screw the economy, buy some art.

Want some original artwork? Want some reasonably priced original artwork? Let me help you with that.
I've spent the last few weeks working on a series of very small, very green drawings. I realize you can see that they are in fact.....green in color....but it is also important to point out that I've used green "reuse" materials here and saved this paper and wood from being discarded.
All drawings are ink on paper and all are in the 4 inch to 5 inch size range. Each one below is framed (no glass) and ready to hang. (the paper is mounted to a plywood backing)

Information is listed below each image and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have...but really, this is pretty simple. If you want one, comment or email me at my website (dougmcabee.com) and I'll reserve it for you on a first come, first serve basis. Mail me a check and I'll mail you a drawing. The images here are not great quality but if you're interested I can email you a better photo. These are brand new and not available anywhere else.

Support the arts and tell your friends.

"What you don't see" 2008

4" x 4" (7 1/2" x 7 1/2" frame)

$50.00 (includes shipping)

"Tricky" 2008

5" x 5" (8" x 8" frame)

$50.00 (includes shipping)

SOLD "There he goes" 2008

4" x 4" (7 1/2" x 7 1/2" distressed frame)
$50.00 (includes shipping)

"Punk" 2008
4" x 4" (7 1/2" x 7 1/2" frame)
$50.00 (includes shipping)

"Not afraid to use it" 2008
4" x 4" (7 1/2" x 7 1/2" frame)
$50.00 (includes shipping)

SOLD "Magpies" 2008
4" x 4" (7 1/2" x 7 1/2" frame)
$50.00 (includes shipping)

"Looks like" 2008
4" x 4" (7 1/2" x 7 1/2" frame)
$50.00 (includes shipping)

blue drawing

Last Saturday most of my day was consumed with moving and photographing the new sculpture. Because I lack any real superpowers, I enlisted the help of my wife Georgie and our 2 year old son Blue to move the 8 foot steel sculpture. Georgie is excellent help in transporting sculptures and, well, Blue was mostly there so we could make sure he wasn't throwing things at the television or chasing chihuahuas around with a hammer. But he did pay attention and he was able to repeatedly use a word he learned in the last few weeks....."scupp-shure".

I'll give you a second to sound it out.

The next day Blue busts out the crayons and positions his paper just so and informs me that he is going to "color" now. And he does. When he finishes he points to the paper and says, "Look, I draw daddy scupp-shure".

I'll give you a second to get over the sheer cuteness of that.

We all know people who think their child is a genius after completing the simplest task and perhaps it is required of every parent to think their child is smart. It might even approach annoying when the accountant parent always points out how their child seems to be naturally good with numbers or the English teacher points out how well their 1 1/2 year old is enunciating her words.

With that in mind check out the drawing he did of my sculpture:


Just like you, I took a quick look and thought, "random scribbles". The brain files opened and caused me to remember the early stages of artistic development in children and how important these random scribbles are in teaching children that they can manipulate the materials and make marks on a page. I told him how good it was and moved on to making elephant sounds and telling him he didn't really need to eat more cake.

But then, like those of you who actually pay attention to detail, I started to notice the similarities the drawing shared with the sculpture. Seriously, look. All the important parts are represented. Not wanting to be one of "those" parents, I kept my mouth shut until Georgie walked in the room and noticed it too and then pointed out that he even chose the correct color.

I'm not saying he's a genius or a child prodigy. I am saying he knows his alphabet, he can count past ten, and he is cuter than most people born in the last twenty or so years.

sneak preview

I'm not sure why you come here, but you deserve something nice for reading my rambles and looking at my strange photos. So here's a little holiday reward for you. You get to see the new sculpture in all of it's glory before anyone else in the universe. Okay, my mom, dad, aunt, wife, and son saw it before you, but you are the first non-blood relative to see it. Meet "Miss Faith":

"Miss Faith" is painted steel and she stands eight feet tall. Of course each new sculpture becomes my favorite for a while, but I'm pretty sure this one is one of the strongest sculptures I've made in a while. Speak up if you have opinions...and stay tuned....in the next week or so I plan to stick some new drawings up here that you could purchase pretty cheap.

slow down

the same phrase repeated again and again. i get it. i'm slowing down.

read this

The Effort
-Billy Collins
from his collection of poems, Ballistics, Random House, 2008


Would anyone care to join me
in flicking a few pebbles in the direction
of teachers who are fond of asking the question:
“What is the poet trying to say?”

as if Thomas Hardy and Emily Dickinson
had struggled but ultimately failed in their efforts-
inarticulate wretches that they were,
biting their pens and staring out the window for a clue.

Yes, it seems that Whitman, Amy Lowell
and the rest could only try and fail,
but we in Mrs. Parker’s third-period English class
here at Springfield High will succeed

with the help of these study questions
in saying what the poor poet could not,
and we will get all this done before
that orgy of egg salad and tuna fish known as lunch.

Tonight, however, I am the one trying
to say what it is this absence means,
the two of us sleeping and waking under different roofs.
The image of this vase of cut flowers,

not from our garden, is no help.
And the same goes for the single plate,
the solitary lamp, and the weather that presses its face
against these new windows-the drizzle and the
morning frost.

So I will leave it up to Mrs. Parker,
who is tapping a piece of chalk against the blackboard,
and her students-a few with their hands up,
others slouching with their caps on backwards-

to figure out what it is I am trying to say
about this place where I find myself
and to do it before the noon bell rings
and that whirlwind of meatloaf is unleashed.





If you've never read Billy Collins, shame on you. Go out right now and buy something of his, starting with this most recent collection of his work. Collins has the ability to draw the spiritual out of the mundane and mixes cocktails of goofy humor, head-splitting truth, and the ordinarily divine. It will make you a better person and will probably crack you up.

deadlines

One of the hard lessons I learned directly after leaving undergraduate school was that without specific project assignments and deadlines for completion it was easy to become stagnant as an artist. In school I had the benefit of those irritating professors coming up with challenging new assignments and barking at me like a drill sergeant to make sure I finished each project by the appropriate date. Without that irritation, however, I found it difficult to know what I should do next and even when I came up with an idea for a new creative project, the lack of a hard deadline allowed me to idly procrastinate for weeks on end.

During graduate school I focused on this idea of deadlines and began to enforce my own deadlines as a means to developing a larger quantity of work in a relatively short period of time. The creative process became more important when there was a sense of urgency to the production time. I was forced to plan ahead and develop several sketches and ideas before getting my hands on steel or paper. This approach also pushed me to make assessments and changes as the project developed adding analysis and synthesis to the process. Not every decision made on the fly was a good one, but I was generally able to recognize my mistakes and not repeat them in successive projects.

In life after school I continue to work under self imposed deadlines. Often this is made easier by an approaching exhibition date, a request from a gallery, or a call for artist submissions. But if no outside force acts, I still often set a specific date for completing a project. Sometimes these deadlines are selfish in terms of creating opportunities for me to relax or shift gears for a while and focus on something different. An approaching vacation or trip presents a good opportunity to set a deadline the week before leaving. With a project finished my mind is free to move on to other thought processes and I can spend more time away from the shop or art room and spend that time with my family. I may also shift from working on a sculpture project to a drawing project or I may decide to spend a few weeks reading and sketching in preparation for the next big sculpture.

Other times these deadlines are almost impossible. Last year I did the “one drawing per week” deadline. A few years ago I did the “five new large scale sculptures in 3 months” deadline. And this month I did the “finish this one by Thanksgiving” deadline, essentially allowing 8 work days to complete a seven foot sculpture from start to finish. But while I did meet all these deadlines, I’m not always so successful. There was the never-ending sculpture this last summer, there was the acrylic painting that gave me fits last spring, and there was the big sculpture that attempted suicide by leaping out on the highway a few miles from the metal shop. Yet even in the ones I missed, deadlines are always motivators.

I am much more realistic with deadlines for my students although they’d tell you a different story. I fight a constant battle against the slackers and procrastinators and do my best to stamp out such enemies of creativity. Even with my most generous deadlines I regularly have students who turn in projects late despite the tough penalty for tardiness. My goal is to teach each student early on what I had to learn on my own….that deadlines can be most helpful in developing a creative process that works for the individual. Those who listen and observe will find that they gain time management skills, learn creative problem solving skills, and develop advanced techniques in handling each new medium. I’ve watched recently as one student began to realize this and made advances in his design work as a result despite some bad luck. After pulling an all-nighter and subsisting mostly on Red Bull he accidentally nudged the Red Bull can over spilling the contents across his freshly painted design just hours before the deadline. That is of course, the bad luck part. The good part is after he composed himself he started over and nearly completed the new design on time. The really good part is that the new design gave him the opportunity to solve some mistakes and problems he was able to identify in the first draft and he was able to see how much he could accomplish when he was intensely focused on meeting the deadline.

Now there’s a foundation to build on.

show

The Upstairs Artspace is marking their 30th anniversary with a special exhibit comprised of nearly 200 individual artists' works. These artists have exhibited work at the Upstairs from 1978 - 2008 and the fact that so many of them responded is a testament to the legacy of this fine contemporary art gallery.

Exhibiting artists are donating an extra 10% of all sales to benefit the gallery and opening reception attendees are asked to donate $19.78 to help sure up the financial status of the gallery.

I know it seems like everyone is looking for some sort of financial help lately, but do not be discouraged from attending this event or from purchasing some exceptional art. This gallery is known for it's focus on the artist - instead of the gallery...something that is rare these days indeed. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this is likely why the gallery seems to struggle just to keep it's head above water at times.

So if you want some art or if you just want something to do this Saturday night, come out and put a small amount of money to good use. Donate it to a gallery that really deserves it....and that gallery will use it to promote more great contemporary art in the Southest.

The Upstairs Artspace is located at

49 South Trade Street

Tryon, NC 28782

www.upstairsartspace.org