ill fares the land, oil on canvas, 40" x 30", Rico 2010

I was riding back from a fellow painter's Brooklyn studio one night last fall, heading back into the city. The conversation turned toward Diebenkorn; the quiet but pervasive influence, the subtle yet powerful force of it, -Ocean park of course (though I prefer Albuquerque). The name keeps coming up, in other conversations, other mentions, always on the tip of everyone's tongue.

I got turned on to the work of Stuart Shils over the weekend, so that adds another layer...3 instances a trend sort-of-thing.

I can't deny the assertion of landscape which is coming into my work. Traveling without moving, or so it seems to me.

So there's another half dozen canvases being shipped to the studio for August. I'll get back from Mississippi (goddamn, Nina) and I'll keep going. My wife asked if I was getting ready for a show...I hadn't thought about it. Haven't been looking (or asking) as of late, so I think it is far from my mind. I'm glad I canceled the Charleston show earlier this year, though I wonder if have a place there at some point. Hard to know. (Wondering if I'll ever have a place anywhere some days).

I'm anxious to get up to see Matisse. We've got a big family wedding in September that was a sledgehammer hit to our finances. What are you going to do? I'll make it.

Found myself relaxed yesterday afternoon; good friends, great food, beer and an impromptu thunderstorm...(love those dixie storms). Watched the new Criterion edition of Mystery Train last night and got sentimental for Memphis, -which is just a false emotion on so many levels. Started my morning with Hood Internet's remix of Ice Cube's today was a good day. So it was, so it was.