桜風 : Cherry Blossom Wind

Art at the Source 2025 begins in two days: I've been printing recent images, including this one from the set "桜風" or "Cherry Blossom Wind," photographed during 2025's sakura-viewing season.

My studio space will be open June 7-8 and 14-15 in Petaluma: Studio 4: 65 Eastside Circle, Petaluma (not Sebastopol).

During the studio days I'll also be showing some prints of early machine-learning work, dating back to 2015. Today this would be called "AI" – I called it "neurography" at the time. Hard for me to believe some of it's a decade old now!

In the middle of my library-turned-art-space, I'll be operating a drawing robot (err, "Art Machine System"), an ArtFrame 2436. In the interest of sanity I'll just be making drawings with it – my ultimate goal for it is oil pastels but that's far too messy, error-prone, and highly demanding of my every-second attention.

There are two annual open-studio seasons each year: my take on them is that Art at the Source, in the Spring, is more educational-focused; while Art Trails in Autumn is a little more gallery-like. With considerable overlap! But in that spirit, for Art at the Source I'm emphasizing visible process.

"Process" for my sort of art-making is an awkward fit to the open-studio format: I won't include the chair I sit in each morning, writing notes in pen; nor should they watching me coding (I assure you: very boring); nor can I take visitors directly on a journey to the Kiso Mountains (where the 桜風 photos were made) or for that matter even downtown. At the same time, for this event I can feel relaxed and okay to be more direct about what works and doesn't.

For a potter or painter, the relationship between act and object are more obvious: for someone who uses locations, light, and often electronics, less so. This makes me glad that to have two different events for similar yet divergent purposes.