Bruce Starr Paintings at "Out of the Blue Gallery," Cambridge

My work is currently on display at two locations in Cambridge MA. The "Out of the Blue Gallery" is a great community venue on Prospect Street just off Central Square. My pieces can also be seen in the Middle East Restaurant on Mass. Ave. Check back soon, as I will be posting more pictures and info from these venues!


Please visit the past posts for info on other venues and recent paintings

Bruce Starr at Deluca Gallery, Provincetown MA

The Deluca Gallery is located at 359 Commercial St.

next to The Harbor Lounge, on the waterfront.

The piece above is a scene from seafood stand in Wellfleet Harbor on a brisk September evening as the sky began to clear after a rainy afternoon. At 36 x 24, it is one of my larger paintings to date.

    

Many thanks to the friends and family who came from Boston, Philadelphia, and Arizona to help me celebrate opening weekend of my show at the Deluca Gallery! Here we are at Lorraine's:

Here are a few other new pieces to be seen for the first time at the show: (click to enlarge)

Local 188  24 x 16, Casein on Muslin covered plywood

This is a street scene outside a restaurant in Portland Maine, at the end of an evening on a warm September night. A rich palette of colors emerge from the pools of light and reflections against a backdrop of ultamarine blue in the surrounding darkness.

Race Point Light from Herring Cove,  16 x 12, Casein on muslin covered ply

This piece is very similar to a previous painting that sold the first time I displayed it at the Providence Open Market. Herring Cove is a perfect place to enjoy the rich colors of sunset over Race Point, with the light reflected in the texture of the waves as they roll into Hatches Harbor.

Miranda's Window, Rainy Dawn.  16 x 12, Casein on muslin-covered ply

This scene is from a small seside town in Maine where my friend Miranda recently bought a cottage. Peeping out the window on a cold rainy morning this scene greeted me. There is something about the stolid, boxy house, secure against the wet and chill dawn, that gave me a sense of peace and comfort I wanted to convey in this painting.

Upcoming Show at Patty Deluca Gallery, Provincetown

Opening November 11!  I'm very excited to have a show at this wonderful gallery at 359 Commercial Street, adjacent to the Harbor Lounge. I will be posting more information about the opening as it evolves, so stay tuned!

Patty Deluca Gallery

Crashing the Party
Sorry for being out of sight recently--I suffered a hard drive disaster with my Macbook crashing completely. I lost a lot of data, both images of paintings and images to create paintings. Coming back online now with more disc space, improved software and a reliable backup system.

NEW PAINTINGS

The Boating Party 24 x 12, casein on muslin covered plywood

This is the most recent of my Boston Esplanade paintings. On a gorgeous summer evening, when all of Boston seemed to be enjoying the balmy waterfront, the sunlight lingered late with a palpable golden glow. The idyllic scene inspired a classically referenced treatment of sky, clouds, and trees that merges into the 21st century architecture along the Charles River. I intended some gentle irony in depicting the partiers with a certain posed revelry, reminiscent of a liesure-class tableau in a painting from the romantic era. But there is definitively a democratized modern American twist. Interposed between the figures and the verdant natural background are the ubiquitous machinery and toys of our western consumer society.

Merrimack Through Pines 36 x 24, Casein on Muslin Covered Ply

This is a view from Maudslay State Park, outside Newburyport MA. Overlooking the Merrimack River, the land was a large estate originally built in the 1840s, replete with a huge mansion, guest houses, extensive landscaping, formal gardens and elaborate greenhouses. The mansion was demolished in 1955, and now only some outbuildings, skeletal garden walls and pathways still exist. The rhododendrons and a few other surviving horticultural specimens have melded into the native plantscape. The sweep of land cleared for the riverview is still discernable, though pine trees have sprung up where the bank descends steeply. They now filter the afternoon sun into a deeply shaded glade along the old carriageway.

I loved creating a deep toned painting with intense, rich colors that still conveys a bright sunny day beyond, and ruby patches of sunlight filtering through blue-green pine boughs. I hope it conveys a certain moody sense of granduer that haunts the place.

Frame Art
My frames are made of architectural moldings, so they always convey a sense of mass, but the latest design goes a step further. It references a classic perspective-angle frame in burnished gold, but reduces it to a wide angular tray fold with unmistakable presence. I will experiment with different metallic colors and edge patterns that compliment specific paintings as the technique evolves.



Homeresque (no, not Simpson)

Homer's studio on the cliffs

Weekend trips have lately yeilded some great material for future art. My friend Miranda Barrett spent the summer fixing up a newly aquired cottage in Old Orchard Beach Maine. It was wonderful to visit, see her project, and hang on the beach, but I also had a chance to visit an amazing nearby venue. Prout's Neck is a stubby peninsula just across the cove, and the site of Winslow Homer's studio. Homer created amazing iconic landscapes and figure studies in the late 19th century. He retired to a converted carriage house on the cliffs of Prouts Neck in the 1880s, and did some of his best and most mature work painting the surrounding rocky seascape. It is easy to see what attracted him to this place. There is a cliff trail that winds along the Atlantic, where the views of the rocky shore, barrier islands, and turbulent New England sky is stunning. I'm very excited about creating my own paintings from the images I collected.




Portland Maine is just a short drive north. If you didn't know, this great little city has a thriving art and restaurant scene. We had dinner at a fantastic place called "Local 188". Thanks much Miranda for a wonderful and productive weekend getaway!

Local 188, part of Portlands great restaurant scene

Bruce and Miranda, end of a wonderful meal

Art and Sexy Food

This summer I've been selling my paintings at a couple juried artisan markets sponsored by New England Open Markets. The artisan markets compliment the same group's farmers markets as sources for great locally made products. Farm market vendors may sell only foods they grow or harvest themselves, and this time of year the stalls are bursting with fantastic local produce. Boston's SoWa Open Market in the downtown gallery district is on of the most popular. Here's a picture of me with my paintings in SoWa's artisan section a few weeks ago.


The two other pictures at the right are from the Providence Open Market
in Lippit Park, with some painting shoppers on a sunny day, and the produce tents of the farmers market.

My Sexy Food Story

Hey! Those are my
pirate boots she's wearing!

Lori Theriault is an amazing potter, fellow artist, one of my oldest friends, whom I've known since our salad days of working on theater productions together. You can see her beautiful ceramic creations on her blog through the following link:

http://crazygreenstudios.blogspot.com/

This picture was taken lotsa years ago on Michigan Avenue when we lived in Chicago. We also share a love for cooking and fresh local food, but alas distance has kept us from making a meal together for a long time. This posting is a delicious and plausible substitute, however, for sharing food in person.

Lori recently started a new blog called "Sexy Food"  

http://yumsexyfood.blogspot.com/

I'm excited to tell a good story to contribute to it, and  I'm posting it here concurrently.


This week, To my great surprise I found a vendor with fresh sour cherries from Maine. I’ve loved sour cherries since my mom picked them for pies from the tree in our back yard while I was growing up. The season is very short, and the fruit very fragile, so they are seldom if ever seen in grocery store produce sections! However the luscious little red orbs are well worth the effort to obtain. Lori Theriault and I used to pick them together at Maryland and Virginia orchards when we both lived in Washington DC, but there the season is over and done by mid July. 

Ok, so pitting cherries is the pits,
 but always the first step

Not so many Americans know how uniquely delicious fresh sour cherries can be. Certain other cultures are more clued in to the secret. Over the years, I got used to hearing Russian, Polish, and Persian spoken when I picked sour cherries--they are beloved in both Eastern Europe and Iran. Lori and I were picking at a sleepy green orchard in Purcelville Virginia several years ago when we struck up a conversation and traded recipes with two fellow cherry lovers, an Iranian mother and daughter. The mother clued us into a recipe I’ve now made and shared many times. Sour cherries are cooked down with some brown sugar to a fresh soft jam, then baked with rice and nuts. This is a wonderful dish on its own, but also fantastic as an accompaniment to chicken or other meats.  In the Middle East, our new Iranian friend told us, a wonderful traditional pairing would be cherries with rice, and goat.

Goat, lean and spicy

My first plan was to pick up a small amount of chicken, and cook the cherries, rice, and meat together as a one-pot meal. But another find surprised me again. Beautiful goat shanks, purple-red and meaty, too tempting to pass up. So I set out on a cooking adventure inspired by a fast friendship in an orchard years ago. 

To prepare the goat, I cut the meat from the bone and minced it. Then I heated olive oil with brown sugar and used that for a fast initial sear of the goat.

Juicy cherries provide enough liquid
to simmer the goat till tender

After browning the meat I removed it, then sauteed a couple yellow onions with some garlic in the meat-flavored oil/sugar mixture. Then the cherries and meat all went back into the pot with a generous splash of balsamic vinegar, and some seasonings of coriander nutmeg. and salt. The uber-juicy cherries provided much of the cooking liquid required. Goat is a spicy and firm fibered meat that requires longer cooking to become tender. I simmered this down for over an hour, till the mixture had thickened nicely and the meat was chewy tender. Tangy tart cherries proved an excellent compliment to richly flavored goat. To make the dish go farther, I then added a couple diced sweet potatoes, three small chopped jalepenos for some heat, and some lightly ground walnuts.

Adding veggies and wine

A cup of red wine (I chose a Malbec, but a Pinot Noir would have worked as well) and a little water provided enough additional liquid to cook the sweet potatoes. Now the goat wast definitely tipsy, and happy! It took another 15 or so minutes of simmering for the veggies to get tender and the stew to thicken again.

The rice, I cooked separately, a nice blend of brown and wild. All the leftovers got mixed together in a wonderful melange that will provide a few more delicious meals. But for this dinner, a nice presentation was in order.  Our entree featured a bed of brown and wild rice, topped with slow cooked sour cherries, goat, sweet potatoes and walnuts--and of course some fresh veggie garnish with a cherry on top! A glass of the Malbec to wash it down and a backdrop of a recently completed painting. Perfect!

Slow cooked goat with sour cherries sweet poatoes and walnuts
on a bed of brown and wild rice

New Paintings
A couple new pieces to showcase. The first is a scene from my neighborhood capturing a bit of the flavor of life here in Somerville. It scene was from a warm June evening when the sun lingered extra late into the evening, the last strong rays shining intently on the upper floors of the row houses. Still a little time left for an older gentleman to tinker with his meticulously maintained, American luxury car. As the shadows begin to pool around him he as determined to keep it purring as long as the light lasts.

Maintaining the Buick
16 x 12 Casein on muslin covered plywood

Stoney Shore, Morning Haze

16 x 12 Casein on muslin covered ply

 The second is a simple but evocative composition depicting a rocky shoreline in summer morning fog. This scene was shot on a hike on the Horseneck Beach State Preserve near Fall River. 


Both of these pieces loose a significant amount of subtlety to the camera lense. The tones appear much more nuanced when viewed in person. Come see them in Providence this weekend!

Recent Paintings

Rising Tides
Boston is gorgeous this time of year, and it can be hard to find time for painting! But I'm collecting LOTS of scenes to paint, whether now or later. I've been focusing on coastal and nautical images, recording my first summer experience living in Boston. Here's some pieces I've been working on: (click to enlarge) I will get these posted in the inventory/price list soon!

RACE POINT LIGHT FROM HERRING COVE,
16" X 12", CASEIN ON MUSLIN COVERED PLY, 2011

This kind of lighthouse scene can be formulaic unless there is something unusual in the  interpretation of color, form and/or structure. I'm pleased with the reflection of light and movement in the water here--this series is a great chance for me to work on various ways to render the sea, a good artists' challenge. I think the tall bank of clouds lying tall against the horizon also provides a good sense of place. Years of visit to the tip of Cape Cod have taught me how weather systems linger on the edge of the mainland. I've favored a salmon and turquoise palette in this series too, but this is probably the most intense example.

DOCKHOUSE AND HOIST, CHARLES RIVER
24' X 16", CASEIN PAINT ON MUSLIN COVERED PLYWOOD, 2011

This is one of the most multi-layered pieces I've done to date, which is partly why I rendered it in a more graphically representational style, though still focusing strongly on elements of reflected light.  An achingly beautiful late afternoon in early summer from the Esplanade, just east of the Community Boathouse. The hoist anchors this scene as the centerpiece of a story about boating, from the magical play of light in the sails, to the motorized patrol skiff. I really like how the lights atop the hoist look like devilish little cormorant wings, ready to magically transport the hoist to a shoreline somewhere near Hogwarts.

LONGFELLOW BRIDGE AND SAILBOAT REEF, CHARLES RIVER
12" X 9" CASEIN ON MUSLIN COVERED PLY, 2011

Also from the Esplanade, but the west side, showing the boathouse reef against the distinctive pepper-grinder towers of the Longfellow Bridge. This is a smaller piece, and the richest and most painterly palette so far in this series. Pleased here with the deep pools of colors and shimmering serene surface of the river.

PTOWN BREAKWATER, SCRUB, AND COASTGUARD LIGHT
24" X 12", CASEIN ON MUSLIN COVERED PLY, 2011

This is dangerously close to a kind of pretty postcard scene that gives me a bit of the heebie geebies. But there is something about the scrub bush dead center, (hints of burgeoning spring leaf notwithstanding,) that pulls it away from a mere bucolic landscape--I hope! This is another Provincetown locale, heading towards the rotary at the end of Commercial street, on the way to the starting point of the breakwater. It's a ritual of my visits to the cape to hike across the rocks and out to the lighthouse. For an all-day hike, you can head all the way across Herring Cove and Hatches Harbor (don't try it at high tide!) to Race Point light (depicted in the top painting) before circling back to town along route 6A.

ON THE QUAY, DEEP TWILIGHT
16" X 12" CASEIN ON MUSLIN COVERED PLYWOOD

Another Massachusetts waterfront painting I've previously posted, but wanted to include here. While wandering home from a hike on Plum Island, I got a bit lost and found myself at this dead end. A beautiful scene at the end of sunset but with an incongruous light pole sprouting signs with regulations, warnings, and statements of liability limitation. Again playing with the conventional notion of painterly focal points, but adding a bit of commentary on bureaucracy and our litigious society. Hopefully kind of cool and pretty too.

Ancient Murals

More years ago than I care to recall, I did a mural for the home of some clients in the Virginia suburbs of Washington DC. Their house had outer rooms circling a central core structure. Our staging conceit was that this core was a Roman Ruin inside a modern outer framework. Below is a picture of younger yours truly posing on the living-room side of a completed section. Depicting the dimension of rough-hewn stonework on a flat surface was a scenic artists' delight!  The second pcture shows me working from a beam on one of the tall corners sections. Residential murals are a natural bridge between theatrical backdrops and residential artistic painting. I'm interested in doing more!

Arts in the Park 2011

I'm back in Boston after showing my work at the 16th annual "Arts in the Park" festival on June 5th.

(Remember you can click on the pic for a larger view. For my full painting inventory and prices, click "feed the starving artist" tab on the top menu bar)

Entrance to Festival

Despite earlier predictions of hot sunny weather, we were a little worried that the festival might be postponed due to rain. However the overcast skies kept the weather cool and comfortable, and by later in the afternoon the sun began to peek out.

High School Park, in Elkins Park PA (just outside the Philly city limits) was created on the site of the town's original high school campus. The big old building was imploded decades ago, leaving a hilltop meadow surrounded by beautiful mature trees. Eventually the site became a municipal park, and began hosting an annual arts and crafts festival in 1995.

Step Right Up

This was the first time I transported my new booth assembly.  Everything went smoothly, and I just finished my set-up by the official opening time of the event. Next time it will go much faster! I look a bit like a carnival barker here, but that's actually a screwdriver in my hand, not a pointer.

Always wish I had taken more photos, but the day went by quickly as the festival got crowded. It was great to see old friends and neighbors from Philadelphia and meet new people interested in paintings! It was a successful sales day too, so overall a wonderful trip.

What really pleased me most was selling two pieces from my urban settings series. This is the subject matter I find most rewarding, so I was glad that people seeing my work for the first time found it interesting too. Rather than painting pretty scenes, I prefer finding structure, beauty and drama in gritty everyday settings. Great to hear comments from people who got the concept and liked it!

"Sunset Strip Mall USA", urban settings series

"Race St. Taxi at the Ben Franklin"
Urban Settings Series

Now that I'm established in Boston, I will be exploring some local artist markets and other festival and shows in the New England area. Stay tuned for news!

More Frame Features
It was fun to indulge my old carpentry skills in making frames for several pieces before the festival. I know some collectors who like to hang paintings without frames, saying that a painting should speak for itself and stand on it's own. To me, this works if there are many painting together on a large wall, or if the wall space around the piece is very tight. However, I like the way a frame creates a portal into the world of the painting, besides just setting it off and giving more weight and presence to the work. I've created a couple unique "floater" designs that allow the painted edges of the canvas to show within the frame rim. Below are some pieces in frames, next to views of the canvas only

"Three Lanes to Jersey"
Reverse angle Faux Red Mahogany Floater, about 22 x 18

"Manayunk Hill, Night"
Salmon Stained Maple Box Floater, about 20 x 14

"Path through Trees and Bramble"
Another reverse angle faux mahogany, about 24 x 18

Nostalgic for Winter?

Lastly, my friend Jeff bought one of my favorite paintings from last winter in the depths of the season's snow and ice. The scene is a few streets from my house in Somerville, looking towards Cambridge, where Jeff lives. Below is the canvas, then a photo of the painting in its new home.

"Melting Snow, Sunset, Cambridge"