The end of summer already.

Summer is over already!

Unfortunately I noticed 2 days ago that the "peak summer" flowers are losing their blossoms. It seemed to go really fast this year. It was only July 28th and it only lasted a few weeks. Now that should be a warning?...or at least a reminder of how short life is and how fast time moves. The picture was taken yesterday and if you look closely, you can see that the flowers aren't as full and will continue to loose their color. In real life to talk about how time flies is such a cliche that it has lost it's meaning.....but paint a garden and the meaning is crystal clear. The good thing is that the park people have planted fall and late summer flowers so the garden will continue looking great. But it is still almost all over. Just yesterday.......

I made a discovery today and the discovery is that real breakthroughs are small and subtle. As much as we want to be dramatic and heroic, it is usually a small thing like an understanding, or seeing something old with fresh eyes or letting go of a personal quirk that may be holding you back.

The secrets are in the brushstrokes.

No matter what the image of a painting depicts the real secrets are in the brushstrokes. The brushstrokes give you an unique artist's view of the process of creation. The mark of the brush has it's own aesthetic. If you study the strokes you can enjoy a painting just on that level. Some old school painters whose brushstrokes are particularly helpful include: Velasquez, Manet, Rubens, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Cezanne and Matisse. It is like compiling a best movie list, it can go on and on and it changes depending on who puts the list together. Painters whose brushstrokes don't really help you understand them include Leonardo, Botticelli, sometimes Bonnard and Munch. It is always worth the effort to look into a painting to see the marks and how it was constructed.

These details are from recent paintings from Sibley Park.

Pilgrimage

For years, one of my former students comes to Mankato to paint for a few days. He is a painter but has another day job. We usually work from life and paint all day for 2 days. Whatever doesn't get done on the spot is finished from digital memory.

It is a good chance to catch up and to push to complete a painting. The flowers are nearing the peak so there is a good variety and the bugs weren't as bad as they've been. Nearly a perfect day for painting.

Painting at Sibley Park in Mankato, Minnesota.

The wages of sin is death (by mosquitoes).

This summer I set up right by the ridge of trees that usually have been featured so prominently in my park paintings. What I hadn't anticipated was the high rise apartment for a zillion mosquitoes.

I don't remember ever having a more tortuous time with the bugs. I made the mistake for the first few days of going in shorts. Since I really hate to put on bug poison, I have usually just wait and the wave of the little devils just go away. But here, they come out wave after wave. It has been a wet summer and clear bug overpopulation. One would never think about how hard it is to concentrate when there are mosquitoes on your eye lids, behind your ears and on your hands. It is hard enough just trying to figure out how to paint the light and what you are seeing let alone see and swat, and paint and swat. I may have to give in to some bug spray.

Finally back to the park!

For the sixth summer I have returned to Sibley Park to paint from life.

This is day one of painting from 8:30-12:00.

I found a spot in the shade and the light changes were noted.

This is a 30" X 40" canvas with some medium sized brushes.

It is very exhilarating to watch the light in the garden and I literally had to slow down my pace.

I've noticed that they haven't taken as good of care of the garden this year and maybe the recent severe weather has beaten down on it. July is the month to work and the flowers are coming .....

bukowskipainting.com

Landscape for Godard

Landscape for Godard

3 canvases oil on linen

(in progress)

Just for fun, I did a three panel landscape and decided to follow a famous quote by Jean-Luc Godard, "a story should have a beginning, middle and end, but not necessarily in that order". I did each panel separately from the same image. When I came closer to finishing the work, I put the panels together out of the normal order and the results were kind of interesting. It still needs the final touches and framing but the patterns and space that result reinforce a kind of abstraction (tame by cubist standards).

Bukowskipainting.com

I have a new website: bukowskipainting.com

This photo is the header for the website but due to auto-editing you don't get the whole picture. Dave Norris took this shot in my office at Bethany Lutheran College for an upcoming issue of the Bethany Report. I like the image because there are some nice details that add more to the story. It also shows my office and the collection of junk that keeps me inspired. The website is a stripped down model based on templates and in house design formulas, but it is super easy to update and change. I hope to use it for more to feature my newest collection of available paintings.

Waiting....

Recently, I have been working on designs for possible images for the Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. I came across this image from the past. Julia was drying off from swimming and sitting in the sun with her little friend. This is only a watercolor study for a possible oil painting, but it would make a nice work for kids who are at the hospital. I have 6 or 7 other possibilities. I am waiting for the green light on this and other works.... We will see.....

In Christ Alone at Martin Luther College.

William Bukowski

oil on linen

He Died In Our Place

and

Jesus Is Among Us.

I have a couple of paintings on display at Martin

Luther College in New Ulm, MN. There is a show going on for the dedication of the new chapel on

campus. The show is a fund raiser for artwork to

decorate some rooms on campus. I did one painting with Christ standing on the campus of MLC. It is in the library and will be until the end of May.

Fun to find a few oldies.

When preparing to put out 37 years of painting in a show recently I had the fun of looking at some of my older works with a renewed interest.

What was I trying for here?

How did this turn out?

or maybe the most important:

Why do I still own this?

But it is all a part of the "short journey" as I called the exhibition. The top picture is a painting from my old office in the late 80s. The next one is from Greenville, PA a spot on the campus of Thiel College called, "East Acres" and lastly, Jenna at the cottage. They still hold up.

A good year for still life.

A Short Journey- an exhibition of paintings

at Bethany Lutheran College by William Bukowski. (ending March 30, 2010)

As I looked at my work over the years, I decided

to hang three still lifes that I still own, in a horizontal arrangement. These were all done in a fairly short period of time after my first sabbatical. The year was 1988 and I was coming off of a great trip with Pete beginning in Rome and ending in London. I tightened up the edges, put some high contrast lighting and added some kid drawings, some toys and some shiny objects.

Jeff decided to make an appearance in the top still life as the masked hero, Zorro.

Faces at 30 year show.

A Short Journey, Paintings by William Bukowski at the Ylvisaker Fine Arts Center, on the campus of Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minnesota on display through March.

One wall of my show is reserved for portraits of the family. The cluster is hung salon style with works from 1977-2004. I had to leave many paintings out of the show.

There is one painting in the show that is not mine- but it is of me. Jenna painted me on a four by four foot canvas.

A Short Journey- 30 Year Show at Bethany

On February 25th, there was an opening reception for the show: A Short Journey. The exhibition is at the Ylvisaker Fine Arts Center on the campus of Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato, Minnesota.

The phrase "a short journey" represents one's life and career and the paintings in this show cover more than the 3o year teaching career of Bethany Professor Bill Bukowski.

Foot in the Door at MIA

The Minneapolis Institute of Art has their "Foot in the Door" show currently on display. Any artist in the state of Minnesota could bring artwork to show as long as it was within one foot square or cubic . There is quite a bit of diversity in the exhibition.

I had most of my new work in the show at Hopkins Center for the Arts, so I decided to enter the painting I had given Sherri of Goldie.

The paintings is oil on linen and shows the little cocker spaniel begging with one foot up on the couch. It marks just over a year since Goldie died- March 9, 2009. Now she is remembered in the Minneapolis Institute of Art until June 13, 2010

Bukowski at Hopkins

Bukowski paintings will be at the Hopkins Center for the Arts until February 21.

The space is pretty dramatic with the glass walls and plenty of natural light. If one just drives through the city of Hopkins, you can't help but to see the exhibition right from your car. The best part is to walk along the wall on the inside and see a large part of the Sibley Park series. One reward of doing a show like this, is to see random people walking along very slowly looking at every painting.

They are actually looking......

Hopkins Center Exhibition Opening

Garden Paintings by William Bukowski

Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hopkins, Minnesota.

Last night was the opening of this show in Hopkins. There were 3 other artists showing new work and a play going on in the theater, so there were a lot of interested viewers.

I called the show, "The Search for Paradise" because of the show in Waseca. The paradise metaphor works for these painting because it is a garden that is not easily identifiable with a specific place and there are no people in it to define fashion or time period. I like how the show is visible from the street and during the day has some beautiful natural light. If you are in the area, check it out. The show runs until February 21, 2010.

Show coming up at Hopkins Center for the Arts.

Hopkins Center for the Arts will be showing my garden paintings coming up next week in Hopkins, Minnesota. I am getting everything ready.

It is always interesting to see a the paintings together. I decided to call the show" the Search for Paradise". I think it gives it kind of a Romantic notion like the European desire to fine an earthly paradise. The Sibley series has evolved to more of a metaphor for the desire for heaven. Heaven probably isn't Sibley Park in Mankato for most people, but it is art after all, and an interpretation.