I love waking up with gratitude in my heart. It permeates and radiates and attracts the most seductive and beautiful parts of life...
Image: ©Doug Fogelson • Georgia-04
In my wonderful journey as an artist, I've met many unique and creative people from all around the world... including the talented and diverse group of artists I was fortunate to know and be close friends with at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. One of these incredible artists is my dear friend, renowned artist, Doug Fogelson. Doug has had a positive affect on so many individuals throughout his involvement in the arts... he is in the midst of an exploding career on the rise and it pleases me to no end to see he is receiving such high praise and international notoriety for his work (including his publishing efforts and many noted collaborations.) He has become quite an inspiration to me over the past years as I've seen no break in his growth, focus and determination as he continues pushing boundaries through his work. It fills my heart with pure joy to know that he is being recognized and enjoying his well deserved success!
Image: ©Doug Fogelson • Georgia-03
Recently, Doug sent out a request to his many friends throughout the U.S. to assist him on a project he was working on for his solo exhibition called "Field Work", which is about the magic embedded in the familiar and aims to discover anew certain profound aspects of life. All we had to do was send him two cups of dirt from where we lived and I was one of the luckies to be of assistance! As a painter, my life is one of mostly solitary studio work, so to participate in something outside of the studio (even as small as digging in the dirt and shipping off via FedEx) was a little bit of fun. Suprisingly to me, the FedEx employee said, "wow! another person asking for GA dirt, huh? You'd be amazed how much dirt we ship!" It was even insured for $100. automatically. I loved every part of being a tiny part of this process.
Image: ©Doug Fogelson • Georgia-01
Doug recently shared these images with me that he created using the dirt from Georgia and he's graciously granted me permission to share them here with all of you. Hope you all enjoy... Below is a bit more information on this series/exhibit and I'm only too proud to blog-brag about such a great artist and friend. Congrats to you, Douglas! I look forward to seeing more of your work in person and reading more reviews in the near future!
“Field Work” begins with the dirt itself. The rudimentary “ground zero” of here is the culmination of thousands of years of decay and erosion. Depending on location it takes approximately five hundred to one thousand years to create just one inch of topsoil. An important part of my exhibition will be exposing the soil directly to 8x10 inch transparency film to create vibrant color photograms of this substance. The resulting large abstracted prints immerse the viewer into the pure form comprised of plant, animal, and mineral decay so vital to life on earth."
~Doug Fogelson
"Field Work" is Doug's solo exhibition opening on August 13th at the Chicago Urban Art Society Gallery. Please check out his show if you're in the Chicago area (show runs through September 25th.)
Image: ©Doug Fogelson • Georgia-02
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