December 18, 2005

From the Studio

The days of 2005 are dwindling, and things are busy in the studio. As I will be traveling quite a bit over the next several months, I have decided to use this page on my website as an informal place to let you know what I am doing, where I am, and what interesting things I have come across. Updates will appear whenever I have the chance and have something worth reporting.

Today is December 19, 2005, and I am in Philadelphia, trying to finish two paintings for Lucy and Oliver Weiss before Vincent and I leave for Los Angeles on December 25. As they are my first large oil on wood paintings in some time, it took a bit of getting used to the medium before I found my footing. This commission is wonderfully loopy, (the clients are quite young and have wonderful ideas), and it is a needed break from all the political subjects I have been working with recently.

Oliver's door has a knight in shining armor riding on a polar bear through a mountainous landscape. Above peeking out of a cave is a fire breathing dragon, and way up on a hill on the top is a medieval castle. Lucy's door has a silver leaf unicorn bending down at a river to drink. Behind the unicorn is a landscape of rolling hills and vegetation, with four large butterflies spreading their wings, and a small frog by the river. There are also several plants of unknown origin. After I finish the doors and give them time to dry thoroughly, they will be installed in Brentwood, CA.

The most exciting news from the studio, however, is that next month I will be traveling with the Philadelphia law firm Burke-Pyle to the Middle East to interview former Iraqi prisoners who were tortured by Americans at Abu Ghraib. Burke-Pyle is preparing a civil action lawsuit on behalf of the former prisoners for wrongful imprisonment and torture, and I will be observing their fact finding interviews and making sketches for my continuing Abu Ghraib prison project. I should let you know that my proposal to install this project at Philadelphia's Eastern State Prison was refused, and I am now looking for an alternative site. Any ideas would be very much appreciated. I have received two grants for this project, one from the Independence Foundation, and one from the 5 County Art Fund. With the 5 County money, I am making a series of silkscreen prints with Caitlin Perkins at Space 1026.

And, as if the traveling to the Middle East were not exciting enough, I will be teaching at the Pont Aven School of Contemporary Art in Pont Aven, France from early February through the end of May. There I will be teaching woodblock printmaking as well as painting. I understand that I will have a studio at the school, and am very much looking forward to working hard on my own work with the time that this teaching assignment affords me. Part of the school curriculum includes a trip to both Madrid and Bilbao and also to Paris and Berlin. It should be very exciting. Vincent will come over to visit during his spring break, and the rest of the time I will miss him very much.

If you are interested in writing back to this column, please send me an email at daheyman@aol.com and put in the subject line “news column response.” Peace.