…a multi-disciplinary performance piece about the art of angling called “Fly Box.” Suchy’s mixed-media presentation – which incorporates live original music, photography, video, poetry, textile art and actual fishing flies – will premiere during the Racine Art Museum’s Meet Me on the Patio event on Friday, Aug.
12.

Read the full piece.

Many currently in the sport often wonder if another angler is a BTM angler or ATM angler (before THE movie or after THE movie). Will this new mixed media presentation be enough to spark the next generation of anglers to join the sport causing all pre- “Fly Box” anglers to curse the post- “Fly Box” anglers? Only time will tell.

(If somebody goes, see if you can sneak in a video camera inside your hat, cleverly aimed through the hole you poke through the dotted “i” in the Orvis logo. It will be like those pre-DVD releases of movies still in the theater you can download by torrent. (At least, that’s what I’ve heard. I wouldn’t know from personal experience.) Please be a little more discreet than these folks.)

Enjoy!

[To get the best results from the gallery below, select the first picture. When the picture pops up, use the little blue arrows at the bottom of the picture to advance to the next picture. The little green angled arrow (when available) will enlarge a picture.]

We spent Wednesday and Thursday in Capitol Reef National Park. It’s about 300 miles from my house but has almost identical elevation I’m about 4500′ and CRNP is about 5000′ (in fact, it might be even a bit higher). But on Wednesday when we arrived, it was 94°.

Good news is that next week I’m heading east with my fishing buddy Dan. His brother needs some help driving his truck from Virginia to Utah. So we’re flying to Tennessee, fishing the Smokies, then up to Virginia to fish the Rapidan and Moormans. We’re hunting out the southern and northern Appalachian strains of native brookies. Lets hope the weather is more cooperative.

Here are some photos of Capitol Reef:

If you’d like a little music to get in the proper frame of mind, press play before looking through the rest of the post.

The Bluest Blues – Alvin Lee

April—an interesting month weather-wise. One moment it’s sunny and 60. Green shoots and blades poke out from winter’s detritus. Then, suddenly, it’s struggling to make it into the 30′s and everything is re-sheathed in white. Spring is just a temptress, toying with the hearts of anglers. A little more than 6″ of snow fell a couple of days ago with more forecasted the next two days. It’s enough to bring on the blues.

Blues comes in many varieties. But it’s in water where I find some of my favorite blues. Little grottoes in the early morning gather what little light they can to themselves.

Rushing, tumbling around rocks the rill races it’s course ever downward. A surreal little landscape of mist and moss. Thoughts of floating a fly through chutes and channels bob and weave their way through the dendrites.

Our patience, flagging in the wind like so many of last year’s forgotten leaves, will carry us: we’ll hang on and wait out the last fits and sputters of winter’s encore.

And, just around the corner, our thinking-spring-thoughts will pan out quicker than we realize. The white frame of winter will give way to a permanence of green. As permanent as seasons can possibly be.

When I first saw Nick Mayer’s work at his Escape Studio, one of the first things I was drawn to was his small sketchbook pages (look at the bottom) he included. Now, I imagine Nick didn’t think these little sketchbook images were all that important when he was designing his website (maybe he did), but they are fascinating to me. I could look at those type of sketchbooks all day, especially the ones with technical notes worked around the sketches.

However, the “real” artwork is some pretty amazing stuff. Nick’s pieces have that “technical” feel to them, with a clean, precise look, but the watercoloring softens them, bringing a warmth and aliveness to each piece. Of most interest, I imagine, to you, would be his collection of fish. He has both saltwater and freshwater fish collections.

Here’s a sneak peek at his latest piece, rainbow trout:

Rainbow Trout - Nick Mayer

and here’s a close-up (click on it to check out the detail, then click on the little green arrow that points down and to the right for an even closer look – wow!):

Rainbow Detail - Nick Mayer

It looks like the majority of his originals are sold, but they do have a note saying “available for commission $1500.” There are some nice looking unframed giclee prints running in size from about 14″ wide ($50) to 40″ wide ($250). They can also be purchased framed. For those with a smaller budget, he has notecards for purchasing.

There are also some great pieces on insects, but I didn’t see any that would be of special interest to the fly fisher with maybe the exception of the dragonfly. I could definitely see some mayflies lending themselves to his style (Nick: hint, hint).

A very cool side note here, something that I think is unique is his Faux Moths Project. This is a collection of moths that he watercolors, then cuts out and mounts in boxes to look like real moths. You can read his detailed description on that page of how he started the project.

He runs Escape Studio apparel store selling shirts, mugs, hats, bags, etc.

You can follow Nick on his Fresh Art Blog.

Derek DeYoung’s Canvasfish.com bills itself as “art for the avid angler.” His artwork is stylized using a bold palette with much of the work being close-ups of fish. I didn’t notice any people or landscapes in his work, just fish. He has originals, prints, decals, notecards, etc. for sale. The originals are pricey (as one would expect), but his giclee prints are quite reasonable.

Bob White’s Whitefish Studio offer’s Bob’s original artwork. John Gierach’s Fly Rod and Reel columns were illustrated with Bob’s paintings. He uses a more traditional palette and I believe all of his pieces include people except his landscape series. His “Fish Prints” feature several species and all of them depict a person holding a fish out of the water except for his two “Three Wise Men” series. Besides angling art, he also offers other sporting works. [His site can be a bit difficult to navigate to find all of the angling art, but the link I give probably provides the best option, but be sure to browse the other areas as well.]

Matt Zudweg’s Carvedfish.com offers hand painted signs, including a nice selection of angling signs. The signs are created in such a way that gives them a vintage look. He also offers some actual carved signs with fish on them. The fish are painted by Derek DeYoung.

Kelly Dangerfield has about ten paintings of fish. They are all headshots. It looks as if most of the originals are sold, but prints are available from Imagekind.

Fran Friesen has some angling art displayed at FlyBC.ca Gallery. She has some nice mixed media pieces and an interesting set of flies painted on small river stones. I can’t seem to find any information on how to contact her for purchasing. [The FlyBC.ca site has some additional artists you may be interest in.]

First up is Jared Miller from Streamside Illustrations. He has some fish illustrations that he says he was inspired to draw because of Joseph Tomelleri’s work. He uses the same colored pencil style as Tomelleri, and from what I can see from the web pictures, they’re pretty good quality too (he has close-ups of some of the fish, and you can really see some nice detail). You can view several of his illustrations at his website. I don’t think he has any prints for sale, but what he seems to specialize in is illustrating your fish. Send him a picture and he’ll illustrate it for you. Jared has a blog, but it doesn’t look like he’s updated it in some time. Too bad, because I enjoyed glancing through the posts he does have.

Scott Hale over at Art Creel sent me an email the other day letting me know of his new “90 Fly Fishing Paintings in 90 Seconds” video. This is a great way to see some of the excellent artwork of the nine artists showing and selling work at Art Creel. Once you’ve seen the video, get over to Art Creel and check out your favorites. I love art, but often find it too pricey. There are some very reasonably priced pieces available art Art Creel. (My New Year’s Resolution #27: buy at least one piece of art this year.) A little tucked away section at Art Creel is their blog. I love woodcuts (I’ve tinkered with making a couple myself), and there is an excellent three part post on John Koch’s woodcut “Four Seasons” that goes into some nice depth concerning that woodcut. You should really read it (scroll down a bit until you get to the November 19, post, that’s the first one). John runs his own blog called Trout Lily Studios that I quite admire. If you like reading more in-depth pieces about how an artist thinks and works, subscribe to his blog.

Many of you are probably familiar with Jason Borger’s work at Fish, Flies & Water (art and casting) and Jeff Kennedy of Drawing Flies 365 (painting a new fly every for one year – he does have his book available too). They are collaborating this year on a new project called Drawing Flies 52. Yep, they each draw/paint a new fly once a week for a year. It looks like a fun collaborative in which they each draw/paint the same fly pattern, without knowing what the other is doing. A great wrinkle to this is that they only give themselves 30 minutes to complete the art. (If I had half the talent in ten times the time, I’d be very pleased with myself). They both do a nice job of talking about the technical aspects of their work. Jason also puts up some nice pieces that aren’t art related.

His art reminds me of early fish illustrations found in biology texts. I think it’s because he uses a lot of browns and there seems to be a type of stippling to his work. I think his warm water fish are especially good. All-in-all I think Thom has some nice work being offered.