Blog
November 17th, 2014
Slowly but surely, this place is beginning to look like home.
Good thing, because the days are absolutely flying by,
the weeks passing me in a blur of time.
Neither the Tailor nor I could really take any time off from work for our move, so we can only settle in a little at a time. There are so many boxes to unpack, fixtures to mend, hidden spots to clean, surprises to deal with, infrastructure to set up—a million things to build and scrub and fix and dismantle and assemble and purchase and beautify and polish and rewire and dig up and plant and patch and strip and undo and restore and set up just so. Some parts of the house are perfect as they are; others need attention immediately; still others will just need to be lived with as-is for some years, until we can get around to tackling them. If I think about any of it too long, I go a little mad.
So for now, we’re focusing on the corners. There isn’t a single room that’s done yet, but little corners here and there are starting to shape up nicely.
These images, then, are little glimpses of what my days have been like lately, of the moments that have alternately focused and fragmented my attention.
Through it all, work goes on, as close to uninterrupted as I can make it,
while the hum of everyday life picks back up around me.
I’ve gotten in the habit lately of keeping my camera on a shelf behind my work table. It’s a good reminder that while forward momentum is nice—
—I need to remember to stop every now and again and take a good look at where I stand.
October 20th, 2014
We’re all moved into our new house, and fully in the thick of unpacking and setting up our lives again. But despite a pile of work to do that stretches from here to next year, I didn’t want to miss my favorite season. So every chance I get, I’ve been sneaking out to take walks among the autumn colors. And all the while, a snippet of Robert Frost plays on repeat in my head:
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
October 17th, 2014
In a season full of big events, tomorrow is the biggest day of all, because that’s when the Tailor and I move into our new home. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this—we’ve been saving for years and looking for months, and we finally found the house (and studio!) that is absolutely perfect for us, in every way.
It’s going to take a goodly bit of time, elbow grease and TLC to preserve our little piece of historic Tacoma just the way we want to, but we’ve had a lot of good omens to remind us that we’re headed down the right path.
For one thing, we found a poster I designed already hanging in the basement—
—and for another, we’ll get to come home to this every day.
I’ll be whipping my new studio into shape over the coming weeks and months, so I’m sure I’ll have photos and stories to share as I go along.
* * *
Thank you to everybody who came to my reception yesterday! We had a massive turnout—I think we gave the library staff a nice surprise by filling up that gallery. Many thanks for all your smiles, hugs and support, especially on the eve of the big move!
October 14th, 2014
Both Jessica and I have solo shows on display right now, and while they deal with different topics, our similar personalities and interests made for a surprising number of overlaps. While we were marveling at how much our shows had in common with each other (which was especially funny, considering that neither of us saw the other’s exhibit until both were installed!), it occurred to us that it might be fun to have our receptions on the same night.
So we joined this month’s Third Thursday Artwalk and created a mini gallery crawl of our own. Here’s how it works: stop by my reception at the Tacoma Public Library first and pick up a letterpress keepsake. Then take your keepsake down the hill to Jessica’s reception at the Old Post Office (which is exactly 5 blocks from the library), and print a phrase on it with her antique printing press. Both events are free and open to the public. We’ll also have a small pop-up shop at Jessica’s reception, stocked with goodies related to our shows and also featuring guest artist Mare Blocker.
Here’s the skim milk:
Third Thursday Art Walk: Dual Exhibition Receptions
Stop 1: Drawn the Road Again
Solo exhibition by Chandler O’Leary
4 to 5:30 pm
Tacoma Public Library Handforth Gallery
1102 Tacoma Avenue South
Stop 2: reCollection
A Spaceworks installation by Jessica Spring
5 to 9 pm
Old Tacoma Post Office, north end of lobby
1102 A Street
Put on your walkin’ shoes, and we’ll fire up the press—see you on Thursday!
October 12th, 2014
This weekend was the biggest and best Studio Tour yet—and I even remembered to take pictures!
Well, sort of, anyway. I managed to document my space for the last time,
but then chaos took over. It’s a good thing I bought just about every last organic jellybean in the city of Tacoma, because we needed them!
This was the only “action shot” I managed to grab all day—most of the time it was so packed there wasn’t room to stand on anything to snap a quick photo. We blew last year’s record out of the water, with well over 200 visitors this year!
And then afterward the only photo I managed was the view from the floor, where I lay in a heap.
To everyone who came to bid the old house farewell, as well as the many new folks who stopped by for the first time, thank you so much for making the weekend an enormous success. It feels so good to be a part of such a supportive and enthusiastic community—I would not be able to do what I do without you.
And I’m already thinking up ideas for 2015. See you next year, at the new studio!
October 9th, 2014
I know I’ve been a little quiet online lately, but it’s certainly not quiet around my house. This is the state of things right now—at least in the back half of the house. The Tailor and I are moving to a new house/studio in just over a week (still in Tacoma! Just a couple of miles away is all…).
To give my studio of the past six years a proper send-off, I’m doing one last Studio Tour at the old house, this weekend. (Don’t worry, this isn’t my last Studio Tour—next year it’ll be at the new house.) Since the event is a month earlier from now on, we’re all crossing our fingers for better weather! I’ll have my fancy hand-crank die cutter set up for folks to make a take-home keepsake, and there’ll be new artwork and goodies for sale, as always. Here are the details:
13th Annual Tacoma Studio Tours
Saturday and Sunday, October 11 and 12, 2014
11 am to 5 pm, free!
(Anagram Press studio is #18 on the tour)
More info and maps available here
See you this weekend!
October 2nd, 2014
Tonight was the kick-off party for the annual Tacoma Arts Month (formerly known as Art at Work Month). Everything is a little different this year. For one thing, Arts Month is now a month earlier. (The folks in charge figured that October would be better than November, since there aren’t any major travel holidays, and since National Arts Month is the same month.) For another, this year’s party was held at the newly revamped historic Old Post Office Building downtown. The huge turn-of-the-century space was transformed by contemporary pop-up gallery shows, performances, installations, and this fabulous light display. It was the perfect illustration of the mix of old and new that’s everywhere in this city—which makes Tacoma such a great place to live and work as an artist.
If you’re local, I hope you’ll join us for the many arts events coming up this month—starting with Studio Tour, coming up on October 11 and 12. See you soon!
September 15th, 2014
‘Scuse the bad photos—all I had on me was a mobile phone and a shaky hand. But that’s okay, because if you’re local, you can see the real thing. I just finished installing my newest solo show, featuring sketchbook drawings of roadside attractions!
I went for a wide variety of favorite fiberglass and concrete monuments—not just here in Washington, but all over the U.S. (and even in Canada). The result is 30 drawings of roadside kitsch, from giant food to warring twine balls to bovine behemoths. Here are the details:
Drawn the Road Again: Roadside Attractions sketched by Chandler O’Leary
On display through October 25, 2014
Handforth Gallery, Tacoma Public Library
1102 Tacoma Ave. South, Tacoma, WA
Reception: Thursday, October 16, 4 to 5:30 pm
For the reception on October 16, I’m trying something a little different: instead of an opening reception, it’s more of a closing one. And that’s because I’m teaming up with my buddy Jessica Spring to do double receptions that night, with a joint keepsake! Here’s how it works: stop by my show first and pick up a commemorative illustrated postcard. Then head down to Jessica’s reception at the Old Post Office (which is just a few blocks down the hill at 1102 A Street), and print a saying on your postcard with Jessica’s antique platen press. More details on her show can be found here (scroll down).
Many thanks to David Domkoski and the Tacoma Public Library for hosting me and providing such a great and visible space, and to Mary-Alice for helping me hang the show and stay sane! (Also for wearing the best Chuck Taylors I’ve seen in years.)
One more thing—if you can’t be there in the flesh, you can find all the fiberglass on the Drawn the Road Again blog! I’ll be featuring roadside attractions from now through the end of the show (new posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday)—many that are in the exhibit, and some extra goodies that are just online.
See you there—in the meantime, watch out for sharks!
August 18th, 2014
Life around here is pretty frantic this week, while I finish up a bunch of projects and get ready for new ones appearing over the horizon. Since the thought of telling you about them in coherent paragraph format gives me hives (as I can’t even wrap my own brain around them all yet!), here’s what’s going on this week, in a simple, handy-dandy list:
1. Jessica and I have (finally) finished printing the new Dead Feminist broadside! All the prints are signed, numbered, bagged and ready to go. All I have to do is finish writing all the things that go with it (shop copy, blog post, email newsletter, etc.)—so look for it here in the next couple of days.
2. If you’re local, this Thursday I’ll be doing a little demo of my Local Conditions artist book at the Tacoma Art Museum. The book is currently in the Ink This! exhibit at TAM, but as it’s in a glass case, it’s not possible to actually interact with the book. So as part of the free Third Thursday activities, I’ll have my prototype copy of the book to demonstrate with, as well as a sampling of my process materials. I’ll be there from 5 to 8 on Thursday (though I’d suggest getting there closer to 5 so you don’t miss stuff!); TAM is located at 1701 Pacific Avenue in downtown Tacoma.
3. The lovely guys over at The Artist Rolls have featured me in a podcast! Jamie and Sean have a little different way of doing things for their interviews—they have each guest roll dice before each question, like you might in a role-playing game, and the results determine the course of the interview. We had a great conversation about process, the roles artists play (get it?), and the Whale of Preparedness—and they even let me draw pictures all over my data sheet. I hope you’ll have as much fun listening as we did chatting—you can stream it here, or you can download it for free from the iTunes Store. Thanks, Sean and Jamie!
4. I’ve got a new solo exhibit opening in mid-September, at the Tacoma Public Library’s Handforth Gallery. It’s a show of my sketchbook drawings from Drawn the Road Again, with a special emphasis on roadside attractions (can you hear me cackling already?!). Look for more info here soon, but for now you can get your feet wet by reading a new series of features on the travel site Atlas Obscura. They started with an interview about Drawn the Road, and last Friday began a series of weekly features on my roadside attractions posts. Each post will go into more depth about each attraction, using my sketch(es) as a starting point. It’ll be the perfect companion to my exhibit—and a great alternative for everyone who can’t see the show in person.
Whew! That’s it for the moment…back with more soon.
August 5th, 2014
I’m a little late to the party, because I was out of town when the “Best of Tacoma” issue of the Weekly Volcano came out. I finally managed to pick one up, and was shocked to find my name inside!
So I whipped up this little village illustration in tribute to my village—and the people in it. Tomorrow is my sixth anniversary of living here in T-town, so being picked by you folks has even more meaning for me. I’m so glad to call Tacoma and the Northwest home—thank you for adopting me, as well.
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