as i launch once more into my new grey 10 painting, i just updated the text on my grey page. i think you'll find what i wrote provides some interesing insights into my work and my process. click on the link below:
minor tweaks /
9:14 PM: just back from a party at a friend's house, where we saw and re-connected with many old crestone friends. one of them, who we hadn't seen in a couple of years, laid out for me the reason why he feels that the berkshire hills in western massachusetts are deeply connected to crestone, in the san luis valley. i've never met anyone with this opinion, and it explained a lot for me. visit my story page to read about my childhood experiences in the berkshires. click on the link below to visit my story page.
this afternoon, having resolved lacemaker III, i launched into a new painting: grey 10, 38x38". it's at a very early stage and, in keeping with my philosophy of transparancy, i'm posting this pic.
there are already collaged elements, along with a sketch loosely based on a detail of vermeer's young woman with a water jug, 1660-62. in each of the paintings in this series, i draw on my visual and kinesthetic memory bank; the flotsam and jettsam of torn billboards in the paris metro; early byzantine icons in sinai; tsarouchis at work on his sailor series in his maroussi studio; hans kline stretching a canvas in his provincetown studio.....
9:56 AM: this morning i'll make a few minor tweaks to lacemaker III. after hanging it in the house and gazing critically at it, both mikela and i spotted one small area in the lower right corner that needs to be pushed back, so that it no longer grabs your attention at the expense of the whole. this is it on the right. BELOW: before & after
BELOW: the painting as it looks right now, post tweaks.
continuing work on "grey2-the lacemaker III" /
3:40 PM: couldn't leave it that way, so a did a radical re-work, which brings to mind the great diebenkorn. gone are most traces of vermeer's lacemaker, which pulses beneath this composition nonetheless. i rather like it this way.
2:20 PM: here's where the collage is at right now. debating whether or not to stop for the day. visually, the painting/collage actually makes more sense when it's flipped. click on the image to make it full page, go back & forth & see what you think. either way, the painting/collage is not yet resolved. the canvas seems to be divided into 2 parts, separate but equal. as if you had cut a horse & a hippo in half & glued them together in the middle. this painting is a hip-orse! we'll address that tomorrow.
the image of the lacemaker is barely detectable (her head is that pink oval in the upper central quadrant). collaged elements are dispersed throughout the composition, and include fragments of a '40's walking map of maryland; one of many old family maps generously given to me by my friend dan.
during our recent trip to vail/edwards i was reminded of the abundance of bad art, or better yet non-art there is out there. i'm not a snob, but i do get pissed when i see just how much crap is floating around out there. it's no different, really, than the lack of discernment we see in politics. low information voters are not all that different from low information gallery goers.
as i continue work on this collage, i am being interrupted by stuff that i need to handle, involving multiple phone calls and being on hold for extended periods. so i'm folding that in to my process. as you know if you read these posts regularly, i am all about process.
back in the studio: getting messy /
back in my studio after almost a week away, i continued working on grey2-the lacemaker III. i got messy, slathering on mat medium to bond pieces of brown paper to the surface. the paper was cut into biomorphically inspired shapes, which was then painted over with acrylics.
as well, i edited a video clip of an edwards middle school student making a brilliant presentation on the school of the future. absolutely brilliant, inspired and, in my opinion, right on the money. i can't post it for security reasons, but you'll see it eventually.
back to edwards in dicey conditions /
we were concerned maybe the trip to edwards would be difficult or impossible after the massive snows of the past few days, which kept the schools closed today.
when i saw this photo on one of the I-70 cameras, it didn't look good. but we got here, and it took us only half hour more than usual. we'll be in the classroom at 8 am.
short snowstorm video on facebook/more work on grey2/the lacemaker lll /
a '90's painting of mine" we see every morning on our west bedroom wall: karen sleeping/maarssen interior 42x40" oil on linen 1999. it's one of a series of interiors I painted of a friend's home on the river vecht in the netherlands.
i made many paintings and drawings of interiors during the decade of the '90's, mostly of our friend's house in maarssen and a variety of apartments in paris, where we used to travel 4X a year to lead seminars.
6:53 PM: it was a bust, as often happens here in the baca grande. maybe 4-5 inches. we'll take what we can get.
12:45 PM: i hadn't intended to paint today, but since i was here working on re-editing the video we shot of the kids in edwards using actionlab for the first time, i decided to do a little work on the painting that used to be grey2/the guitar player. i didn't like how it turned out, so i started working over it and, lo, it turned into a 3rd version of the lacemaker.
i'll work more on it when we return from edwards, where we're driving again tomorrow, assuming the road conditions permit.
the storm kicked in about 8 am. about a foot+ is forecast. go to my facebook post, at philip tarlow, for a short video.
latest storm info/editing day /
6:23 PM: so far, no snow.
1PM: just back from our trip to edwards, i downloaded the footage i shot of the middle school kids, who were able for the first time to load actionlab onto their computers and begin experimenting with it. the initial feedback was overwhelmingly positive!
WINTER STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 5 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 11 AM MST TUESDAY...
* LOCATION...TELLER COUNTY... THE WET MOUNTAINS AND THE SANGRE DE CRISTO MOUNTAINS.
* CAUSE AND TIMING... A POWERFUL WINTER STORM WILL MOVE THROUGH LATE TODAY THROUGH EARLY TUESDAY... BRINGING SIGNIFICANT SNOWFALL TO THE REGION.
* SNOW ACCUMULATION... ONE TO TWO FEET ACROSS TELLER COUNTY.. WITH HIGHER AMOUNTS OVER THE PIKES PEAK SUMMIT. TWO TO THREE FEET WILL OCCUR ACROSS THE WET MOUNTAINS AND SANGRE DE CRISTO MOUNTAINS.
plans change due to incoming winter storm /
5:17 pm: a strong winter storm is approaching colorado. we had planned on driving to denver this morning and returning to the middle schools in edwards/gypsum wednesday through friday. the storm is predicted to arrive in colorado tomorrow and last through monday night, with heavy snow and high winds. so we decided to return home and be here during the storm, then drive back up to edwards/gypsum.
right now the temperature here in crestone is a sunny 45F, and you wouldn't imagine a strong storm is approaching. but when you look at the eastern sky, the approaching storm is evident.
5:50pm update:Update on Snowstorm to hit this Monday in Crestone
(Weather statement made at 550 PM MST on January 30, 2016)
Here is the latest from our local NWS office.... For now total snowfall... for the valley it looks like around a foot, with as much as 14 to 31 inches of new snow in the foothills by late Monday afternoon, and in the mountains above 10,000 feet, new snow totals up to Monday night could be from as little as 23 inches, to as much as 64 inches above 13,500 feet (you read that right!.. around 5 feet according to this NWS page at this time). The biggest questions now is just how much wind will we see on this side of the mountains?
actionlab goes LIve! /
today in an edwards, colorado middle school, actionlab was loaded onto the laptops and tablets of 64 students. this moment was many years in the making. despite the occasional glitches, it was an amazing feeling for mikela and i. the preliminary feedback has been great, but the best moment came when a few of the kids asked, "can we use this at home on the weekend?" how many educational products do you know of that kids are begging to use on the weekend?
we'll be back next week, tracking the kids progress, working out any remaining bugs and documenting the whole thing.
adventures in the vail valley/ a gouache for space gallery /
this is 3/17/14 gouache which i'll be bringing to space gallery on saturday. it will be one of the works included in their 4/7/16 group show.
we're staying with friends in avon while introducing our educational product, actionlab to middle school kids in edwards and gypsum, colorado. last night our hosts treated us to moscow mules made with vodka and fever-tree ginger beer and home made banitsa, a bulgarian dish made with filo dough and akin to the greek tiropita. it was absolutely delicious, as was our dinner conversation, in which their two kids were very active participants.
we're scheduled to drive to denver on saturday, just when a huge winter storm is predicted to hit. the tricky part is always vail pass and the eisenhower tunnel, at an altitude of 10,000 ft. we'll see how that turns out.
