What's New by Jim Corkrum September 25, 2006 The remaining shows in Leavenworth will all now run Friday through Sunday. There will be no shows for the rest of the year on Thursday. August 15, 2006 I will not be at the Lake Chelan Art Festival this coming weekend as had been orginally scheduled. Instead I will be doing the Silverton Art Festival in Silverton, OR. This is a wonderful small town located about 12 miles east of Salem and near the Silver Falls State Park. I have photographed in that park on several occassions and, of course, have been through Silverton. I have been wanting to do this show for some time and am grateful that the opportunity arose for me to be there. August 7, 2006 A very big thank you to all the folks who I met in Richland and Coeur d'Alene, especially those who helped make these two shows and overwhelming success for me. After a slow start to the year, I have had three big successful shows in a row. I look forward to coming back to all three next year. I will not be in Leavenworth this coming Thursday, but I will be there Fri-Sun. On Thursday, I will be helping my daughter Aimee and her husband Brian to pack up their truck for the big move to Pocatello, ID. Aimee will be running the choral department in one of the high schools there. It is a wonderful opportunity for her, but we will miss her and Brian being here in Ephrata. July 12, 2006 I will not be in Leavenworth on July 20-23 as was previously listed on my show schedule. After my 10 day Oregon trip and my upcoming trip to Gig Harbor this weekend, I need some extra time to prepare for my two very big shows of the year in Richland and Couer d'Alene. Also, I have added the complete August schedule to the list of shows, including the Riverwalk Fine Arts Festival in Chelan. June 1, 2006 I will not be in Leavenworth this coming weekend, as was previously scheduled. I am busy moving into my mew studio and gallery this weekend at 256 Basin St. NW in Ephrata. I will, however, put up a tent in front of my studio and have paintings and photographs on display. I hope you will stop by and say hello. May 23, 2006 BIG NEWS!! I have finalized the deal to open a new studio and gallery here in Ephrata. I will be opening it up around the first week of June at 256 Basin St NW. It will be my home for my photography studio for weddings and portraits, my workshop, and as a gallery for showing my art works. The photo studio will be called, J.R. Corkrum Photography and the gallery will be known as the "Oxford House Gallery." Plans are also in the works to show the works of other artists and photographers as well as my own. It is an exciting time!! May 11, 2006 Am back after a wonderfull four full days in Yosemite. What a great time...and I shot over 600 photos, mostly with my Nikon. There are some pretty good ones so I will try to get them posted on the website when I can. Today, I am off to Leavenworth for my first show of the year. April 30, 20006 Am off in a couple of days to Yosemite. Susan and I will be staying in a cabin inside the park near Wawona and will meet up with my brother and three other friends from the Bay Area. Am looking forward to seeing the park again for the first time in over 30 years. I used to spend every summer vacation there as a kid, first in the valley, then in the high country. I am excited about using my Nikon camera there. It is springtime there and the waterfalls are full to the brim. The weather is looking good right now for that area. As soon as I get back, the art season will kick into gear with my first show of the season in Leavenworth, WA. April 15, 2006 I have two new wonderful tools that I have added to my repetoire...first, I recently purchased a new Epson r1800 printer. It uses the Ultrachrome Ink which is a long-life ink and produced magnificent color prints. I bought it primarily for my wedding business, but will also use it for my smaller art prints. It will do sizes up to 13x19. For larger prints, I still use my Epson 7600. My second major purchase was a Nikon D200 camera. This is a professional DSLR camera that sells for $2,000, but is worth every penny. It is quite something. I will use it for weddings and portraiture work, and also in the field. Although it will become my primary camera, I will still use my Olympus e-300 camera as it has some neat features that the Nikon does not have. It is wonderful to have such excellent cameras. March 14, 2006 I apologize for not doing a better job of keeping up this "What's New" webpage. Just to many things going on so its been difficult to do. One new thing that has been happening is that I now do wedding photography. I used to do it when I lived in California and always enjoyed it. I got out of it when I moved up to Washington in 1992, but now I am doing it again...and am loving it. So, if you know someone who is going to be married, please mention my name. I also have a special wedding web site at weddings.corkrum.com. October 20, 2005 The art show season is now over. I am finally back home again with no shows scheduled for the next six months. I look forward to a little down time and creating some new art works. All-in-all, 2005 was a financial sucess have already surpassed my 2004 sales by a large amount. I have also made a big change in my artistic life by moving from film cameras to digital. I am now the proud owner of a Olympus E-300 Single Lens Reflex, 8 megapixel camera. I am blown away by what it can do and will display some of new photographs on the web very soon. August 18, 2005 Several of my works are now on display at the internationally-known John Clement Gallery in Kennewick, WA. I am honored to have been asked by John to show my art work in his gallery. There are both limited edition canvas prints on display as well as paper prints of all sizes. If you are in the Tri Cities area, I hope you will stop by and see them. The gallery is located in the Columbia Center, right next to Penneys. July 31, 2005 Sorry that it has been so long since writing an update. But, the demands of travel to art shows around the Northwest make it nearly impossible to keep up any sort of writing schedule. I had a fabulous month of July, in terms of sales. All 3 shows in Oregon were wildly sucessful and the Richland Allied Arts show was my most sucessful art show ever! I wish they were all this good. June 17, 2005 I will not be in Leavenworth this weekend as scheduled. I have too much personal business to attend to before the busy part of my schedule begins. June 16, 2005 I am back from California and getting ready to start the busy part of my summer schedule. I did OK in CA, but not as well as expected. Novato was a good show, but Walnut Creek was not. While there were thousands of people attending in Walnut Creek, they were not buying art, either from me or other artists. Every artist I spoke with did not do very well there. Craft merchants with inexpensive items did OK. While the Walnut Creek show was held in a park, the Novato show took place on the city streets, which may have helped. I did well there and even though the Novato show brought in less people, as compared to Walnut Creek, business and interest in my work was much better and I sold several pieces. I will not do the Walnut Creek show again, but I will strongly consider Novato, if I can find another show down there either before or after Novato. I need to do two shows to make the trip worthwhile. May 24, 2005 It looks like this coming Memorial Day weekend will be warm and wonderful as I get ready to head for Leavenworth's Art-in-the-Park show for this four day weekend. After that, I head to California to do two shows in Walnut Creek and Novata, both in the San Francsico Bay Area. This is the start of what appears to be a very busy schedule for me. As I wrote earlier, I have spent the last several days in my basement studio printing, matting, and framing to get ready for all this. I am now more-than-ready to get back into the light. May 20, 2005 I went to the reception at the Ellensburg National Art Show yesterday to attend the autograph party for the new book, "Northwest Artists." About 30 of the artists who are featured in the book, inlcuding myself, were there to autograph books. I have nine of these first edition books available that contain autographs and they are for sale. The book itself is absolutely beautiful and full of fabulous art. I will have the books available for sale at my upcoming shows. The books retails in stores for $29.95. First edition autographed copies go for $39.95, while the nine autographed copies I have with about 30 autographs go for $69.95. May 18, 2005 I had to pull out of this week's show in Leavenworth as I was sick for two days and I need the extra time to "stock up" for my two upcoming shows in Caifornia. As I won't have access to my printers in California, I need to make sure I have plenty of stock available when I head south. I will be back in Leavenworth over the Memorial Day weekend. May 11, 2005 Was notified today that I have been accepted to show at the "Art and the Vineyard" show in Eugene, OR over the 4th of July Weekend. The show runs from Friday, July 1 through Monday, July 4, culminating with a large fireworks display. July is going to be a killer month for me as the four shows I have scheduled are all very large shows. I am working to build up my inventory, even as I write these words. For a complete list of my shows, go to my "Shows" web page. May 9, 2005 Have been accepted for two more shows: The Shoreline Arts Festival on June 25-26 in Shoreline, WA and Canterbury Arts Festival on August 20-21 in Kent, WA. I am happy to be going back to Shoreline this year. I had a very sucessful show there in 2004 and it was one of the most fun shows I did all year. They really went all out in celebrating the Arts from participatory art for the kids to incredible live music. I hope they bring back some of the same musical groups as last year they were really good (it beats listening to polka music all day in Leavenworth). The city of Shoreline should be commended for such a fine show. As for the Canterbury Arts Festival, this will be my first experience and am looking forward to it. May 8, 2005 Am back from this weekend's show in Leavenworth. A decent show, but not as good as expected for Apple Blossom Festival. Most of the artists there were way down from last year. But we were hampered by high winds on Friday and a lot of rain on Sunday. My back wall blew over around 9:00 PM Friday night, but thanks to a couple of artist friends, no damage was done to any of my art. It rained quite a bit when we were taking down our displays on Sunday evening. I don't think I suffered any damage to art works as they are all wrapped in plastic, but will check it out today. The bad part is I must unload my tent and side panels and set them up to let them dry out before mildew sets in. Ahhh....the life of an artist. May 4, 2005 I received official notification that I was accepted again this year for the Richland Allied Arts Sidewalk Sale at the end of July. This was one of my most sucessful shows of the year in 2004 and I am glad to be going back. I will have a lot more variety and larger canvas works than I had last year, so it should be even more successful. This year is shaping up to be a busy and sucessful year for me. May 2, 2005 Am back home from my first show of the year, this one in Leavenworth, WA. It was good to be back in the sun showing my art, and to see my artist friends. We had a good time catching up as there was plenty of time to do that. There weren't very many people around, but I didn't expect there would be. Its a bit early in the season. I used the time as a good practice run to see how I wanted to set up my tent for the year. Next week, back to Leavenworth again...this time it should be busier as it is Apple Blossom Festival. April 19, 2005 I've just added a new painting to the gallery. It is titled, "The Lost Road - Part 2." I like this one a great deal as I used a new painting technique I have not tried before. It gives the autumn red and orange leaves on the bushes the appearance of being on fire. I hope you like it. April 15, 2005 I have been accepted for the Sandy Mountain Festival which runs on the weekend of July 9-10 in Sandy, Oregon. Sandy is just east of Portland and this festival brings in 50-60,000 people. The artists are located in a beautiful wooded park setting. I am delighted to have been accepted and look forward to participating in the excellent show. April 14, 2005 It's now two weeks until the opening of the art show season. I am looking forward anxiously to getting back out there to "show my stuff", so to speak. I have some new works that I think are good and I am anxious to show them in public. I hope you will find time to visit me sometime at one of my shows. April 5, 2005 I was notified today that I have been accepted to show my work at the Salem Art Festival in July. This is considered the premier art show in the Pacific Northwest and I am proud to have been accepted. With the four other large California shows I will be doing, I feel that this year's art festival circuit is a success, even though it hasn't really started yet. You can check out my shows for this year on my "Shows" web page, although I am only showing those shows that I have received official notification. There are shows that I know I will be doing, but I never post them until notification is received. Superstition, I guess. March 23, 2005 This website has been down for five days because of technical problems. However, it is now up and running just fine one again. I have move the physical location for the server from my studio to a server provided by Network Solutions. It is running better than ever, although it will require me to do things a little different on my end. I sorry if our problems caused you any difficulty. March 7, 2005 There are some new web pages containing new works recently completed in 2005. There are also a couple of pages for older works that I never got around to putting on this site. Here is a list of the new pages: Opus One Along the East Road Steps of Saluzzo Saluzzo - The Old Brick House Grand Canal Promenade Leavenworth Autumn March 5, 2005 Sorry that I have not kept this page as up-to-date as I should. I have posted the most current update of the 2005 Show Schedule on this web site. There are many more dates to fill in, but these are the one that are definitely on the schedule right now. As always, we must wait for the jury approvals for several shows which have not arrived yet. February 24, 2005 I have just posted a new work on the website. Entitled "River Walk," it was done up in the Tumwater Canyon a few miles from Leavenworth during the late fall season. February 22, 2005 Have just returned from my first show of the year in Corvallis, OR. It was not a good show for most vendors as the largest employer in the area announced layoffs of up to 30% of its workforce. That kept customers to a minimum. January 8, 2005 I have posted one of my new works on the website. It is called "Tower" and is a digital painting of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It was done using an Impressionist style. I hope you enjoy it. January 4, 2005 It was reported to me by one of the galleries that displays my work that a canvas print of "My Uncle's Barn" was stolen. I don't know whether to feel ripped off or pleased that someone thought enought of my work that they had to rip it off. December 19, 2004 My one man show at Nature's Reflection has been extended through the Christmas holidays. It seems a lot of folks like my work. December 10. 2004 Tonight, my one man show at "Nature's Reflection" in Ephrata will open in style with an artist's reception from 6-9 PM. I hope everyone in the area can come. Food and wine will flow. Some new works that I am very proud of will be on display for the very first time. December 8, 2004 There is another new painting now on the web site. It is titled, "Paula's Garden." It is a departure from my usual style as it is done using Impressionist techniques. I worked on this one for over a month trying to get the right "Impressionist Feel." I hope you like it. Click on the above title to go to the web page. December 6, 2004 I have added a new painting to the web site. It is called, Lost Road Part 1. This subtle title hints that there will be at least a part 2 sometime. And their will be. Click on the title to see the picture. I have created a second web log called, An Artist's View of Art. You can subscribe to either or both of these blogs and you will receive an e-mail of each new entry every time I write one. You can sign up directly by putting your e-mail address in the signup box on the front page of this website, or just send me an e-mail at: jcorkrum@corkrum.com. November 24, 2004 Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. Our Thanksgiving will be celebrated with our family, just as it should be. Of course, our son Eric won't be here as he is in Kuwait. But, he will be coming home in a couple of weeks on leave and will come home for good sometime in February. May God bless and protect all our troops who are away from home this time of year. I ventured into the world of Web Logs this week with my first blog. If you want to visit it, go to jcorkrum.blogspot.com. I will also be posting them on my web site after Thanksgiving. Comments are always welcome. November 13, 2004 Today I will be delivering several of my pieces to the MAC Gallery in Moses Lake for their annual Holiday Show. The show opens next Friday and runs through December 31. There will be several artisans showing their work, so if you are looking for something special to give at Christmas time, be sure and stop by the MAC. Next Friday night, there is a grand opening reception for the show from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM where you can meet some of the artists, including myself and get first crack at the artworks for sale. Some of my large canvas works will be on display. The new web server seems to be working very well. Loading speeds are much faster and it has yet to crash. Also, the e-mail server really flies when I download my mail, and, as an extra bonus, the new server picks off viruses when they are received off the net. As a result, no one using my mail server ever gets virus-infected e-mail. November 7, 2004 I moved my web site and e-mail software this weekend to a new computer that is faster, has more memory, and a newer operating system that should make crashes and down times a thing of the past. I also upgrade the web site software and installed a new mail server program. So far, everything is operating just fine. If you experience any problems with either, please let me know. I will be running some diagnostic software on Sunday night which might cause some slower speeds, but that should all be finished by late Sunday evening. One of the best things about being connected to a fiber optic network is that I can host my web site right here in my studio. So when I create a new page or update a page, it is on-line as soon as I hit the "Save" button. November 2, 2004 I am back from my two week stay in California. Had a great time and managed to get some work done. Spent two good days in San Francisco shooting that amazing city in absolutely perfect weather. The City is as wonderful as I remember and I shot several roles of film there. Look for some new works featuring San Francisco in the near future. I also spent some time in Napa Valley and got some pretty good photos. Napa has changed a great deal since I left California and I didn't enjoy it very much. I was scheduled to start one month of jury duty yesterday, but the county had no cases going and my month long jury service is now complete. Go figure. Now after a few days of cleanup and reorganization, I can begin working on some new works. Happy birthday to me!! October 11, 2004 Am back home after the last show of the season in Leavenworth. I finished out the year with my best sales weekend in the last couple of months and am looking forward to so well deserved rest...at least for a couple of days. I have to clean out the van and do some general all around cleaning and organizing. Then, early next week, I am headed for two weeks in California. I will celebrate my brother's retirement from 30 years of government service and also do some shooting in San Francisco. I love that city (I was raised there in the the 40's and 50's) and want to do some artisitic interpretations of the "City by the Bay." Last week I spent a day in the Cascades photographing the fall colors. Up in the Tumwater Canyon and near Lake Wenatchee, I found some incredible fall colors on abandoned roads and up some little known creeks. I will have some of them on the net as soon as they come back from the processor. I hope to go back up there in the next couple of days before heading to California. September 29, 2004 Am heading out this afternoon for Leavenworth and the last two shows for this year. I am glad the show season is coming to an end as I am a bit worn out both physically and mentally. I am looking forward to a bit of a rest and sitting down to create some new works. I also hope to do some photography in some previously unexplored areas (for me, anyway) to get some new autumn shots. I am currently in negotiations with a prestigious art gallery who approached me to show some of my works. I will have more on that as negotiations are finalized. I also hope to have more info on a forthcoming coffee table book about Northwest artists in which I will be featured. Not bad for a beginner. September 15, 2004 I only had time to do Leavenworth last week on Saturday and Sunday. I am leaving this afternoon for Leavenworth and will do all four days there this week. I delivered 5 large canvas prints to Campbell's Resort Hotel last Friday and they are now on display on their second floor art gallery. If you are in Chelan, I hope you will stop by and take a peek. September 8, 2004 Am finally back from my long weekend in Vancouver, WA. It was a mediocre show for me and the other artists at the "Taste of Vancouver" Labor Day extravaganza. The promoter made a lot of changes from previous years, none of which were helpful to the displaying artists. Artists who did well in the past did not do well this year. It is doubtful that any of this year's participating artists will return next year. Oh well, just part of my rookie year learning experience. I did manage to sell my first 24x30 canvas print, which was good since this was the first week I had one on display. I mentioned last week that I had been approached by a major resort hotel to display some of my works. Well, the deal has been finalized and beginning this weekend, several of my works will be on display at Campbell's Resort Hotel in Chelan, WA. All will be limited edition canvas prints ranging in size from 16x20 to 24x30 and will be shown on the upstairs lobby. I am honored to have been selected. August 31, 2004 Had a good weekend in Leavenworth and the weather was just perfect. Sunday was surprisingly slow, but Friday and Saturday were good. I was surprised we didn't get more traffic with the weather being so great. I have made a change on my show schedule. I will not be doing the Ocean Shores Festival as originally planned. Instead, I will be at Leavenworth, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, September 10-12. It's hard to believe but there are only 6 shows left for this year, including this weekend in Vancouver. August 25, 2004 Spent most of the day today learning about my new printer, installing updates, and changing some of my works a little bit because of the slight differences in the new printer vs the old. But, by the end of the day, I was printing some really crisp and colorful large prints. I will have some of the new larger prints in both paper and canvas on display this weekend in Leavenworth. I was also approached today by a famous resort hotel to display some of my works in their lobby. I will have more on that as the deal is firmed up. August 24, 2004 Had a bit of an e-mail problem over the weekend, so if you sent me an e-mail sometime between Friday and Monday morning, I did not get it. It took about 1/2 of a day to get my new Epson 7600 set up, but it works just fine. I printed my first print on inexpensive paper at a 20x25 size and it came out just great. Will do more printing today using better paper and maybe even try a canvas print or two. August 23, 2004 Had a successful show in Lake Chelan this last weekend, but am very happy to be home again. Met a lot of new people who hadn't seen my work before. The new triptychs sold very well. Today, I will fire up my new Epson 7600 printer for the first time. I will be at Leavenworth this weekend, but I am not going to set up until Friday. August 19,2004 Tomorrow at the Chelan Art Festival, I will introduce another new product...the triptych. If you are unfamiliar with that term, it simply means that three pictures are displayed in one place. In this case, I will include three of my most popular pictures grouped together in a double cut mat (creme color w/black bottom mat) with three openings. The prints are 5x7 each and the mat is 8x20. I grouped the prints together in a logical fashion and included only my best selling works. The price for a triptych is $47.95. They will be available at all my future shows. August 18, 2004 My new Epson 7600 printer arrived today in a monster-sized box around 5' tall and weighing in at around 100 pounds. With the help of a friend, we got it down the stairs into my studio and out of the box. Later I discovered that it did not come with a Matte Black ink cartridge which is what I will use rather than the Photo Black ink cartridge that came with it. So, it will be a few more days before I can get it set up. The web site was down for an hour midday for maintenance (and moving things around to accommodate the new printer). I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. August 16, 2004 Am back home again after four days in Leavenworth. Although I did well, sales-wise, the crowds were sparse this week because of the 100+ degree weather and the large forest fires burning just north and east of town. The sky was filled with huge plumes of smoke as new areas caught on fire. Some of them resembled an atomic bomb explosions with huge mushroom clouds. We were bombarded with ash from the fire on Saturday evening. As of today, the fire is still out of control. I head to the Lake Chelan Art Festival this week which gives me one extra day at home. I am taking advantage of the time to update this web site with some new works and some that I have not put on line before. Here is a list of the new pages: Tulips in Black Sand Two Boat Canal Fearful Tower The Roman Forum August 13, 2004 I ordered a new Epson 7600 Printer that should arrive in a week or so. This fantastic (and expensive) printer will produce giclee prints up to 24" wide on a variety of papers and canvases. I am looking forward to producing large prints to keep up with the demands for my art works. August 12, 2004 Have just introduced a 10 pack of my most popular note cards. Each pack contains 10 cards and envelopes produced from one of my prints. The price is $19.95 per box when purchased directly from me at one of my shows. If you purchase via the web site or from one of my dealers, the price is $22.95. The additional $3.00 is to cover postage or dealer selling commissions. If you purchased the cards individually, the price would be $29.50, so no matter where you buy the cards you save a lot of money. July 25, 2004 Just finished the Richland Art Festival and was extremely pleased with my reception by the customers. I sold 48 pieces of my work in two days plus many notecards. I will look forward to this show every year, even though Susan and I worked in extreme heat for 12 hour days. June 30, 2004 I purchased a 19 foot travel trailer and towed it up to Leavenworth. Since the Leavenworth show is now four days a week, living up there is much cheaper than driving back and forth every day and a great deal less wear and tear on the van (and on me). I live out off of Icicle Road near where and road takes a sharp turn and heads up into the canyon. A very nice couple who I rent from at an extremely reasonable price, own several acres and have put in a couple of hook-ups for an RV including water, sewer and electricity. It is a beautiful location and I am happy to be there. There is even room for Susan to come up and spend weekends with me. June 26, 2004 This week I introduced my new limited edition canvas prints at the Shoreline Arts Festival. These prints are done on canvas cloth and for now come in two sizes - 8x10 and 12x16. Only a few of my works will be produced in this format and all will be limited in the numbers produced. For instance, in the 12x16 size, only 250 will ever be made. Each canvas is signed and numbered and the buyer's name is registered. In the future, there will be larger sizes created, but that requires the purchase of a new, expensive, wide format printer. The joy of canvas prints is that they normally sit in a frame without matting or glass. There is nothing between you and the painting. The first prints were extremely impressive in their quality.