philip enters the picture /  by Philip Tarlow

3:44 PM: i mean my grandson philip, who, with his sister manio lives in greece. my son dimitri sent me a photo of them attending a theatre performance & i liked the lighting. so i'm attempting something very tricky; to make a painting of my grandson while staying true to the principals i always talk about; the integrity of the picture plane comes first. always. you can understand why this is so challenging. but we like challenges. here's what it looks like as i end my painting day. we'll see how i feel about it in the morning.

thus far, i'm finding it compelling. the tough part is what happens between now and tomorrow morning. will this become one more in a series of under paintings before gaze 28 finally resolves? i can paint and collage over an image based on a vermeer painting. but philip?

continuing work on gaze 28 / gaze 23 to be re-worked /  by Philip Tarlow

2:01 PM: it's only 2pm, but in my body it feels like 5. we got up at about 4 to prepare for our trail walk, which explains some of it. 

so i did do some work on the painting and brought it to the place you see here. i'm on a steep learning curve, and i can occasionally catch the scent of something resembling mastery, but it's still on a distant horizon. when you think about it, studying the great vermeer by making the gaze series paintings is not a bad idea. by taking a detail of the 51x43" the art of painting and riffing, i'm starting to get a feel for vermeer's technique, and what set him apart from all his contemporaries. thus far, i can't find another historical painter whose work lends itself to this level of exploration of timeless painterly qualities. it's a bit like riffing on bach. transcending the narrow window of his era, it's as if he's saying "here you are; now play."

that's about it guys. i'm going to clean up & go join mikela at the house.

 

12:30 PM: sometimes i find squeezing my colors onto the palette, or scooping them out with my palette knife extremely tiresome. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8:49AM: today i need to stop work a little before 3 to get to an appointment. my plan is to continue work on gaze 28. after looking at gaze 23 for a few weeks, it just doesn't cut it, so i'm bringing it back to the studio, where i'll re-stretch over masonite & go back into it. the idea of multiple faces was interesting, but is a good example of something more mental than tactile. i don't want my paintings to make you think before feeling. the initial glance tells the story. i want the viewer to be smitten at first glance, like when you see someone across the room & their gaze instantly attracts you. the why comes later. this is gaze 23 as it looks now.

BELOW: gaze 12; an example of one of the gaze series paintings that passes the first glance test.

back to the future /  by Philip Tarlow

3:26 PM: stopping here for the day. the face of the model in vermeer's art of painting,  with her wonderful blue feathered hair decoration is beginning to fill the picture plane. collaged bits of maps peak through and the drawing, in graphite, creates an overall architecture. to the right, a beautiful remnant of the previous version co-exists with the new imagery for now. the overall feeling is very painterly and evocative, and i'd love to keep it that way! we plan on resuming our trail walks tomorrow at 5am, which usually puts me in an exhaulted state beneficial to my work in the studio. right now, i'm so glad i pressed in & continued work on gaze 28. i'd like to see them leap frog over one another, with the learning form what came before infused into the newest ones.

gaze 28, 38x38" at 12:20 PM

 

12:51: collaging has happened; no painting or scrumbling yet.

 

 

 

 

 

8:06 AM: today will see another radical re-visioning of one of the gaze series paintings; the latest gaze 28. i'm returning to what has been the main focus of the series, reflected in the title: the gaze. here you see me in winter garb, on january 2, 2016, working on one of the earlier gaze paintings. in looking around at the paintings hanging here in our house, what i find compelling and unique are the large faces filling the canvas, which make up the majority of the series. 

we'll see how this plays out today.

back in the studio; next steps? /  by Philip Tarlow

7:15 PM: the jury is back. big changes tomorrow. it works, but in your mind. it needs to hit you on the gut level.

                                    BEFORE                                                                            AFTER

2:42 PM: after gazing at it for a few hours and asking mikela to come over & give her feedback, i decided to work back into gaze 28. it was too blah; nothing really popped; more liked pooped! so here's where it's at right now. this is not going to be a full day of work; it's a transition day. even 3 days away from my studio demands a re-entry process. on the other hand, a fresh perspective is of great value. i don't believe i could have done what i just did on this painting without that break.

12:25 PM: just walked into my studio. at first glance, gaze 28 seems resolved. i need to bring it to the house for a final evaluation, but in the mean time, i'm going to start working on the next painting. i got some ideas on our trip, which i'd like to try out. briefly, they involve weaving the colorado landscape into the gaze series in some way. here are some pics from our trip:

DANS'S KEYS:

THE ASPEN ART MUSEUM: ALAN SHIELDS-PROTRACTED SIMPLICITY

the aspen museum / going home /  by Philip Tarlow

sunset from our hotel last night

8:20 AM: we're in the lobby of our hotel in westminster, & will be headed for a meeting in boulder shortly, then do our food shopping at whole foods & costco & head back to crestone.

while we were visiting our friend dan, we went to the recently completed aspen art museum. we saw a very beautiful show with the work of an artist we weren't aware of, alan shields. shields wanted no part of the nyc art scene, and lived on shelter island, off long island. from the ny times obit: "Mr. Shields simultaneously resembled a harpooner out of Melville and a hippie from central casting." his work is described as counterculture modernism. in another quote from the nyt: "Mr. Shields's work combined expanses of gorgeous stained color, reminiscent of Helen Frankenthaler's canvases, with the humbler crafts and a Gypsy sense of portability. Mr. Shields was a Post-Minimalist, but his work had a joyful quality at odds with his many of his more cerebral contemporaries." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

there were crayons in the form of rocks in the bookstore. i made some marks.

as with the acropolis museum in athens, there are spots where you can look up and see people walking above through translucent glass.

dan / aspen museum /  by Philip Tarlow

8:13 PM: dan has been collecting keys since he was a child. we had never seen his collection, which is impressive. now that he's settling into life in his new home, we made a joint decision to hang some of his collection on that hanging rack above the island in the kitchen normally reserved for pots & pans. together we selected and hung some of the keys, admiring them first on the kitchen counter. one was a large lock & key once used by the pony express to lock the mail sacks.

how recent photos influence gaze 28 /  by Philip Tarlow

7:55 am: recently i've been posting morning & evening photos on facebook. i shoot many of them through windows containing reflections of reflections bouncing off other reflections. here are a few examples. if you look at them next to gaze 28, you'll see the influence clearly.

gaze 28: more dynamic /  by Philip Tarlow

3 PM: stopping here for the day. gaze 28 needs a rest, as do i. it's definitely in a better place than it was a few hours ago. the abundance of texture in this one perhaps comes from looking at my bonnard book a lot lately. i am less and less taken with large faces that dominate the picture plane. last month i experimented with collaging vertical strips of off white paper on the canvas, creating 2 paintings; gaze 21 and gaze 23. these strips became dividers for a series of cropped faces. it was interesting for me to have these partially cropped faces interacting and creating unexpected and mysterious gazes that transcended one unique visage and became a kind of collective gaze. i think that led me to gaze 28, where, absent the vertical strips of paper, the faces drift, cloud-like into and over one another. they may evoke the gazes of individuals we've seen, known and unknown. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12:27 PM: this morning i had, you might say, a field day. usually i get my direction for the day while in the shower. today, it was simply "more dynamic." that's it? that's all you got for me? c'mon! bupkus; just more hot water descending upon my head. 

i started by collaging some new elements and it kind of took off after that. we have meetings in aspen & denver over the next few days. so she can sit here in peace & quiet, contemplating where she'd like to go next. i think i fulfilled my orders for a more dynamic surface, and i may go back in now & take it further.

continuing gaze 28 / remembering the process of gaze 25 / hailstorm! /  by Philip Tarlow

6 PM: at about 5 pm, the storm clouds you see below left moved up to crestone/baca from the southwest. the winds gusted to gale force, the temperature suddenly fell from a high of 88F to about 62F and the hail blew sideways with great force. hail on july 18. that's crestone! 

by the way, the mosquito season seems to have ended. it lasted exactly one month. although there are still mosquitos up on north crestone creek trail, where we take our early morning walks, we no longer have to open & close our front door quicky to prevent them coming into the house. now begins a period of sheer delight. as we move towards our early fall; only a mere 6 weeks away, we get to fully enjoy this spectacular place at it's magical best!

3:30 PM: here's where gaze 28 is at as i stop for the day. i'm tired and i'm having an ocular migraine; a disturbance in my vision that's not fully understood, other than that it a disruption in vision that is vrey annoying, lasts 20-30 minutes and is not serious. here's what the experts say:

It appears migraines are triggered by activation of a mechanism deep in the brain, which releases inflammatory substances around the nerves and blood vessels of the head and brain. But why this happens and what brings about the spontaneous resolution of an ocular migraine remain unknown.

so i had to stop painting and am having trouble writing this post. the current image is obviously based on a 1st c. fayum painting. that's about all i'll say right now. gotta clean my brushes & go lie down with my honey.

2 PM: on the floor drying under the ceiling fan

 

 

 

 

7:31 AM: here's a little visual history of gaze 25, in part as a preview of what's to come with gaze 28 as i continue work this morning.

starting "gaze 28" /  by Philip Tarlow

3:42 PM: stage 2 of gaze 28; taking it slow & easy, enjoying the process & trying not to aggravate what may be a mild hernia. i love looking at this state of the painting. it's sweet; it's provocative; what are those bare breasts doing in a vermeer?? and refreshingly spare. just because all the others in the series have 6,7, 8 layers doesn't mean.....so lets give a a rest, go lie down, and see what it decides it wants to become tomorrow.

 

 

 

2:25 PM: stage 1 of gaze 28; about to start drawing...on the right, a detail of the upper left quadrant, with a newspaper clipping of a photography by nellie, of the dancer  mona païva, of the comedie francias, dancing nude at the acropolis in athens.

1:06 PM: about to begin gaze 28, which will be 38x38" there is always a certain freedom in this initial layer of what will become 3,4,5 or more layers. anything goes. and yet, this is the very foundation of what will come next. a mystery, as always.

pics of the entire process of gaze 28 will be posted, along with commentary, as available.

here's a first draft of an intro to the gaze series i'm composing to go along with the images, to be sent to a gallery in germany:

gaze: look steadily and intently, especially in admiration, surprise, or thought

beyond this dictionary definition, a person’s gaze reflects the sum total of all that led up to that moment. we’ve all had the experience of being inexplicably drawn to the gaze of someone we pass in the street or see across the room.

in this series of paintings i use that pregnant moment as a focal point. all the paintings are inspired by historical prototypes; most often by vermeer. many of the women in his paintings have a mysterious and haunting gaze transcending the immediate activity of writing or reading a letter, adjusting a necklace or posing for a painting. 

for me, they are related to the gaze of the subjects in most 1st c. fayum portraits, which i also draw from in some of the paintings in this series. these portraits have a vitality, immediacy and freshness that transcends their time.  

i’ve greatly enlarged the small originals and have collaged layers of maps, newspapers, etc., all cut into biomorphic shapes. between layers, the entire surface has been glazed with a wash of thin warm color, then scraped, creating unpredictable textures and often revealing bits of maps or newsprint.

the completed paintings remind one of billboards that have been scraped and peeled, revealing the many layers beneath. or of ancient pompeiian or byzantine frescos weathered by time. the core image keeps shifting, two, three or more times. so that what you see lies atop many other faces; many other gazes.