let your eyes do the walking.....and another creek scroll /  by Philip Tarlow

i had wanted before leaving my studio today to make another creek scroll painting. that's what i'm calling these long narrow (1.35 x 35 cm.) paintings in gouache on japanese paper. i found it years ago at ny central supply. i just tried calling to reorder and there was a voice mail. their 800 number is disconnected, leading me to believe that it's closed. it was an iconic art supply store. the heart & soul was steve, who, last time we saw him was suffering from parkinsons.

so i made the painting you see here. it brings to mind my 10th c. chinese calligrapher buddies. when it comes down to it, i feel them more deeply than any other artists in the entire history of art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12:38 PM: waiting, waiting on a daily basis for the vision in my right eye to become clear is a bitch, there's no doubt. on the other hand, as with any challenge; mental, physical; psychological.....there is always a hidden opportunity.

in this case, i found myself doing something relatively new. while i have in the recent past done something similar by cutting up calligraphy studies modeled after a 10th c. chinese calligrapher and then reassembling them "out of order," this is different in that i'm taking a colored pencil & gouache drawing which was already conceived as 4 discreet modules, then cutting those in half and rearranging them randomly. the word randomly is key here. unsuspected relationships occur, as with humans, when we shuffle the deck. put a random sampling of personality types together in a room for 12 hours and.....who knows? unexpected collaborations could occur. as could fights, loving relationships, and so on.

that said, here is the result of this morning's experiment. but this is just a fraction of what's possible, any of these 6 components could be turned upside down or re-positioned on the "chess board." the possible variations are not unlimited, but there are quite a few. if you're a math person, figure it out & let me knwo! (joke. i was just re-positioning the letters in the word know.)

previously stable branches are suddenly falling; creek water is flowing up instead of down; a passage you didn't notice gains prominence; a previously invisible suggested animal form appears......

continued work on creek drawing /  by Philip Tarlow

1:11 PM: today i continued work on the drawing i began yesterday on four 10x11" sheets of paper, based upon a photomontage i shot in 2009 at north crestone creek.  i'm playing around with the idea of a large painting or paintings made up of sections that can be moved around by the viewer to create a variety of images and compositions. the initial image makes sense visually as one continuous landscape image. the new images created by the interactive process are abstracted landscapes made up of recognizable elements; rocks, water, branches.

BELOW: 1)the photomontage; 2) starting the drawing yesterday; 3) the drawing as it looked at the end of my work day yesterday and 4) today.

back to work in the studio /  by Philip Tarlow

3:53 PM: today, 4 days after my cataract/glaucoma surgery in denver, i returned to my studio. vision in my right eye is still pretty blurry, so after a few hours i had to stop, as my work was resulting in some dizziness & nausea. i think this was just my brain trying to adjust to the new lens.

 i found this grouping of 4 photographs of the creek, which i shot in 2009. after dividing a piece of paper into 4 sections, i began a drawing based on this photo montage.

the graphite and colored pencil sketch is, so far, an exploration, i don't know where it might lead, but i have an idea for a series of paintings that fit together to create an image, but can be moved around by the viewer to make less literal variations on the theme.

returning from edwards /  by Philip Tarlow

4:54 PM: just back from edwards. yesterday evening we attended a meeting of high school organizers of the april 1 Youth TEDX Vail event. the theme is REVOLUTION. we have a mere 8 weeks to get the event together. mikela will work with the kids on social spaces; i'll work on set and stage design.

we began the meeting by going around the room and viewing each participant's drawing of their revolutionary animal. mine, on the right, was CHE, the revolutionary giraffe.

i always love looking at recent art the HS kids have made, hanging on the walls.

 

BELOW  are 2 that stood out for me.

2017 creek series 4 and 5 /  by Philip Tarlow

2:13 PM: i made 2 more creek series paintings: 4 and 5. they should still be considered warm up exercises, as i move back into gouache territory; quite a different space from acrylic and collage on canvas. closer to watercolor, but on a large scale. once the brush hits the paper, there's no turning back. that immediacy demands a high level of concentration. more like a high level of being present. not a bad exercise, however you look at it.

we're both ready for a shift in what we see on our walls, so the gaze series is gradually coming down and being replaced by these studies. amazing how it changes the feel of the space!

12:29 PM: getting a bit of a late start today. i'll be working form this 2009 plein air gouache to create #4 in my new 2017 creek series. like the first 3, it will be in gouache on japanese paper,  measuring 1.35x35 cm. more once i get going...

you may have noticed, if you made this image full screen, that this gouache has a patch about 3/4 of the way up. what's that all about? it's a patch! you'll get used to it. and since it's the only one in this 2009 series that has that distinction, i'd say that will one day make it more valuable.

a third 2017 creek series painting /  by Philip Tarlow

i'm feeling the approach of my MIGS surgery on tuesday. migs stands for minimally invasive glaucoma surgery. it will be a combination cataract & glaucoma surgery. it's unusual perhaps to share publicly about something like this. my philosophy is one that supports transparency. blog after all is an abbreviation of web log. kind of an online diary. it's helped me to comprehend the finer aspects of how my every day reality impacts my drawings and paintings. and if an eye surgery is not a momentous event in the life of an artist, then what is? 

so i found it somewhat more challenging than usual to actually get to work. i chose to use the same japanese paper measuring 1.35x35 cm. that i used for the first and second in this new series, which i painted, also in gouache, 2 days ago. 

looking back on my work over the past decade or so, it has become clear to me that the plein air paintings i've made at our local creeks are core to my identity as an artist.

a gaggle of drawings found /  by Philip Tarlow

6:40 PM: didn't sleep too well last night due to hernia pain. no painting today, so i began a search through some of my drawings & photographed some that stood out. they cover roughly the years 2007-11. i carry my sketchbook almost everywhere i go, making drawings in museums, on subways, in restaurants.....sometimes i think i love drawing even more than painting. not really.

but drawing is a way of thinking for me. dreaming as well. i love the gesture of it, the flick of the wrist, defining the curve of a forearm. i don't have a huge number of them, mostly becaue 15 years worth of them remained in greece. in private collections; in a suitcase my ex-wife organized; and some, sadly , are simply lost.  here's what i found today.

re-formatting my home page / starting the 2017 creek series /  by Philip Tarlow

2:15 PM: these are so-so, but it's a beginning. i have to re-adjust to gouache as a medium & turn off the gaze section of my brain. i'm using photos I took in the'90's of the creek to work from.

i'm using japanese paper measuring 1.35x35 cm. i had purchased this paper at least a decade ago from NY central supply and just discovered it this morning buried in my flat files.

i haven't used my gouache colors in so long many of them have dried out & needed to be tossed.

i may shift to heavy weight watercolor paper, where i'm more at home. but i enjoy the challenge of using materials i'm not familiar with, like this very delicate japanese paper. long narrow is also one of my favorite formats.

 

 

 

 

 

11:34 AM: inspired by the addition of 3 new team members to our actionlab360 team, all of whom are young & cover different aspects of site development, i'm beginning the long and complex task of organizing slides & photos of my work. the slides need to be digitized & catalogued. as i slowly begin this job, while trying to balance it with working on new paintings, i ran across the 3 black & white photos of paintings i made in the mid '70's in my athens studio, of kyriakos.

kyriakos was a street sweeper considered to be retarded by most. i found him to be a genius, but not in the traditional sense of the word. at the time, i was making a series of paintings of construction workers i found at a site near my studio in the plaka district, just beneath the acropolis. i made drawings and paintings of quite a few workers, but kyriakos was my favorite model, whom i painted and drew over a period of years. he would always be looking out the window. it appears he is deep in contemplation; actually he was on the lookout for his supervisor, so he wouldn't get yelled at. the conversations we had were few, but memorable. like the day before the army attacked and killed students barricaded in the polytechnic building, days prior to the fall of the dictatorship. he asked the meaning of a dream he'd had the previous night, where he saw lots of blood.

more about kyriakos another time; i want to get back to work now.

7:51 am: this morning i began reorganizing my home page. i expect this will continue for a while until i find what i'm looking for. i'd like the visitor to get an immediate sense of the scope and direction of my work and i prefer that the images speak for themselves. i did a little work just now & will continue once i'm dressed & showered.

as well, i'd like to move forward with the first in a new series based on plein air gouache paintings done in 2008. more about that later this morning.

august 18, 2008, 4pm /  by Philip Tarlow

11:31 AM:i was looking through old backup drives for photos i know i shot of the creek landscapes i painted when i suddenly realized i was looking in the wrong place!

this was before digital imagery entered the picture, for me at least. so i went to a storage bin where old negative photos are stored. at that time, i glued individual color photos onto foam core boards. they were shot in a way that the full image consists of 4 or 5 or sometimes a dozen and more photos which, when put together constitute a panoramic image. here are 2 examples:

10:38 am:  on august 18, 2008, i went up to a favorite spot at the creek and made this small (10.5x9.5 inches)  painting in gouache on tinted paper. it was one of a series of plein air paintings i did that year. i would carry my equipment, including a collapsable chair and table, squeeze my colors and make one or more of these small paintings. there are many of them from that year.

i rediscovered the one you see herein my flat files, framed it and hung it in our entryway. lately, i've been feeling the urge to shift gears and move on from my gaze series. as i put on my boots in preparation for my walk to the studio, we both admired this piece. i had the urge to make slightly larger versions on paper and, if they grab me, perhaps graduate to versions in oil on canvas.

i may start the process today, and if so i'll post photos and commentary.

better light to continue work on gaze 34 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:55 PM: we were in school all morning, where I video taped some extraordinary presentations by the local high school kids on the school of the future. more about that another time. 

by the time i arrived at the studio, it was 2pm & i wasn't sure whether or not i could get any work done. but i did.

i think gaze 34 has improved from where it was at yesterday, but i can never tell till the next day. below is yesterdays iteration on the left and todays on the right. a collages map was added on the right side and her face was worked on, as well as an overall light scrumble.

10:35am: we completely forgot that we have to be in school this morning! I'll be videotaping the kids presenting their projects. May not get to the studio. Might have 1-2 hours to work; stay tuned.

8:47 am: in about an hour, i'll walk 500 ft. through the fresh snow to my studio and have that all important first glance at the revised gaze 34. i riffed yesterday on a quote taken from a recent new yorker review of an exhibition: "identity and abstraction inform rather than oppose each other." lets take this a bit further.  

over the years i've experimented with pure abstraction in my work, specifically in 2013-14, when i executed a series of collages. while they contain representational elements, such as the one you see here, containing a variety of maps, they can be identified as non-representational. their identity consists of colors & forms in space. while aesthetically pleasing, this just does not do it for me. i need an identity. on the other hand, identity without the visual prompts indicating my awareness of the abstraction of a specific identity as all important is also unsatisfying for me. it delineates the boundary between illustration and painting.

sometimes, as in this detail from gaze 34 as it looked yesterday, that awareness of abstraction manifests in what is termed painterliness; an interruption of the literal which, aside from the sheer delight of gestural marks on a surface of the kind we often find in the drawings and paintings made by young children, serves as a reminder that the goal is not literal, photographic representation. rather, it is juicy, sexy, marks on a two dimensional surface that conjure the entire history  of art as it evolved from cave art all the way to the present moment. these marks ALSO translate as identity. in this detail, they are lips, eyes, cheeks, etc. ideally, that identity is enriched and gains a certain mystery in the process. it triggers memories of important moments in ones own personal visual history as well as the entire history, past and present, of mark making. in that sense, it can be deeply rewarding and merits revisiting. can we ever tire of taking in picasso's demoiselles d'avignon at MOMA? not to compare myself to the master; i'm using this as an example of my own personal visual history. that painting will never get old, never lose it's mystery; it's excitement; it's moments of obvious discovery; it's sexuality. that is the goal.