Behind The Scenes - Blurred Reality
Well, the biggest and busiest month of my artistic career (so far) is now behind me. What are my thoughts? I’m excited. Enthusiastic. Inspired. Amazed at the support that people have shown for art, and I think that is my biggest take away. My hope was that our Blurred Reality show would be an opportunity for art lovers to come and celebrate art, to experience it the way it was intended to be seen, in a beautiful space at scale, not on a computer screen or on in the palm of your hand. I want people to FEEL the 60+ hours that went into “The Bottom of the Deep Blue”, to get lost in the tumultuous waves of “Escape” and to get a sense of why I love working with these two mediums so much. It was truly amazing to see so many people show up, even some from across the country, to see mine and Ryan’s work.
A Beautiful Evening
Late in 2025 I posed the idea of hosting a show with my good friend and incredible talent Ryan Robertson. Formerly my neighbor, now a close personal friend whom I have shared many laughs and deep thoughts on art. Ryan inspires me, not just with his beautiful artwork, but his drive to push forward despite all of the many challenges that come with running an entirely separate business.
Ryan and I have worked together artistically a number of times now, most numerously on his back porch, typically in the wee hours of the morning, working on “artistic masterpieces” such as our “Up in Smoke” and “Alien and Bigfoot”. The bulk of our work together has been lighthearted - we like to laugh and especially love to pick apart each other’s work.
Ryan was immediately on board with the idea of a joint show, and we set to work to find a venue. Not long after that, our space was booked, invitations were ordered and we were setting up! It was certainly a little nerve-wracking getting an entire gallery-worthy art exhibit complete with food and beverages in a span of two hours, but thankfully we had some amazing help.
Executing a pop-up show like this was new to both of us. Ryan and I have both been a part of larger exhibits, but planning everything from scratch was certainly a challenge for us, as we are neither one typically great at planning!
As great an event as it was, we definitely see opportunities to improve for next time, which we are already brainstorming. Most importantly, we need to market our next exhibit a little more intentionally. Although we had a nice crowd, we would have loved for more people to get to see the results of our hard work.
We look forward to putting on some more displays like this in the future!
Artfully Yours,
Chad
