Crested Butte Plein Air Invitaional

I have to say that the reception and show in general for the Crested Butte Plein Air Invitational, hosted by the Oh Be Joyful gallery in Crested Butte this past weekend was very well done. The quality of work was very good. As with all shows, there were some paintings that weren't up to par but overall it was very impressive. The hard work of Shaun and his staff in setting up the tent and the lighting and the hanging of the paintings definitely showed. It is a difficult task to show art properly in an outdoor setting but they did it.

The idea here is that 45 artists (all professionals), including myself, were invited to come to Crested Butte and paint the subjects of our choice as long as it represented Crested Butte and the surrounding area, and then display and sell the results. I was fascinated by the choice of subjects that each artist made and how he or she represented the chosen subject matter in their paintings. It is well known that if you take five artists and line them up to paint the same thing, the results will vary. That's art. Each of us sees the same thing in a different manner and will portray what we see differently than the artist standing next to us. Click here to see what each of us painted and what sold.

While the big show is over, select pieces of art have been kept by the gallery for the remainder of the show which runs through Sunday. If there is anything of mine that you see that interests you please let me know as I have all of them back here in my gallery with the exception of "CB Alley" which the gallery chose to keep until the end of the show. I was fortunate to have sold my "quick draw" painting (a quick draw is a set time limit we all had to do a painting) on Saturday. It is not pictured however. Thanks to Brenda from Tulsa who bought it.