren't attacked by the bugs.  Here again the oil in the wood acted as a deterrent just as closets and chests lined with cedar wood are moth proof storage.  I love the smell of this wood, either worked dry or the green cedars we used as our Christmas trees.

I have used cedar wood in many of my art pieces.  One I just finished named "Foamed Cedar", is shown below.  The top and bottom sections are made of Tennessee Red Cedar, a close relative to the Montana Juniper Cedar.  The mid section and inlay on the top and inside of the lid are small segments of Montana Juniper Cedar.  The colored and filled resin flows around these segments and provides the main shell of the vessel. This vessel, from my e/P series uses a plastic container as the inside core.  The vessel is 5 3/4 inches tall and 5 1/4 inches at it's largest diameter.  It has an oil finish with buffed wax final coats.

*More detail on my art can be found at my website <www.apatchablue.com>

 Also, my autobiography, volume 1, has more detail on this period in my life.  The link to my books on the publisher's web site is:  http://www.wheatmark.com/catalog/entry/Which-Road-Should-I-Follow-Volume-I-Growing-up-in-the-Country

Arizona Winter

If you live in the Arizona desert you don't expect to see too much snow.  The beauty of this is the mountains get their fair share of snow when we are getting the winter rain.  JoAnn's picture shown above, "Arizona Winter", gives a look at this condition as well as the fictitious activity going on underground.  This makes for a beautiful view that keeps us reminded of the changing seasons.  In the 26 years we have lived in the Tucson area I can count the times it snowed on one hand.  I mean a snow storm that dropped a measurable snow fall that didn't melt off in a few hours.  Numerous winter storms will paint the mountains and foothills with the white stuff that last for some time.  When it does snow in Tucson everyone gets excited.  The Kids and grownup alike get a coat on and venture into the seldom seen phenomena.

A little snow fell on our new and current home several winters ago.  The weather turned cold so it lasted a day or so.  Having grown up in eastern Montana, this was insignificant in my view.  The photo below shows the evidence of this desert snow storm.

*More detail on our art can be found at our website <www.apatchablue.com>

Doors inside a Door

When building front doors for customers, an unusual request came up from two different orders.  They both wanted a way to ventilate the door without opening it.  Of course a screen door would allow the front door to be open and keep out insects and other uninvited guests.  These two individuals did not want to use a screen door which would hide the design of the front door.  I had to agree with them so it was my problem to solve.  The photo below shows my solution on one of the doors.

This photo shows the inside of one of the front doors. In the center are eight panels in two rows made of  cholla sections mounted in frames and filled with clear resin.  They let the light through and in addition the four panels in the middle are hinged so they can be opened.  They are held closed with a friction catch.  Looking through the opened doors you can see saguaro ribs on the front surface of the door over screen wire.  My solution was to make doors inside a door to open on the inside of the front door and be concealed by the front design.  Air can pass through the design and on into the home, as the client requested.

The other door had a similar solution for providing fresh air to the home but the design was slightly different.  I will look up information and photos of that project and make it the subject if a future post.  I thought it quite a coincidence that two request would be made for this modification of conventional door design,  My answer was to put doors inside doors to meet these requests.  This isn't a new idea however,  In early times the little door inside a front door was used as a security measure,

This is the outside of the above door.  It is shown here without color but it was finished the same inside and out.  I wanted to show you this photo, regardless of it's lack of color so that you would understand the design.  The small panel doors that open inside are behind the two saguaro rib sections.  Enough space was left between the ribs ti allow a good flow of air when the small inside doors were open.  I apologise for the gray scale photo but it was all I could find of the outside surface of the door.

*More detail on my art can be found at my website <www.apatchablue.com>

                                     

House of Ill-repute

This is another painting my wife did, showing a realistic scene on top and a fantasy world below the surface.  She called this "House of Ill-repute" and got the inspiration from a former red light district in Tucson.  I'm not sure what the underground snail scene connotes.  Note their transparency.  They certainly add color to bottom of this painting.

*More detail on our art can be found at our website <www.apatchablue.com>

Bird proofing the garden

This project was at our  Williams Drive home and you can see I have some help on the ladder work.  I didn't trust myself anymore to work that far off the ground.  I had already fallen a couple times building the stone wall around the pool.  No broken bones yet but why risk it?  This garden was tucked in on the north-west side of the house and extended to a wall on the edge of a deep wash.  I used square steel tubing and flat preformed sheet metal strips for the structure.  Aviary wire was attached over this frame and fastened with wire.  That is what these two helpers are shown doing in the photograph.  A raised planting bed can be seen on the left side of the space and ground level planting areas are located to the right of the sidewalk running through the project.  I used drip irrigation on a timer and four soft fruit trees were planted in the corners.



















This space worked well and the birds, rabbets and other forms of wild life were forced to seek another source for their dinner.  We enjoyed having fresh fruit and vegetables.  The kitchen door was through the gate at the far end of the garden and around the corner to the right a few feet.  I have always had a garden where ever we live.  I guess the saying is accurate in my case, "You can take a boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy."

*More detail on my art can be found at my website <www.apatchablue.com>

 Also, my autobiography, volume 2, which will be coming out next year has more detail on this period in my life.  The link to my books on the publisher's web site is:  http://www.wheatmark.com/catalog/entry/Which-Road-Should-I-Follow-Volume-I-Growing-up-in-the-Country

Flower Gate

After finishing the rock wall shown in the previous post it was time to fabricate a gate and hang it. JoAnn helped with the design and below you see the results.  When we sold the house we made it clear to the buyer that we didn't plan to leave this gate or the rainbow gate located across the paved entry plaza. Our daughter wanted them and offered to buy and have installed a pair of standard wrought iron gates. She is using them at her home now and when we visit we can enjoy them anew.




































*More detail on my art can be found at my website <www.apatchablue.com>
 Also, my autobiography, volume 2, which will be coming out next year has more detail on this period in my life.  The link to my books on the publisher's web site is:  http://www.wheatmark.com/catalog/entry/Which-Road-Should-I-Follow-Volume-I-Growing-up-in-the-Country

Building a rock wall

One of the last landscape jobs I did at the Williams Dr. home was to build a stone wall at the entry drive.  This extended to the corner of the garage with a gate for access to this side yard.  The builder had enclosed most of it with a cement block wall as seen here running to the right out of the picture.
The gate for this wall was a special design that JoAnn developed and I built.  It will be the topic of another post.

The stone for this wall was local, much of which came from the swimming pool excavation.  I had several loads of this dirt and rock dumped in this yard, just to the right of this view,  I then set up a screen and sieved the rock from the dirt which I used to level out the yard.  The rock varied from pea gravel size to good sized stones like shown being used in this photo.  The sieving process is shown in the photo below.

The ground throughout this area was filled with stone, so I didn't lack for building material and I liked the look of the stone walls in contrast with the block walls.

*More detail on my art can be found at my website <www.apatchablue.com>
 Also, my autobiography, volume 2, which will be coming out next year has more detail on this period in my life.  The link to my books on the publisher's web site is:  http://www.wheatmark.com/catalog/entry/Which-Road-Should-I-Follow-Volume-I-Growing-up-in-the-Country

Master Bed room

If you like color this bedroom and the door particularly should catch your attention.  This room is in our home we design and built along First Street in Oro Valley,  This community is just north of Tucson and actually, we have returned and live here again.  We sold this bigger home as a down-sizing move and have consequently down-sized our next home and returned to Oro Valley to our current home which is just right for two senior citizens.  That sounds like a lot of moving but we are used to it with our passion to build, landscape and decorate new homes we have moved every five years on average.  Even though our current home was built in a housing development we had choice of most aspects of the home starting with the design model, interior options and ending with the landscaping.

This home has 6000 sq. ft. which includes a guest house, small gallery, an art studio and a shop.  The party that purchased it from us added and modified to meet their needs so it possibly is a larger home than when we left it.  This bedroom had a fire place in the corner where the picture is being taken from.  The house is built in a U shape.  This bedroom was on none side of the U with a bathroom and walk-in closet.  We enjoyed this home which was designed and built to be our final ultimate home.  The building costs kept escalating as them housing market raced towards the bubble.  We found we couldn't afford to keep it up and managed to sell it for our asking price not too many months before the bubble burst and houses were being practically given away.  We lucked out and that was when our down sizing began.

Just a final word about the door.  JoAnn designed all of the doors in this home except several purchased with mostly glass interior.  I did the woodwork and assembly plus some of the painting. The the door was built from scratch with a fur frame and a solid interior panel.  The design pieces were fastened to the center panel.  the design was was repeated on both sides with one side being the mirror image of the opposite side.  That made it possible to conceal dowels that penetrated the center panel and went into the design pieces only part way.  When glued this made a secure and concealed way to fasten the design in place.  Many of these processes have been used on other doors we have built for our homes or doors we have built and sold.

*More detail on my art can be found at my website <www.apatchablue.com>

Stone Aged Art 2

Back a few posts I showed you a section of stone wall I had constructed and after admiring it for some time a face formed by the arrangement of the stones seemed to pop out at me.  From that point on every time I looked at that section of wall, the face was all I could see.  I'm not sure if you have to be creative  or weird to see this in many of your surroundings.  Maybe it is a little of both.

Anyway, I would like to show you another face in that same wall.  First look at the wall section shown in the photo below.  This pillar contains the face of a funny little man that is getting squeezed from both sides which is forcing much of his personality into his forehead,  Have you spotted him yet?

This next photo has zoomed in on the poor little guy.  His nose and chin are squeezed between the rocks.  It looks like this is giving him a terrific headache.   Now do you see him?  If not don't worry about it.  This isn't an accepted test of your creativity or weirdness so maybe you are normal.  I can see at least one other face in this pile of stones but we will call it quits at this point unless you want to spend hours of your own time gazing at the rocks.  (clue-guy with long nose at bottom of wall)

*More detail on my art can be found at my website <www.apatchablue.com>

San Xavier del Bac

I live and work with a painter and sculptor, my wife JoAnn.  This leads to some interesting conversation when we find time to sit and enjoy a cup of tea or a soda.   JoAnn has been a painter for many years.  After we were married she found it convenient to continue her education.   Besides acquiring advanced degrees in art, she developed skills in sculpture and the process of casting her work in resin and/or bronze.  I have posted some of these castings in the past, but for this post I have selected one of her paintings in a series entitled "Arizona As I See It".  The 4 1/2 ft. square oil painting shown below is a version of San Xavier Mission which is located just a few miles from Tucson.  Take a look and then I will comment on techniques and related features.

I have visited the mission a number of times.  It is a favorite stop on our tour for visiting friends and family.  The rendering of the building is quite accurate, down to the one unfinished tower.  The Arizona sunset and native concession of fried bread, etc. is familiar.  What you will not see when you visit are the caverns and stone formations in the foreground.  This is the hallmark of this series; an accurate presentation above ground and the fictional world under foot.  Most of these fictional landscapes also have hints of creatures hidden in the shadows.  The surprising thing about this particular under ground landscape is that it could actually reflect the terrain under the surface in this area.  Limestone layers buried in this valley has reportedly been eroded away by underground water to form caverns that run  south for miles.  Several well known local cave systems formed in this way over time, are another stop on our visitors touring schedule.

This pattern of realism on top and fantasy under ground is the distinguishing factor of this series that JoAnn has created of local scenes,  Others will be presented in my posts from time to time as we progress.

*More detail on our art can be found at our website <www.apatchablue.com>

Doors to the Den

You have seen a variety of doors we made for our homes and for others that liked our work.  There will be more shown in the posts that follow,but I'll mix in a variety of subjects so that the "Door Show" doesn't get tiresome.  For this post I will show you a double door set we made for some of our Oro Valley friends.

These doors are a rustic design using a variety of local desert woods.  The boards running diagonally in the bottom portion of both doors are large saguaro ribs, sliced to fit flat on the central backing board. The patterns of wood are similar on both doors and repeated on both front and back of each door.

The next two layers of wood design shown above the large saguaro ribs are cross sectional slices of  small saguaro ribs, a slices across a saguaro arm showing the ribs in tack, and various size slices of the cholla cactus inner skeleton.  Tiles of cactus wood are placed around the slice of saguaro arm to complement its unique design.

Lastly, in the uppermost spaces, strips and segments of desert wood are used to create further varied textures.  The two primary woods used in these doors are Saguaro and Cholla. shown below are photos of these plants.

                                       Saguaro



















                                       Cholla

*More detail on my art can be found at my website <www.apatchablue.com>

Pusch Ridge Front Door

I believe in the European concept that the front door to your home expresses who you are.   With that in mind, all of the homes we built had particular design focused on the front door to reflect our
search for creativity.  This door on the Pusch Ridge home is my favorite.  Sun rays pattern through the central portion of the door are created by small strips of wood.  They radiate out from the top left corner of the door where a quarter circle can be seen.  This is a cast resin piece, heavily laden with brass key filings from a local lock and key shop.  Directly below this resin casting is an irregular shaped leaded glass window and followed by a sheet copper shape that ends at the wood sticks forming the light rays.  At the bottom the light rays terminate in a symbolic rocky landscape created by shaped and molded wood pieces.  Don't ask what this design means because I dont know.  It may mean different thing to different people.  I just enjoy the design and feel of the various materials used.

The door is large and heavy; 8 feet high and 4 feet wide.  It has roller catches to hold it closed and a dead bolt lock for security.  The large wooden handle is repeated on both sides.  A light purple  wash stain is used covered with a clear mat finish.

*More detail on my art can be found at my website <www.apatchablue.com>