Best Art Gallery in Sonoma County

In the Fall of 2007, I founded the Riverfront Art Gallery in Petaluma. I wanted a gallery that was designed just the way I want a gallery designed, where I and other local artists can show off our work in a great setting, so I created such a gallery.

Last week, the Riverfront Art Gallery, was voted "Best Art Gallery in Sonoma County" for 2010 by the readers of The Bohemian, the only county-wide newspaper in Sonoma County. Since I co-founded the gallery 2-1/2 years ago, we have been voted best or second-best art gallery in the county three times in a row (our entire existence). This year we hold the top spot all by ourselves. There are 54 gallery members in the Sonoma County Gallery Group, and there are many more galleries in Sonoma County that aren't members of that group. In fact there are quite possibly over 100 galleries in Sonoma County, so being voted #1 is quite a feat, and I thought I would brag about that in this post.

Art for Social Causes

The subject matter of my main body of work is all about the environment and protecting it, so I support a lot of causes and political leaders that share that goal. The Mayor of Petaluma is running for Supervisor here in southern Sonoma County and I offered the use of my images in her campaign since I support her views about development and preserving the environment. Yesterday we got a flyer on our door from her campaign, and inside the flyer was one of my photographs. It's nice to see I can be of help.

Among the organizations I support that preserve the land for sustainable agriculture or as natural habitat for our fellow creatures is the Sonoma Land Trust. I do photo hikes for their members on some of their protected properties and supply occasional photographs for their publications free of charge. One of my images was used for their holiday card this past December. I am leading a photo hike on their newest and largest acquisition (Jenner Headlands) this March 6th. They got three times as many requests as they could accommodate for this outing, so they had to do a lottery. I guess I should improve getting the word out on my paid workshops! Attached to this post is the image for the holiday card for 2009.

I am doing my next landscape workshop this week. I'm creating strong work myself in these workshops, better than my usual average. Teaching and the fear of disappointing students really concentrates the mind, but we all always seem to have a ball, and everyone says they learn a lot.

Website Updates for 2010

I am back, and I will be posting more frequently from now on.

I finished editing the pictures I took in Patagonia last April and posted them on my website. You can find my favorite images in the "Recent Work" section at http://www.lancekuehne.com/portfolios/recent/directory.html.
I will do an exhibition of some of these pictures later this year.

I now offer much larger print sizes and you can see some of them at the Riverfront Art Gallery in Petaluma. I have also expanded the ordering options so that you can buy these new sizes online and can customize your order with new print options on the website. The specific cost of each option is listed for each photograph on the "Prices and Sizes" page for a particular photo. You can also now order prints from outside the United States directly from the website. NOTE: I will not ship framed prints outside the U.S. due to risk of damage in transit. I have also included technical information about all the prints on the website. You can see the new price list at: http://www.lancekuehne.com/portfolios/images_price_list.html

My 2010 calendar is available at $8.00 each from my website and at the Riverfront Art Gallery, the 2009 Calendar is also available as well for $5.00. My 2011 calendar will be exclusively about Napa and Sonoma wine country, I will tell you more about that later this spring.

My workshop schedule has been updated recently and my next class on printing happens this Monday evening. I also have an outdoor landscape workshop occurring on February 18th. Let me know as soon as possible if you interested in either of these classes.

I have a backlog of over 2000 pictures to edit, so expect another website update of new work in the not-to-distant future.

New Workshops

I have added a lot more workshops to my schedule for next year. These are all well-received classes I have taught before, except for the printing class which I have not done before (but have tutored on a one-to-one basis). I have expanded my digital camera class to two sessions (instead of one) so that people don't have information overload and can digest and follow up on what they have learned during a second class meeting. It is the same principle with the printing class, students can go home and practice and come back with questions and be ready for a few more advanced concepts. I also have added an extended landscape class option since some people feel that two outings are not enough to incorporate everything that is being taught. The weeknight that my classes meet vary by month (so if your Thursdays aren't free, perhaps your Monday's are free in a different month). People of every skill level are welcome to attend any of the workshops.

Busy Summer

It sure is awhile between posts! I guess that goes to show that summer is a busy time for a working artist. Over the past 5 weekends, I have had a booth in 4 different art fairs, but the season is winding down since I am doing fewer shows than in the past due to the slow economy and the fact that I have a really nice gallery to show in year-round (Riverfront Art Gallery). After this weekend, I only have one more booth show to do and then my annual open-studio through the Sonoma Arts Council's ARTrails program (my favorite show of the year where I get to show everything and don't have to set up a booth).

I am starting to put my new Epson 7900 printer that I acquired this past spring through its paces. It is like a Ferrari (the color intensity and dynamic range is unbelievable), especially when I work in the ProPhoto RGB colorspace. I intend to print several new photographs in the next few weeks, and going forward, new work will only be printed on the new printer. I will convert my existing images one-by-one over the winter (when I theoretically have free time). It is not a simple matter of changing the printer selection and clicking on "Print".

I am working on my workshop calendar for 2010. I am going to expand my workshop offerings and the frequency in which I offer them. I will be adding a class on digital photography, that will cover all the basics of using a digital camera to its fullest. I have taught a class like this before for the Petaluma Arts Council. It was a one-session meeting, but I am going to expand it to a two-session class so that people can absorb the material better. I am also going to offer a two-session class on printing your digital pictures. Once you get a great shot, how do you turn it into a great print? I won't cover the 300 different things you can do in Photoshop, I am going to only talk about the 10 steps or so you need to turn what's in your camera into the best print possible. I am also going to offer two versions of my landscape photography class, a shorter version (like I have now) and a longer version. Check my workshop section soon for more information.

I have edited my Patagonia pictures down from about 3800 images to about 250 images. I need to do further work on them before I post the 12 or so best images on the website. I like to work in sequence, so until I get this done, I will not be working on the landscape images I have taken since coming back in April. I do intend to catch up by the end of the year and do an exhibit on Patagonia sometime next year. I'll keep you posted.

I will be updating my website soon to make ordering prints a little simpler (not so many buttons). I just need to do some programming (something that I thought I'd left behind in a past life). I will also be adding an exhibition history and telling people about some of the awards I've won, publications I've been in, etc. I definitely want to improve some aspects of the website (I don't think I'll win any marketing awards anytime soon).

By the way, my 2010 calendar will be distributed by Barnes and Noble, along with many local bookstores throughout the Bay Area. I believe my calendars will sell out this time, on my second attempt at this kind of thing. It's all just practice for a future book anyway.

Until later...

Things are happening

Sorry to take so long between posts. I have been setting up my workflow on my new computer in my new office, and I am learning how to use my new Epson 7900 printer. It will take many months before it replaces my Epson 4800 as my primary printer. I am now working on showing much larger images in my gallery later this year. The first 20x30 prints are looking very impressive, I can't wait to show them to the public.

I entered the Marin County Fair photo exhibition for the first time this year. It is definitely one of the better and more competitive art exhibitions in the Bay Area and I managed to win first place in the color photography category. I have also submitted two images to the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art's Biennial Exhibit (which happens every two years as the name implies) and they were both accepted for this fall's exhibit. This is the second time I have submitted work for the Biennial and the second time that both entries were accepted, so my ego is doing well thank you.

My 2010 calendar is done and I have them all in stock and ready for the selling season up ahead. I managed to accomplish this feat over 2 months earlier than last year, which should help sales. I am very happy with it, I think it is even better than last year's calendar.

I am in the middle of teaching a landscape course right now, and I will be revamping the "Classes" section of my website to expand my workshops. I think I will add a basic "digital camera" class like I used to teach in the past, and I will add a "Photoshop for Photographers" class that will emphasize the basic 12 steps or so that are needed to create great "straight" photographs. I'll leave the esoteric Photoshop classes that cover 100 different whiz-bang features to others.

Yes, I am still editing my Patagonia pictures. It is tough to digest that many pictures all at once. When I am through editing them, I will update my website with new pictures immediately. Once I am through with those, there are several hundred other pictures that I have taken since Patagonia that I need to edit as well. It all feels like a huge homework assignment, but I always love the final result.

Almost back to normal...

Since coming back from Patagonia, I have been moving my office to a new location. And so that I would have enough to do, I also bought a new MacPro computer. Needless to say, I haven't been very productive in a photographic sense for the past few weeks, but now I am back in business (pretty much).

I have begun editing my Patagonia pictures and have the picture count under 1000 after a first pass. I hope to have the best 10 or 20 images on my website sometime in June.

In the meantime, here is a picture of David Muench, Jack Dykinga and myself in Patagonia. It was an honor and privilege to be out shooting with these guys.