Shades of Gray
I have been intermittently working on this painting for about a week….not crazy about this yet.
Although when I look at the post from before this seems way better. I usually don’t have an opportunity to look backwards.
=”center”a>Just Shapes
Arranging and re arranging shapes in a square could take up days and days of my time. I try and look at it and see if it can get it any more poignant or more noticeable. How can this be more perfect, more thoughtful, more memorable?–Does this feel how I want it to, even if I don’t fully understand the feeling yet? Without subject matter that relates to anything specific, these kind of paintings are deliciously open. They are, for me, the most difficult. Sometimes I play around with a jpeg of the image on the computer to see if I can problem solve the particular painting if I get stuck…..This one below is working now, although the actual painting is more dull and drab than this jpeg. This is where I want to go with it tomorrow.
/div>Three
I went off on a bit of a tangent and did these small square 24″ x 24″ paintings just using minimal color. I tried to work on them all together and imagined them all hanging in one group. I wanted to see how simple I could get them so from across the room they looked interesting and graphic but then upon closer examination the texture and the subtle markings would reveal themselves.
I write or scratch words in my pictures which are often metaphorical or mean nothing at all but they do give the “idea” of communication even though it is vague. A word is so specific and actually really powerful so I tend to use ones that are obtuse or diluted by an overlay of texture or even upside down or backwards.
/div>
Temptation
For Valentines day I bought my daughters small tins of gourmet jellybeans. Hannah left for a week on a school field trip to Quebec and accidentally left it in my studio. This is a temptation too great for any person, especially me already weakened by the prospect of facing a difficult painting. I have already gone through the mandarin orange ones…incredible and now I discovered the pina colada ones…It is only Monday and she won’t be back till next Sunday.
There will be no happy ending here. It is simply too late for that.
/div>Overturned Stones
This idea of crappy painting in the beginning always reminds me of Anne Lamott, the Bay Area writer who said “I always do a shitty first draft” I think about that a lot when beginning a painting. It’s much easier and in the end, because you don’t care, there sometimes results
some remarkable passages of paintings. Although then those become precious and then I spend all morning painting around the good parts which in time wrecks them. So I try to extend the period of time that I “don’t care” and try not to think too hard. All parts of the painting at all times are open to change or destruction. No parts should be off limits. I think about how sensitive I can be..How can this feel more raw, more alive? What the hell am I doing? Sometimes I feel like someone is going to blow a whistle and cart me off to a more typical job. One with boundrys, a coffee machine and maybe even an elevator I can take up and down to work. Total insecurity coupled with absolute certainty. This much I know to be true.
=”center”a>Mermaid
In the beginning I just lay down whatever I am thinking about…
trying not to judge whatever it is or wether it looks good or not.
This painting is at the stage that I don’t really like too much
of what is presently there. It feels simplistic, thin and overly
decorative. This is early in the painting process-there is not much
paint on this painting. Once I start covering up and re working
the painting it generally gets better. Most of this will probably
change. I find this the hardest part and it kills me to stick it
on this blog as generally it’s nice to only show the best work
as if you never make duds. Often I find the paintings of
others, when they are not working, the most interesting.
The Littlest Song
This is where I ended up. This was an interesting
painting for me. The darks had to be really strong as
they are not particularly dynamic shapes. I wanted the eye
to bounce around and then have the quieter elements softly
converse… Two conversations going simultaneously. This
composition almost feels musical to me.
I was listening to Jolie Holland singing “The littlest Birds”
which inspired the title. A fabulous song if you have never
heard it before…
Late Bloomers
A recent article, passed along by a friend, written by Malcolm Gladwell
(The Tipping Point), illuminates this idea that some artists are
fiercely direct and quick with their art. No experimentation, no
search- just an incandescent manifestation of work–Picasso. On
the other hand, there are those, the “late bloomers” (me too) that
sort of grope our way along. Never really sure, but trial and error,
and repeated mistakes eventually lead to some clarification, some results.
Gladwell asserts that Cezanne was one of these types. Never satisfied,
persistently frustrated, although steadily getting better over the course
of his life. The story goes that when Ambrose Vollard, the sponser of
Cezanne’s first one man show, at age 56, hunted down Cezanne in Aix
“He spotted a still life in a tree, where it had been flung by
Cezanne in disgust.”Gladwell emphasizes the vital importance that
the outside patrons , friends, family etc. are for the survival of these
kind of “late bloomers” I have a hunch this is true for most artists.
How many times has a friend said “I love this!” as they pull a painting
out of the garbage can, instantly redeeming it to one of your recent
favorites. The article ends “We’d like to think that mundane matters
like loyalty, steadfastness, and the willingness to keep writing
checks to support what looks like failure have nothing to do with
something as rarefied as genius. But sometimes genius is anything
but rarefied; sometimes it’s just the thing that emerges after
twenty years of working at your kitchen table”
Red White and Blue
I am staring at this painting on the bottom and I can’t figure what is bugging me about it for the longest time and then I realize it’s the colors. I hate when a painting starts going red white and blue.
I don’t know what it is about those colors–I even like our flag since we elected Obama….but anyway, I shifted the colors. When your at a very bright color it always amazes me how much you can
grey it down and it still seems so bright. Color is funny that way. The red is SO red in this painting that almost everything has to quiet down or else it’s going to be very tutti fruitti. And then again, now
I see the before and after I am not sure which is better….which would mean that I went possibly backwards all evening. Hmmm.
Surface and Time
This is a detail from a painting I just finished. Sometimes parts of paintings are better than other parts. This kind of density of surface is what I am after. Shapes and forms disappearing and emerging simultaneously. Similar to life…memories fading and new experiences arriving, never perfectly clear, always changing and often just out of reach.
