hunting and gathering

self portrait, mixed media on paper, 24" x 18", Rico 2005

Fall is coming. The time for endings and for change. I've had a cache of paintings in a local event space for a couple of years, and I intend to retrieve them at the end of next month. These were an interesting period; bright, bold palettes, geometric forms colliding and ebbing into one another, suspended space and play with value. Very much inspired by Hans Hoffman, most of them were done that first year I was in the studio, in the Spring, - and they have a jubilant quality to them that nothing since has ever resembled. Thinking about them now brings forth a lot emotion. I don't know what fate awaits them. I do know a massive purging is coming.

I am in an intense period of inner conflict about whether or not to move out of the studio at the end of the year, and so I'm preparing for it just in case. Fiscally, it is a no-brainer. No cash flow means no storefront (or working space in this case). But this feels inseparable from my life. I can't find the boundaries where I end and this begins, and a fundamental part of that is a room of my own.

I'm off to pick up my father-in-law this evening, after taking a detour to the cigar bar. It's not exactly the gentlemen's club (and I mean this in the antiquated, English sense of the term, sans women) I wish it were, but it is my only option and so I go. True civility, like good conversation, is a rare thing indeed. It's doubtful I'll encounter either, but one can always hope.

In 2 weeks, I'm bound for Minneapolis for the day job. I'm excited about visiting the Walker Arts Center and seeing my childhood friend, Remi. It will be nice to get out of the South for a few days and hopefully the break will clear my head a bit. Not the trip to NY I was hoping for, but perhaps it is the trip I need.

What does the self-portrait at the top of this post have to do with anything? Nada. I found it at lunch today and, I don't know, there's something about it that I just liked. Sort of Alice Neal meets Egon Schiele. I haven't done one in a while and maybe I should. Anyway, take it or leave it, there it is.