My father would have turned 70 today. The last time I saw him healthy was right after his 50th birthday, when I flew to Germany to spend a few weeks with he and my mother. The next time I saw him was in the Mayo Clinic, shortly after being released from Walter Reed. I was 30 years old when my father died, and as I've said on many occasions before, I had no idea how young that truly was.

Like many who go through long periods of fatal illness with a loved one, there was a mixture of loss and release at his death. That release was not only ours, but primarily his. A fiercely independent man, an intellectual, and a voracious reader, his blindness and paralysis became an inescapable cage of self.

He never met his granddaughters, yet I often catch glimpses of him in them. Little flashes; a look, a smile, some random expression or even wording of a sentence. What a wonder it is that so much can be encoded biologically.

My father taught me to think, and to think for myself. Often, those lessons were unpleasant, painful or frustrating. A Latino man who raised himself from abject poverty to then become an officer and a doctor, he had little tolerance for me performing at anything less than my best. But he peppered the intense tutelage with remarkable tenderness, and his love for and devotion to family and friends is something I have always tried to emulate.

It's hard sometimes being with friends 10 or even 20 years my senior who have both parents alive and well. I'm happy for them, but resentful at times that I must face manhood and fatherhood on my own. I wish I had the opportunity for long, late-night conversations with him over a good bottle of rum. We disagreed on so much while he was alive, but as I travel through middle age I think he would get no small delight in watching my perspectives shift.

The joke I tell at parties is that I was raised by a soldier to be a politician, so naturally I became an artist. Now that more than a decade has passed since his death, I do feel he would have been proud of my life, and the conviction with which I pursue my destiny.

I also recognize how growing up in the military gave me both a fascination of, and a respect for ritual and ceremony. If you have never been to a military funeral, there is a moment when the captain of the guard hands the widow (or surviving family member) the triangular-folded flag that was draped over the coffin only moments before. They then stand at attention and raise a slow salute. It was truly the single moment at which I thought I might lose it.

I miss you Dad.

My studio time is spent mostly looking. Over the years, I've discovered that there is no amount of time too short for going to the studio, -that lack of time is never an excuse not to go. I've had tremendous revelations in "drop-in" moments, when I only had a few moments to see what was going on. I've always painted quickly, so the physical smearing and brushing and staining of paint onto surface doesn't take me that long. Sometimes it has taken me far longer to build and prepare a canvas than to complete the painting itself.

Starkweather (pictured above) is breaking a lot of rules. I pulled out an abandoned canvas from last year and I've been steadily working on it for a couple of months now. Mostly I'm trying not to judge, because there are the voices within that scream "too simple!", "too tame!" or all the other criticisms that I alone level against myself in the solitude of the studio.

I'm building 3 medium-sized canvases and purchasing 3 more pre-built ones which are slightly smaller. There's something going on that I have to explore, but part of me misses the vivacity and frenetic energy of the F&S paintings. Like my personality, perhaps my work will always oscillate between these two expressions...or perhaps I am simply too close to my own work to see the underlying unity.

(for those of you who are at this point wondering...yeah, I never could stay silent long. I'm back)

the bar at The Napoleon House, French Quarter, New Orelans

Spent the last half of last week in New Orleans with old friends and new ones. Studio tour, show at Tipitina's watching my good friend George kill it on the drums. Great food, good conversation, good art. I love that town, and though I had not been there post-Storm, it remains a timeless city to me.

Back in it, the summer studio hours kick in this week and with a few coins in my pocket, I'm going to order some pre-made canvases and a new pair of pliers.

Subscribed to Chelsea art maps and hope to get up in the city during the hot nights of summer. My intel from the LA show Friday night is limited, but it seemed like a success in the fact that it raised a lot of money for the artist and hopefully sent him good vibes. Weird to have work up on the walls and never get to see it. No word as to whether the piece sold.

Feeling very tri-coastal right now. Holding my breath to see what happens with the oil spill and how it all plays out for Louisiana in general and the Big Easy in particular.

from Red, by John Logan

Setting:

The hardwood floor is splattered and stained with hues of dark red paint.
There is a cluttered counter or tables filled with buckets of paint, tins of turpentine, tubes of glue, crates of eggs, bottles of Scotch, packets of pigment, coffee cans filled with brushes, a portable burner or stovetop, and a phone.
There is also a phonograph with messy stacks of records.

One for LA. Details to follow.

Atlantic Approach, mixed media on paper, Rico 2009

Thoughts on Alex Cowenburg
April 8, 2010

I was exposed to the work of Alex Cowenburg through mutual acquaintances last year. Heretofore, I have only experienced the work through reproduction. In such manner, they engage; but in seeing better facsimiles recently, -which show the surfaces at greater accuracy- I must conclude that in person they envelope. His pictures, -for me, strike an almost spiritual balance between being clearly labored and yet appearing effortless and ephemeral. Rare that work (in reproduction, no less!) can convey such transmutation and achieve such truth.

This blog is now my studio blog. There will be updates from time, quotes and free prose, and works in progress, but mostly studio shots. Something I'll be adding this summer is video, so check back for that.

Thanks to all who read Machinations of a Distracted Mind for the past 3 years. Thanks for your comments and questions and kudos. Perhaps I find myself less inclined toward machinations or in some sense feel a little less distracted, but it was time to end MDM and forge ahead with the next chapter personally and artistically. My new state of mind is echoed in this blog's title, and as spring comes I am going inside the studio and locking the door behind me.

Keep track of the Nebraska Project, as it is still very much ongoing.

To my friends and readers in LA, look for news soon.

"There are relations between department store and museum, and here the bazaar provides a link. The amassing of artworks in the museum brings them into communication with commodities, which -where they offer themselves en masse to the passerby - awake in him the notion that some part of this should fall to him as well."

-Walter Benjamin (et al), "The Arcades Project"

"Believe that with your feelings and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly you cultivate this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it."

-Rilke