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WWI Naval "dazzle" camouflage - a key inspiration
for my game. You can read more about it here.
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AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT
Under wraps for a decade, enjoyed only by my friends and hosts on my Itinerant Artist Project tours, DAZZLE® is now available as a hand-made board game or as an app. Check it out!
Hailed by one game critic as "a new classic" - DAZZLE® is a game of strategy, chance, and design that doubles as a visually engaging, interactive artform. I wanted to have a game that was fun to win but also thoroughly enjoyable even if I didn't win...
Learn more about DAZZLE® and order the board game at: dazzlegame.com. The app is available at the Apple Store
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Sketching with architect Jon Marvel on the Brooklyn Bridge |
UPCOMING TOURS: CALIFORNIA & NEW YORK CITY
Plans are in the works for Itinerant Artist Project (IAP) tours of both California and NYC Tour in 2014. Timing has yet to be determined, but it's never too early to contact me about hosting or about arranging an IAP talk for your school, museum, cultural center, or art group.
You can learn more about the project and hosting in the IAP section of this website. If you're interested or want to know more, contact me.
California and the Itinerant Artist Project go way back. From the first hosting offer I ever received, 14 years ago, through more recent tours and residencies, California has been the part of the country most enthusiastically receptive to the IAP. And the open, varied landscape has stimulated some of my best tour work. Among my reasons for returning to California is an interest in experimenting with a less regimented style of touring - inspired by previous visits, in which almost every host had friends who wanted to host me. There's something intriguing about following a flow vs. a fixed itinerary.
New York City is another kettle of fish. I was born there, but since moving out at age three, and adjusting to a series of smaller cities and rural settings, I've rarely gone back. But I think it's getting to be time to venture into the big city and see what comes of it. A short trial "stop" with a college classmate in Brooklyn (see photo on left) proved somewhat promising - and a lot of fun.
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STUDIO NOTES:
Monochrome Watercolor Studies
For various reasons, last summer I found myself wanting to retreat and reflect more than usual. I also wanted a suitably fresh, low-key, way to paint for a while. Toward that end I put aside the oil paints and the usual approach and started painting with black watercolor washes on tinted paper.
Click here to see some of the resulting work.
Winter Celebration
More recently, the unusual amount of early snow and cold we've had this winter has brought some of the wonder and spontaneity of childhood back to my appreciation of the winter landscape. While working on some more ambitious pieces, I've taken time to do a few small studies that reflect that spirit.
Click on the detail of Sledders to see the whole 3" x 6" panel.
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THE ART OF CONNECTION: INTERVIEW EXCERPT
A while back my cousin Ani kindly agreed to be on the other side of the microphone, so to speak, for an interview published in the Great Lakes Review. We talked about art, politics, my then upcoming Great Lakes tour, and the most rewarding of social media: getting out there and mixing it with real people, in real life.
The full interview appears in the Fall 2012 issue of the GLR:
read an excerpt from the interview.
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ITINERANT ARTIST SHOWS UP IN BESTSELLER
A while back I received a mysterious package from NBC. It contained a copy of Bob Dotson's latest book, American Story – a collection of the author's favorite encounters from 30 years of creating features for the Today Show. Leading off a chapter entitled Homesick for Places We've Never Been is a retelling of the Today Show story about my Itinerant Artist Project, which first aired in 2008. It's an honor to be in such good company between the covers of a book. Although this is a space for self-promotion, I have to admit I felt pretty humbled by the other people's stories.
See a video clip of the original feature here:
For more of an art-critical take on me and the project, Dave Dorsey's essay from the online journal, Represent, is hard to beat: read it here.
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EXHIBIT
A selection of 25 paintings from my hometown ROC-ART tour were recently displayed at the Geisel Gallery at One Bausch & Lomb Place.
On the left is a painting of the Little Theater building, along East Avenue. Just about all the paintings from the exhibit and from the larger tour collection can be seen on: the ROC-ART project blog.
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MOST RECENT TOURS: GREAT LAKES, DELAWARE SHORE
Since the last update of this website, I've taken two tours: one to towns and cities in the eastern Great Lakes region; the other – a much shorter – tour to Rehoboth Beach and Washington DC:
GLT1
The Great Lakes Tour – now quite some time ago – started out in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. It was unseasonably cold, rainy, and gray almost every day for two or three weeks. That plus coming face to face with the stark reality of proud cities in serious decline (with some areas near total economic collapse), made it a psychologically challenging tour.
It was nonetheless (or maybe as a consequence) a memorably rewarding tour on the social level. All my hosts were thoughtful and receptive, and maybe the weather encouraged me to spend more time indoors with them.
In fact, the occasion of my first IAP talk for a Canadian audience - during my first tour stop, in Caledon, Ontario - might have been the most fun I had all year. It also happened to be my youngest audience ever – eighty 4th, 5th, and 6th graders – all dressed in Halloween costumes and armed with dozens of questions.
A Great Lakes 1 Tour portfolio, along with more about the tour, will be here soon.
Delaware Shore
Although my project's original slogan was "Art for Hospitality Across the US," I never meant for the IAP to be about travel for its own sake, certainly not about reaching all 50 states. But it's always nice to add one to the roster. For all its appeal, Delaware had the added bonus of being #35.
I plan to write more about the Rehoboth Beach tour soon. For now I'll just say that most IAP tours - however wonderful my hosts, however rewarding - are thoroughly demanding, usually exhausting, and nothing like vacation. A sunny spell by the beach in springtime, with old family friends for hosts, was quite an enjoyable change of pace.
This painting of a heron with condominiums in the background was done after a walk with one of my hosts, through the marshy area behind the beach dunes. Click on it to see the whole image.
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TESTING PAINTS FOR DANIEL SMITH INC.
I've been so enthusiastic about Daniel Smith's colored gessoes – since their introduction in the 1990s – that I've long thought DS should hire me to be their gesso ambassador.
Instead, they recently asked me to do an evaluation of their new water-soluble oil paints, sending along a set of all my favorite colors to try out. The resulting article appears here. For any painters who suspect that a free set of paints and a determined editorial hand may have gotten in the way of a completely candid, balanced assessment, let me just say that it's possible.
The new paints worked better than I'd expected, and it was fun to be able to rinse the paint off my shirt. But I still favor regular oils, for a number of reasons, and since I usually don't use solvent when I paint and clean up with canola oil followed by soap and water, there's no difference in toxicity when I use traditional oils.
Painters with questions can contact me.
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Description: Jim Mott Fine Art : landscape painting(back to top of page) prints, greeting cards, commissions and sales;
also support site for the Itinerant Artist Project: traveling the USA and Canada, exchanging art for hospitality.
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