3:19 PM: 2 early stages of grey 25:
12:29 PM: making the preliminary drawing
11:56 AM: after another stellar trail walk, i'm back in the studio, invigorated. i'm experimenting with shooting images in the mirror i found many years ago in an abandoned house in the village of aidonia, on the island of andros. the image in this case is a fayum portrait taken from the exquisite, award winning book by my old friend euphrosyne doxiadi in greece.
more pics once i get started...
3:53 PM: today was not a painting day. i had a conversation with ron & harwood in houston. we looked at 3/4 of the grey series together, and will continue tomorrow. we're going to figure out which ones will be shipped to houston. we'll continue talking tomorrow.
dimitri sent me a digital photo of this new painting by my grandson philip, who will be 10 in a few weeks. he shows a strong talent, and that's not because i'm his grandpa. his sense of composition, color, patterning, space are all way beyond his years. both mikela and i were blown away.
as i said to his dad, i can't wait to walk through MOMA with him and watch his responses, especially to matisse and picasso's demoiselles d'avignon.
2:11 PM: the lip tweak ended up going further than just the lips, and included most of the area of the face & neck, as well as her collar. as a result, it's a much stronger painting, and has more feeling and immediacy. i actually feel like our 6am walk was a big contributing factor. we don't speak at all during the time we're walking; today about 2 hours total, other than those 2-3x we take breaks. the environment of the creek, with it's torrent of snowmelt roaring down the creek bed; the sun breaking forth over the peaks at around 7 and raking light over the landscape; the incredible rock people on the trail and on either side puts me into a reverie that lasts the entire 2 hours. brings me back to myself and allows an unplanned, unstructured contemplation of the work i'll be doing when we return.
12:26: following our most excellent trail walk this morning, i'm gearing up to squeeze my colors onto the palette to do a little lip tweaking. stay cool, philip.
6:46 PM: grey 24 is now hanging in our living room. i can see where it needs a bit of work tomorrow, around the mouth area
4:10 PM: just posted this video on you tube. i created it so that it could be played at a tribute to the late, great actress, christina tsingou. christina was best known for her parts in samuel beckett's plays, especially the part of winnie in happy days. she starred in productions of beckett's plays in paris and athens.
i created this 5 minute video as a contribution to an event taking place tomorrow evening at my son dimitri's athens theatre, poreia. a selection of her letters will be read at the event. I'm thinking of doing a version in english.
2:26 PM: stopping here for today. i think she has finally found her voice. there are a few details that bother me, like the light on the lower lip, which pops too much & needs to be pushed back. but i'll do that in the morning when i'm fresh. compositionally, this painting is very close to grey 18, but i've learned a lot since then, and it shows. i've taken more chances with this one, taken it further and as a result, she said "OK, i'm comin' out man." when you gaze at the actual, physical painting, you can feel her breath on you. she owns the east wall of my studio, where she hangs for now. it's 22 ft. wide & she owns the whole dam wall.
11:28 AM: at work on grey 24
10:13 AM: following an unusual 9:30 am thunderstorm, i'm ready to dive back in to grey 24, which is still searching for it's identity as am i.
BELOW: the sky just as the morning thunderstorm hit, and 2 crestone conglomerate rock outside my studio doo, wet from the rain, which revealed their beauty.
5:57 PM: we're not there yet, now that i'm re-visiting it. something interesting and exciting could be happening, but that fragile balance between recognizable imagery and abstraction is still unresolved.
3:46 PM: so i let go of the idea of stripes, companion pieces and so on, and now, although the painting is not complete, the picture plane is more integrated. it reads as one event. if you take a look, below at the image accompanying my 2:16 PM post, you will see what i'm talking about. the random elements introduced by collaging create completely unexpected relationships, so that 1+1=3 or 4. in one sense, i start fresh with each new piece, despite the temptation to repeat something that may have worked in the last painting. on the other hand, i think you do get smarter about how you work technically, and how you filter and translate your unconscious into action. as well, you become more adept at actually listening to the painting itself as a living, breathing entity.
2:16 PM: grey 24 is in an interesting place right now. there are some cool solutions, but it still doesn't have an identity; a persona. the two fayum eyes subtly peaking through point to my focus on the gaze, with being too obvious. but in the end it's all about the picture plane and the space. right now, i'd say there's a battle going on between the 4 main elements, and i need to be willing to sacrifice the idea for the greater good of the whole painting.
11:58 AM: as i listen for the first time to a cassette tape i made in 1977 in the studio of tsarouchis, i am slowly working on grey 24. and i wonder to myself, what would he and niki karagatsi, who was also present in the studio, have thought of this work?
work continues....
our walk this morning was shorter, but long enough to provide a good workout. it wasn't one of those celestial walks; to warm & humid; nonetheless we were energized & i feel the results right now right here in my painting.
8:40 AM:
the mosquitos have been around for a week or so, but I'm declaring today the official start of mosquito season in the baca grande, adjacent to crestone. generally it lasts through the end of july, or about 7 weeks. since there's no spraying, except this year in the town of crestone, there can be clouds of them, which makes hiking the trail a challenge. not to worry, we have mosquito netting jackets; annoying to wear but effective in preventing bites.
detail of grey 24 as it looked yesterday
in about an hour, i'll be walking over to my studio to continue work on grey 24. at this stage, it kind of looks like you know where it's headed. that's exactly when i like to take a turn in a new direction. i'll post pics as they become available. by the way, did i mention that the title i'm considering for the exhibition of my grey series is: the gaze?
1:50 PM: i'm stopping a bit earlier than usual; didn't have a great nights sleep, plus i want to solve the imovie problem i'm having & get the 5 minute edited clip of my 3 anecdotes recalling my friend, the late great greek/french actress, christina tsingou, who was samuel beckett's first choice to play winnie in happy days. i will post it on youTube after the 14th & put the link on my blog, as well as facebook. it's in greek by the way.
my son dimitri will be playing it as part of a tribute to her on the 14th in his athens theatre, poreia. i stupidly got rid of iMovie 9, which i knew inside out and am now faced with using version 10 to edit, which is the most un-intuitive, clunky goddam thing ever. so i plan on calling apple support for help getting the clip, which is already edited, exported and sent to dimitri.
12:44 PM: current state of grey 24: off-white strips of paper have been collaged onto the surface and drawings have appeared on those strips, based upon vermeer prototypes. the singularity of the fayum image has gone and been replaced by a fluid, suggestive space. map elements have also been collaged onto the picture surface. one, in the shape suggestive of a breast, is from a 1941 us geological survey of scraggly lake, maine. which means it's likely that my friend dan, who gifted me this map, walked that territory as a child.
11:43 AM: grey 24 post-scrumble. now what??
7:53 AM: deconstruction is in the wind. stay tuned! it needs to become less predictable, more fluid.
BELOW: 9 stages of grey 24 to date:
3:34 PM: here's where it's at at the end of my painting day.
10:36 AM: following a fabulous trail walk at 5:30 this morning, i'm preparing to continue work on grey 24, which might be close to completion, and considering starting grey 25, which will be a bit smaller, at 32x32"
inow that i've been able to load the footage i shot at the kid's project showcase in edwards on 5/19, i'd like to start the process of editing.
also, i have promised to create a very shot video clip to dimitri, where i remember some moments from my old friend, the late greek actress christina tsingou, for an evening he's hosting at his theatre: poreia theatre, in athens.
3:38 PM:numbers were added at the last minute...continued tomorrow...
2:35 PM: long day on my feet. i might stop, since there's yet another thunderstorm and has gotten very dark. i don't have any opinion yet; it's too dark and too soon. today i got a stronger hit than ever about the relationship between encaustic, the medium used to paint the fayum, sometimes referred to as the hot wax technique, and egg tempera, which i used during my 15 years in greece and for 4-5 years after returning to the states. with both these mediums, you can't blend the colors as with oil. they dry too quickly and lack that oily base which allows the "wet into wet" technique. thus, if you look carefully at, for example, the shadows on the nect transitioning to lighter flesh tones, parallel strokes are used to create the illusion of a smooth transition. there can be a certain graphic beauty to this technique when used by a great artist, as were many of the fayum portrait painters.
4:38 PM: so tomorrow we're taking our trail walk, leaving the house at 5:30 am. However we won't be going all the way up to that spot we reached a few days ago, which is 1.5 hours. that gets us back too late and interferes with our work. we'll reserve that longer walk, which will keep increasing in time & distance, for maybe once a week, until we finally make the hike up to the lake; an all day deal.
2:41 PM: grey 24, not unlike many of it's brothers and sisters, underwent a complete transformation this morning. there was even a sex change involved! it's more in line with my intention of creating a companion piece for grey 12, which is also based upon a 1st c. fayum portrait and has the same dimensions: 38x38". i couldn't have done what you see below on the right had i not worked on it flat on a table. there's something about that way of working on this series that allows for less mind chatter. more changes tomorrow. i think we may take a one day break from walking, so i'll be able to get an early start and run the full cycle of my usual 6 hour cycle.
BELOW: the painting before and after.
2:35 PM: this morning we left the house at 5:30 am for our trail walk, and returned at 9:15. we pressed past our point we had reached last time and entered new and exciting territory. we had never seen this precarious bridge over the tumultuous water. the logs were wet and slippery, so we crawled across. but on the way back i was able to negotiate it upright, with the help of my trekking poles to steady me. at this point we're about 3 hours from the lake. today made us feel we can make it up there no problem, although the last little bit is supposed to be difficult. BELOW: some of the shots i took on the way.
4:39 PM: i knocked myself out, but it's getting there. at least a couple of days to go, till it becomes a PAINTING. gotta keep walking that edge, between the familiar and the whack-on-the-head i didn't expect that! how did i do that? or, better yet, "who did that?"
BELOW: all the stages of grey 24 thus far
2:45 PM: one more stage since my last post.
2:13 PM: here are the first 3 stages of grey 24. as of yet, no collaging has taken place, but it can't be far off!
11:55 AM: following an excellent 6 am trek up the trail, i'm getting to work again. i had a one day break yesterday, when we drove up to edwards for actionlab meetings with 2 teachers, the head of curriculum for the school and our new head of IT strategy & operations, jason.
i'm about to dive into grey 24, which will be 38x38" and is destined to become a companion piece for grey 12, based on a 1st c. female fayum portrait. this one is based on a portrait form the same period.
looking back: black & white photo of a portrait of a boy with a hearing aid, painted in andros, greece in egg tempera on board, about 1978. his eyes tell the story.
