New School Color - Turquoise Forest

Turquoise Forest
14" x 10"
Soft Pastel
Casey Klahn

I am starting to really get into these turquoise images. More to come...

BTW, we are so snowed in it's ridiculous. My poor wife has been stuck a number of times, and had to ski the mile out to her Chevy Blazer this A.M. The neighbor lady was getting her kids home early from school and got into a white-out going through a "cut" of snow we call a tunnel. She put her hand out the window to touch the snow wall and kept on going at ramming speed!

The International Pastel Tour & Pastlsblog Update

Over at Pastel, also known as pastelsblog.blogspot, we have been touring international pastelists, and we are following the pathway that Santa Claus might take if he were visiting bloggers that use pastels. So far, five nations with a pastelist have been highlighted: Scotland, England, Sweden, Poland and Romania. We will exhaust Europe first, and then jump continents.

This is not the easiest task, BTW! I haven't decided if the difficulty lies more with search engine limits, or lack of pastel bloggers overseas, or what. If you know of someone who is a pastel artist with some web presence, please let me know. I will be posting on occasion at Pastel, and using the hypothetical Santa-path as a means of organizing my tour. Anyway, I told my children that he follows this path!

Other series' that we have been following at Pastel include: Interviews and Brand Reviews.

Snowed In - Winter Wonderland at the Klahn Studio

The Well-Known Barn

The Cedar Shed

North Yard

House Snowed-In
Photos Lorie Klahn

If I hadn't gone to the grocery store the day before yesterday, I would not have known how really snowed in we are here in Lincoln County. The east-west legs of most roads are so wind-blown with snow drifts that they are just barely plowed. The experience is one of fitting your truck through a tunnel ( or scoop) with head high side walls.

As a matter of fact, as my wife drives away this AM, I wonder if she'll get out, because it doesn't take a lot of drifting to close our road. And four wheel drive doesn't do much against high-center drifting!

My hope is to get some studio time in the pre-dawn hours tomorrow, and then to get my kids off to school. But, the (evil) weatherman is calling for more snow!

On the subject of studio, let me spot light an enjoyable blog by an artist in Iowa, Bruce Morrison, who is remodeling an outbuilding into a great studio space. Enjoy.

Also of great interest is the retreat that artist Tracy Helgeson is making to the famous Vermont Studio Center. I am thinking of how she has determined to open up a new direction with her art, and is doing it the right way by taking a complete retreat from all distractions and giving it the college try. I can't wait to see the results.

I tried to push a change in my own studio work, and fell flat on my face because of distraction. I am also planning to return to the figure, as Tracy is doing. But, I see the challenge ahead for me if I do!

Composition Posts - Abstract Saturday

Abstract Reds Over Blues
20" x 12"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn
Collection the Artist

For those few of you who may have missed them, the posts at Vivien Blackburn's and Katherine Tyrrell's blogs regarding composition are a mini education on the subject. I thought I would add my own example to the fray, since these posts made me reflect on what compositional elements I use.

Approximated spiral (yellow), thirds (pink) and Golden Rectangle (parameters)

My observations on the abstract above are that I created this artwork at a workshop on abstract pastels, and had a decidedly empty mind about color choice and composition at the time. Old habits are ingrained in an artist's mind and hands, though. This one turns out to be an approximate of the Golden Rectangle, and the Golden Spiral can be well placed with it's starting point in the lower left hand portion.

Additionally, I notice that the high key red gestures pull the eye down from that spiral's center and into the high contrast zone of the light blue. Mitigating that is the weight of the dark zones above, creating balance. There are multiples of thirds, if you will. High key red, "Browned up" reds with blue and gray highlights, and the high key blue "frame" create thirds of hue, and thirds of value. There are gestural areas too, if you divide the area into thirds vertically, and also horizontally.

Who ever said that abstraction was chaos? It is anything but.

I want to draw your attention again to a nifty site where you may figure the sides of your Golden Rectangle instantly. Very useful: http://www.mathopenref.com/rectanglegolden.html

I checked the image in Photoshop. If the short side measured 7.2", then the long would require 11.65" to be the Golden Rectangle. It is about that ratio, in fact. I cropped it, arbitrarily, at 10.97", but if one takes the original (Tiff format photo) it may have easily been cropped at 11.6". It helps, when making these abstracts with an empty mind, to have a calibrated eyeball.

If you need the Fibonacci Spiral, here it is.

http://vivienb.blogspot.com/
http://makingamark.blogspot.com/search/label/composition
An essay on my Abstract Reds Over Blues work.

Annotated Violet Drum

Since my comments are multiplying about this particular work (and it has sold to a patron who owns about a half dozen of my artworks), I re-post it here with a "reveal" of the technique used in achieving the vibrant electric blue of the sky. Thanks, Katherine, for asking the question regarding how I did this sky.

As noted in the image posted above, the ground is toned with a deep violet. I used the side of a Kitty Wallis hand made pastel and brushed the color in with Turpenoid and an inexpensive brush. The ultramarine is scumbled on with the side of a middle value Diane Townsend Terrage pastel, plus some other lighter colors of ultramarine or violet.

The subject is a bunkhouse at the Heins' farm, where I have picked many of my scenes from this past year. Envision plenty of sunlight, a picture-perfect farm placed in a shallow, wide draw manicured by cultivation. Their farmstead is so neatly arranged, I once kidded them that I have to add some junk to make it look realistic.

Violet World

Violet Oil Drum
7.5" x 10.5"
Soft Pastel
Casey Klahn
Sold

Uh Oh. This realist stuff is getting to be habit forming. Well, maybe we can consider this one "in-between" my New School Color style, and regular landscape fare. It's certainly inspired by local scenery and color, and it did derive from a plein air sketch.

On the home front, we are still snowed in and a number of roads are closed. Apparently a record amount in a 24 hour cycle. We had to postpone my operation which was to have been next week. Dang.

Snow Headaches & Then Some

A foot and a half of snow in a day is nothing to sneeze at! On the good side, my wife has been stuck at home to watch the kids and freeing me up to be in the studio.

On the bad side, I am chasing deadlines, and at the same time fighting nausea and pain in the run-up to my operation next month. This morning, I had to leave the studio and precious studio time to take a narcotic pain med and lay down. Then the snow plow came, and my wife went off to work in Spokane. Ug.

I just need one or two more pastel works to have a photo session and try to hit these jury deadlines by the end of the month!

BTW, we also suffered an internet outage for a day and a half. I picture some tech guy sitting in a control room, seeing the Klahn household using too much bandwidth, and lowering the flue on our internet feed. We had no recourse but to pay the extortion money for an upgrade and more bandwidth. I guess I've been in the studio so much running the internet radio that it ate up all our allowable service. Or whatever! Get 'yer hand off that flue, now, buddy. We paid the extra money.

Wolf Kahn Studio Visit Film - Part 2

We last linked to Wolf Kahn's studio here.

The second part is now available...Enjoy.

What I liked was his Cinderella Story of neglect to stardom.

Direction

The Heins' Farm
7.5" 15"
Casey Klahn
Private Collection

This piece, which actually began as a plein air pastel, is my current inspiration. It's unusual because on-sight is not my typical method. This particular farmstead, which is down the road from me and belongs to the farmers who farmed my land, is an artist's delight. They complain that photographers stop on the highway to take pictures of it, and snarl the traffic.

I am cropping little areas out of it to do architectural subjects. In reality, the buildings are places to hang colors.

Seattle Art Blog

Here is some exposure at the Seattle Art Blog which I bring to you a little late. But my art is still featured at the Karlson/Gray Gallery for the balance of the month.

Studio New

In the studio. Looks like I may be developing architectural images for my jury slides this year. Remember the barn? In that vein.

Even my lovely wife is snowed in today, as her SUV is stuck a quarter mile up the road in a snow drift. The county will get us plowed when they get us plowed. We have had a modest snow cover, plus a little fresh. Then comes the day of high winds and you get dunes of snow deposited on your roads.

To add insult to injury, our furnace decided to quit last night about dinner time! Did I mention it's the coldest spell of the year so far (10 degrees F)? The propane fireplace had also quit that morning, due to a north wind blowing out the pilot.

Luckily, I got the fireplace back in action and then we realized that we had the studio as another back up! Big, warm and cozy. And that wood paneling is just the ticket to make you think you're camped out.

Now, back to the studio for more art.

Pastel

Pure Pigment, Paste & Passion - Casey Klahn on the Pastel Medium

All of the action is over at my other blog, pastelsblog dot blogspot dot com, due to my "phase" of creating more realist works. That is, rather than New School Color works, you see.

I did create a keeper in the New School Color genre (you know - my whacked out colorist abstracted landscapes) but don't have it photographed yet. I'm waiting to use the tungsten lights and the D-80 set-up for that jewel, since color accuracy is critical in recording these. Even then, I am only just barely satisfied with the image produced. The evil photograph will never replicate the colorist pastel's myriad of colors and values. Even by shining a light through the back, as is done here on the PC screen.

Now, on a personal note, I have been suffering some health problems just like I did @ two years ago before my Italy trip and had an operation. Long time readers remember that business. No cancer, so calm down. Just pain. It's a "man" thing, to steal a phrase.

So, that's why my posts at The Colorist have been a bit thin lately. On the good side, my physician has offered to do an operation in barter for a painting. His idea. On the negative side, the pain and recovery will be weeks. If it's anything like the last one (picture me in Italy with intense pain) it will knock me out of a few art fairs.

It's hard to say if my studio time will be wiped out, reduced, or maybe increased. And blogging may be curtailed (4-6 weeks, but I'm betting longer) or it may be my only outlet for all things art. Who knows?

Anyway, I haven't decided to have the op, yet, so we'll see what happens. It's not every day you get an operation in barter for an artwork, but the dollar value turns out to be equal. BTW, he's the best doctor around and I've had a number of these guys. And, usually, I enjoy pain tremendously, but in this case I may have to take the bigger pain to relieve the long term pain.

See These new Works @ Pastel

Studio Visit with Wolf Kahn

Bell Tower Process Sketch
Casey Klahn

Alyson Stanfield, being a good friend, passed this interview link to me the other day. It comes just in time for some much needed inspiration. And, you'd better believe I hung on every word that Wolf Kahn had to say, and drank up every corner of the great man's studio with my eyes. Thanks, NewArtTV. Let's get that part 2 in the can real soon!

One thing that I gleaned from his studio tour was his willingness to show his older works. He even turns a canvas around to reveal the rejected one on the back! Gutsy.

Alyson's ArtBizBlog.

Pencil Me

Pencil Me
Digital Image
Casey Klahn

Somewhere I saw a self portrait "call", and so I thought about this Photoshop. I decided to post it here and think about a direction for a self portrait.

Recently, I began an inventory on how many posts I was doing about myself. That's the big complaint about blog content, you see. My first results for a period of time showed 1/3rd of the posts were either fully or nominally about myself. I was happy with that, since my goal is to keep it broad here. Anyway, excuse the flagrant selfishness of this one, but it is a self portrait you know!

Studio Progress

What's on my desk? Right now a big mess, that's what! My laptop comes and goes from the house, but the peripherals stay- a printer and a scanner. And I am enjoying a decent speaker set, complete with woofer, that Santa gifted for Christmas. It produces sound from the laptop computer, and it "makes" the kids' whole studio experience.

I am happy to be fielding a heavy duty "L"-shaped desk that was surplussed from the Spokane Federal Building. On the floor you see the new vinyl covering, and under it lies the refurbished wood flooring.


While I'm thinking about decorating the new studio, I am getting some art created. My time is not my own, of course, and won't be until both children are in school every week day. But, I am training my daughter ( who is a part-time pre-schooler) to play and nap in the studio while I work.

And slowly, things are getting done. I think I logged three days of multi-hour sessions out here this week. Two pastels are done and in the frame. After the first one was complete, I actually found myself back in the house, doing my Mr. Mom routine, and I had the strangest feeling I'd had in some time. Satisfaction. Contentment.

Next: I'll tour you around my easels and palette and storage equipment. Thanks for the numerous reactions to my decorating call, which can be seen in the comments for the post: Studio Project. I am still seeking help on this front. If you don't respond with some good studio decoration ideas, dear readers, I may end up with this...

Great Man's Passing

"I have moderate abilities but I combine these with a good deal of determination and I rather like to succeed," Sir Edmund Hillary, of Everest (1919 - 2008). R.I.P.

I have had the pleasure of meeting several Everest summiters, by virtue of associations in the Seattle area. Probably over a half dozen, and every one of them I called by first name and enjoyed the conviviality of shared bonds. Three are now deceased.

Not that I will summit Everest, but at least I share Sir Edmund's self creed from the quote above.

Do you have a "Mount Everest" that you intend to conquer?

Studio Project

Here we have the new studio space. These are the bare bones pictures of about a week ago. I have actually fired 'er up and am creating, now. A wise man would have finished the base boards, thresholds. etc. But, I couldn't wait.

On My Desk dot Blogspot will be getting a guest post from me in the near future (if they'll accept it).

I'm thinking about opening a thread for your help decorating this big studio space. Right now, the very "sixties" wood paneling is the motif major. Help me figure out what to do, blogger friends.

If you don't act now, I will be hanging army canteens and head mounts of Wild Turkey on the walls...

Barn Sketch

Winter, Barn Look-Through
10" x 10"
Graphite on Sketch Paper
Casey Klahn

Found in my new studio: an old sketchbook, and a handy scanner. Imagine that.

More Book Reports

The Artist's Realities, Philosophies of Art (2004), Mark Rothko, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.

Rothko's new book was among the more influential books that I read last year. I have yet to fully internalize the heavy, heavy philosophy MR shares in his writings. That might take a lifetime, anyway.

My reports on The Artist's Reality can be found here, and more under the label Mark Rothko.


The Yellow House, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles (2006), Martin Gayford, Little, Brown and Company, New York.

This engrossing book I also covered at great length in this blog. The entertaining and silly review I posted here.


American Art Collector, from Alcove Books of Berkeley, CA continues to be a profitable resource for showcasing my art. It's a handsome collection of juried art, crafts and photography.


Also, consider:

Peggy Guggenheim & Frederick Kiesler, The Story of Art of This Century (2004), by Davidson, Rylands, editors, Guggenheim Museum Publications. Link.

I don't recall finishing this one yet, but I did notice the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice took a peek at this blog post. I about spit my coffee on the laptop screen when I saw that. To all those concerned at the museum, if you see this post, I know you're either going to send me a summons, or a purchase order. I would prefer the latter.

Books I Read This Year

Casey Klahn (2007), Casey Klahn, Colorist American Landscapes, Pastel Works.
Self Published.

Hmmnn. What to say about this one? I certainly agreed with the author 99.999% of the time, and I really dug the art images. The book is 11" x 8.5" and features 25 artworks, both full color pastels and drawings, as well as candids and petite essays on my art philosophy and process. I think I still have about 6 -7 of these sitting in the studio. If you contact me, I will ship a book/books to you for $30.00 each plus tax and postage.

When I do another one this year, I'll try to have more pages and images, as I felt that it was a little thin. I will probably repeat the spiffy essays with art approach, and I hope to add some actual blog rips as well.

To Continue...

Books

Time, once again, for my annual report on art books read in the previous year.



Juliette Aristides (Link), 2006
Classic Drawing Atelier,
A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Studio Practice
Watson-Guptill, New York

I just like the way that name sounds on the lips: "Atelier".

No doubt one of the best books out there for going back to the figure. A great boost for me, but weighted down by unnecessary dogma. I "get" that there were great realist artists functioning when the abstractionists were tearing at the fabric of art and culture. But, I don't see the need for a dialectic of "this versus that". I love Rothko, and I love Aristides' work.

This author's book isn't as dogmatic in presentation as others in the contemporary realist movement, but she does impress upon you that the lighted path is under the tutelage of a master, in an academic setting, and over the course of something like 3 -4 years. It left me asking, "don't you have an online or a correspondence course for that?" I could dream of moving the family to Florence, but it's not going to happen.

In the drawing book review meme, I give it 4 Pencils. And, even though I have mildly criticized this book, I will be running out to get the next one: Classical Painting Atelier: A Contemporary Guide to Traditional Studio Practice, by Aristides. How's my Italian going...?
Another review.




Anthony J. Ryder (Link), 1999
The Artist's Complete Guide to Figure Drawing
A Contemporary Perspective on the Classical Tradition
Watson-Guptill, New York

Well organized for the beginner, but very beneficial to the working artist. Nicely didactic, without being academic. Thorough.

I am not finished reading this one, yet, so a review is forthcoming.

I'll have to continue with the next four books later. Thanks for reading!

Business & Holiday

We're on a business and holiday break to the coast. I delivered my art to the Karlson/Gray Gallery Saturday. Back to posting in a few days.

Five Things You Don't Know About me

Link
My Grandfather, Max Klahn, is the young boy pictured @ the top right. See a story about him below. Next to him at his left are Henry, my Great Grandfather and Charlotte, my Great Grandmother. Location: Quillayute Prairie, WA. Date: 1895. This God-forsaken place is about the rainiest spot in the US, and less than 5 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean. And we love it there.

Here is my response to the tag meme where I'm supposed to name Five Things You Don't Know About Me. I was tagged by Alyson and when I read my tag mates' links I was rather shocked to be in such classy company.

Ahem:
I pre-heat my coffee cup in the morning before I put the coffee in.

I was an Infantry Captain in the Army National Guard.


My German immigrant Grandfather, Max Klahn (1879-1937), periodically walked over a hundred miles down the rugged Washington Coastline to go to work during the Great Depression. There was no road whatsoever, and the beach hiking involved paying Indians to raft you across the rivers that you couldn't ford. He had thirteen children.


My father, maternal grandfather, older brother and I used to go to work in the woods (AKA logging) when I was four years old. I remember mud-holes that would mire us, and nearly swallow the trucks.


On our honeymoon, Lorie and I were bumped upstairs at the grandest hotel in Seattle because I knew someone in management there. It turned out to be the Presidential Suite, their best room. The loose-lipped luggage boy let me know that the last two to stay in the room were: Janet Jackson, and before that the Sultan of Brunei. The Sultan didn't stay, though, because there was no kitchen. Yeah, but there was a bathroom the size of a semi. Oh, I forgot - there were two of those!

I think I've only been tagged a couple of times, so I'm not tired of them like some of you are. Anyway, if you are wanting to opt out, please do so. Otherwise, my victims are:

Kim Coles
Charley Parker
Gabriella Jonsson
Margaret Dyer
Gesa Helms

Moleskine Project Blog

My Moleskine and Library Table

Here's your call, Moleskiners! Get your sketch linked at the nifty blog called MoleskineProject, and while you're doing that I'll be trying to figure out where my Moleskine is!

While I'm at it, you might wish to visit the very cool Sully's Design Studio, which is the blog of Kim Coles of Indiana. Her link is: I'm With Sully. I liked her top 25 movies post for the pure fluff of it - and her fave is a John Wayne movie that my father also favored.

Future Perfect?

The only thing perfect in the future may be the second coming of the Lord Jesus. All else is shifting sand, as the old hymn declares. Looking back on this past year, I never could have predicted the events that transpired in my artist life. What will transpire in the next year?

I do know the directions that my art will take in the near future. You guessed it: more color! I hear the voice of Tim Allen (Tim the Tool Man) growling, "What this baby needs is more COLOR!!! Awroooh-arrwrr!" My heart and soul is still going that way, and I have yet to discover the last color composition that my pigments have to offer.

New hope abounds for me, especially since the new art studio is suddenly "up", as they say in the mechanic's shop. Not "up & running" yet, though. The running of my new studio will have to be configured on a dream and a prayer. I haven't been in a regular studio pattern for months. Somehow, a lifetime of art habits will have to push to the front again. A little discipline probably wouldn't hurt, either.

I am thankful that my little kids are growing bigger and have interests that only their young childhoods can contain. Somehow I have to shoe-horn in a studio schedule that works on a weekly basis. I can't wait until next year when they will both be at the elementary school and I will have some full days out of the house (and across the yard in the mega-studio).

New opportunities abound. There will be new gallery contacts and the development of the one's I already have. I want to budget for a web designer to take my web site to the next level, since it has started bringing in contacts for me. More artistic development for me in the direction of the figure is at hand.

At The Colorist, my main goal is to tighten-up my writing and themes. The reason for this is that I want to try another self-published book based on the blog and on my Colorist Art. And, I feel that better threads or topics more fully developed may make a difference in the "information overload" environment of the blog world.

The posting of art should become more frequent. I am in negotiations with my photographer to develop a permanent system in the new studio for taking the images.

Interactivity will increase for this blog in the coming year. Do you want to participate in a guest post? Others have pioneered the idea of allowing a guest blogger to have their day in the sun, and I like that idea. The only guidance, I think, will be to fulfill the themes of the Colorist. Perhaps a group of Colorist artists may develop in the near future.

Admin: Thanks to Alyson Stanfield for tagging me. I will be writing my "5 things about me you don't know" in the near future.

Linus Has it Figured Out

January - Perspectives on the Landscape - Karlson/Gray Gallery

The Karlson/Gray Gallery, in the Seattle-area town of Langley, WA, is posting it's Perspectives on the Landscape exhibit. The hanging will be January 4-30, 2008.

The following blurb was posted at the KGG website:

Casey Klahn, of Davenport, WA is the invitational artist in the show. His pastel work focuses on a few intuitive color choices and simple, linear shapes. Other artists in the show include Michael Croman, Doug Ealley, Maryanne Gardener, James Hardman, Pete Jordan, Bruce Morrow, Cheri O’Brien, Karen Schroeder, and Beverly Shaw Starkovich.

Those who can make it will be in for a treat.

World Studio News

Thanks to Katherine for posting about some new studios, mine included, at Making a Mark. I was hoping to do a new series on the mega-space, but am worried that the whole thing is moving along too quickly!

Anniversary

For My Readers - Click to Activate Gif

Happy birthday, The Colorist readers. Thanks for giving this blog legs, and for your kind input over the course of the year.

For My Fellow Bloggers - Click to Activate Gif

For my fellow art bloggers and fellow bloggers-at-large, here's a hearty thank you. The blogroll links most of you, and I feel that the community we share is a great, and a new, venue for artists' expression.

Blogging

When I began this blog a year ago today, I had an almost morbid fear of computers. We had that fear in the pre-PC days and the feeling was immortalized on film by Stanley Kubrick. "Open the pod bay doors, HAL..." (Then, your blood runs cold! See the scene at You Tube, if you have an extra 9 minutes to burn on this creepy, suspenseful clip.

The world that I was born into was a completely different one than we now inhabit. The short story of that is there were no personal computers. Can you imagine? A current Country song has some great verses to explain this whole matrix change we "old guys" feel. Bucky Covington sings, "We had three TV channels you got up to change", and reflects on how my childhood in the fifties and sixties was "Not just a different time, it was a different world."

In the course of the year, I have not mastered, but at least been able to function on this template style blog. I got competent and confident enough to also put up my website in a template site. I will credit two resources for my blog's "look". One: my fellow art bloggers. I observed what they were using as far as tools are concerned, and chose the few that seemed efficient and productive. Second: help sites like Dummie's Guide. There, I learned how to add headers to my HTML and much more. Yes, it is just cut & paste, but for a non-science guy, it is an education.

The other growth area for me has been learning to use Photoshop. It is an essential tool for art fair artists, such as myself, and I would hazard to say that it will become an essential for any fine artist who is starting out today. I began by posting humorously bad photoshops of myself and Vincent van Gogh, and have enough experience with this tool to accomplish a number of projects with this incredible tool. Keep in mind I had heard that universities offer whole degrees in Photoshop!

My Advice? Write from your own muse, and do this habitually. Add a photo or artwork on every post. For heaven's sake, use the language! Spell check! Read your post for grammar and syntax! Thuh-ankk yyyoouuu, claaaaass.

Next: The future at The Colorist.

One Year of Blogging

Casey Klahn

One year of blogging is a cause for celebration. And reflection. And I also think it's a good time for visualizing the next year.

Thoughts about this blog:

The Colorist has logged about 295 posts in the last 364 days. During that time, it has grown and defined itself to be a good quality blog for art content, my personal views, and the broader ideas of colorist art. The first description of The Colorist went something like, "A newsletter for patrons of colorist art, without the artspeak".

Now, the banner reads, "New School Color - Casey Klahn". The subject tags immediately below say, "Abstract Expressionism, Art Criticism, Artists, Colorist Art, Drawing, History, Impressionism, Modern Art, Painting, Pastel, Post Impressionism".

The readership here, though fairly modest in quantity, do boast a high I.Q. I am grateful for you and for your willingness to learn and observe colorist art, art topics in general and my own artwork in particular.

On a good day, I may see 100 - 125 pageloads, but an average of the year is @ 65. Visitor counts are about 37 - 65 per day. I have evidence of more readership that Statcounter doesn't pick up, so I would say to those looking here trying to learn about successful blogging, don't trust the stats too closely. There are hidden referrers and filters involved. If you need big stats, you will have to post daily. That isn't my goal, and also not a realistic expectation for a Mr. Mom to young kids.

How am I stacking up to my self-established goals here? I think I'll award myself an A+. The resolved commitment to post regularly, and the expansion of my own artistic statement are probably the best highlights of the past year. Equal to that is the fellowship with like-minded art lovers. The readership here is probably half artists and the other half are not, but in many ways the art lover is the equal to the artist in making art live. Rothko has said that his art requires the spectator, and I hope that idea will be a bigger part of his legacy. It's a much better idea than Warhol's pull-quote about "fifteen minutes of fame," IMHO.

If you follow The Colorist closely, you know that my studio has been out of action for the better part of the past year. I am just now getting my new free-standing studio in shape. It has been a challenge to keep floating along on few postings of my own artworks. I see that my Label of "My Artwork" has been used 51 times, but I estimate that unique artwork postings only number about 30 or so. Drawings probably number about 20 (my PC is slow enough that I won't take the time now to count them all).

We are photo poor here at the Klahn studio, but during the past year I did manage to sell more art (dollar-wise) than ever before. I put it that way because my earlier days of selling art involved more pieces sold at lesser prices. I usually have about 50 pastels framed and ready to sell, but I don't get them all recorded properly. However, improvement in that department is happening, too.

One year ago I knew that my studio would be inactive while I dismantled the old and worked on the new. I had a feeling that it would be a slow process, and so I set this as a year of growth in other directions. Through the venue of this blog, my knowledge of art history and also of contemporary art has increased. My ability to define my own art in words has increased many, many times over. Now my new studio is almost ready to be productive, and that feels like book-ends to this past year.

As far as the goals for The Colorist are concerned, my desire has been to not be too focused on myself (Protestant values in action), but to have an outlet for evolving my written statement. The term "colorist art" is vague, and a perfect direction for an artist to grow new and unique work. Have I defined colorism yet? No. But I think I'm moving in the right direction. Alyson Stanfield has gently challenged me to write my "Colorist Manifesto", and she is completely right that there is room for more understanding of this contemporary art phenomenon.

On my goal list is to write the Wikipedia entry on new colorist art. The one there now on the subject: Colorist, while reasonably okay, is still lacking a good understanding of this movement. After that, the manifesto should be written. This blog's interaction with all of you has given me direction as far as the general and specific understanding of color and art. It won't be academic writing, but it will add at least one more kernel of insight into new color art.

It looks like I'll have to finish this thread with another post or two. I want to cover blogging in general and the future of The Colorist.

Winter Wonderland

The Studio in Snow, Looking North

The new studio, as seen in the snow, with the long road going north into wilderness. Sort of a metaphor, huh? With the main room floor to finish, the skirting to add, an awning or porch for this back door, and uncounted other tasks ahead, will I ever find my pace at being an artist in this new space?

Stay tuned for interior shots in the next few days. The main room, or studio proper, is getting a new floor as the original one had some water damage. Not to mention the green shag carpet that I got rid of. I'm doing it myself, and getting that boy level is a fussy job.

Nothing at all would've happened on the trailer-studio without my father-in-law and brother-in-law, who live close and farm wheat. Farmers, in case you didn't know it, can do anything they need to with machinery and tools. Gotta love that. And I am appreciative, too.