UPDATE: MAY 15, 2023

I just received an advance copy of Sketchbook Traveler: New England; the third volume in a series produced by Schiffer Publishing—a family-owned nonfiction press headquartered in Atglen, PA, that was founded in 1974.  I could not be more delighted and gratified with the book, and look forward to its general release in August of this year (2023)

I am profoundly grateful to the great team at Schiffer Publishing, who were able to produce this trilogy in the midst of a global pandemic. Now that the worst has passed, it’s time to dust off our boots and take to the road, with a sketchbook in hand.

Inside Sketchbook Traveler: New England:

OWN THEM ALL:

Hudson Valley: https://schifferbooks.com/products/sketchbook-traveler-1
Southwest: https://schifferbooks.com/products/sketchbook-traveler
New England: https://schifferbooks.com/products/sketchbook-traveler-new-england
To contact me directly, send an email to james@mcelhinneyart.com

One of my winter projects is the development of a series of nocturnes—a subject with deep poetic resonance that expands the direct-painting practice of on-the-spot fieldwork. Night scenes invite us to imagine the world in a state of suspension. Just as winter represents the passage from the dying of autumn of the rebirth of spring, the dark hours between twilight and dawn welcome sleep, summon dreams and stir the imagination.
Apart from a few youthful experiments with the subject, I had not produced night-scapes for many years prior to working with Michael Costello at Hand Graphics in Santa Fe in May & October of 2019. Those sessions produced a number of monoprints, including several nocturnes. These struck me in such a way that I feel compelled to revisit this subject, when I participate in the 2023 Print Santa Fe Monoprint Monothon during the first week of April. Watch a short (6-minute) video about the monoprint process.:

While I have found sponsors for my Monothon printing sessions, I seek backers for my travel expenses to and from Santa Fe from the Champlain Valley.  The trip will involve a flight from Montreal to Denver, then overland travel through the southern Rockies to the San Luis Valley, Taos, the Rio Grande Gorge, and on to Santa Fe.  I will keep a written and visual  journal of my travels, and welcome supporters to join me for regular ZOOM meetings to get receive updates. CLICk the GoFundMe logo below to donate.  Thanks for your support!

Among those monoprints produced with Michael Costello in 2019, which have been on exhibition at Gerald Peters Gallery, some which resonated most with me were scenes of White Rock Canyon, and Confluence of Rio Pueblo de Taos and Rio Grande, just upstream from Taos Junction Bridge on NM highway 567. Nicknamed “The Land of Enchantment,” New Mexico possesses a certain quality of terrain that never fails to remind me that we are living on a gigantic space-rock. Its raw geology and wide-open spaces deliver breathtaking vistas that can stretch a hundred miles. Factual accuracy and pictorial verisimilitude are never enough to convey the sense of awe, at being consumed by the wondrous, terrible, and unforgiving power of nature. In 2019, I produced a series of monoprints with master-printer Michael Costello of Hand Graphics in Santa Fe. Here are a few of those images:

Moonrise over White Rock Canyon. Image size 14.5 x 19 inches. Sheet size 22 x 30 inches. Monoprint Somerset on Somerset etching paper, with digital Chine-collé on Kitakata-washi

Moonrise over the Confluence of Rio Pueblo de Taos and Rio Grande del Norte. Image size 14.5 x 19 inches. Sheet size 22 x 30 inches. Monoprint Somerset on Somerset etching paper, with digital Chine-collé on Kitakata-washi

Cloudburst: White Rock Canyon. Image size 14.5 x 19 inches. Sheet size 22 x 30 inches. Monoprint Somerset on Somerset etching paper, with digital Chine-collé on Kitakata-washi

Print Santa Fe has organized a monoprint Monothon Print Week, running from April 1-7, 2023.  Michael Costello of Hand Graphics has invited me to participate in the event, during which we will  work together for two days. One print from each session, from all of the participating prints-shops, will be exhibited at the Santa Fe Community Gallery from April 22-May 4, 2023. Proceeds from sales will benefit local print shops, the Community Gallery of Santa Fe, and the nonprofit Partners in Education youth arts programs. I will be updating my blog with daily posts, to report on my activities in Santa Fe, as well as my travels to and from New Mexico. Become a supporter. Receive daily updates. Enjoy access to travel updates and live ZOOM meetings, and other opportunities. Click on the logo below:

Following the success of Sketchbook Traveler: Hudson Valley, Volume 2 in the series  explores the American Southwest from New Mexico to the Mojave Desert in journal-paintings and field notes by the author. Conceived as a hybrid between a backpacker’s field-guide and coffee-table art book, this compact volume includes lessons in print; a “why-to” guide to expanding one’s wilderness journals , travel diaries, and plein-air painting practice. Blank pages scattered with inspirational quotes are provided for keeping one’s own traveler-sketchbook. Order here: LINK. Read more about Sketchbook Traveler Southwest, in the March 2023 issue of Western Art Collector magazine:

COMING SOON: SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER: NEW ENGLAND. August 28, 2023

NEW AND NOTEWORTHYOrder your copy of the book here: LINK

For information about Needlewatcher Editions, write to editions@needlewatcher.com
Needlewatcher Editions. PO Box 233. Essex, New York. 12936-0233. (347) 266-5652

This monoprint was just placed in a fine collection by Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe:

“. . . McElhinney’s paintings and monotypes subtly convey a sense of the changes wrought by time and human activity. Faint lines surround elements of his compositions. These are traces of rocky outcroppings, vegetation, and in some cases, houses. In White Rock Moonrise, for instance, the ghost of a house can be seen along the side of the river, which snakes through the canyon and reflects the silvery white of moonlight. The outline is not colored in, or rendered in any detail. The house may have existed there, or it could be an artistic embellishment. Either way; his landscapes suggest how the landscape may have looked, as opposed to how it looks now. It’s as though McElhinney is combining two views of the landscape into a confluence of past and present.”

“Natural Beauty and the Human Presence: A Fresh Look at New Mexico Landscapes.” Pasatiempo magazine. July 26, 2019 . Review of Reimagining New Mexico” at Gerald Peters Gallery, Santa Fe.

“White Rock Canyon Moonrise”. Monoprint produced in collaboration with Michael Costello @ Hand Graphics Santa Fe, with Kitakata digital Chine-colle produced by Thomas Park, Orion Studios Santa Fe. Sheet size 22 x 30 inches. Image size: 14.5 x 19 inches. Unique image. Signed, dated, with hand-inscribed title; Hand Graphics blind-stamp.

For information about the Grand River series, or to inquire about other works on hand, please contact Maria Hajic, Director. Gerald Peters Gallery. 1005 Paseo de Peralta. Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501. mhajic@gpgallery.com or call +1(505) 954-5769

Click on the image to watch

Praise for Sketchbook Traveler Southwest:

“James Lancel McElhinney has crafted a beautiful work of devotion to the American Southwest. . . featuring the landscape of our wide-open spaces. . . the book has suggestions for photographers and artists who seek to commune with the desert in a way that makes use of math to render its majesty – creating one’s own “golden mean.”

—Deanne Stillman, Author of Blood Brothers: The Story of the Strange Friendship between Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, winner of the 2018 Ohloana Prize for Nonfiction

Learn More.   Purchase.    Retailers

Volume 2 of THE SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER trilogy was released on September 27, 2002. Learn more about the book HERE

Volume One: SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER: HUDSON VALLEY  is widely available, on most major on line retailers and brick-and-mortar bookshops nationwide

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Read more by clicking on this LINK

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Backstory

In 2019, I traveled along the Rio Grande from Creede, Colorado to Bernalillo, New Mexico, keeping a journal and producing images of various sites along the river. In the spirit of 19th-century artist-explorers such as the Kern brothers, Seth Eastman, Albert Bierstadt, Tomas Moran and William Henry Jackson, my focus was painting in sketchbooks, making photographs, and producing written narratives. While all three of these activities have traditionally been regarded as note-taking, research, or rehearsals for “major works”, I regard them instead as elements, within a single practice, in which the art abides. I was also mindful of the cultural diversity of the parched region through which this waterway flows, and how using a codex as the substrate for painting puts my work in dialogue with major non-Western book-arts traditions; from the Islamic world and the Himalayas to East Asia and Mesoamerica. Synthetic outcomes from this project include monoprints produced with Michael Costello @ Hand Graphics in Santa Fe; Grand River Sketchbook; a fine-press limited edition (25) suite of ten (10) archival pigment prints, printed by Orion Studios in Santa Fe, in a find handmade binding by Peter Geraty of Praxis Bindery in Easthampton, Mass. Also on view are hand-embellished color intaglio copperplate etchings, with digital chine-colle produced by Philadelphia master printer Cindi Royce Ettinger, and original watercolors. Contact Maria Hajic at: mhajic@gpgallery.com, or call (505) 954-5769. A number of these works have been installed at Gerald Peters Gallery in Santa Fe, where they will remain on view through the summer.

Grand River Sketchbook (unique original painting journal). Watercolor sketchbook 3.5 x 10.5 inches (open) in a fine handmade Solander box by Mita Saldana, Against the Grain Book Binding, Albuquerque NM. Contact Maria Hajic at: mhajic@gpgallery.com, or call (505) 954-5769

A closer look: The page spread seen here in the original Grand River Sketchbook is a view of of White Rock Canyon, dated March 2, 2019.

OTHER WORKS ON VIEW

Fort Union. Watercolor. 4 x 10 inches. 2019
Contact Maria Hajic at: mhajic@gpgallery.com, or call (505) 954-5769

Moonrise, White Rock Canyon. Image size: 14.5 x 19 inches. Monoprint on paper. Sheet size 22 x 30 inches. Printed by Hand Graphics, Santa Fe, NM. 2019
Contact Maria Hajic at: mhajic@gpgallery.com, or call (505) 954-5769

Confluence: Rio Grande & Rio Pueblo de Taos. Image size: 14.5 x 19 inches. Monoprint on paper. Sheet size 22 x 30 inches. printed by Hand Graphics, Santa Fe, NM. 2019
Contact Maria Hajic at: mhajic@gpgallery.com, or call (505) 954-5769

Moonrise, Confluence. Image size: 14.5 x 19 inches. Monoprint on paper. Sheet size 22 x 30 inches. printed by Hand Graphics, Santa Fe, NM. 2019. Contact Maria Hajic at:
mhajic@gpgallery.com, or call (505) 954-5769

Tunyo, or The Black Mesa. (#3) Hand-embellished color intaglio copperplate etching with digital Chine-colle, printed by Philadelphia Master Printer Cindi Royce Ettinger. 2020. Contact Maria Hajic at: mhajic@gpgallery.com, or call (505) 954-5769

Tunyo, or The Black Mesa (#4) Hand-embellished color intaglio copperplate etching with digital Chine-colle, printed by Philadelphia Master Printer Cindi Royce Ettinger 2020. Contact Maria Hajic at: mhajic@gpgallery.com, or call (505) 954-5769

Limited edition of 25: Grand River Sketchbook. 2020. A suite of 10 archival pigment prints. Printed by Orion Studios, Santa Fe; Binding by Peter Geraty, Praxis Bindery, Easthampton Mass. View the edition HERE. Contact Maria Hajic at: mhajic@gpgallery.com, or call (505) 954-5769    

COMING SOON:

Sketchbook Traveler. Southwest was due to be released in May, but due to supply chain issues related to the Covid pandemic, the first edition (which has been printed overseas) is due to arrive in late summer. Following up on the success of Sketchbook Traveler: Hudson Valley, volume 2 in this trilogy explores  the American Southwest from New Mexico to the Mojave Desert in journal-paintings and field notes by the author. Conceived as a backpacker’s field-guide and coffee-table art book, this compact volume includes lessons in print; a “why-to” guide to augmenting ubiquitous photographic devices.  Blank pages scattered with inspirational quotes are provided for keeping one’s own traveler’s sketchbook. Pre-order here: LINK

Also:

Order your copy of the book here: LINK

For information about Needlewatcher Editions, write to editions@needlewatcher.com
Needlewatcher Editions. PO Box 233. Essex, New York. 12936-0233. (347) 266-5652

AN ONGOING JOURNEY

Thinking about art can be the same as making art. At some point I came to the realization that a work of art is not just the object, but the practice that leads to its creation.  Marketable products represent but a minuscule aspect of that process. Trying to give shape to what abides beneath the surface if what first led me to writing. As it gave me another way to organize my thoughts, journal-keeping nurtured a deeper appreciate of language, which led me to write articles, essays, and books. Migrated from the easel into sketchbooks, my visual art began to dovetail with my literary efforts in ways that became a pas-de-deux between words and images. Blending lifelong interests in history, art, and the environment with a passion for travel and learning has cleared a path toward  deeper engagements with nature through drawing, painting and writing, in ways that promote environmental awareness, historic preservation and ecological civics.

Next year (2022) two more volumes of Sketchbook Traveler will be released, devoted to the Southwest, and New England. I have also just signed a contract to produce in three volumes, a 21st-century  homage to Benson J. Lossing’s 1851 Pictorial Field-Book of the American Revolution. Based on research and mindful travel through drawing and writing, these books will explore historic landscapes to unearth hidden narratives of ethnic diversity, environmental impact, and collective memory, shaped by military conflict and the process of nation-building. The first volume is scheduled for release in 2025, which will commence observances of the 250th anniversary of the American War of Independence.

Regular blog posts and updates will be published, downloadable in PDF format. Subscribers will be notified by email of these updates, as well as lectures, workshops and other events related  to these and other projects. Become a part of the journey.