Trip to Wisconsin

Trip to Wisconsin

Last week, I took a trip to the MotherLand, of Wisconsin.

The purpose of my visit was  the Steudel Art Exhibition, a show of 3 generations of artists in my Family. It began with my Grandpa, Ted Roosevelt Steudel. Ted became a painter later in life. While he was always alittle strange, eccentric and slightly artistic (drawing cartoons for his kids, and painting hand lettered signs for his community in New Holstein Wisconsion), he didn’t get into painting until late in life, when my mom, who went away to California, to study art at Haywood Community College, got him into it.

His wife, Evelyn Steudel (my Grandma), was also a bit of an artisan, creating wild rhine stone jewelry from rocks she would tumble.

Also showing their art in the show, was my mother Edie, and her two sisters, Andrea Fenner, and Pamela Pigg. My aunt Andy has really created a business for herself, first as a sign painter/ graphic artists, and now as a scenic/wildlife painter. My aunt Pammy has also found her voice, painting similar subject matter.

For my generation, I was flanked by the art of my cousins, Shannon Fenner and Katy Steudel. Shannon recently discovered her voice in Photography, and I was pleased to see that she has a great eye. And Katy, following in her mother’s Marion’s footsteps, much to my uncle Charlie’s chagrin, has persued a successful career as a graphic artist, studying at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and going on the be a graphic artist of a company which manufactures bicycle components.

It was really neat to see all of our work together. The Plymouth gallery staff did a phenomenal job putting it together on a crunched time line. I also enjoyed to process of writing about our family’s art streak, and also reading my releatives thoughts about it.

But, I tell you what, when it was done, I was glad.

I love my family, as my family.

After the dust settled, I got to enjoy their company again.

My cousin Shannon showed us good time in Madison, taking us to the Zoo (which is downtown, and connected to a park!). She also took us to the Botanical Garden, which I really enjoyed also.

Here are a few pictures of both. Lots of inspiration there!  

Energy Show @ Hotel Hadley Studios

Still playing Catch up!

Newspaper Article in N&O by Diane Daniel.

This needs a place holder. Fill in someday.

Last Supper

What will your last supper be?

I was recently posed this question, while filling out some stupid online profile.

After thinking about it for a moment, I answered (with some chagrin) that the way things are going, chances are I'll be eating a balogne sandwich...

Back in Action

So, you may have noticed that I have not posted many pictures in a while.
I dropped my camera a few months ago at the Haw River Festival. I was so bedazzled by the Awesome Pillar of Beauty and Strength that is Charity Alston, that I dropped it, and it plunged 4 feet to its death on the rocks in the asphalt below, withering heights indeed, never to shoot again. Here is the last picture that camera took, see for your self, of the Siren that did it to me).

Pillar of Strength, Charity Alston, still holding strong, at the end of a long day.
Charity, we miss you, and wish you the best in your adventures to come!

So, for a while now, I have been plodding through my roller coaster of a life, grasping in vain at the moments that pass me by, a fisherman on the sea, with out a net. Sigh. I was having a hard time coming to terms with this! (and hated to imagine pages of this book, that might be blowing out in the field..)

Well, a good fairy Reptire Admirer took notice, and decided that this was not to be.
So this week, she left me directions to her secret treasure chest. And inside, what did I find but a camera! And it works like a charm.

Who is this kind benefactor? Tis none but my good friend Amy, a Muse, and a Sister.

Amy has been such a solid pillar of support, and enthusiasm, for Reptire Designs. In fact, Amy is the only person that I KNOW reads this thing at all! (which gives me very good reason to keep writing it).
So, Amy, here's to you, and here comes some more pictures for you!

For the rest of ya, the pictures that you see from here on out (hopefully, for a good long time to come), we can all thank Amy for them.

By the way, we can also thank my mom, Edie, for the pictures you have seen up to this point, as she gave me her old camera, which, as I mentioned, I have tragically just broken.

We can also thank Chana Meeks for kindly lending me her camera recently also, to capture several important studio occurances, and which I did not break! Chana has also been a wonderful and consistant source of support, - beaming face, that is always shining across the street a the Raleigh St. Gallery. And Mom, well I can't begin to say enough...

It is a very fortunate fellow indeed, who is surrounded by such good women as these.

National Night Out

TAKING BACK THE STREETS, That what I'm talkin' bout.
Gwen Overturf Spangles A Street Pimple!

I have been taking a mini sabatical from Tire Art, this last month.
I just got done teaching a cartoon camp at the Arts Center, which was alot of fun.
And before that I did some painting of puppets and sets for PaperHand Puppet, which was also fun (and looks to be a great show, opens this weekend).
I have also been heavily involved with the Siler City NC STEP Leadership Team, whose work I might describe another time. It has really been exciting and worthwhile to work with this group of people, and we have some really important projects brewing on the horizon.
Now is a very important time, when we choose which projects to persue. It is just a really exciting time to be in Siler City, inSPITE of all of the economic problems we face. It is still a wonderful and diverse community, and in some ways, I think our struggle brings us closer together...

This certainly felt to be the case last Tuesday, when we had our National Night Out.
This is an event put on jointly by the local police force, and (downtown) by a few local nonprofits, namely the El Vinculo Hispano, Chatham County Together! and the Arts Incubator.

We had a really nice blend of a little different folks downtown that night, and I was really pleased with the ease with which all of the groups intermingled, which hasn't always happened here, historically.
Everything was peachfuzz!

My band, Zambamboogee, was going to play, but that didn't quite work out, for better or worse. So we did have some good tunes from Mano, an awesome dance performance by the El Vinculo Youth Group, Face Painting,  Street Painting, Pinata Busting, Fire Hose Showers, and contests, including a cake eating contest, which I contested in for the first time (but was not triumphant, perhaps because, as usual, I wanted to have my cake and eat it too...)

Sitting back to taste the cake.
Mmmmm, chocolaty....

I also got to sit in an do a cameo with the El Vinculo Face Painters, whom I have been working along side for several years now, and was a pleasure as always.

Its funny. Our band could have added something to this event. But, you know, we Really didn't need to!
It was a really nice event, and for me, it WAS very nice to get to 'sit back, and enjoy this cake' that is this community. Amen.

Gimme Cat Beat

So Amos, the Alley Cat, is quickly acclimating to the life of a Tire Studio Artist, how about that.

He's slowly made his way up the stairs, to the landing, which he lounges around on. He acts as if he has died, and now has his own Valhala in the sky, which in many ways he does. He is now a mountain cat, of the High Shteps of Downtown Siler City... and as far as I can tell, he loves it!

And I have been enjoying his company too. Sometimes, I'll come home, and after calling for him, I will hear a rustling coming from the giant heap of tires I keep in an old cart by the door. A few moments later emerges from this blackened hive, a sleepy headed Tire Kitten, ready to gingerly greet me, get fed some food and a little love. What more could a guy ask for?

Amos lounging in his Tire Lair...

Tonight, I decided to introduce him to the drumset, and learned something a little kinda interesting..
I had been playing, and to my suprise this ussually doesn't send him scampering off, as one would think.

In fact, while I was jamming out,  I had looked down, and there he was, at the base of my stool, hanging out.
I reached down and scooped him up, and set him on my right (kickdrum) knee. I tapped the floor tom, and even set him on it, and tapped it, and let him feel the vibes. I'll made a drummer out of this cat, I thought, after my friend Vito, who made sure that his son, little Joshua Sparrow, got a good dose of African Drums in eutero, at the ADF, good forsite from a rhythm loving father I thought.

Well, I don't know what Joshua thought, but Amos seemed pretty non-plused. More than anything, really just utterly puzzled. I moved him back on to my leg, tapped the cymbals, to snare, the high hat, all seemed to arouse suspicion in the little cat. Finally, I started playing a little beat, with a soft touch on the ride cymbal, and a soft boom-Boom on the bass drum...and no sooner had I struck that double beat "boomBOOM", the little cat instantly settled down right in on my leg, sort of flopped over on his side, and strarted purring like a lawnmower!
There we sat for a few minutes, boomBoom, boomBoom, boomBoom. I could tell he didn't want me to stop...so I just held it steady for him for a while.
I guess a cat CAN appreciate the drums. Who knew?! Reminded me of what they can do for people also.