quiet night

Worked a number of canvases tonight, and there are a few of the nine posted that I've gone back into. I'm enjoying the large one this evening. It is good to spread out and get the expansive visual. It's quiet tonight, I'm smoking a cigar and seeing the layers float and hover and collapse into each other. The night is cool, nothing like what is to come.

We've been spared the wild weather of the region thus far. I'm glad to not be in Memphis right now, and I was thinking this evening how the good from that place stays with me, but I've left behind the bad. Places are so closely tied to the moments of one's life; like music, I often associate specific feelings or periods with place. Seems funny sitting here now, a lifetime and 500 miles away.

after the party

Yesterday was consumed by birthday madness, I took the day off from both my day job as well as the studio. A good time was had, this is such a great age. We have a 2-day window between my Mother-in-Law's departure this morning and my Father-in-Law's arrival on Friday to attempt some normalcy.

On Monday, I took a pretty serious tumble while running early in the morning. I brushed it off at the time, but I am very sore and having trouble getting around even today. This middle-age stuff has its drawbacks, to be sure. I spoke with a friend and former riding buddy last night about attempting the local half-century ride in July. I haven't been on my bike in 2 years, but as I run I keep thinking there is a tri in my future. I just want to do it once. We'll see.

I hope to get back to work tonight and see what happens. My mobility issue means that I'll have to work exclusively on the painting wall.

I love my girls and of course I think they hung the moon. Experiencing life through them on days like yesterday keeps the good aspects of youth close to my spirit and I feel this makes me a better artist.

My blogger friend and fashion designer Mary Jo Matsumoto posted another segment in her series "Art -inspired", this one featured the work of Hans Hofmann. I was deeply into Hofmann just after the girls were born, and my work from that time reflects it. Interestingly, I have been thinking of him in this recent work as well.

Hopefully I'll post pics tomorrow.

take me to the river

I worked through several pictures tonight. I continue to marvel at what paint can do; how its layering and mixing and application can elicit physiological responses. I am a huge jazz fan, and perhaps I somehow understand/hear/see the musical nature of painting.

Those who have followed my work for a while know the importance of water. I felt myself heading back into those metaphors/influences tonight. Who knows what the week will bring?

The waning weekend

I hope those of you who celebrate Easter had a good one. I enjoyed good company and good food and cannot overstate how invigorating it has felt to get in here so much this weekend. I look forward to keeping the momentum going.

I believe a lot will happen in the studio this week, and I hope you'll check in and vibe with me.

Layers

I pulled up a favorite Stan Getz recording on the iPod this morning and allowed myself some perspective on the work. This resulted in the dramatic alteration of 5 paintings. What I thought this was about (my fixation with a single color), it turns out not to be at all. There's an excavation going on here, and as I build up and tear away I am finding something...mystical in the surfaces.

What I heard this morning was the layering of hots and cools. The monochrome aspect of the works in this series (if indeed that is what this is) up to this point has been an unperceived limitation on their potentials. With the new-found freedom to explore how colors play off one another, I'm finding the real dynamism within the work.

It feels good to be back. It feels good to be in here often and to do the work. A studio full of new paintings is a dangerous thing; it can lull one into a sense of completion. It gives one the illusion of work. It says, "have a beer, sit down, don't worry about it".

Two voices always try to come in here with me. They are the Critic and the Groupie. The Critic is the one telling me it's been done before, or its not what everyone else is doing, or flat out that I just suck. The Groupie is often more dangerous; the Groupie tells me it's brilliant, I'm the greatest, every painting is the best painting ever and now I can sit back and chill. The Groupie is vampiric.

I love Sunday mornings because the world is quiet, and streets are empty here on the wrong side of the tracks among these old warehouses. It's me, Stan Getz, the birds and the occasional train. When I walk in here, it smells of paint and mineral spirits and that smell immediately snaps me into work mode; it's Pavlovian.

I am going back into the big one; the one I posted a pic of last time. Everything else has to dry for 48 hours. I've still got 5 paintings in the earliest stage, and I can work on those tomorrow night. For now, I've got to clean some knives and brushes (which I use exclusively for glazing and varnishing).

My wife has the camera this morning, faithfully documenting Easter dresses. I was there for the important stuff; I hid eggs this morning at the crack of dawn, got some wonderful shots of the girls, enjoyed another in a series of fleeting moments that make up the landscape of their childhood. In here I feel channeled. I never question why things can come forth through me, though I still wonder at it. With them, I am always in awe at how two such beautiful creatures are alive in the world, and the astounding gift of their love toward me. They are currently in heaven, as their other grandmother is in town. (Thus my near-constant presence in the studio this weekend).

I hope to get this stage of the work documented, though it is unlikely today.

Fear and the Wall

This is how it is for me; I jump with both feet into my work. I churn and burn and I get fairly deep and start to feel like I am on top of the friggin world. I post pics to keep me honest. But the moment they go "live" into the electronic ether I feel the Fear.

The Fear is a big, bad-ass wall of audible furies screaming, "You Suck!" in all their awesome terror and with such authority that I am reduced from Pablo-freaking-Picasso steez to skinny new kid on the first day of school in seconds. The Wall is Fear. The Wall is a lie and I know this, but the Wall is there to keep me on task. It is not by accident that you see the wall facing you in so many of my posts, this is not just documentation.

Anyone undertaking their divine task hears the voices. They tell you you're a no-talent hack, your work is bullshit, you should be embarrassed, who the hell do you think you are? The voices want your ass on the couch watching Glee with your favorite comfort food and a warm blankie. The Fear wants you to deny the Divine purpose within. The Wall whispers you into comfort and conformity and reminds you that you have things to lose.

When I meet the Wall, I hurl paint at it, literally. I'm not a cerebral painter, I'm a savage. My work is not here to comfort you, or amuse you, or soothe you. It is here to wage war on your apathy and your deluded belief that Art and Leisure have jack shit to do with one another. They don't. My art is not ironic, or clever, or nudge-nudge-know-what-I-mean. It screams back at the Universe, "I am here, and I'm standing!" You can come along for that ride or not.

Seeing the pics today, I know I have to take it to the next level. I have to do this right now, right here, and fuck the Wall.

Nine

Wednesday report

Tonight I killed it. I am laying waste to the demons of hesitation, self-doubt, false modesty and fear. There are those sessions in the studio when you know; you see it on the wall and you know, what you have done is somehow beyond. The first ten canvases will be ready for final documentation this weekend. The second ten are in various states of play.

The goal is action. Simple. I walk in, I paint, I don't think and I see where it goes. Thinking comes later. I stick on the wall and let it wash over me. I smoke a cigar. I get up and walk around see it from every angle. I try to see it for the first time. But that's not now; now is the doing. Now, is the making.

I can't write tonight. I'm too charged, too manic. I'm kicking ass and I know it. I've swam beyond the shelf once again.

further on the night shift

Canvases 13-15, at their beginning. The pace is frenetic and I am in flow. I've been laying the think skeins of glaze and deepening the surfaces. It's a good week so far, and though I'll have to allow some drying tomorrow, I have so many paintings in play that I can work on something while I wait for others. It will be the weekend before I can properly photograph the work, but I feel there are some pieces that have evolved.

Everything feels raw and fresh and yet I feel a profound sense of calm mastery. I've never painted more confidently. As I push into the second ten canvases, I remain in the moment of each work. I keep coming in and going out; leaving and re-entering. We will see what the week has yet to bring.

The Summer Wind

on Pollock

Some brief thoughts on Jackson Pollock.

Pollock was extropic in a way; he blew painting apart in terms of composition and the relationship of medium to surface. Seeing his work many times, and thinking of it now, I see that it is the bits of raw canvas peeking through the slashes and skeins of paint that unify the pictures. Pollock's paintings attempt to establish a hegemony, where the paint, -or perhaps the hand of the paint, the impasto, asserts a focus over the ground. It denies its own structure in some ways, and to my mind this is what gives his paintings much of their power. Pollock's means of addressing this formal problem (in my opinion) was to remove the ground from the support (ie: the stretcher) altogether. But ultimately this did not prove a definitive answer; they had to be remounted to the frame, after all.

More importantly, there is a very formal play between activated space and static space in his work. I believe we can only see this recently, because we have a much different aesthetic sensibility and we can process significantly more visual information that we could in 20th century. Nevertheless, the work is vast, and I am still awed by it.

I am breaking down this visual hegemony. My paintings are entropic; I am taking Pollock's work and imploding it like an outdated Vegas hotel. There is a redistribution of visual power where one cannot immediately perceive "positive and negative" space or activated and static space; distinctions, -the fundamental means of human perception, are subsumed by the whole. The structure is not denied, it is re-purposed.

the week

This week has been shot to hell due to the fact that my wife is in tech rehearsal for her show, which opens tomorrow. She had to cut two students at the last minute due to their complete and utter lack of responsibility and commitment, so she has created a solo and re-tooled two other pieces in the last 2 days. It's been me and the girls, -which I always love, but which means I'm locked-in after bedtime in the evenings, and have to come straight home from work. No spare time to run, or to paint. I suppose there are parents who would leave their five-year-olds asleep and alone in the house, but I like to think these people are prosecuted.

Thanks to everyone for the tremendous feedback about the current work. I don't crave it and hopefully I don't court it, but I'm human and it feels nice for my work to be appreciated. South Carolina has not been a welcoming place for my paintings, and it's been a long decade. But I'm also aware of the freedom I am enjoying, and the ability to do whatever I want creatively. No matter what happens, no matter where we may be next year, I hope I never lose that perspective. I hope I can always paint as if no one is watching, and make the work that needs to be made and not the work I feel pressured to make.

As I hoped, the current studio routine/project is producing something interesting. I'm still invested in the journey. I have more medium arriving this week and I'll be ready to take back the night starting next week.

overcast day

I got lucky with a foggy, overcast morning and took these paintings outside to shoot. I have a wall in the courtyard set up to quickly hang work. It is indirect light and is probably the best means I have for shooting accurately. If you're keeping score, the final image in this post is one of the first 3 canvases I worked on. I'm re-working all of those first 3.

The direction of the work is indeed unforeseen. I don't claim that it is altogether different from previous work, -I suppose you can still tell it is mine, after all. But there are some interesting things at work for me here. I don't want to go into it, I hate when art is over explained. I feel challenged, and excited and motivated right now, so I'm going with it.

I finally got back on my running schedule, which has helped all parts of my life back into balance. With my daughters about to turn 5, one wonders how I am able to do all I do and maintain a regular studio discipline, but without it I feel everything else would fall apart. My wife if heading into tech week for her final production of the semester, so the nights are mine as of a week from now. That means I kick into summer mode and with the ability to blog live from the studio and instantly upload pics, I hope you will see a great deal of work produced in the coming months. As always, I'll show the process.

The paintings in this post are in various states. But I really feel a cohesion to this fledgling body of work. I look forward to seeing it grow, and seeing how that changes the feeling of it. Remember that you can enlarge any image by clicking on it. All canvases are 24" square.

sunday 4.3.11