after

The opening went very well. Those in attendance were engaged, and the comments I encountered were thoughtful and positive. We stayed up late with one of the artists, his wife and the curator drinking wine into the night.

fastened down to oblivion, exhibition view

I can't speak positively enough about Ann Stoddard's curation of the show.  She brought together six wildly-different abstract artists and created not only a first class exhibition, but a teaching exhibition as well.  The show stays up for most the semester and I hope students will visit (and revisit) it.  It's a show that warrants multiple viewings.

Fortunately, there will be opportunity for multiple viewings.  The Spartanburg Art Museum will be picking up the show in January.  I'm very excited to be in the good creative company that I am with this show, and profoundly humbled to see the work hung in a museum.  

an awful rowing toward god, exhibition view

One of the most interesting exchanges of the evening was with the College's president.  After spending time with "an awful rowing.." he commented that it reminded him of the author's description of his encounter with the afterlife in Proof of Heaven, the story of a neurosurgeon who has a transcendent experience during a coma despite the fact that he intellectually rejected all such experiences prior to then.  I haven't read the book, but our conversation made me want to.  I found it interesting that he made such a connection.

I heard the word powerful a lot last night in reference to my work.  This was tremendously gratifying; both that it stood the test of physical inspection and that it often seemed that people were having a similar experience looking at and being with the work as I had painting it.  I feel I'm on my way.