The Blot Show!

My visiting artist show and lecture at The University of Tulsa went really well. I managed to make it through my first gallery talk without making too much of a fool of myself. I'd never given any kind of lecture before, and have managed to avoid talkingabout my art for most of my life. But, I guess it's inevitable that you have to do something like this someday...Though I was really nervous about talking, I was lucky to have my interview with Rich Fisher for the local NPR station, KWGS, that morning. When I was a student at T.U., my part-time job was engineering and editing Rich's interviews for the show, Studio Tulsa. I never thought that someday I'd come back as a guest on his show, but it turned out to be a really great interview. Rich is really good, and it helped that we're old friends. So, the interview eased my nerves about the whole experience. I managed to babble on about my art and stuff for a 30-minute interview that aired the morning before my opening. Then, that afternoon, I gave my gallery talk to about 50 students and teachers and other Tulsans who came out for the show. I was still a bit nervous, but I managed to babble on for another 30 minutes, or so. Many students had questions, and a few other attendees, including local artist Tom Pershall, had some interesting questions and things to say about my art. I should have prepared a little better for the event, but I guess i managed to wing it pretty well. I'm glad that my first experience as a visiting artist was at my alma mater, where everything is familiar. Some of my old teachers and friends were there, and it made the whole thing a lot easier and even a little bit fun... And now I have to go give another lecture next week at the San Francisco Art Institute. The show looked great... I took a bunch of pictures before the opening, but unfortunately, many of them came out a bit blurry (I don't know how to use my mom's camera i guess). The gallery's lighting is so good it makes my paintings look better than they really are. And I was really happy to see that my comic pages looked good on the wall. Normally I'm not much of a fan of comic art hung in galleries, but I think it came out pretty good. Thanks to Teresa and Mary for helping to put the whole thing together. Thanks to David and Steven for doing a beautiful job of haning everything. And a huge thanks for my old prof, Virgil, for making this show happen. Unfortunately he didn't get to come to the opening because he had surgery the day before. But luckily I got to go visit him at his home while I was in town.