Art for Art sake…

Good morning World, here we are again, another Monday, another great day upon us, right?  Today Rox and I will be hosting a Meetup group of the Happy Hour Professionals and Art by the Geers at the Wild Abandon restaurant in SE Portland.  This is our first art showing and we are very excited.  As our friend Mike says, we are artists.  Still trying to wrap my brain around that one.  I know that many of you out there who know me, John an artist? Yea right.  Tis true, I have been painting but Rox is really the prolific one.  She seems to be inspired almost on a daily basis, me?  Well, every once in a while, I will get a hit of creativity.  The picture that you see on the left here is one of Rox’s and one of my favorites.  The owner of the restaurant, Michael, loves this painting and we are hoping that he will make an offer and keep it in his establishment, it certainly fits well in that spot.

According to the count on the Meetup group website, we are maxed out of people attending our event.  We will be expecting about 32 people and it should be a fun time had by all.  The restaurant has wonderful appetizers and drink specials and hey, the artwork there is incredible, tsk tsk.  How it all came about was we attended 2 happy hours at the Wild Abandon and noticed the art hanging there, it seemed that the owner loved the idea of hanging art of local artists so Rox and I approached him to see if there was a chance that he would hang ours.  He wondered what we had so Rox pulled out her iPhone and showed him a number of our pieces.  He liked what he saw and said that he would get back to us.  One day a few weeks back, he called and told us that the present artists was removing her pieces and would we like to bring in ours to hang.  We were ecstatic and told Michael we would love to.

One Sunday, Mike, Judy, Mike’s daughter Jen, Rox and I met at the restaurant and began hanging our stuff leaving very bare walls at our home.  We named all the pieces and placed them on tags along with the prices that we were asking.  When we were finished, we were so proud, it looked so cool to see what we had painted being out for public display.  Thank you all for your help and input.  So, today is the first party centered around our art.  We will have another private showing a week from today just for our friends, we are looking forward to that as well.

Rox and I continue to paint to add to our collection and I will display some of the other art in my future posts, so stay tuned.  We also now have to find another establishment to display our art.  In Portland, there are no shortages of places to do that.  We did see a place with a lot of white walls that happens to be a coffee shop called Opposable Thumb that could be a possibility.  Someone had told us of a small gallery that would possibly would hang our stuff.  We will keep an eye out for the next place.

I would have never thought that we would be doing this.  I hope that I am not sounding redundant but I am so excited that I have dip into my creative spirit, a creativity that laid dormant within me for quite a number of years.  For Rox, well, she is very creative, delving into staging, graphic design, interior design and more.  She is improving on her technique on a daily basis.  I really love her latest piece, the colors and blending are quite beautiful.

I would highly recommend that if you have a little time, go to an art store, pick up a small canvas, a few acrylic paints perhaps the primary colors and go at it.  You may surprise yourself.  When Mike and Judy invited us that one day last October to their Art Day, I thought to myself “Great, what am I going to do, draw stick figures?” Well, I had no idea until I sat down, placed a small canvas in front of me, picked up some brushes and began painting.  My first painting was a bit right brain, circles, squares, triangles and bright colors.  It was ok but I thought back to how Kandinsky, my favorite all time artist, must have started out.  He also got into shapes and bright colors much later in his life, where I started out that way.  Again, try it sometime, it is quite meditative as well.  All your cares and woes will be placed on the back burner, your creativity will come out and it will amaze you.  It did me that one day last year on Mike and Judy’s back deck.  Thank you guys for the kick start, we’re artists now.  Hey, anyone want to buy an original Geer?  We have some lovely pieces for under $5000, just contact us and we will send you pics along with the dimensions.

Have a great Monday, love life, meditate, smell the flowers, and we will be back soon.  Peace out!