Note Cards, Greeting Cards, Artist Trading Cards Galore

When I last worked at the Colorado Mountain Art Gallery in Georgetown, I looked and looked for my greeting and note cards display but couldn't find them anywhere. Okay, I said to myself, calm down and get logical. I looked more and still didn't see them. 

Later, when I was not looking for them and walked by the display for the umpteenth time, I spotted them, plain as day, right on a jewelry display case. It's sometimes difficult to see things when you know they are not there! Now they're in a great spot, and since locating them I've sold two boxes of note cards. And the rude thing about it is that I've got to get to work on some new ones! 

My plans: I've got these cards--probably a few more prints off older blocks, two big bunches of floral cards which I have begun, and of course, Christmas cards! I'm busy drawing, preparing grounds, purchasing supplies, and getting ready for at least three projects! I hope to take some new note cards to the Gallery in about two weeks when I next work there.

Nothing like a deadline to get this artist moving.

Hope you're having a wonderful summer of art and fun!

Denver, 2015

It's a Frame Up

"Petroglyph on Turquoise" by Phillip Hoyle
Acrylic washes on paper

When I was in high school I went shopping at Mrs. Steadman's antique shop. Much of what she offered was not antique but many items were. In her disorderly yet intriguing store I found myself drawn to frames, so I bought some, cleaned them up, and started searching for prints to put in them. Mom abided my taste and let me hang them in my room and eventually in the living room and other places in the house. Since I now produce my own artwork painting and printing them on paper, I have the need for frames and still experience joy as I clean up old and new frames, wash glass, cut mats, and place my art in frames.

These days I'm specializing in very small frames, mostly purchased at a second-hand store, in which I display the very small prints I have been making. I contrast this work with very large frames, ones that can display pieces 30x22". I've painted quite a few such pieces over the years, most of which have waited patiently in folders and boxes for what I am now doing! Just this past week I hung one such piece in my display at Colorado Mountain Art Gallery. I'm pleased with the effect it has on my whole show there. (Sorry I didn't get a picture; I forgot to take my camera.)

Enjoy the photo of the artwork (above) though. Imagine it in a black frame with a narrow white mat. AND if you get a chance, stop by the gallery where I have it and lots of other-sized pieces of artwork on display--large, medium, and small. 

Denver, 2015

Updating a Show

When I worked at the Colorado Mountain Art Gallery in Georgetown last week, I removed some paintings and prints from the display and added a couple of new paintings. I'm pleased with the show especially because it looks less cluttered and presents a painting I made several years ago but had never shown. 

I had been trying to figure out what changes to make that would make the display more attractive and believe I made good choices. I added an elk anthropomorphic painting next to another shaman dancer piece. The two paintings were made at the same time and match in size, colors, and frames. The horizontal painting with two petroglyphs on a mainly brown background surprised me! I had painted it to add colorful marks of the culture that made it. So a border that looks a bit like quill or beadwork suggests that not everything in western Colorado back in those old, old days was drab. As I moved the painting to the wall to measure for where to pound in the nail, I discovered that I had not installed any way to hang it.  Fortunately another painting I was removing had a long enough wire and strong enough eyelets to hang the new one. Anyway I'm pleased with the changes and am pleased to present new paintings to folk who stop by the gallery. 

Mixed media art by Phillip Hoyle

Things in Georgetown are pretty quiet these days. Gallery hours are shortened lasting from 11 to 4 daily. Still, with the mild days the trip up I-70 is pleasant, the food up there good, and wandering around an old silver mining town always a delight. Come on up and see the works. Besides mine, there are new displays from long-time members of the co-op and work from new members--pottery, photography, and paintings.

January 2015

A Day at the Gallery

Same picture as last week but one referred to
in this post.
Acrylic washes on paper by Phillip Hoyle

Fortunately I found my folder that morning last week. I needed it for the security codes that provide the key to enter and the ability to turn off the security system of the gallery where I was scheduled to work. The gallery sits on the main street of Georgetown CO, a small mountain town high in the Central Rockies west of Denver and just a few miles east of the Continental Divide. The historic town sits at around 8500 feet above sea level, an old place that grew due to the discovery of silver. Today it’s mainly a tourist spot near scenic passes, alpine skiing, and a small lake that is fished all year much of the time through thick ice. Tourists can ride a narrow gauge train to another mining town, tour the train and mining museum attached to the depot, visit the old Hotel du Paris museum, enjoy good food, gather curios, and shop at the two art galleries including the Colorado Mountain Art Gallery where I was headed.

I joined the co-op gallery a year ago and was fulfilling my monthly obligation by working there. My partner for the day had not arrived so I opened the door—successfully I was glad—and began turning on the lights. There are many lights to highlight the art of nearly sixty artists in a building that is about half a block deep. By the time I made it to the front of the building, my partner had arrived and was waiting for me to let her enter. Then we shared the opening process.

I had not worked in retail since I was a kid and found myself facing old but new challenges in my membership at the gallery. With so many owner-members—probably some with even less experience than I—the gallery provides a detailed list of daily duties. It covers opening up, cleaning, clerking, running the credit card machine, and closing the gallery. (If you’re curious, keep reading.)

I was pleased to be working with Lisa who is a fast and endless worker as well as a wonderful and experienced painter. Between us we counted the money, turned on lights in jewelry display cases, started the paperwork that must be done daily, set out the sign, bench, and chair on the sidewalk in front, cleaned the restroom, ran the sweeper, washed the front window and doors, cleaned the glass tops and fronts of the many display cases.

We also had each brought more artwork to replace or change out in our own displays. Lisa decided to re-hang her display. She removed the paintings, pulled out nails, filled the holes with putty, and painted the spackle. Then she worked to hang at least one or two more paintings on the wall. Later, I did something similar except I was not planning to redo my whole display. I simply added to it some smaller pieces and changed what was hanging in the front gallery with another painting, this one of a petroglyph of a Rocky Mountain big horn sheep in preparation for last Saturday’s Big Horn Sheep Festival in Georgetown. Of course, when one hangs more paintings or adds pottery or sculptures or whatever, there is bookkeeping to be done. We adjusted our inventory records and made printed and hung wall tags.

We worked pretty steadily with the many projects through the eight hours we were at the gallery, well until the last hour when we were done with our work, itching to get out of there, and had no more customers. Actually on this midweek day in November, we had only seven or eight customers, but we talked with them, sold a few pieces, and enjoyed both their personalities and the diversion they provided us. Nice people, elders on fall outings, mostly from the Denver area yet also two from England, folk Lisa remembered had visited last year. At 4:00 we sat together in the front gallery and talked—swapping stories and art concerns—until it was time to begin closing up. That last hour the air also began to cool. We were extra glad we were leaving in mild weather and not having to battle a snowstorm on our ways home. On my way out I did remember to gather all my belongings, including the folder that had eluded me all last month!

Denver, 2014

Time to Print

I’ve had a lino-block in my studio for some months, one I made an image for and carved, but all my experiments didn’t work out right. I couldn’t print from it to my satisfaction. Mid-week I decided to do something about it and got out my knives, gouges, other equipment, printing inks, brayers, and medium-size baren. I was going to rework the block and get busy. I wanted to use if for a card to send one of my grandsons for his birthday.

I really liked the design, one inspired by a Ute petroglyph out in western Colorado along the Gunnison River. I’ve seen drawings of the original and photographs but have never encountered it on the cliff wall where it shares space with a couple of other impressive carvings. I looked at it, tried it one more time with a different ink, but still decided it need more strength, the kind that comes from contrast. The original is a work that one anthropologist described as new-style given that the chipping that creates it simply removes the outer layer of weathered rock to create the design. In contrast to what he called old-style, the artist did not make deep gouges into the surface but seemed contented with the color contrast. So I figured it might work better if I were to remove the lino right around the figure itself and finish it with a border. Parts of the figure would interrupt the border. 

I set to work, selecting a medium large gouge and taking care not to let my fingers get in the way of the sharp instrument should it slip. Oh it did slip a few times, but mostly I was safe and am pleased I didn’t end up with bandages like sometimes I’ve done this work. I brushed off the waste into the trash and wiped the block with a damp cloth. Then I gathered a few pieces of paper to make some proofs and see what I had got. I like what I did and used the rest of the ink to print another block I made years ago. What ink was left on the surface where I rolled it out I drew into and lifted another print from that, an abstract I may mess more for a mixed media piece. I try not to waste any product.

And along the way I found I wanted to hang a few small prints at the Colorado Mountain Art Gallery in Georgetown. Guess I’ll have to work quickly since I work up in the hills this Tuesday. 

Denver, 2014

Images Revisited

Snake Dance, acrylic washes on paper
by Phillip Hoyle

The exuberant dancing bear from the Lewis and Clark journals, an ink drawing by William Clark of a petroglyph he saw June 7, 1804 at a now long-gone site in mid-Missouri on the Missouri River near big Moniteau Creek, caught my interest when I first saw it and others in a study of Missouri petroglyphs. The journal told the site's location describing the artwork, and Clark drew at least five designs of what he saw there. The petroglyphs have been missing for decades probably destroyed by blasting to make the Katy Rail Road as it made its way west across the state. 

Whether my assessment of the mood is accurate or not, I liked the enthusiasm I sensed in the design. The journal didn't describe it as a dance or a bear but did mention rattlesnakes killed at the site. Responding to the description of the rocks and the denizens there, I painted what I called "Snake Dance" that used the dancing bear and another Missouri petroglyph of a rattler. Then I painted several other pieces with the bear image. In preparation for a black and white open show in a Denver gallery I reworked the design in a very graphic way creating a pinwheel with the figure. The painting was selected for the show. That interest led me to do more such pieces with the enthusiastic design. There were a couple of partner dances, then a trio (inspired by a 1937 oil painting "Trio" by American artist Walt Kuhn) I called "Pas de Trois" (on display at Colorado Mountain Art Gallery in Georgetown) and eventually "Chorus Line Bears." 

Chorus Line Bears, Acrylic on paper by Phillip Hoyle

A few weeks ago the bear again got my attention. The design is back, now as a print and the graphic manipulation has taken a new turn. The bear has four legs and four arms outstretched imitating the famous DaVinci anatomical proportional study. My medium is mixed media with a linoblock print of the transmogrified bear. Two of these I am adding to my display of paintings at Colorado Mountain Art Gallery in Georgetown, CO, that quaint old mining town just east of the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70.

Proportional Studies: Intertribal
Renaissance
Mixed media by Phillip Hoyle

I joined the co-op gallery last November and have enjoyed the wide variety of fine artwork there, all done by Colorado artists. And I've found more in Georgetown: good food in bakeries, cafes, and restaurants, good coffee, good shopping for a wide vareity of wares including gifts and used books. I recall how much my mother loved the town; I am growing to appreciate it as well. Since I now sound like a promoter I'll go on to mention the summertime rides on the narrow-gauge train there and summer tours of the very nice museum in the historical Hotel de Paris. 

The gallery sits directly across the street from the museum and is open seven days a week (11-4 through April, then 10-5 for the summer). Check on line for more information on the Gallery and other area art programs.

Meet the Artist: an artist statement by Phillip Hoyle

[I am including this statement for your information. It was written for publicity at the Colorado Mountain Art Gallery in Georgetown, Colorado, a co-op gallery I have recently joined and a place where many of my petroglyph paintings are on display. I am adding to it a photo taken in Evergreen, Colorado, just a few miles away. The gallery is related to an arts organization located in Evergreen. Check out the website of CMAG where you can learn more there about the gallery and the larger organization.] 


Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver where he works as an artist and writer. His formal education emphasized music and religion, and his work has included directing choirs, stage productions and children’s arts events. He began making collages over thirty years ago. He still does collage and for several years has been working with acrylic paints on paper.

In the mid 1970s the artist studied Ute petroglyphs in the Gunnison River drainage of western Colorado. The designs in his “Ute Petroglyph Series” are from those sites. Many are reproduced the same size as the originals using acrylic washes and a resist medium. In the past ten years he has incorporated several other petroglyph traditions into his paintings.

Phillip studied painting with several artists through the Oklahoma Art Workshops, Tulsa, OK, and has shown his works in art shows in Tulsa, Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora, and now Georgetown.

[I am standing next to a very life-like sculpture in Evergreen fantasizing that I'm having tea with some Cardinal. He looks so kind! The sculpture is titled Morning Spirits. It stands in front of Java Groove and was featured in Sculpture Walk 2004. The artist works in Niagara Falls, New York.]






[Here is another piece explaining the petroglyphs in a little more detail.] 

Forty years ago I saw a group of Ute petroglyphs in western Colorado, designs carved on boulders, depicting animals, plants, and abstract designs. I was fascinated and began studying them, drawing them, and reading about petroglyphs in other places. I began doing artwork when I wanted to hang a crayon rubbing I had made of one of the designs, for without the Colorado sun overhead or a sandstone cliff background, it looked awful. So I took up collage to present that petroglyph and many more. About ten years ago I finally figured out how to paint these designs and am still doing so using acrylic washes and sometimes mixed media on watercolor paper.

Denver 2014

[For an even more complete statement, refer to my post on October 28, 2013 titled "Painting Petroglyphs."]