Friends, I just wanted to take a moment to talk about how pleased I am using the Square Card Reader. It has made sales a whole lot faster and easier. Earlier this year I bought my first smart phone specifically so I could start taking credit card payments at the school and when I was out painting, using my phone.

What I didn’t realize was that I would also be able to set up an online register and also take orders over the phone. The service is quick, the payments are deposited directly into my bank account within 1-3 days, usually the next day. That saves so much time.

The fees are about what I was paying on Paypal, but the interface is so much faster, and I don’t have to set up a special web page for a given item. When a student or patron makes a purchase, I can swipe their card, allow them to use a stylus to sign the screen, and then they can enter their email address to get a receipt emailed to them. I can also set up invoices and my register is now set up with all the things I usually sell. Just click on the item to add it to the cart. The records Square offers also make it easier to track sales.

Square is now offering a special deal for those who sign up, if you use this link: http://squareup.com/i/C77CC571 you will get $1000 of sales processed without fees. (That’s a savings of more than $27).

Seven Bridges Trail in Grant Park – 100 Hawthorne Avenue
South Milwaukee, WI

I couldn’t let fall pass without going on walkabout with my camera to capture the colors at least once. When I had half a day to myself a couple of weeks ago, I decided to head out to Seven Bridges, one of the places I like to paint. Just South of College Avenue on Lake Drive, you will find the expansive Grant Park. This 379 acre park is the second largest in the Milwaukee County Park system, and within it you will find the famous Seven Bridges hiking trail.

Hanging an Exhibition of Paintings.

When I was in college, and shortly after, I did a lot of work with several galleries in the Third Ward. I worked for about three years as a preparator, and have installed dozens and dozens of shows in a variety of spaces, each presenting their own unique problems.

In order to discuss this topic, we have to use a lot of math. Fair warning: this is going to sound more complicated than it really is. To keep things straight, I will stick to a particular convention when referring to the dimensions of work, that being height by width. So if I speak about a painting that is 8″ x 10″ I am referring to a painting that is eight inches high by ten inches wide. A 10″ x 8″ painting would be 10 inches high by 8 inches wide, etc.

The Milwaukee Art Museum as seen from Wisconsin Avenue.

As some of you may know, I often sell photographs and illustrations as stock images on Dreamstime.com. In order to do this, you need to upload high quality images, which must be approved along strict criteria by a panel of editors at the site, a review process that can take days.

A few months ago I was notified by Dreamstime.com that seven of my images, including the one above, which had previously been accepted for use on the site, having originally gained the editors approval, would now be rejected for a very odd reason.

I thought I’d put together some arguments on the nature and meaning of beauty to the human experience. I hope you’ll spend some time with these presentations and consider their implications.

Over the past few years, I’ve given a lot of thought to the experiences we Plein Air painters share, and I think it’s best described as the Many Hells of Plein Air Painting. This includes:

I think about this presentation every time I travel to a new location to paint. I think Plein Air painters are uniquely qualified to speak about this topic, as we are among the very few who spend so much time immersed in careful scrutiny, and the very nature of what we do documents the changes in our environment. I have painted dozens of places that are no longer what they were, due to weather, road construction or urban sprawl.