RETROSPECTIVE/EVOLUTION Opening

We had a wonderful opening reception for RETROSPECTIVE / EVOLUTION at Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station last Sunday afternoon. Many friends and art lovers stopped by to enjoy the art of Eric Engstrom, Myong-Ah Rawitscher, and Vickisa.

The exhibition continues at GRO through April 1st, when we will have an Artists' Salon with an open discussion with the theme "Every Picture Tells a Story".

Eric Engstrom's exhibit in the Main Gallery features a survey of art by his parents as well as forty years of his artwork leading up to recent and images. Myong-Ah Rawitscher's exhibition in the Project Space Gallery spotlights her evocative photo-collages, and Vickisa shows works in the Annex in honor of the late Warren Hellman, founder of the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.

Gallery Route One is open daily 11am - 5pm except Tuesdays. Visit our web site at www.galleryrouteone.org.

Art: Eric Engstrom, Log Barn, Helmville, Montana, 28" x 40", mixed media, 2012

RETROSPECTIVE / EVOLUTION

The opening reception for RETROSPECTIVE / EVOLUTION is this Sunday February 26 from 3-5pm at Gallery Route One, Point Reyes Station, California. The exhibit contains art created by my parents W.J. Engstrom (1900-1989) and Victoria Engstrom (1915-1999).
Abandoned or underutilized buildings have been a major theme of my work since the late 1980s. My new work includes several roadside landscapes featuring vernacular commercial and agricultural buildings. Please join us, and visit the exhibit often - Gallery Route One is open daily except Tuesday from 11am to 5pm. There will be an Artists' Salon on Sunday, April 1 from 4-5pm. The discussion will reference the topic "Every Picture Tells A Story" and all are welcome to join in.

Photos (from top):
1. New art by Eric Engstrom
2. White Barn, Gotham, Wisconsin #2, mixed media, 24" x 24" x 3" - 2012
3. Evolution, art by W.J. Engstrom (1900-1989) and Victoria Brewer Engstrom (1915-1999)
4. Exhibition poster 13" x 19"

RETROSPECTIVE / EVOLUTION at Gallery Route One

A new solo show, RETROSPECTIVE / EVOLUTION will featured be in the Center Gallery, Gallery Route One, 11101 State Highway One, Point Reyes Station, California from February 24 through April 1, 2012.

Featuring a variety of art created over fifty years by Eric Engstrom, the exhibition traces the development of his work from the 1960s to the present. Included in the retrospective are pieces by his late parents W.J. Engstrom and Victoria Engstrom as well as Eric's posters, paintings, collages and prints.

Also running concurrently at Gallery Route One will be Far From Home, photographs by Myong-Ah Rawitscher in the Project Space Gallery and new work by Vickisa in the Annex Gallery.

A reception for the exhibit will be on Sunday, February 26th from 3-5 pm, and an Artists' Salon with a conversation exploring the theme "Every Picture Tells A Story" will be featured from 4-5 pm on Sunday, April 1st, the final day of the exhibit.

Gallery Route One is open every day except Tuesday from 11 am to 5 pm. Visit the gallery's web site at .

Top: Bodie, California, mixed media 18 x 24, 2012
Middle: Forks, Washington, mixed media, 18 x 24, 2012
Bottom: Cuervo, New Mexico, mixed media, 18 x 24, 2012

Fine Art Print Sale

Give Original Fine Art Prints by Eric Engstrom this holiday season

I'm offering limited edition numbered and hand-signed high quality inkjet prints of my recent art at a substantial discount. The prints are matted in acid-free white mats backed by white illustration board, and are ready for framing in standard sizes. The prints are offered at a 33.3% discount from gallery/retail prices only until the end of the year.

11" x 14" image in 16" x 20" mat - gallery price $180 - now $120
8" x 10" image in 11" x 14" mat - gallery price $120 - now $80

Contact Eric at ericengstrom@comcast.net to get details and to order.
Also, check out http://architectsandartisans.com/index.php/2011/02/mixed-media-from-the-blue-highways/

New Mixed Media Small Works

Recently I created a new group of mixed media small works and exhibited them at Gallery Route One in Point Reyes Station, California. By limiting the size of the pieces, I was able to experiment with a more painterly approach than normal. These pieces will serve as prototypes for a new group of mixed media works for a solo show at Gallery Route One that will run from February 24th through April 1, 2012.
The new works cover the same subjects I've used in the past - abandoned, re-purposed, or underutilized rural and urban vernacular buildings. From photographs taken on peripatetic drives on secondary roads across the USA and Canada, I've amassed a trove of pictures of buildings and landscapes that will serve as subject matter for many years to come. Because of health issues, I haven't taken as many road trips in the last year or two, so have gone back to older images to use as inspiration.
Enjoy the new work, and send me a note if you'd like to see more.

Mentors and Friends: Two Very Special Men

Mentors and Friends: Two Remembrances
Each of us has many mentors who have guided and influenced us in life by their guidance, kindness, or excellence as people. Those people who shape us are few and far between - and I have been very lucky to have had two mentors and friends who recently passed away. They are sorely missed.

Jerry Allison FAIA - 1932 - 2011
I was working for Architects Hawaii in Honolulu in the mid 1970s when I became involved in photographing and writing for the monthly magazine produced for the Hawaii Chapter of the AIA, and I was introduced to Jerry Allison. I was immediately impressed with his drawing ability and storytelling talent, and how he could generate ideas from a small kernel of information - a quotation, a clipping from a magazine, a shard of pottery - they all fed his creativity and became the basis for his approach to design. He approached life with a playfulness that appeared in the architecture of exotic resorts that became his trademark. We often talked of the need for a strong story line in every endeavor undertaken - in a sense, a screenplay outlining the drama and character of the design. Jerry did lots of research to make sure that the resorts WATG designed were always "of the place" they were located. Whether in South Africa or South Asia and the Pacific, one always knew fabulous resort hotels designed by WATG belonged to the environment where they were sited.
We both moved from Hawaii to California in the late 70s - early 80s, and only got together every year or so - I was in the San Francisco Bay area, and he was in Newport Beach, and our paths didn't cross that often. In later years, we saw each other frequently at gatherings of Hospitality Design Magazine's Platinum Circle, an honor we both treasured and delighted in. When I think of Jerry it will always be how much fun he had telling the story with almost childlike delight, and what he did with it either as a sketch, a birdhouse, or a ceramic bowl. He had a great life, but I miss him.

Naokuni Arita 1941-2011
In 2002 I received a call at my office from Kobe, Japan from a representative of Mr. N. Arita, who had seen EDG's design for Wolfgang Puck's Spago restaurant at the Four Seasons Maui, looked us up on the web, and wanted us to design the concept for a new confectionery concept in Japan. He wanted to know whether I could be in Kobe the following week. I said that I was too busy, and would have to think about it. After doing some research on Mr. Arita and his Henri Charpentier and C3 concepts, and his company, Good Earth, my partner and I decided that we could set up a meeting with him "halfway" in Honolulu. I flew to Honolulu and met Mr. Arita for afternoon tea at the Halekulani Hotel, and through an interpreter began the process of getting to know each other. We then decided I should go to Japan to survey his existing shops, tea rooms, and restaurants and write a report on their competition with the idea of coming up with a new American concept. For the next two years our team led by Jennifer Johanson and Patrick O'Hare crossed the Pacific frequently, and ended up developing a prototype called "SUGAR". Unfortunately, the Japanese economic climate made it impossible to undertake the project, and none were built. However, EDG won a Hospitality Design Magazine Design Award for "Best Unbuilt Project" in 2005 and shared it with Mr. Arita.
Mr. Arita had exquisite taste and amazing design knowledge - his impressive white marble offices filled with mid-century furniture masterpieces and the full set of Vitra miniatures was a treat to behold and be part of. We both had a long standing appreciation for the work of Carlo Scarpa.
He treated us as VIPs, taking us to the best restaurants, letting us explore the unique retail landscape of Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto and Tokyo, and was receptive and always respectful of our designs. He loved all things modern, and beamed when he showed us his baby blue 1956 Lincoln Continental that he kept at the main baking facility. If you get to Japan, visit the Henry Charpentier Tea Room and Bar in a restored 1920s bank building in the Ginza. The elegant design of the pstries and cookies in an amazingly elegant modern space are worth a special trip. I learned a lot from Mr. Arita, enjoyed his company immensely, and am depply affected by his recent death.

Altered Books: Cranberry Red

The Marin Museum of Contemporary Art will be exhibiting artist's altered books from April 26th through May 21st in their galleries at Hamilton Field in Novato, California. The exhibit is a benefit for Marin MOCA and their programs. My submission is shown above - a very personal response to the challenge of altering a book and making art from it.

Cranberry Red was a novel written by Plymouth, Massachusetts newspaperman Edward B. Garside, Jr. Ted Garside was a good friend of my father, and during my childhood served as an inspiration to me - he was a real writer, and that was one of the things I aspired to do. His biggest career accomplishment was to review books, especially histories and biographies, for the New York Times. He wrote a column of “things that interest me” for the Old Colony Memorial, a weekly published every Thursday.

Ted was like a kindly, rather reticent "uncle" with a dry sense of humor. The book critics savaged Cranberry Red, and my dad said that he never got over it. He tried to show what life was like for the Cape Verde islanders who provided the hard labor for growing cranberries. The large local Portuguese immigrant community in southeastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod did not accept the Cape Verdeans.

They were dark-complexioned and their language was a distinct dialect. They were also ignored by the majority of the white population, and lived their lives in their own small communities surrounding the cranberry bogs. Garside had made many friends among the workers, and the book was sympathetic to their plight. But the tone of the times was not kind to an account of immigrant agricultural workers, especially dark-skinned.

Ted Garside’s book is no longer available and he never wrote another novel. However, the Cape Verdean population has assimilated into the population at large in the 70+ years since the book was written. The cranberry crop is still a major source of agricultural income for the area, and the distinctive "screen house" barns and bogs have survived, albeit in smaller numbers as development of new housing has encroached.