A view from the studio

February 22, 2012 by Chris | Leave a comment

While mak­ing a long jour­ney, we con­cen­trate on the steps needed along the way, care­ful to keep our foot­ing.  It often isn’t until we reach our des­ti­na­tion and raise our view that we can appre­ci­ate the sur­pris­ing dis­tances we travelled.

These last few days in the stu­dio before leav­ing for a show are always my favorites, espe­cially when it’s the first show of the sea­son. This is the first time I get to phys­i­cally see the art­work all together, when it’s finally real­ized, and not just how I’ve been pic­tur­ing it in my mind for months.

I began plan­ning this series and mak­ing work for this moment last Octo­ber. Because of the all the steps needed and the dry­ing time (espe­cially of the largest pieces), I work with images that I won’t see trimmed and framed for months. Not to men­tion that the source pho­to­graph was likely taken at least a full year before that. That is a long time to wait!

 

There is a fleet­ing moment when I have arrived at the des­ti­na­tion I have been trav­el­ing towards all win­ter, when I can bask in the accom­plish­ment of the jour­ney for a few days. After these sweet moments of reflec­tion, I lower my head and begin to push toward the next des­ti­na­tion.  Away we go again!

This year I have fig­ured out a way to share the view from here! (but the view is fleet­ing, only until Feb­ru­ary 28th, details)

 

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Peace of the week, Feb 20

February 20, 2012 by Chris | Leave a comment

Today I am tak­ing a day away from the stu­dio to select artists for Art in the Park in Colum­bia, MO. Mostly a regional show, I am excited to see what my fel­low Mis­souri artists have to offer. I will also get in a bonus visit at one of my favorite gal­leries, the Perlow-Stevens Gallery. A great day in the mak­ing for sure.

(And my drive to and from Colum­bia today, 250 miles round trip, will be a lit­tle warm up for our drive to Florida next week.)

Mile Marker 275, 16x22

 

This and other pieces like it can be found right now in the “Cur­rently avail­able” tab at the top of the website.

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Warming up to spring

February 15, 2012 by Chris | 2 Comments

I added a show to my sched­ule and didn’t tell any­one — until now.

For many years our first shows of the sea­son have been in Florida. With the copi­ous amounts of sun­shine, the beaches, the warmth, who could resist it this time of year? And because we do love all of those things — and we do love the patrons and friends we have made there over the years, our annual pil­grim­age is still on. But why should the warm, tanned peo­ple of Florida always get the first look at the new work com­ing out of the stu­dio after my winter’s cre­ative bout?

How about those of you still in ear muffs and longjohns? Why must you wait until the sun gets high enough to warm your north­ern climes to claim some of the sooth­ing golden prairie as your own?

So on the appointed day please pour your­self a glass of wine and enjoy the show! Let me know asap which one I can mark sold for you because on Feb­ru­ary 28th it will be packed up and on it’s way to Florida!

Warm­ing up to Spring

Fri­day, Feb­ru­ary 17 — Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 28
Right here at chrisdahlquist.com
byob


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Peace of the week, Feb 13

February 13, 2012 by Chris | 1 Comment

Happy Valen­tines Day.

My valen­tine and I are busy in the stu­dio get­ting ready to begin our show sea­son. Two weeks until we leave for Florida, but who’s counting?

Mile Marker 262, 15x29 (x 4 pieces)

 

Please con­tact me to check availability.

 

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Revving up for re-entry

February 8, 2012 by Chris | 4 Comments

Our last week

As if try­ing to pre­pare us for re-entry into the US, our last week in Mex­ico is always more har­ried than the pre­ced­ing weeks. There were many peo­ple to have one last visit with, and, all the activ­i­ties that we had intended to get to that were also shoved into the final days. It was absolutely mag­i­cal, and I only regret that I don’t have pic­tures of all of it to share with you. A selec­tion of activ­i­ties from our last four days:

  • Built tables and stor­age for the art class­room at the girls home, Buen Pas­tor, with our friend and amaz­ing art edu­ca­tor, Katie Clancy.
  • Took a field trip to the small town of Santa Rosa with Julie Foley, where we had a fab­u­lous walk along the rough cob­ble­stones, ate amaz­ing tacos, and bought cac­tus mar­malade from a women’s collective.
  • Ate a beau­ti­fully ele­gant Ital­ian din­ner at La Capel­lina with a large table of friends as we lis­tened to Michael Sev­erens play Bach sonatas on the cello.
  • Attended a fab­u­lous din­ner party thrown by Allen and Cheri Cetto, our Gua­na­ju­ato family.
  • Enjoyed the enchant­ing duets of Kyle and Michael on pedal steel gui­tar and cello. My new favorite com­bi­na­tion of instru­ments for sure!
  • Laughed through a break­fast out­side in our favorite plaza with our new friend Sam Wyn­gaard.  Sam and her hus­band Mike are our new heroes, as they have fig­ured out a way to live and work in GTO full time and are build­ing an amaz­ing house in the cen­ter of the city. (We can’t wait to see the progress when we return!)
  • Went on an adven­ture (that I am still pro­cess­ing and a bit ashamed of) to the state fair in León to watch a bull­fight. I am glad I went to expe­ri­ence the whole event — the enthu­si­asm, the tra­di­tion, the beau­ti­ful cos­tumes, but I cer­tainly never need to see one again.

Tables at Buen Pastor

Santa Rosa, Guanajuato

Santa Rosa — cob­bles wait­ing to be made into a road

La Capel­lina — lis­ten­ing to Michael on cello

Bull­fight in León

What did you do last weekend?

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Pick of the week, February 6

February 6, 2012 by Chris | 1 Comment

We are home!

And I am appre­ci­at­ing the lit­tle things about it: great cof­fee, a hot shower with fan­tas­tic water pres­sure, flush­ing toi­let paper, soup on the stove and the pièce de résis­tance — cats so happy to see us they won’t leave our sides. But the trip to the gro­cery store was so over­whelm­ing I couldn’t focus my eyes — so if you need me I will be at home with the lit­tle things!

 

KC Sky­line (sum­mer 2011)

 

Back to nest­ing and the huge stack of mail.

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Posted in pick of the week, Travel

Street theater

February 2, 2012 by Chris | 1 Comment

There is time for art

Musi­cians and street per­form­ers are in almost every plaza and jardin. And this week there is a street performer’s fes­ti­val that has brought artists from all over Mex­ico to every cor­ner of Gua­na­ju­ato. (Really one should be fore­warned so when they encounter a troupe of clowns wield­ing swords in an oth­er­wise deserted calle­jon they don’t become TOO star­tled!) I have seen plenty of places that have buskers in the streets, sub­ways, train sta­tions, etc. but some­thing makes this dis­tinctly dif­fer­ent — in this unhur­ried pace of life peo­ple take the time to sit and watch.  Not only is there art but there is audi­ence every­where! How/why is it that peo­ple have become too busy for this, hur­ry­ing past with one ear cocked?

And now Kyle and I are off to see some art —  two gallery open­ings, some street the­ater and our friend the cel­list in one of our favorite restaurants.

 

Street the­ater in front of Teatro Juarez

 

From the book I am cur­rently reading:

Start­ing to Wan­der: Liv­ing and Trav­el­ing in Cen­tral Mex­ico by Stephen Arthurs

“There were broad pala­tial rows of steps lead­ing up to the entrance of the very opu­lent the­ater, but on this night (and on most nights as we later learned), the steps had been com­man­deered by the gen­eral pub­lic for use as bleach­ers for the sole pur­pose of watch­ing enter­tain­ment just as medieval as the estu­di­anti­nas: street clowns. It seemed fit­ting some­how that the com­mon peo­ple had turned their backs on the osten­ta­tious grandeur of the Teatro Juárez, and were mak­ing their own amuse­ments out­side in the streets, the true home of mex­i­can culture.”

 

Do you make enough time for art? What could change so that you did?

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Architecture as Teacher

February 1, 2012 by Chris | 1 Comment

There are a lot of poets in Guanajuato

I have been think­ing about the poets a lot this last week. Hav­ing never known an ex-pat com­mu­nity any­where else, I don’t know if this is unusual or the nature of those prone to leave the US. Per­haps poets are just nat­u­rally drawn to the mag­i­cal town of Gua­na­ju­ato. Or per­haps it is some­thing about study­ing and liv­ing amongst another lan­guage. I know that Kyle and I have been speak­ing in a type of short­hand, both in Eng­lish and in Span­ish. When I am uncer­tain of the pro­nouns and all the lit­tle con­nec­tor words, it seems that ideas get dis­tilled down to the most basic ele­ments. So much so that all of the com­plex ideas I had about life here in Gua­na­ju­ato spilled out of my head in four sim­ple lines this morning.

The Teacher

silently yield to one another.
move slightly to make pas­sage.
patient in the steps.
there is room for everyone.

 

silently yield to one another

move slightly to make passage

patient in the steps

there is room for everyone

 

What do you think? Have you lived as an ex-pat?

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Pick of the week, January 30

January 30, 2012 by Chris | 1 Comment

One last pick of the week sent to you from Gua­na­ju­ato, Mexico.

 

This time next week we will be back in KC. So this week’s pick is a not a piece of com­pleted art­work but the beau­ti­ful plaza that is right out­side our door. This is one of the rare moments it is not filled with school chil­dren on recess.

 

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Pick of the week, January 23

January 23, 2012 by Chris | Leave a comment

My lan­guages are so jum­bled up right now all I have no words to offer, but please enjoy the piece of the week.

Mile Marker 220

Con­tact me to check availability.

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