Lunch with Kermit

Today I had the privilege of going to meet my friend artist Kermit Berg for a preview of his new exhibition at Washington DC's  Gallery Plan B on 14th St. at Q St. NW and going to lunch to catch up on some of what I have been missing since he moved to the west coast a couple years ago.

Kermit is a fine artist who uses Adobe photo-shop and digital photographs and manipulates them a lot to create many layered collages of urban scenes. He was the first person I knew who embraced the computer as a tool for making prints and his art. This show is focused on a trip to Japan about 18 months ago. They are layers of office building reflections in dark windows and lights. There are what looks to be airbrushed graffiti like lines and dots Incorporated into the layers but honestly it is nearly impossible to label them with any certainty one thing or the other. I love Kermit's work because it is so details without showing all the hours of work he puts into creating the final prints. He is the sweetest Midwestern guy who is fluent in German and he spends a lot of time in one of my favorite places, Berlin, Germany. I met him in a Washington Cafe because he was reading a German newspaper one day back in the 1990's and we hit it off as art pals right away.

Tom at gallery plan b 

Today he told me a little about the show and introduced me to Tom who is taking care of the gallery this afternoon. We liked him in his bright blue fleece jacket sitting at the desk in front of one of Kermit's Tokyo prints. The colors were well balanced...
We went to lunch in a little Crepe restaurant on 14th St. my friend Tom Palmer introduced me to a few months ago and had delicious crepes filled with mushrooms cheese and avocado.  Kermit's two person show is opening Saturday evening 6-8:00 PM, I plan to attend with Keith before we rush home to do our last minute packing for our next trip. Mom and her best pal Mildred are taking us down to Williamsburg, Virginia  with plans to visit Richmond's Fine Arts Museum one day next week in addition to all the cool stuff there is to see in Colonial W'burg and the discount shopping. I am looking forward to being in the Colonial village again. Today I had my sketch book and camera on my trip downtown on metro and walking and here a few things I wanted to share:

sailor in uniform napping on the metro

delightful colors on a home on Wallack St. NW 

detail of Wallack St. NW home

coleus on Wallack St. NW

10-21-11 morning sketch of begonia in the studio

quilt in the hoop getting stitched together 

I like the way the patterns look up close

it's almost here

plate 

plate detail

new frame and old moldings

In this picture you can see (click the title to see it larger) the frame works nicely with the window moldings on the right and then in the little antique mirror to the left, you can see that it matches the darker tones of the new frame. In the reflection of that same mirror you can see the book case & column reflected across the room which is more of the same wood tones we have in our 1937 woodwork details of our apartment. 

new portrait frame

This is it, the last day before the eve of Christmas. I got an early gift, for my portrait by Douglas Kingsbury which is featured in almost all of my profile pictures, a frame to surround my painted face. Since we chose the pose of this portrait to reflect a Dutch Master's portrait of his artist friend from the 1600's. I wanted this portrait to have a sort of formal frame to remind me of the Dutch golden age that inspired the pose. I looked at Black with fancy cut patterns but they seem too dark and austere. Then I chose to match up some of the colors in the painting and the wood frames on other art works and objects on our walls and finally this frame needed to complement the moldings and wood trims in our apartment which are all "mahogany", if my landlord can be believed.  A couple weeks ago I took the painting over to Paula Amt 1350 Q st. NW at 14th Street who does nice work out of her "Framesmith DC" framing studio for me now and then, she works by appointment only. Paula is also the owner of Plan b Gallery where my hand made books have been selling at a brisk pace this month. Yesterday I picked up the framed painting. I am delighted with the new frame and now have it on my wall waiting a final coating of varnish to protect the surface of this painted work. 

Last time I was in Manassas shopping with Mom we went to the new Salvation Army store and found it a delightful place to shop. Everything was sorted out by colors in the housewares section and the shirts and sweaters too, making it a very appealing display for a second hand shop. We had fun looking and I fell in love with these green glass plates that are old pressed glass to look like cut glass. They may be a knock off of Depression era glassware I used to collect. Those depression era glass wares that were given away to encourage purchases when money was tight! This idea might be coming back now that money is getting tight again.The practice survived into the 1970's. Do you remember drinking glasses filled with grape jelly or strawberry preserves that had fun pictures on them and a flip top lid we used to get as kids? Or dishes in the soap and cereal boxes...I am not sure about the origins of these plates but I had to have them regardless  for lunch at our house. Four green glass gifts for being a good boy this year make every meal or snack special. What did you want for Christmas and what did you get? I can't wait to hear. Have a safe and happy holiday and cherish your time with loved ones because that can't be bought it can only earned. Now, I have some gifts to wrap, ho ho ho

L I O final preparations

red, white and Florence books

another view of them

close up of the spines on the pocket sized books

stamp size - full size 8.5 x 11"books

books 

Today is Friday the 17th of October and the big show is tomorrow morning. I have plenty of books completed. Five more are on my desk waiting for me to get back in there and sew them up. Bookbinding is fun but the self imposed pressure to have all that I want on the show table remains. I have to do other things today besides sew books to get ready. Things like put gas in the car and buy cream for our coffee tomorrow morning. Yet the day has arrived where I feel like I have a good collection of my books to show at Light in October V. I took some snap shots the other day of the collection as it was completed on Wednesday when Keith was finishing up his flower photography on the back steps I took the set up and did these shots of my completed books.

I have used  most of the red wave paper and it turns out a lovely book cover or end page. There are two beautiful blue and pink waxed paper books in the works and the large white journal. I got a small one done with a red wave and a special one from the Italian paper that Doug Kingsbury brought to me printed in Florence Italy with a special woodblock two color design which includes birds in burnt orange and foliage in green on a cream back ground. I got a gold and black satin cover and a green& rusty brown marble paper pocket size waiting to be sewn up. So in short I have a treasure box full of beautiful things I made this month. Hope some of my friends will find their way over to the Light in October show to see them. Next chance would be a personal visit or at the Plan b Gallery in November. Now time to get back to the studio and sew up those remaining books.