Thanks for Coming to Our Open Studio!
Thanks so much to everyone who came to our open studio! I was very touched to have so many friends and supporters come see our work. My studio-mates and I put a lot of work in to rearranging our space, adding walls and removing the clutter this fall so it was great to celebrate our re-vamped studio with so many people. I would have been happy making one sale last night but was blown away that I ended up selling eight paintings! Lots of love to all my friends and studio-mates.
The other artists in my studio include: Tatiana Westin-McCaw, Jisho Roche Adachi, Andrew Hendren, and Kyrre Mogster.
If you missed the open studio be sure to check out my available paintings online and also consider commissioning a landscape painting or house portrait as a holiday gift.
Thanks everyone!
Come Visit Our Studio!
Come say hi to me and check out the studio I share with my friends. We’ll have 5 studio spaces open, lots of amazing art for sale and free food and drinks.
Saturday, November 9th, 4 PM - 8 PM
63 Woodward Ave, Ridgewood, NY 11385 (Google Map)
Artists include:
Kyrre Mogster
Tatiana Westin-McCaw
Jisho Roche Adachi
Andrew Hendren
Alex Roediger
You can check out my paintings here and see artwork for sale here.
Here is a preview of artworks by my studio-mates:
Kyrre Mogster
Instagram: @kyrremogsterart
Email: kyrremogster@gmail.com
Tatiana Westin-McCaw
Website: tatianawestin.carbonmade.com
Instagram: @taddytootall
Email: tatiana.westin@gmail.com
Jisho Roche Adachi
Instagram: @jishoji
Email: jishoworks@gmail.com
Andrew Hendren
Website: www.andrewjhendren.com
Instagram: @andrewhendren
Email: andrewhendrenart@gmail.com
See Artworks for Sale
No longer strictly chronological, MoMA’s new collection galleries use themes to bring a fresh perspective to the collection. Left to right: Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Louise Bourgeois’ Quarantania, I and Faith Ringgold’s American People Series #20: Die
The New MoMA!
I’m a MoMA staff member and I've spent years eagerly anticipating the museum's recent expansion. The new MoMA is finished and the results have exceeded my expectations.
Out of the changes made, the revamped curatorial choices excite me the most. The art is arranged largely by theme and less by time period, often juxtaposing contemporary and modern artworks in the same rooms. The themes vary in tone, with some being academic and others more playful. New gallery themes include Masters of Popular Painting, Machines, Mannequins, and Monsters, In and Around Harlem, etc. The expanded galleries provide space for lesser-known works in the collection to be seen and it’s been fun to stumble upon pieces I’ve never viewed before.
I was thrilled to see a work by self-taught artist Judith Scott from Creative Growth Art Center on view in the collection galleries. My wife works at Fountain House Gallery & Studio, a program for artists living with mental illness, and is a huge fan of Creative Growth. Last year we visited Creative Growth Art Center and saw firsthand their amazing gallery and studio for artists with disabilities. It made me happy to see Judith Scott in the mix with art canon mainstays like Picasso and Matisse.
Every six months about a third of MoMA’s collection will be rotated out giving visitors a whole new suite of artworks to appreciate. Although the collection will be rotating, visitor favorites like Van Gogh’s Starry Night and Warhol’s Campbell's Soup Cans will almost always be on view.
My job involves collecting and sharing visitor feedback and I am looking forward to learning what you think of the new space!
MoMA reopens on October 21st.
Some photos of the new MoMA:
I love doing commissions!
Learn more about commissioning your own landscape painting
Commissioned landscape paintings also make for excellent gifts for weddings, holidays and house warming gifts.
Commission a Painting for the Holidays
I love painting commissions!
Handmade, commissioned, one-of-a-kind paintings make great gifts people will enjoy forever. You can email me a landscape photo and I can get to work as soon as possible. Here’s a commission I finished just last night:
Examples of commissions and their source photos:
Here are some ideas for picking out a landscape photo:
A favorite place
A favorite national or local park
A view from a home or summer retreat
A scene from a recent or favorite holiday
If you don’t have a photo of the scene you want, you might find one on the internet. For instance, the source photo for the painting on the right came from a famous black and white Ansel Adams photo.
The neighborhood
It’s nice to have a painting that reminds you of your neighborhood pride.
House portrait
A picture of a person’s home past or present
Limited availability
It takes 1-2 weeks to finish a painting and then 3 weeks to dry. So the time to order a commission is now before I get booked up for the season!
Commission Process is easy
1) Email me a photo you’d like me to use as reference and the size you’d like for the painting to alex@alexroediger.com (see size options below). The photo should be of a landscape or building exterior.
2) I’ll confirm availability, price and timing.
3) Once you confirm the commission I’ll get to work and send you a photo of the work when it’s near completion to ensure you’re happy with the result. All paintings are made with oil paint on one inch deep wood panels which are ready to hang.
4) The painting will need 3 weeks to dry and will then be shipped free of charge (U.S. only) via 2 day USPS delivery.
SIZES & PRICES
Size options can vary but are typically as follows:
8 x 10 inches: $200
14 x 18 inches: $320
20 x 24 inches: $440
24 x 36 inches: $640
Larger options also available
“It was perfect”
“This was a gift to my father for his birthday; this painting is from a photo my father took. He was thrilled with it and told me it was perfect. My father has only had it for a short time but has already received multiple unsolicited compliments from guests about it. Alex was very communicative and responsive during the process, would definitely commission from him again and recommend him to others.”
— Melissa F, Feb 7, 2019, Etsy (5 out of 5 stars)
“Loved it!”
“This painting looks even better in real life! The colors are amazing! gifted this piece of work to a family member and they absolutely loved it! Thanks Alex your work is truly special!” - harrietm., Nov 30, 2017, Etsy, (5 out of 5 stars)
New Studio Space
I’ve upgraded my studio space! I was happy with the tiny nook I’d had for years, but change was in the air as a couple artists had left our studio and it was decided that we needed to refresh and reconfigure the studio for our current needs. In the context of rethinking the studio, I realized there’s a whole host of problems with my little old nook - crappy walls, lack of storage, little light and a lack of space to photograph my art. With all this in mind I ended up moving to the adjacent space and rebuilt it for my needs. Being nudged to change is exactly what I needed. Sometimes the people around you know what you need better than you do.
Post-Art Fair: Now What?
Thanks to everyone who made my Art by the Lake experience so great at the Fenimore Art Museum. I met lots of great artists and art admirers, sold four paintings and got one post show sale. I appreciate you all so much! The whole event felt really nice and I was very proud to be there — the Fenimore is such a beautiful museum, inside and out. I also reached a milestone of having sold my 50th landscape painting since I started making them nearly three years ago. I’m so grateful and amazed my paintings have resonated with so many of you.
Now that the fair is over I’ve been caught off guard by the post-art fair blues. I’ve experienced mild post-exhibition blues before but now I’m learning it extents to art fairs as well. I have a feeling of “how can I get back the level of excitement I had at the fair?” and realizing that now is actually the time to clean the studio, recharge and get back into my usual groove of painting.
I’m probably also feeling a little blue because I’m going through and thinning out all the art I made as a kid and young adult. My parents are downsizing their home so the day of reckoning has come for all the paintings and sketchbooks I haven’t looked at in decades. Going through it all has stirred up a lot of feelings - pride, amusement, surprise, melancholy and a feeling of what am I going to do with all this stuff?!
A few drawings from the archive:
See My Work in Person!
The Fenimore Art Museum on Otsego Lake, Cooperstown, NY
I’m giving away a free 20 x 16.5 inch print of my painting Lake in the Woods. Enter to win here.
Come see me and my paintings this Saturday, August 17th at the Art by the Lake fair at the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, NY. In addition to showing and selling my art, I’ll be doing a painting demonstration and raffle. You can also enter the raffle online to win a free print of my painting Lake in the Woods.
Event description:
The Fenimore Art Museum presents its twelfth annual juried art event celebrating fine artists who are inspired by our region and its beauty, Art by the Lake, taking place Saturday, August 17 from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. on the museum’s expansive lakefront lawn. This year, a wider range of art will be available for visitors to see and purchase including oil and watercolor paintings, photography, sculpture, blown glass, wood carving and more. The event features artist demonstrations, great food by Origins Café, and tastings with Cooperstown Distillery – all with the backdrop of picturesque Otsego Lake.
Admission: $12 and includes access to Fenimore Art Museum. You can purchase a 2-way ticket ($20) with The Farmers’ Museum (across the street) and get admission to Hopsego (beer tastings, live music, food trucks – all in our charming 19th-century country village) taking place on the same day.
Other artists on view include:
Meg Anderson Argo, Vernon Burnett, Susana Caban, Shannon Delany, Lorraine Dewey, Jennifer Gibson, Robert Glisson, Erik Halvorson, Tracy Helgeson, Lu D Huang, Johanna Husband, Tom Hussey, Richard Kathmann, Susan Jones Kenyon, Nancy Kieffer, Doug & Barbara Luhmann, RC Oster, Sam Ross, Marie Sanderson, Ritvik Sharma, Holly Spiess, Lisa Tessier, Emmanuel Vaucher, Christopher Wakefield (Wildwoods Woodturning) and Annie Zygarowicz
Look for my blue and white hand-painted sign when you come visit. Below are a few of the works I’ll have on view and for sale.
Hope to see you there!
Me and Smudge
When is an Artwork Done?
When is a work of art done? It can be hard to know when to stop. My impulse is to keep painting until every flower, leaf, and blade of grass is perfectly rendered. The problem with making everything perfect in a painting is that I end up painting over all the looseness, fun and joy that was in the painting earlier in the process. A perfectly rendered painting will often look flat and boring.
Instead of seeking perfection, I want my paintings to feel relatable, have a personality and hopefully have a touch of mystery. A seemingly unfinished painting allows space for the viewer to fill in the rest with their imagination.
Wanting to keep my paintings loose, I’ve found they are usually at their best a little before I realize it, which is why I try to stop painting a little before I think I should.
Here are some examples of artworks that don’t fill in every detail, allowing plenty of room for the viewer to fill in the rest of the image with their imagination.
J. M. W. Turner, Sun setting over a lake
Fairfield Porter, Meadow, Great Spruce Head
Richard Diebenkorn, Driveway
Maureen Gallace, Ice Storm, Easton (With Robert)
Georgia O’Keeffe, Lake George
And here are some examples of works I’ve done that I think leave room for the viewer:
The Courage to be Creative
It takes courage to be creative. As an artist I’m a bit of a dreamer, so in creative situations it’s easy for me to believe that I’m about to make the best thing ever and then feel crushed when I judge my finished project as just ordinary. “Practice makes perfect” is a well known prescription to this kind of extreme thinking, but it’s hardly practical advice because we don’t have endless amounts of time to reach perfection.
I grew up diagnosed with various learning disabilities - dyslexia, dyscalculia and attention deficit disorder. These disabilities or cognitive differences, meant that I would do homework for hours and hours each night just to get a B on my next test. It left me feeling broken and that to keep up in life I’d have to discipline myself by putting tons of work into every little thing I do.
In spite of that conditioning, I’ve been working on believing that I am in fact a good and valuable person just as I am, and that there’s no need to beat myself up or to be a super star in order to be a creative person.
For me, there is no creativity without courage and no courage without self love. When I’m making a painting I need to let go of the fact I’m not perfect. I’m a person just like everyone else, no better, no worse and yet still very valuable. Self love highlights that the work I’m doing is good, that working towards a particular vision is difficult and that everything in life is perfectly imperfect. Self love acknowledges the inherit risks of being creative - that others will judge and reject you in some form or another but that that’s ok, it’s my job to love myself.
I think part of self love is to acknowledge the ways we’re courageous and creative in our daily lives.
Here are 10 ways I’m courageous and practicing self-love with my painting:
Putting my art out in to the world
Accepting commissions - facing the fear that the painting I make won’t live up to the client’s expectations
Continuing to make art - and never fully reaching the ideal vision that’s in my mind
Trying new techniques and subject matter
Being consistent - it sometimes takes courage to stick with something and not always chase the next new idea
Selling my art - it can feel audacious to think someone would want your art and it can also feel like a rejection when your works go unsold
Express my feelings and values plainly in my art — it’s very tempting to hide my feelings and values in my art by using complexity, vagueness, and cryptic symbolism
Allowing for imperfection — allowing some of the raw, real mistakes I make to remain as they are, which end up often being he most interesting parts of the painting
Write about my art plainly and simply — writing about my art in a straightforward manner always makes me feel exposed and vulnerable. But if my art is going to matter at all, my descriptions of it should be as honest as I can make them
Acknowledging with compassion when something doesn’t work — understanding a problem is only productive for me if I do it with lots of love, compassion, a sense of curiosity and objectivity
See Available Works