Our jewelry cabinet is glittering with treasure these days, with two amazingly talented young women displaying their masterpieces that must be seen to be believed. Dawn Wallace-Gadd comes from a family of very successful and gifted artists, and we are lucky to have her work in the gallery. Amy Flanders studied with Dawn's parents, and her jewelry is similarly astonishing in its rich variety of ideas and precious materials.
Rick Ryken is now showing some of his paintings in the back room and over the front entrance. He started painting a few years ago, studying with Steve Irvine and David Hubbard, whose influences can be seen in his exuberant colors and wild paint treatment. Rick has retail experience from owning a gallery in Alaska, and so it will be good to have his energy and knowledge on board.
Bonnie Sol's not really our new artist any more but she continues to be the most productive, surprising us with rich and well-painted landscapes, florals, and still lives. I particularly like her moody depictions of the in-between times of twilight and late afternoon.
Other new artists I'll write about soon will be Lino Laure and Steve Irvine.
We'll be featuring these talents on November 6, first Friday and "Black and White Night," which is a chance to go gallery crawling and enjoy Hilo after dark.
We had a clean-up day on Sunday, bringing the gallery up to snuff. I personally spent the whole afternoon in the bathroom cleaning and polishing everything and then repainting that pink peach color on the walls. I guess the rest of the gallery is sparkly clean too, but being near-sighted I don't notice a huge difference. I'm told that we could eat off the floors now but I don't believe it.
I heard from Lauren at Fine Art Associates that everyone liked my mural for the St. Regis Princeville Resort, Hooray. Here's a shot of it in the now cleaned-up lobby space. I'm told that the St. Regis chain is one of the most exclusive hostelries in the world and that this was actually a phenomenal boost for my career!
I finally sent off this portrait of Danny, the son of my friends Paul and Mike. He's a really cute kid, but I'm sure that by this time the portrait is a historical rather than contemporary document. I must learn to just project and trace like other artists, so it's not so arduous to get a likeness!
