As of last month all five, count them, five, of the galleries that held my work on an ongoing basis closed for business.  Egads.  So its no time to sit back and let someone else do your work for you.  I'd hunkered down and simply did as much plein air painting as I could for a few months.  Then I realized recently, as I was taking stock of things, that I'd done a number of Bethlehem, PA urban landscapes. 

I began doing urban landscapes during the winter because, as much as I admire him, I am not, no not at all, an Andrew Wyeth tonalist landscape sort of painter.  I like color.  And I couldn't find any in the bleak late fall, winter, early spring rural scenes that I've been accustomed to painting.  So I started to explore the downtown and South side urban Bethlehem "scene".  It was quite beautiful in the snow and I really enjoyed playing with colors and shapes and layers of depth in the vista.  And now I find that its July and I'm still rocking the urban landscape.  It's just so much fun. 

Every now and then I find that suddenly, through much effort, but without a specific goal- only to paint "better"- I find that I've made a quantum leap forward in my work.  Painting the urban landscape has led me to this latest leap in the quality of all my work.  I'm working on layering those value contrasts for that illusive illusion of depth.  What a blast.

Back to Bethlehem.  So I contacted Evelyn Beckman from Ambre Gallery on Broad Street and told her I'd accumulated this body of work and offered her the opportunity to display it first because we knew each other from a couple of juried exhibitions that I'd been involved in at the gallery.  I know.  But she likes me and my work and will be showing about 15 pieces in the bay window and the "back rooms of the gallery" during Jan Crooker's solo Musikfest show.  Yea! 

PS.  The "back rooms of the gallery" are two very very nicely styled smallish rooms with no natural lighting.  They're....ok, they're the bathrooms.  Be sure and drink lots and lots of fluids before you go see the show so you don't miss my work.