In The Wine Country

I'm very lucky to live less than an hour away from Northern California's Wine Country. The valleys of Sonoma and Napa produce some of the world's finest wines, and the planting of grapes has altered the natural landscape in myriad ways. One of my favorite areas is the Carneros District that spans the southern flanks of both Sonoma and Napa, bordered by San Pablo Bay. The wine produced by Bouchaine, Artesa, Etude and others ranges from chardonnay to especially wonderful pinot noir.

The landscape here is fascinating, with parallel rows of vines criss-crossing the rolling hills down to the bay. Different varietals require different row spacing and direction, so the patterns are like patchwork quilts. The winery buildings range from faux French castles to rustic redwood barns, and reflect many styles of vernacular and high style architecture.

Every season reveals different colors and patterns, from the heavy dark green leaves and grape bunches of harvest season to the pruned bare black trunks of winter to the bright green new growth of spring. Visiting wineries and enjoying the wines and surroundings is now a year round activity.

I've been working on a new series of Carneros images to be published by ArtBrokers, Inc. The three illustrated here will join an earlier work, Carneros Winery Barn in a series of four prints. My thanks to David Coyle for his art direction and collaboration in bringing these images to life.

Back on the road again - Kind of. . . . .

It's been a year and a half since I sat down to write in my blog - during the fall of 2009 I spent three months in hospital and rehabilitation, and rejoined the artistic community about a year ago at this time. My life is very different now - because of chronic pain issues and a colostomy, my travel and endurance has been limited. I did manage a solo show in San Francisco at 555 California from January to March, and another at the Fairfax Library in April 2010.
I traveled to Rome and spent the month of June at my sister's home in my birthplace, Plymouth, Massachusetts, catching up with relatives and old friends. In July, I took part in Gallery Route One's Members' Show, and in August entered the Box Show, an annual fundraiser. My piece, The Blue Barn, was sold for the show's high bid of $700. I was elected Chair of the Artist Members and have spent much time and effort in that role.
In December and January I had my first solo exhibition in the Center Gallery, and exhibited 30 works, among them several new three-dimensional assemblages of vernacular buildings from around the country, selling a few. The response was very good, and I'm currently working on new pieces for the 2011 Members' Show at GRO. I've found much satisfaction in my involvement with the gallery - I've met many people who have become good friends, and I feel as if I'm contributing to something very worthwhile.
Through the help of my dear friend JoAnn Locktov, I was featured in three recent prominent design blogs:

Modenus.com: <http://www.modenus.com/blog/interiordesign/just-off-the-road-the-art-of-eric-engstrom> (Veronika Miller / Tim Bogan), Roaming By Design: <http://roamingbydesign.com/?p=1874>(Saxon Henry), and Architects+Artisans: <http://architectsandartisans.com/index.php/2011/02/mixed-media-from-the-blue-highways> (Mike Welton).

The response to all three blogs and to the show has been good. I feel as if my newish (3+) year career as a fine artist might at last be coming to some measure of success. Now I'm busy working on the "next step", contacting galleries and looking for new venues to show my work. Because of financial and health constraints, I'm traveling shorter distances, and have gone back to earlier images as the basis of new pieces. And I promise to write on my blog a bit more frequently.

Northern California Barns: Routes 1 and 128

The coastal California Route 1 and State Route 128 wind through some of the loveliest seaside and rural country in America. The field grasses of late summer have turned light yellow, and wave in the light breezes, providing a contrast to the dark wood or red paint and corrugated zinc roofs on farm and ranch buildings. The barns in Sonoma and Mendocino are for the most part connected to dairy farms, while those in the picturesque Anderson Valley are split equally between dairy and vineyard/orchard uses. Most barns were built in the early part of the twentieth century, and some have fallen into disrepair as land use changes. They still provide a sense of agricultural and vernacular architectural history, however, and are an integral part of what makes the area so beautiful and so intriguing.

The Box Show

Hangar, Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New York

The annual Box Show will be on exhibit at Gallery Route One, 11101 State Highway One in Point Reyes Station, California from August 9th through September 13th. A public reception will be Sunday, August 9th from 3 pm to 5 pm at the Gallery. Each of the 100 artists invited to submit is provided with an unfinished pine box 7" x 14" x 5" with which to create an original art work. Please join us for this wonderful event!

The Box Show is the major fund-raiser each year for GRO's community outreach programs including Artists in The Schools and The Latino Photography Project. Visitors can submit bids on the art pieces in a silent auction format for the duration of the exhibit, and winners will be announced at the closing reception on Sunday, September 13th.

My piece, a mixed media construction, is titled "Hangar, Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New York". Floyd Bennett Field was New York's original commercial airport, and many of the original 1930s hangars still remain. Some have been converted to new uses including a sports center, while others are abandoned and awaiting new uses. The site and buildings are now administered by the National Park Service.

New Mixed Media Art

American Vernacular Landscapes Revisited
Recent media art is currently on display as part of the Gallery Route One Members' Show 2009 at the gallery, 11101 State Highway One, Point Reyes, California through the month of July. The images include new versions of previously created images as well as new views of Sausalito, California and Plymouth, Massachusetts.

Concrete Roads

Driving on old Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, the old main two lane east-west artery from Point San Quentin to Point Reyes through Marin County, California I was struck by the fact that as a child, many of our weekend "rides" were taken over concrete roads. I clearly remember the pock-eta pock-eta sound and vibration that filtered through the car, and announced our progress through the landscape. The steady rhythm was both annoying and comforting, and I wonder if today's children experience this cause and effect experience. As a child I found the noise and vibration to be annoying when I was trying to read or draw in the back seat, but very comforting when I wanted to take a short nap. During my college years the annoying repeating sound and feel kept me awake on late night drives.

Most of the roads I've traveled lately only have small sections of exposed concrete ribbon with exposed expansion joints still remaining. Where a thin layer of asphalt or wet tar joint compound has been added, the joints still telegraph from underneath the layer, as shown in the photograph of an abandoned section of old Route 66 in Arizona above. In many cases, thick black asphalt has been poured over the concrete and the joints are eliminated. Somehow as our highways became interstates and freeways, something has been lost - a rhythmic reminder that we were actually making progress through time, space, and distance.

Las Vegas to Fairfax via back roads

I recently drove north and then west from Las Vegas, Nevada to Fairfax, California on US95, US6, NV120, US395, and US50. The contrasts between the glitzy metropolis of Las Vegas and desert towns like Mercury, Beatty, Tonopah, Bishop and Basalt couldn't be more different. The desert is still impressive - from its wide open spaces and rugged mountains to its hardscrabble settlements. The wandering took me through former mining towns, failed agricultural developments, marginal roadside businesses, and delightful surprises. It's still early spring in the desert, with profuse wildflowers and plants that will be green for only a matter of days before turning brown.
The trip has inspired me to do a new mixed media series based on my photographs of the vernacular landscapes I passed through and experienced first hand. One of the most interesting and isolated places I visited was Bodie, California. On an unpaved road east of Highways US395 and CA270, Bodie is w a state historical park, kept in a state of "arrested decay". The town was an active mining center beginning in the 1880s with a poulation close to 10,000, and was occupied as recently as the late 1960s. Both gold and silver were mined by the Standard Mining Company until 1932, when the mill closed and most of the population left.
Driving these roads means stopping in the small towns to get gas and water even when the tank is half full - you never know when the next station will appear. Most of the stations between towns have been abandoned to the elements, and temperatures ranging from 0 degrees in winter to 115 in the summer means that the decay is rapid. It;s a fascinating journey that proves again and again how big our country is, and how diverse our landscapes are.