The past week has been buzzing with activity, both art-related and otherwise - very few inactive moments.  Apart from the regular activities of errands, regular household upkeep, employment, etc... I have been ramping up to full speed with art-making.

For both my wife and I, an important aspect of our art practice is art-viewing, coupled with a healthy dose of social interaction.  On Wednesday 8/31, Rebecca and I went to the opening of the Visual Art section of the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle.  It is a weekend-long series of music and art events, and is a fixture here.  On opening night, a series of rooms hosting curated exhibitions opens up free to public view.  This year we viewed a number of interesting shows: one on sound-oriented art, a show of rock poster-art, a show about art and technology (very exciting), among others.  It is truly inspiring to view what other people have created and to see so much stimulating art in one place.  One major challenge of opening night at Bumbershoot is that it is also a very social time - artists I have not seen in weeks and months all are there at the same time, and I get so wrapped up in greetings and conversations that I find it very difficult to retain much focus on the art.  Nevertheless, I look forward to it each year, and I am always glad to see so many people from the Art community all together at one time.

Over the weekend, I began work on a new stage of a series loosely called "faith", but more often referred to descriptively as "eyes".  The pieces are wooden planks ranging from about 5'2" to about 6'4" that have a singular, slightly oversized painting of an eye at about eye-level for a person of that height.  The eyes are monochrome, and are the only painted part on an otherwise stark white background.   I began the series a number of years ago, but have not accumulated enough of them to show them as I had originally intended - I envision a room of them, perhaps 50-70 of them.  Each eye is different, and has a certain personality.   I am starting to drive forward on my vision of how this was to be shown so that I can complete it, finally.  The initial impetus for this project came from a sentence I had read, and had rewritten in a notebook years ago: "She recognized two characteristics defining them: separation and an irrational faith in vision."  It got me thinking about separation and connection, about individuation and common humanity.  I also thought about how we as a culture tend to believe what we can see, and how not infrequently what we see is filtered by our own experience.  Vision is thus a deceit at some level - the thing we see is more than itself... it is also the viewer.  Painting reflects this and plays with this, distorting and manipulating our faith in vision - at least as I see it.

Also on the weekend I pulled some paperwork together for upcoming exhibitions, and sent out my mailing list to the curator of a show Rebecca and I are in in October.

On Wednesday, 8/7 we had about 10 visitors in the evening for one of our weekly "art nights".  Some people drew, a few painted (myself included), one person worked on a linocut, and one worked on a computer.  It was a great time, as usual - people always share ideas, thoughts, things they like, and items of interest.  Collectively, we got a little tipsy on wine, beer, and conversation, but work was done and ideas were nurtured.  It was a busy night - usually we average 5 visitors.  We never are certain how many people will show up, as we send the notice out via email to a growing list of roughly 25 people.  Soon we may need to find a bigger studio!

Wesite http://demiart.com if you are so inclined...

Image 1: "art night" gatherers hard at work.  (L to R): Jeff Miller, Rich Lehl, Tim Marsden, Scott Voelker, Timothy Cross, Rebecca Raven, Stefanie Ashby, Claire Johnson, Larie Smoyer.

Image 2: Installation of "Faith"©Demi Raven 2004, 13 pc. each roughly 6' x 3.5" x .75", Oil and Acrylic on wood