January’s Attic
New year reflections tend to last at least throughout January, if not longer around here. The sun is still only out 9 hours a day, and often it’s cold, raining. Maybe even a snow storm that ices over and shuts the city down for days, like we’re experiencing now.
It makes for a period of time that is quiet, almost insulated feeling - it reminds me of walking up to my well insulate attic - sort of squeezed for space, windowless, and little noise heard outside the walls.
It can be depressing, but it’s more so just quiet, slow, different from the rest of the year. And if I listen intently, I can hear myself think more clearly, thinking more thoroughly through things.
That’s all to say, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect. 2023 was transformative. While it never feels enough, I made more artwork than many years prior, applied for a lot of opportunities, and committed to an art future. Most importantly though, I spent the year stepping back into my own body, reminding myself who I’ve always been, and most salacious of all spent much of my free time “thinking artistically,” a brain space that felt hard to access for years.
But aside from all that thinking, I’ve also had a lot of time to make some things I haven’t had time for, and I now have made some of these white oak frames, of which can be added to a print sale.
Happy New Year’s Reflecting,
Kyle
PDX Red Wall
A thing happened!
Last Friday my painting, PDX 2022, was rolled out at the PDX Red Wall.
PDX Red Wall is a grassroots project by artists, giving painters, photographers, and the like the opportunity to display work as huge mural-sized vinyl prints on the side of their NE Portland building.
I wondered what a reproduction of my smaller, 17.5”x22.5”, mixed media painting would look like in this large blown-up scale. So I was really happy to first have it professionally scanned by local Gango Editions. The texture, depth, and almost 3-dimensionality they were able to capture was exactly what I’d hoped for, and all the detail of the original was immediately revealed as the print was unfurled.
I’d love to paint a mural this large one day, but I’ve also wondered how the texture, detail, and mixed media that I like to incorporate in my paintings would translate onto a wall. But seeing this hanging helped me get an idea of how to go about it someday, so the experience was just great all around.
It’s hanging now through December 22nd at the PDX Red Wall, 2106 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, Portland OR 97212. If you’re local, walk, roll, or drive by to check it out!
I’m also selling 11”x14” prints of PDX 2022, also printed by Gango Editions. Please keep them in mind for yourself or as gifts for your loved ones + friends this holiday season. Reach out if you’d like one!
