Category Archives: art

appreciation and another loss

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Eldon Carl Schulz (6-20-1948—4-01-2024) is the husband of an artist friend, Jeane Kat McGrail. Jeane and I had concurrent solo exhibitions sponsored by E* (E-artgroup) at the Old CourtHouse Gallery in Woodstock, IL in 2018 — “Streaming Reflections”. When I learned of Eldon’s passing I was saddened but upon reflection, I realized why this loss was so personal to me. Yes, he was a kind, good man, an award-winning photographer, and husband of a friend. But, in addition he had used his creative energy to help me document not just this shared exhibition, but he was also my official photographer for my solo exhibition curated by Caren Helene Rudman at the Art Center Highland Park (TACHP). We never appreciate people and their talents enough! I feel so thankful for Eldon’s willingness to use his talents to help me document my work.

Eldon and Jeane in front of Jeane’s artwork
Eldon photographing myself, my dancer Ellyanna Hope Anderson and her Mom

Eldon’s photos:

Eldon’s photo of the two exhibiting artists: myself and Jeane
one of my favorites
in the vault

I thought you might enjoy some of Eldon’s images from my exhibition at TACHP:

So, now I have lost two important artisans:
My brother, who assisted me with my studios and exhibitions (carpentry, electric, moving, hanging…). Thank you, PAL.
And, a renowned photographer.
Thank you, Eldon, for the memories.

Eldon-Schulz-Photography © 2018 Eldon-Schulz-Photography © 2019

surviving covid19

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Okay – so most of us think covid is over and we certainly have tools to combat it. I still feel like I do not have the freedom to go into crowds without taking risks. And, the world has become so violent.

This is one of the posts that I lost. So I am reposting it. So much is still relevant.

My studio before I cleared things out and vacuumed the floor. The paint stays on the floor until I paint over it! Not much has changed.

Unlike many, I am very lucky to have a wonderful studio that I love to work in. One would think that I would be happy just to be tucked away doing my art. I am embarrassed to say that I have been somewhat paralyzed. Don’t get me wrong. I have been exercising (I cannot go to the pool that I love – so I am now biking on my stationary bike – I did 15 miles today – but it took 1hour 20 minutes!), learning new art related things, doing some art and gradually organizing my digital and painting studios.

Sometimes you need some inspiration and I have this — my largest watercolor hanging on my studio wall. It is 39 inches x 7 feet wide on 180 or 150 pound watercolor paper, my artist/lifelong best friend gave me some years back.

I was taking a grad-level class from Charlotte Rollman at NIU https://charlotterollman.com when I did it. She does beautiful large watercolors, so I challenged myself to do a huge watercolor. It was challenging to wet it (in the tub via the shower!) and I tacked it to a 4×8 foot homesote board. I never did like stretching canvas or watercolor paper, which is why I generally use 300 pound watercolor paper and often work on unstretched canvas). The uneven paper adds to the character of the artwork. Here are some details of this piece.

What strikes me looking at these images is that they tend to speak to Covid 19. The figures are isolated and separated by windows or transparent planes. And, maybe this is just evident of my exploration of consciousness. How do we connect? Oh… we can’t even connect physically now. So, connecting to consciousness is not a physical connection, so maybe we are experiencing connections in a more spiritual way right now. Just some thoughts…. 

So … The task at hand was to finish these three small pieces and then to tackle a large piece for XrE*al.

Those three pieces helped me get past my covid paralysis and create a 12 x 18 foot painting for an exhibition I was never able to personally experience.

More on that in the next reposted lost post.