Los Angeles

I'll be at the Copro Nason Gallery 15th anniversary show tonight.
most of the artists that have shown there over the years will be exhibiting, . . . a few of them will be on hand, . . .I will have 4 pieces there, including the new piece I finished earlier in the week.

I flew into LA on Thursday and visited Gallery 1988 for the show Luke Chueh was curating. Met Greg Simkins, Bob Dob, Thomas Han, Mark Bodnar and Joe Ledbetter , . . .that was a solid show, . . . I was impressed with the quality of the work, . . . Amy Sol and Greg Simkin's pieces were my favorites.

On Friday,
I went to Chinatown, had some breakfast/lunch, . . .and met some people at the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce, . . . they helped me get some directions and asked about my artwork and the possibility of coming back to exhibit there next year, . . .
My next stop was at the Forrest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, to see the Bougereau painting "Song of the Angels"
Almost walked out of the gift shop with a few hundred dollars of jewelry, . . .the cashier accidentily handed me the bag of new merchandise she was supposed to add to the glass display case, instead of the 2 postcards I just bought. I was still so excited about seeing the painting, I almost didn't notice until I got to my car, . . .
Later, I visited La Luz De Jesus, . . . I went there to look at Scott G Brooks' paintings(always fun stuff) and also found Lesley Reppeteaux and Jason Houchen's work there( a pleasant surprise. They have a really neat store there too!

One of my favorite Norman Rockwell paintings was found behind a false wall in the home of late Donald Trachte(cartoonist and illustrator). He bought the painting from Rockwell and very carefully painted a copy of it, hiding the original behind the false wall along with other paintings he collected. I'd seen the copy, which was loaned to the Norman Rockwell Museum by the Trachte family years ago. I think we were all fooled(which is a testament to Don Trachte's skill as a painter).
The only person I can recollect to have any suspicion about the one that hung at the Norman Rockwell Museum , was my friend James Gurney
he noticed some things were little "off" from the printed version.
Trachte's sons had the painting auctioned for 15.4 million dollars.