DETAIL: parade 44 32x78" as it looked at 2pm on june 19th
parade 44 32x78" as it looked this afternoon about 2
2:41 PM update: today we walked at 6:15, following our new mosquito-avoiding schedule and i arrived in the studio at 9:30 and got right to work. so i got a lot done before 2, when i began feeling tired and unable to work further. the main players in this moment in time at DAM (denver art museum) have been introduced. the composition is weighted to the right, and i don't know yet how i'll deal with the left, but i think it will be sketchy....i'll see tomorrow.
in a call to athens, our grandson philip sang us a song in english (his mother tongue is greek) which totally made my day. i was painting as we spoke with his mom. that usually works really well, because, while i can be completely present for the call, simultaneously it takes my calculating mind out of the painting and allows more gut-level solutions to emerge.
PICASSO ON "SIGNS":
in an interview of 1945, picasso identified artistic creation with making the "sign" of a thing. Nature is a thing, a condition, he argued; art is a thing parallel to nature, but different: a sign.
richard shiff in the picasso black and white catalogue
shiff goes on to say that, for example, poussin established the sign of "nature" for the 17th c. and beyond, but not for all time. signs, he explains adjust to cultural change; their histories have limits. this, said my old friend henry geldzaher in his tiny 1990 book looking at pictures, makes some artists furious, because they would like to be a termagant, an angry interpreter for all eternity.
termagant: (i had to look it up too)
In medieval Europe, Termagant was the name given to a god which Christians wrongly believed Muslims worshipped, represented in the mystery plays as a violent overbearing personage.[1]
The word is also used in modern English to mean a violent, overbearing, turbulent, brawling, quarrelsome woman; a virago, shrew, vixen.[1] In the past the word could be applied to any person or thing personified, not just a woman.