call me the rising tide

studio, January 2016

Burnt umber beneath, warming, glowing.  Artifacts within the painting's layers, never fully seen, yet altering perception through presence.  I've cleared walls, moved the large paintings to a corner.  The black gets applied next week, smooth and flat.  New canvases coming.  Building, building.

Work to cities far away.  Cities near at last taking notice?  It will all come at once, except when it doesn't.  Farther out, further, without the limitations and unconcerned about the judgements any more.

Flow, groove, work.  The tide is rising.

Meditations in an emergency

We act or we are acted upon.  Neither condition is inherently superior, so long as we have awareness and, insofar as possible, choice.  Realizing we have choice is another matter completely.  Sometimes, conditions in our lives bring about discomfort, anxiety, feelings of helplessness or hopelessness.  When we become mindful, these conditions can force us to look for opportunity and motivate us to seize that opportunity.

Sometimes, we have to knock at the wrong doors long enough to realize that no behind them wants to let us in.  Focusing on the locked door in front of us limits our ability to notice that the door isn't attached to a wall, or that there's an open window right beside it.  Metaphorically, walking away from one door can often lead us to discover a new path; or rediscover the one we started on long ago.

As in painting, being still and getting ourselves to see situations for how they are takes practice and awareness.  Belief can cloud perception, and those ill-formed or limited perceptions end up limiting the lives we are capable and deserving of living.

I've recently been given a rare and precious gift; time.  Spending this time in reflection and questioning and mindfulness is leading me to a place where I have new perspective.  This is almost always the beginning of something new in the studio.  As I embark on the work that will become my solo show next year, I find that new approaches are already presenting themselves.

The New Year

The first canvases arrived last week and I started prepping them on Friday.  I've embarked on a massive (early) Spring cleaning of the studio, one that will require an industrial dumpster and lots of elbow grease.  Clearing out the space feels like clearing out the mind.  It is not easy to start, but once underway things become increasingly vivid and focused.

As the 2017 show date has yet to be announced, I have to prepare for anywhere from 12 months to 18 months from now.  The warm temperatures will come later this week and I can lay down some underpainting of burnt umber.

I've taken 5 years off from submitting work to galleries with any serious effort.  Though I've managed to exhibit, and even have some significant ones during the interim, I'm ready to get back into the fray.  I tend to follow the work, and for a time I felt I needed exile in order to listen to it.  Recent trips to NYC have helped me come to terms with this body of work and where it fits in the landscape of abstract painting and its many conversations.  The Frank Stella show was mind-blowing.

I am about 5 weeks away from my oral exams and defense, which will unofficially end my graduate school experience.  In retrospect, perhaps I should have pursued an MFA, if only to teach part-time.  Until very recently I did not feel any desire to be a teacher.  But the decisions were made, the program chosen and now I am at the end.  While it may have been poor judgement, I can't say it was truly a mistake.  Education is always a good thing.

Related to finishing up grad school and constantly looking for a day job, I took a long, hard look at my social media energies over the break and decided to close my LinkedIn account.  LinkedIn has not been useful to me.  The fact of my having both a fine art career and a career in higher education administration seems to profoundly confuse the LinkedIn audience.  I can honestly say that I've never made a meaningful job connection through the site, despite my "all start" ranking, 200+ network and diligent updates.  I chalk this up partly to our culture's perception of what being an artist is about.  But that is another post.

I start filming the documentary this week with studio footage and audio voice tracks.  I'm told by my editor that we will produce a trailer at some point later this year, so expect to see that here.  It's good to be back in the studio after a nearly 2-year hiatus.