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.