Six Brush - Paint Out - Spring 2018
Two featured for March artists, Heidi Jo Curley & Tom Relth - pulled out the stops for First Friday.

Jennifer Senescu and Marquita Call (Gallery Director/Curators)  brought the two accomplished artists together to perform a revolver-style paint-out. Two artists stood face-to-face with easels between, working on to two large canvas/panels. 

The artists rotated every 15 minutes throughout the evening. Viewers were invited to engage with the artists as they worked on the two canvases.
Gallery owners said, “We were so excited to watch as the artists’ works unfolded. It was be a very fun and engaging evening.”

​The works will be for sale and will hang in the gallery for the month of March. 

​Camas Gallery
408 NE 4th Ave, Camas, WA  98607 
Ph (360) 817-2415

The best night of the year ... 
I got to exhibit with my daughter Diana Relth

departures
New Works by Diana Relth and Tom Relth
North Bank Artists Gallery
Reception/Opening Friday, September 5, 5-9p
Continued through September 

North Bank Artists Gallery
Wed - Sat 11:30a - 4:30p
1005 Main Street, Vancouver WA 98660
360.693.1840 - http://northbankartistsgallery.com/

Diana Relth
Los Angeles, CA
www.dianarelth.com
[email protected]
@hellodianamarie

Tom Relth
Vancouver, WA
www.relth.org 
[email protected]
@ tom_relth


Tom Relth & Diana Relth - Joint Exhibition
A father and his daughter exemplify the journey from traditional modes of art-making into a new generation of expression in departures. 

One a painter traveling around the world in an attempt to enhance his process, the other an interdisciplinary creator trying to break from her traditional training, the Relths become a lens through which we can examine the shifts that occur within a family and the natural evolution of the larger art world. 

Vivid paintings, sculpture and multimedia works make up this new exhibit, on display through September 26th at the North Bank Artists Gallery.

Links:
Facebook event
Diana's Page about this event

On September 3, Diana Relth and I did an Art Talk to a small group at North Bank Artists Gallery. The talk emphasized our similarities and differences in approach t art-making, influence of travel, destination and family.
The exhibition was not competed until the following day, but the evening ended in a "first exposure" of some of our new works.

"After months of planning and close to a week of installing, the show came together beautifully. North Bank Artists Gallery and its artists were so wonderful and welcoming, I have so much gratitude for everyone who helped make this show happen." 
- Diana Relth  /  Diana's Blog

Tom Relth
Yesterday, I painted...
Acrylic and Dry Media on Linen
2014 
39 x 63 x 2" (100 x 160 x 5cm)

This is a piece of the work for the August 1, 2014 exhibition "The Magic and Power of Words"
The night was very warm but magical. Exhibiting artists contributed major works of art and read from their own poetry and stories.
" 
Yesterday, I painted...
Yesterday, I painted in my studio. And, what a mess. I made the worst painting. 
So, as escape my love and I went up toward Yacolt and looked at the waterfall. It had a  cool crisp sound like a brush on a snare drum. It's called Lucia Falls. It is a little one. About 25 miles away.
The water was low because the dam was stopped
upstream. We had a picnic and the trees were green and the wind blew just enough. We sat on a rock seeing, hearing and feeling its story. We did
not stay long and the light was cooling the greens. Driving back to the I-5 we stopped and bought two little baskets of cherries.
- Tom Relth

Juror: Christopher Luna – Vancouver Poet Laureate 
Artists: Kanaan Kanaan, Erin Leichty, Grace Valentine, Mar Goman, Jane Arnal, Rosemary Lombard and Tom Relth at North Bank Artists Gallery 


"The Magic and Power of Words" - Juried Exhibition
Poetry and Mixed Media event
Reception and Readings: Aug 1, 2014 - 5-9pm
Running through, Aug 30, 2014

T. Relth

In the end:
The 2013 Yearbook is graphically beautiful, well-written, very integrated and looks like one person made it woohooo! and the staffers were very good (great), although sometimes require a bit more pressure from the "ogre" (Mister. R)

New EIC1 Senior Leah Mc. - (she published her own book 2013 now on Amazon)Every single paragraph on every page was either written, rewritten or at least checked by Leah. In the last days, she was still inventing captions.

EIC2 Sabrina F. (a Junior yet with a way amazing work ethic) Sabrina came in every day and extra days to work, work, work, work, well you get the idea.

Graphic Editor, Zineb M. (wow all of the backgrounds with illustrator converted into pdf and dropped in a bkg layer) This scientist of an artist made months-worth of backgrounds and theme ideas...before landing on the final illustrator files and as I say wow.

Senior Amalya B. and the never-ending Senior section - built the 48 page senior section with 470 column inches of story about the class of 2013, plus senior spotlight stories on each and mug-shot plus two portraits and 6 facebook type photos for each... Lotsa work. Collection of anything from Seniors with Senioritis = Herding Cats!

Others who were there: ...drum-roll please:

"The New Kid", Junior from SoCal, Spencer C. - odd sense of humor and great graphic sense, a bit "ADD" etc quote: "I'm not prejudiced, I pretty much hate everyone" -MS and K sections very nice work.

Editor, Rania T. (Junior) sweet as pie and worked very hard.. entire ES section and all transitions. She picked up a lot of slack at the end!! Yahoo. Rania, did YB while juggling several extracurriculars. We thought she might explode ... but she always charged ahead.

Then... there were these two crazy Sophomores: Yasmine B.and Salma B. who were veeerrrryyy creative (almost tttooo much) Yasmine built the whole MS and HS sport section. And Salma made all of the major events "dance" with seriously "pro" level graphics. Did I say dance? I guess that is what they almost did everyday in the lab. (grin)

I miss these guys!

If I missed anything?? .. write to me.

... Oh yeah I spent almost another full year of time on this year's book.... vacations, weekends...but who is complaining?   Ask my wife.

Originally written to a 2009-10 former student at the school:

I can tell you that using Indesign for 5 years (and for 3 years on YB), I am now a "mini-power" indesign user/teacher.

I found out how to automatically merge the 900+ photos by grade, alpha and place correct names below... a major help using excel database. This saved an incredible amount of time ..after it was set-up.
 
Set Limits: 
Also style sheets and limitations on "creativity" were helpful. Otherwise the students tend to wander off in all directions and make a disjointed mess. The other big deal was to use a wire-framing concept in only B/W in Indesign at the beginning to force all of the students to face the limitations of design: space and page layout. 

Wire-framing/black white and greys:
The entire book was laid-out using wire-framing and was formatted with character, type style and paragraph styles along with borders and drop-shadows; all this showed from the beginning. We were able to kill (or revise)the really bad stuff early. Note: Color really gets in the way at first so B/W was the key. With this we were much more likely to see design that did not follow the main thrust of the book.

Layers:
I also insisted on using layers and we started with 4 but later had 6-7 layers in nearly every section. 

File-naming convention-less headaches:
Another help was to use special file names and save "as new" every single time you work ... it also told me when the students worked and I could go back (if needed)....also if a file crashed, we only lost a day. 
For example: 
20130423_77-89_Seniors_Amalya.indd 
(this way files listed in date-order in the file-folder: later we changed to 
77-89_Seniors_Amalya_20130602.indd so that all of the final pages listed in page-order. It was easy to see which files we finalized.

A fast server a MUST:
We were able to get IT to give us a new server ..(the old PC based "M_nr_e" became a slug ...maybe it always was a slug). We received a mac-mini and the art department students and Yearbook team were the only ones on it. The total GB when done ...99.7 GB!! of photos from staff and students and the total other graphics files was 175 GB +/-. It worked like water ...instead of sludge. 

Photos from everywhere - More file naming:
Another help was that I taught the Digital Photo Class with required DSLRs and used Adobe's Bridge Batch naming ... so we had lotsa properly labeled photos from which to draw. example:
20121209_JVSoccer_Sophia_DSC009.jpg


End Notes:
I am thinking of starting a club "International Yearbook Survivors Club" You have to have made more than 3 books to be accepted into membership. The only problem is that by the time you have completed year third year you are so wiped out that you would never let anyone know you did it. One, because someone might want to hire you to do it again and two, someone might ask you to advise.

All in all the best ever if I say so and many others say so too. TR

As I was walking across campus from the art room to the computer lab four years ago, I asked Nahla and Khnata: “Can you walk any slower? You two are doing the Moroccan Stroll”.  Nahla responded casually, “But, we are enjoying the moments on the way there Mister.  We’ll get there, there’s really no rush”.  All the while I was thinking about my agenda and what I wanted them to accomplish in the “C” lab today.  I suppose that I completely discounted what she said. 

Now I am sitting here at Sidi Rahal in an old blue camping chair, looking out over the grand blue-green Atlantic.  One hundred-plus high school students gather clique by clique: fraternity, sorority. Some of us observe and some chat, but mostly we hang out because that’s what we do.

Safiyyah (Moroccan-American) approaches. She has been here at the school for only 3 years, but she has made a great adjustment to our special hybrid American- School-in-Morocco social style. I ask her if she can describe what it is that we (the students) do best. “Just hanging out” she says without hesitation.

Today I sit for the fifth time at Sidi Rahal.  At least 30 of our students have their cameras, capturing the moments of the day for the annual Beach Day Photo Contest.   The fifteen winners will have their photos displayed in the Multi Purpose Room later this year, and will enjoy a big Pizza Bash.  Their work will be included in this year’s Yearbook.  

The high school math teacher Mr. Smith and I compare notes on students as we lounge on the beach observing the procession below: soccer, American football, soccer, swimming and volleyball games engage the majority, while at least forty share in our favorite activity: “Hanging out.” 

I see Paul walking and chatting with ….((( read in here  Adam L))) 

A group of students strolls past, shoulder to shoulder.  Lina, Amalya, Nada, Nizar, Dakir, Medhi, Maisson, Ibrahim, Waleed, Hajouji, Sofia and  Paul form a volleyball circle – no competition, just keep it going, hangin’ (white, pink, tan and almond skin in the sun.)

Later on, "FZ" sits with the dozen seniors as I approach “And so what’s the story of the day FZ?” “Today people are having fun - playing volleyball, swimming…. Everyone is interacting – no one is alone.  For example, these two.  (Referring to Amalya and Ghali , lying on towels next to hers)  They are not alone.  Only me, I’m alone .... talking with you  - Oh, ha ha” (as she realizes what she just said).

Hamza, FZ , Amalya and a few others walk to the cafe.  On the way I ask Hamza “what’s the story of the day?” “I haven’t discovered it yet”, he says. 

We order Sprite, Lavazza and Sidi Ali , and  park ourselves at the standing tables.  The proprietor is playing "Only You (And You Alone)" from 1955 by the Platters.  Leah (a new American student) lags behind.  The color changes.  It becomes more blue.  We talk about (God’s calling?)for 5 minutes as she finishes her Sprite. And then walk back to the group on the beach.

In my first year I could barely care who was who or what they were doing.  Today, I notice that most of the obnoxious, the entitled and the loud bunch has graduated or stayed home.  The day is tranquil, soft, sweet; the light is clear.  I know them, each one.  Nearly all have been in my classes since middle school.  It is a different time.  There is less discipline required; there is sweetness present. It is less complicated.

It was noon when I noticed there were now only four playing volleyball. Everyone else was sitting on towels in informal “salons.” Everyone was again talking, listening.  We were doing what we do best ...interacting, hangin’. Soon the freshmen would get to have their lunch.  

Wow. Driving in LA. I forgot how it is. After 4 years I find myself driving my daughter's somewhat larger-that-my-Moroccan-sedan, Hyundai SUV. 

I thought driving in Casablanca was the training ground for everywhere else. LA drivers differently than Casa, do obey the rules but it now surprises me that they do so very quickly, with a short warning but somehow it seems to be almost as aggressive as Casa. 

But, in retrospect, I suppose nothing comes even close to the white Mercedes taxis of Casa that pull out into 60-80 kph traffic without any warning what-so-ever. 

Perhaps I need combat driver training.

My studio is on the third floor. 

Yesterday I cleaned up the studio and took some finished works out onto the balcony.  I brought them all back but got distracted and forgot about one of them and started up painting again.  

About two hours later I remembered and opened the door to the balcony to go out..the wind blew into the studio and slammed the entrance-to-the-studio door closed with a big BANG!  I went back in to see it and found that I was locked inside.  That was when I noticed that I needed to use the bathroom. (of course) Note here that there is no other access back into the house from the balcony.. I checked all other doors and windows locked up tight.

I banged on the studio door to get help..no one came.I phoned the house-helper;  no answer ...and phoned Leslie ...no one answered.(Oh right ... Leslie went to the store)  Oh great.  

After ten minutes of bathroom panic, I looked back over the balcony edge and noted that while I was banging around Leslie had come back so called her again.  She came up and let me out.  (no comment)I went to use the facilities.

Returning to the studio I took the complete door handle and all of the hardware off the entrance-to-the-studio door. There is still a door there, but it won't do that one to me anymore. I went out, got the remaining painting and brought it in and set it on the floor in the  hallway just outside of the studio door, out of the way but facing out soI might look at it later.  

And later I did.  There was an accent stroke pretty much right in the middle but just off center enough to look very deliberate and adding a new kind of asymmetrical balance. I did not remember painting that.  I approached.  It was a kind of grey-black oval, very textured almost encaustic.  I guess nature was making a critique of my work.  I considered leaving it, but in the end scraped it off.  

I went back into the studio, encouraged.

++++

Maybe I have a story kinda like Ann Lemott's "Bird by bird"?

During the 2011-12 Christmas letter editing process a "t" got in my way.

My error = We proofread in Microsoft Word (well, actually iWorks Pages) but then...

During my later editing for layout in Adobe Indesign (the program we use for Yearbook print layout), the difference between keying "Esc t" (for add a Type window) and just a plain ol' "t" ended with a bit of humor.

As I was trying to place a new type box, I added a little ol' plain "t" and planted a "t" right there in the sentence. Because I was moving too quickly, and without noticing, I made "newt" instead of what was there .... "new". This error actually went to print but it was a newsletter for friends and luckily not for Yearbook.

Of course any dumb ol' spellchecker accepts "newt"* and I did not see it.

So there you go...duh.  One reader caught the error and brought it to my attention, writing that he was please to know that I had made a "newt" friend. It was a great dumb ol' professor error for my show-and-tell discussion when returning to Yearbook class the next morning. Most of the students did not catch the humor. 

I did appreciate it..however.

*for those of us unfamiliar ...a newt is an aquatic amphibian of the family Salamandridae. (wiki)