rough cut

studio wall, December 11th, 2012

Last night 'til the wee hours, continuing to pour and stream paint against the sweet blackness.  The forms always surprise me; references to the body, the sea, sky, and the ever-present otherness of what lives within us, always unseen.

I received good news this morning and even though I blabbed on Facebook I will keep it quiet here for now.  This isn't about that, this is about the work; the daily work.  Going home with paint under one's fingernails and exhausted and a nightcap and sitting and wondering about it all and how it all went down.  Painters paint.  So I put in the studio shifts when I'm tired and don't feel like it because tomorrow will bring its own set of obstacles.

work in progress, Rico '12

I am coming up on my 5 year anniversary in this studio.  Far and away the longest I've ever been in a studio and it's worn and weathered like a favorite tool that you instinctively reach for without considering.  You know its there and you know what it can do.  I'm fortunate to have made the rent for next year.

The good things, -the breaks, happen while you're busy doing the work and not thinking about it.  I've come to think that success surprises everyone every time it happens if they have half a soul.  The random phone call from you dealer while you're on your way through life and suddenly there's a moment of validation that you try to savor and summarily squash and move on with it.  It makes no sense; there's no figuring out what you did when or why someone liked it.  They could have just as easily ignored it, hated it or dismissed it.  It isn't you, no matter how much the ego wants you to believe it.  I've done this long enough to not confuse lucky with good, and to never dismiss being lucky.

The images in tonight's post are shorthand; rough cuts that enable me to get my first thoughts crystallized.  I'm loving where things are going.