My Work In The Ralph Lauren Fall Showrooms

Ralph Lauren will be using two drawing of mine in their Home Showrooms this fall. They own the original drawings but for this particular situation we will be creating oversized prints from the drawings and placing them in eleven of their stores in the US and London. I'm so happy to be associated with RL, they have been nothing but kind to me, and they see my work in ways that are revealing even to myself. Unfortunately, Chicago will not be one of the store featuring my work, not all stores have the high ceilings a ample space required to house this installation. My friends at Ralph Lauren were kind enough to send me a few photos as previews and I'm posting a four here.  The showrooms don't go up until mid-August and will be in place through January. The store where the showrooms will be in place: New York (Madison Ave.), London (New Bond Street), London (Bromton Cross), Denver, Atlanta, Chevy Chase, Troy, Greenwich, Palo Alto, Manhasset, Phoenix.

Large Watercolors

Untiled (July 26, 2013) - Watercolor on Paper - 30 x 41 inches

The watercolors for the Ralph Lauren window have been returned to me and I wanted to share a few of the large ones. These bigger watercolors were a challenge for me, watercolor being a media that does not scale up easily. That is to say that the liquid qualities of the material move, absorb and generally do not act in the same manner on a large piece of paper as they do on a small one. So there was a learning curve in their creation, and I did have to destroy a few very large and expensive pieces of watercolor paper in the process. But when the were successful they were very impressive. Part of the process involved pouring large amounts of pigmented liquid across these beautiful pieces of paper, that reminded me of some of the abstractionist from the 1960's. Things would have to completely dry between each pass, which on a sunny warm day was not a problem, but on a cool cloudy day could take many hours. And finally my hand would have to intrude and risk the final few layers of waves and clouds. The results are pieces that lack some of the intimacy of the small lake watercolors, but have an impact that emphasizes and mirrors the scale feeling of Lake Michigan.

Ralph Lauren Windows

The summer windows of the Chicago Michigan Avenue Ralph Lauren store feature some Michael McGuire watercolors. Ralph Lauren has long supported and encouraged my work over an entire range of media. This latest collaboration was coordinated by Daniel Cornell and I'm happy to be a part of the endeavor. Below are a few photos of the windows. They are somewhat inadequate and I hope to get better images once the windows are professionally shot by RL. Thank You Ralph Lauren.

Photo Collage

Funny Story. Last year I sold a drawing to Polo Ralph Lauren. In transit the drawing was damaged. The box I built to send the drawing was crushed on its way to New York. I of course, offered to take the drawing back and exchange it for something similar, I was responsible for the inadaquate packing after all. Polo was kind enough to ship the damaged drawing back to me and in the return box, for protection I guess, there was a large section of a black and white photograph wrapped around my drawing. It was something that most likely had been used for in-store display and was damaged or for some other reason had been rejected. It was a large and the paper was of good quality. I won't mention what was depicted in the image, better to keep you guessing. It's creator and its history are not know to me. I destroyed the damaged drawing but held on to the photo thinking someday I might make of use of it, (and because I'm a packrat). Two weeks ago I had the impulse to cut the photo into two inch squares and then reassemble those pieces. It is a process I have been using in my India Ink drawings for a couple years, but had never employed using a photograph. I had some fun pieceing it together. Tried not to think about it too much. Let the pieces dictate their assembly, and employed a little problem solving for the last 15 minutes. The result; very Motherwell-like, and yet photo-based with hints of the animal world. I cannot make a decision about its orientation, I've turned it every which way. Settled on this direction but still unsure. I'd be happy to hear opinions about it, and if you have a guess as to what was depicted in the original photo....

Polo Ralph Lauren

Polo Ralph Lauren has been very supportive of my work over the last few years. They have purchased numerous drawings as they open new stores across the globe. My work has gone to Polo stores in Milan, Shanghai and Dubai to mention a few.

This month they will be displaying four of my drawings in their new store at 867 Madison Avenue in New York, in the home department. Today they sent me images of the installation and they look amazing. I'm so happy and proud to be a part of this great new space. The drawings will be for sale, so if you are in New York be sure to stop by and take a look.