Rural Colorado
I am pleased to announce that fifteen of my original works are now posted on the website of the Weiler House Fine Arts Gallery. I took my most recent three watercolors to the gallery for framing (posted this past week) and, a t the request of Bill Ryan, the proprietor, submitted my JPEG images for the paintings already in the gallery. If you wish to see them, go to http://www.weilerhousefineart.com
Same old tired story–school responsibilities have taken me out of the studio the past two days, and resultantly, this blog died. But it is Friday morning, and in just a few hours, I will escape to the garage/studio and get something else going (not sure exactly what, but will indeed pick up the brush and resume the enterprise). I will be posting something this evening to give an account of today’s art endeavors.
Thanks for reading.
Tags: advertising, Americana, Andrew Wyeth, barn, billboard, Coca Cola, Coke, Colorado, drybrush, Edward Hopper, field painting, French Impressionism, nostalgia, Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, rural, sign, watercolor
Recollections 54 The Art of David Tripp 
April 1, 2011 at 8:07 am |
Love your work and reading your blog. I too am in the studio this morning after having been taken away by eath-ly responsibilities! I am hoping to get back to the watercolor table by the end of the month. I have a number of Ontario barns I would like to paint, photos on the desk, and will post when I am in the midst.
For now I will continue to follow and be inspired by your work.
Peace, and all good things,
Nancy
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April 1, 2011 at 9:23 am |
Wow, Ontario barns! I will be SOOOOO excited to see those emerge! Thank you for staying in touch with me. I linked to your blog just now, and plan to spend more time there as well. It’s nice talking with other watercolorists who feel that compulsion to push out new work. Here’s looking ahead to better studio work!
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April 1, 2011 at 9:30 am |
Hi David
Thanks! I am an “Iowa girl” born and raised in Clinton, Iowa. I spent my undergraduate years at St. Ambrose with the late Father Catich and John Schmitts doing calligraphy and painting barns. John would take us out ever week in good weather to paint on site. I have a box of slides here from those days. My daughters are 30 and 28 this year, and when they were babies I supported our family for a while when my first husband was ill painting Iowa barns and selling them at Summer art fairs. I made my own drip cap frames back in the day and it was great. I have been doing more semi-abstract watercolors the last few years, along with the bookwork, but have my table ready to go in the “grotto studio”. My first husband died of liver cancer and I remarried about 5 years later. I don’t miss teaching-my current husband is an Anglican priest and I have retired from teaching. It is a blessing to be in the studio. Thanks for keeping in touch. May the blessings be!
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April 1, 2011 at 9:46 am |
Fabulous hearing from you again so soon. I’m so sorry to hear of your first husband’s passing. I don’t know how one moves on from such tragedy. I’m fascinated with your current husband’s position. I have a Ph.D. in New Testament, and have been interested in Anglican scholarship throughout the years. Iowa, huh? I attended university in Kirksville, Missouri (now it’s Truman State University). My painting professor, the late William Unger, was Austrian and he too took us out on temperate days to oil paint “en plein air.” I took up watercolor much later than that.
You have me quite excited about entering the studio–now about 2 hours away!
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April 1, 2011 at 9:57 am |
François was a professional french horn player for most of his early career-from high school on. He received his master of performance at Gillhall School of Music in London. He has played all over the world, ending up as first chair in the Canadian Armed Forces Band. While working in the band he took another undergraduate academic degree in Ethics and did his MA in Ethics soon after. He was already retired from the band and an Anglican priest by then. He tells me God was calling him through music, but he missed the direction for a while! He recently has started to play the horn again. it is marvelous to be down in the grotto (my basement studio) and hear him playing.
I have the computer on in the studio most days as I keep in touch with artists from the Collage Collaborative. I am working with a group internationally started by Nikki Soppelsa of Ohio on creating collages. It is great fun. I have posted photos on my blog of my studio and would love to see yours.
It is a very difficult time in education and the arts in the states right now. Don’t loose heart-I realize it is a tough go sometimes. I recently got an email from one of my students who studied graphic design and watercolor with me in Iowa 10 years ago. He had been searching for me for years-wanted me to know what an impact I had on his life direction-and he wanted to say thank you. That email made up for all the nasty student and administrative experiences I had in between. Kindof like child birth-after a while you don’t remember the pain, just the bundle of joy at the end.
Can’t wait to see more of your work. Enjoy your time in the studio. Feel free to email me direct if you wish. Great to be in contact.
Peace and all good things,
Nancy
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April 1, 2011 at 10:41 am |
My, my, my. I feel that I’m keeping you from your painting. I just finished my last Art History class, and am waiting for the bell. Still won’t get home for awhile. Thanks for your encouragement about education. After 23 years, I’ve reached an all-time low. Maybe that just happens at this point. But when asked to anchor the International Baccalaureate Diploma program two years ago, I indeed was revived and quickened like never before. Now that it’s all been yanked out from under us, all I can say is–they managed to douse with ice water my last surge of fire and passion. I’m still angry–not at the students, but at the state legislators, the Governor, and our district administration. I’ll land on my feet sometime, but for now, painting is my refuge, my retreat, my balm.
I will laughingly send you pictures of my studio, and I do use that word loosely–it is only space and light adequate for painting! I don’t know that you’ve seen my scattered blogged remarks, but here’s the short version–tiring of my 3rd bedroom/office/library/studio 12 x 14′ room, I decided to try the garage. So I expelled our two vehicles to the driveway, and moved my table, French easel, a portable TV/VCR, stereo, two lawn chairs, a stack of books and a coffee thermos to the garage, raised the door, and painted in the flood of light that just never penetrated my former “studio.” It sounds like what Americans lately are calling a “man cave,” but seriously–I don’t have any power tools, table saws, dart boards, wet bar, or any of those things that furnish the “man cave”–certainly not $20,000 worth of renovation to turn the space into the man’s special room. I’m just “in the garage,” painting! And laughing all the way, because, all up and down our residential street, I hear table saws, air wrenches, and hear men talking around the raised hoods of their automobiles, and mowing their lawns–and I’m here painting! I love it. O.K. I’ll send you pictures of my ambience, but there’s nothing “scenic” about it.
This is fun. Thanks for the lively conversation.
David
David M. Tripp http://www.recollections54.com https://davidtripp.wordpress.com/ http://david-davidodyssey.blogspot.com/
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April 1, 2011 at 11:10 am |
Hi David
I worry about what is going on in the US right now with the politicization of education. All anyone can think about is cut taxes, cut taxes, it is crazy. If corporations paid their fair share educators would not be scrambling to teach. It is very, very scary right now.
When we were in Cambridge we lived in a 7 bedroom rectory built in the 1870’s. I had an amazing studio space on the third floor, two rooms with a sink and an attic storage room, all three filled to the gills. I am a “Craig’s List Queen” and in Cambridge the FREE tab there is like a candy store. I got 20 flat files, an etching press, all the supplies I could hold, including paper, and book cases. I had a large window at either end-not great light but good. Outside the front window was a huge oak tree and every morning I would sit and watch the squirrels run through it. I had a bird’s eye view of the world and loved it. My little video of me printing was taken in the other room of the studio-my press room. I loved the space.
When we moved we had to buy a house as there was no rectory here-great for us. It is a 3-bedroom 2-story, built in the 1950’s. I have photos posted on my blog early on, in October-November of last year that will show you the progression of tearing down walls in the basement and painting the walls and floor, and then moving things in. Surprisingly good light through the basement windows. My husband has named it the “grotto studio” and it seems to have stuck. His father was a very famous Canadian artist, Gerald Trottier. Google him and you will find some stuff. He died about 4 years ago. So my husband understands the “care and feeding of artists” quite well.
Listen, David, have you ever thought about making artist’s books? You can do them in an edition or as unique objects. I think, from reading your blog, you have an awful lot to say, and I was just thinking about you when I was baking cookies. (I bake on Fridays while the glue dries on projects) Collectors of artist’s books go nuts about the ones with watercolors….just an idea.
Love chatting with you too. Isn’t technology amazing for connecting us creative types.
Are you on Facebook? Both my husband and I have FB accounts to keep in touch with our children in the states and Canada. That is how I connected with the Collage Collaborative folks.
By the by, my MA is in Art History. I am a codicologist who studies early printing. I have done research in Paris, Rome, New York, and Chicago, but that is a story for another time…
Husband is building me a lovely studio at the lake, won’t be finished until 2012. Perhaps by then you and your wife might be looking for Canadian views for you to paint?? I will be hosting calligraphy seminars there when it is all finished, I hope.
peace,
Nancy
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April 1, 2011 at 4:59 pm |
Congratulations David! Hope every one of them sells and that you had a great afternoon painting (and blogging!)
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April 1, 2011 at 5:09 pm |
Thank you, Linda! It’s been a good day (92 degrees!) with plenty of good, strong light for painting en plein air. Hopefully I can get some more stuff posted soon. Thanks for looking.
David M. Tripp http://www.recollections54.com https://davidtripp.wordpress.com/ http://david-davidodyssey.blogspot.com/
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