these are the invitations to my november 5th opening and november 11th gallery talk at gremillion & co. fine art, houston.
TODAY /
5:42: well, i was right. i got a big download on our walk. the "talk" will be more of an interactive experience with the attendees. so they'll be engaged, asked to do stuff, share stuff, etc. i'm still getting lots of ideas. ijust need to make sure all he photos i may need to project are put on a travel HD i have with me. also, i'm going to create 2 short YouTube video clips, one in greek and the other in english. the greek version will be for the attendees invited by the houston orthodox church of the ascension, which is inviting it's members. more later, gotta wash the dishes before the republican debate, taking place in boulder, starts.
today i'm busy with pre-exhibition stuff. i'm starting to construct my gallery talk, which will take place the evening of nov. 11th in the main gallery, where my work will be hanging. we'll take another walk up the creek this afternoon, when most of what i'll present will likely come to me in that dream space.
a few days ago, my beloved uncle mort sent me a drawing he made of me at 2 months, today, i posted it at the very top of my story page, which is like a mini autobiography. if you have time, visit the page; i just reviewed it, and it ain't too bad! click on the LINK, below:
more accurate shot of grey 3 / starting grey 4. /
1:38 pm: ready to clean up & go walking. this one is already extremely evocative, suggesting plant and animal forms, dragons and elves. as you may be able to detect, i'm in an ecstatic place, and have zero regrets at having begun the process of re-working this 2014 collage. many artists including matisse have gone back again and again to paintings they were just not satisfied with. a decade ago, i wouldn't have understood that.
this is one of those paintings that has such subtle modulations of tone & color that it really needs to be seen in person.
12:49 pm: stage 1 in the process of transforming grey 4 from it's original 2014 state to something new and unknown. the canvas is 48x48" on the LEFT, the original 2014 state before starting work today. in the MIDDLE, scraping and lifting pieces of collaged paper which have lifted up and formed air bubbles from my application of fresh acrylic paint and the water accompanying that. on on the RIGHT, the current state of the painting.
i'm going to continue work for another 45 minutes or so, when mikela and i will take another ling hike up north crestone creek on this magnificent day.
11:40 am: as i wrote yesterday, the light was poor when i ended my painting day. as a result,i was forced to shoot yesterday's pic using artificial lighting, which gave the image a warmer, yellowish cast. here's what i shot just now, which is much closer to the original.
i'm getting to work now on another 2014 collaged canvas, and i'll post pics as work progresses.
grey 3 48x24" mixed media on canvas
yesterday's creek walk / studio shot yesterday afternoon / yesterday's new bean / what's up in the studio today? /
4:00 pm: in a completely unexpected development, vermeer's the lacemaker has begun to emerge, at the same time a big thunderstorm cut loose and daylight is reduced to dusk-like conditions. so i can't work any more and we'll see what tomorrow brings.
i know this painting well, having studied it for decades.
1:46 pm: grey 3 re-work. the painting was turned vertical and lightened. it's still not there, so i'm continuing to work. there's a bit of a battle going on between the upper 1/3 and the rest of the painting. this is, once again, a result of not wanting to let go of a passage that worked in the previous iteration but no longer does.
9:20 am: not sure what i'll be up to today when i go to my studio; i'll report once i'm there & settled.
yesterday afternoon we walked up north crestone creek. ideal temps in the 50's and the quiet beauty meant for dreaming.
had a huge attack of self doubt about this new grey series. is it just a "rebound" love affair, after all those months painting the more realist ANO KATO series? in looking at some of the shots i took on our walk, i can see how it is, in part, a reflection of my life long love affair with the rock people.
today we tasted the new bean i wrote about in yesterday's post. another 10+! amazing how tom at sweetmarias.com can maintain such excellence in his selection of beans. it helps that he persoanlly travels to ethiopia and many other countries and hand selects them.
tomorrow we'll try the second new bean, ethiopia yirga cheffe dry process - gedeb asasa, which, as you see below, i'm about to roast.
a new bean / working on "grey 3" today /
grey 3, 24x48" mixed media on canvas, at 3 pm today
1:59 pm: here's where i'm stopping work on grey 3 for today. it may be resolved and, as usual, i'll know tomorrow morning when i walk into the studio and do my first glance. i deiberately don't look at it till my eyes have adjusted to the light & i've removed my shades. then i shoot a glance. quick. and i know.
i had given up on it about an hour ago, so i took a break, drank some water and dove back in. the process is where it's at, and today it was sloppy, messy, vigorous..... bordering on punching a hole in the fucking canvas. thanks to the pioneers who allowed us to play. BELOW: 2 details
12:37 pm: grey 3 PROCESS: i posted yesterday about my process of tearing collaged paper from the dampened canvas. more of that happened today, just a few minutes ago, and here's what it looks like. notice how the white surface revealed under the paper has the shape of a bird in flight. cool. but can i become attached to preserving this bit at the expense of the whole? nope!
and now, back to the painting.
this is the new bean. we prefer ethiopians.the post card is always included in the shipment; a different one each time.
11:20 am: today i'll be going back in to grey 3. the current state of grey 3 can be seen below.
it's a fantastic day, so this afternoon mikela and i plan on walking up north crestone creek, as far as we can get. she's had a cold, which settled in her chest, so we'll just pace ourselves & see where we get.
on the actionlab front, our IT team, marc & ken are very close to having the BETA ready; an exciting prospect after all this time. they're promising it by early november, when we'll get it to the 3 schools we're piloting it in so the kids can start using it to create their projects..
10:14 am: yesterday we received a shipment of unroasted beans from our supplier in oakland, sweetmarias.com. two of them are beans we've never before tried. tomorrow morning, mikela and i will try it out & report. from tom's description on the label (a full page, unbelievably detailed evaluation of this bean is available on the site) it promises to be a treat!
at work on "grey 2," 48x24" /
2:21 pm: got a bit of a late start today....taking care of exhibition stuff....so i'm working on grey 2, which had a division 3/4 of the way down the canvas that kind of cut it in two. i'll post the earlier version, so you can see what i've done so far to remedy that.
while working into the piece, using a fair amount of water, some of the collaged pieces bugan to lift off the canvas. i tore them off completely, following the natural tear paths and creating some cool new shapes. very much in keeping with my focus on process. i can't just correct one section; instead i need to engage the entire suface, in the process sacraficing some cool passages for the benefit of the whole.
the earlier version is on the left. the current state brings to mind one of my heros, the great chilean painter, roberto matta, who i always felt, looking at his paintings in MOMA, was traveling about the universe, recording the collision of stars and unknown objects zinging by.
BELOW: a painting by matta
3:33 pm: another thought i had while studying the work i did today on grey 2: i remembered, during our paris trip of 2012, standing on the metro platform across from a large wall ad. it had been torn in ways only the french could invent, creating what seemed to me to be a masterpiece. it revealed to me a previously unknown aspect of my aesthetic, which relates to the tearing i did today on grey 2. i photographed it, but just now, in trying to find it i came up with nothing. although i did find this menu cover from a le hangar, a restaurant you should NOT miss if you're in paris! on that trip we spent a lot of time in the musee quai branley; something else only the french could have created. don't miss it. indigenous art from around the world, especially oceania, asia and africa, displayed brilliantly and peppered with relevant short videos.
largest hurricane ever recorded / morning skies /framed 2014 collage /
8:21 am: THE LARGEST, MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE EVER RECORDED is about to hit Mexico with sustained winds of 200MPH (right now 185, predicted to reach 200 by landfall). This hurricane developed from a tropical storm to what what you see here in 24 hours! And two shots of our morning skies, looking east and west form our house. We are now a full 2 weeks into a record breaking late date for our first freeze, predicted finally for tonight. Snow on the peaks from yesterday's storm is visible here.
the 2014 collage on paper you see was framed yesterday in my studio. i plan of framing 6 collages from this period and delivering them to space gallery on our next denver trip.
marketing and site reorg /
6:08 pm: on the right, a photo taken from our deck of the freshly snow capped peaks.
today was devoted to outreach, marketing & a slight reorg of this site. as well, i was on the phone with the largest orthodox church in houston, proposing a talk which would in part specifically address the greek community of houston. my proposal was warmly received, and now i'm waiting to hear back from the gallery so we can set a day & time. in the process of researching my own site for links to send the church, i rediscovered this page of the site, which tells a compelling story of my 15 year greek experiences. here it is:
an article written by helen velissaris in neos cosmos, published february 1, 2014 in melbourne, australia. the article discussed my relationship to my then teacher and mentor yannis tsarouchis as well as with other artists of the cultural blossoming that took place in athens during the '60's and '70's. this page includes the printed article as well as the full transcript of my interview with ms. velissaris.
i also framed some 2014 smaller scale abstract collages on paper, which we'll drop off with mike at space gallery in denver, where i'm newly represented. nice to get them out of the flat file so they could see the light of day and find their place in the world.
below, 2 links to the new pages i created this morning.
snow on the peaks / best IPA ever, & it's local! / continuing "grey" series /
3:34 pm: it's pouring. before the skies darkened, i was able to work further on grey 1. when i came in to my studio this morning, it seemed a bit too grey.
i started another in this series: grey 3 48x24"it's too dark to photograph it, so i'll post it tomorrow.
BELOW: on the right: yesterdays version; left: how it looks at the end of my painting day today. see what you think.
9:02 am: snow on the peaks, above 11,000 ft. this morning, with more likely through tomorrow. nothing down by us, at 8,000 yet, but it will come.
BEST IPA EVER: and it's local! many agree that elevation IPA is one of the best they've tasted. it's brewed 50 miles form crestone, just over poncha pass, in poncha springs. don't know if it's available where you live, but if so, try it.
continuing grey: after some more editing, i'll head to my studio to continue my new grey series paintings. it's not a given that these will keep going, but i've still got the grey fever. so far, i've been painting over older abstract collages, creating lots of textural and coloristic richness, with the outlines of the collaged paper below peaking through. so what happens when i run out of these older collaged paintings? i like some of them too much to mess with them, and there are a limited number left to paint on. answer: don't know!
the first 2 "grey" paintings: how they emerged from my "ANO kato" series /
4:25 pm: i've been posting about my preoccupation with grey for days. this morning, i went to the space gallery site. i wanted to see what they were up to & get a feel, as i'll be showing there with 2 other artists this coming spring. the title of their upcoming show is BLACK! many of the paintings are black or dark grey, with subtle variations. so i must have tuned in.
grey 1 & 2, below, are the 2 painitngs i made today, taking the piece i began painting over yesterday, grey 1, further, and painting over another abstraction originally done about 2 years ago, grey 2.
BELOW: a detail of space gallery next to today's grey 1 and on row two, a detail of MOMA 2 next to today's Grey 2.
i made these selections to illustrate how this new evolving abstract grey series, is emerging from the "realist" ANO KATO series, which will be shown in a few weeks in Houston. the realist and abstract terminology, while convenient for reviewers and art historians, is at best a fragile distinction, in my opinion.
the diverse, subtle greys in the two ano kato paintings i chose were an exciting aspect of my process, and spilled over into my current love affair with grey.
Is a molecule or an atom less "real" than the seemingly solid table made up of these particles?
