1:03 PM: i spent the morning tweaking cactus blooms, which was painted yesterday in oil on portrait linen, in one session. i'll keep checking it out as i start a second 16x16" oil. i'll post photos once i've completed the first stage.
BELOW: cactus blooms yesterday, and, on the right, after today's tweaks.
3:49 PM: i needed a break from my gaze series, so i started a new series of paintings in oil on portrait linen, 16x16." the first in the series is titled cactus blooms. the high desert cacti growing on our property, which are ubiquitous in the san luis valley, bloom briefly next month. so i get to admire them on my walks to & from the studio.
painting in oil again after a break of over one year, during which time i worked in acrylics & collage, and, when i painted plein air, gouache on paper is like having sex again after a year of abstinence! it's that good. some of these will become larger paintings eventually, but for now, the series will be 16x16." i don't know what's coming next, but it could be one of the little birds i photographed outside our front door this morning & posted on facebook.
there's a winter storm warning starting at 6pm through tomorrow, with 6-18" of new snow above 10,000 ft. VERY exciting. if it materializes, it will be an important addition to our snowpack, which is already above normal.
5:12 PM: i'm now sitting in out east living room, looking at gaze 2 hanging on the wall. next to it, on the floor, is gaze 1, which was the first in the series to break into brighter colors than can be found in any of the previous paintings in the series. in comparing the two, i can see the part of me that was trying to recreate that breakthrough. this is a common, natural habit, very difficult if not impossible to break. the trick is to build on these breakthroughs, not to mindlessly repeat them.
so, as much as i hate to say it, gaze 2 needs more work. although it does have beautiful passages, right now i don't think i've taken it where it needs and wants to go. and that means once again giving up any attachment to any particular area of the painting. it may end up being just a small intervention. but it has to be one that is not in the slightest calculating. as with all the successful resolutions of the paintings in the series, it has to simply happen. in it's previous incarnation, when the image was inspired by the same vermeer painting: the art of painting, the focus was vermeer's self portrait, sitting on a stool with his back to us, painting this model. now the model herself is the center of attention. but, as with the vermeer self portrait, it's not the success of this figure in and of itself that matters. it's the integrity of the picture plane as an arrangement of colors, strokes and shapes that matters. and that's what tomorrow will be about.
i hope you're not getting bored with what increasingly seems like a familiar, repeating series of events. but that, right now, is what my creative process is all about. i take courage from one of matisse's greatest painting, bathers by a river, which hangs in the art institute of chicago. matisse developed this composition over a period of years, returning to it again and again, making changes and adding yet another layer. each successive layer was undoubtedly a masterpiece.
BELOW are the before (left) & after. on the right
1:49 PM: i started out just wanting to correct her nose, which was a bit to wide, and of course ended up making other changes, mainly to the upper region. gone is the red rectangle, which was part of the map behind her head. in spite of the dark skies and poor lighting conditions, i think the painting has improved. so i'll take it over to the house in a little while to hang it on the east wall and evaluate.
3:23 PM: end of my painting day. we had wanted to walk up the trail, but there's a thunderstorm happening.
i did a fair amount of work, especially on the lower portion. it's still not there, but it's in an interesting state, close to becoming a reinvention as opposed to an interpretation. is that a distinction, or did i conveniently just make it up? i may bring it over to the trusty east wall of our east living room to evaluate more carefully. the red shape on her right shoulder is bothering me. i think the red adds a lot, but the shape doesn't quite integrate with the rest of the composition.
i'll report in once i get it back to the house & we've had a chance to evaluate. some of the details are cool, so i've posted them above. if you click on them they'll become full screen, and if you happen to be on a 27" desktop,you'll get a pretty good idea. all shot with my trusty nikon D-7200 by the way. love that camera!
1:23 PM: working into the collaged image, there is now a bit more compositional coherence. the lower half of the painting is not yet on board with the rest though...
and all the while, vermeer himself is still trying to figure out how his own model showed up in his place & took over the space. (see yesterday's blog: MODEL OBLITERATES PAINTER, for an explanation)
12:10 PM: some collaging this morning moved gaze 2 into the color by technicolor space. about to squeeze my colors onto the palette & begin painting.
more pics will be posted as available this afternoon
2:17 PM: end of my painting day. there's a break in the thunderstorms moving across the valley, so in about an hour we'll walk up north crestone creek trail.
increasingly, the sharper, more defined look of the earlier gaze series paintings is transitioning to this more diffuse, mysterious look, which i associate with the pompeian frescoes i so love. of course you could argue that, when they were freshly painted they were much sharper & more focused, but this is just where i'm at in my aesthetic. gaze 2 is not yet resolved, but it's closer than a few days ago, when the figure of vermeer with his back to us dominated, and left little space for mystery. when it comes down to it, i don't really care why this series is taking this path. what matters is that i find it far more visually rich and satisfying when suggestion and innuendo reign.
eventually, the owner of this painting may not know just how many layers of paintings underlie what they are looking at every day. but that story is alive, i believe, and can be sensed. the final image; the final painting surface will vibrate with the twists and turns of the story that lies beneath.
noon: MODEL OBLITERATES PAINTER!! in a rare case unlike anything authorities have ever seen, a leafy hatted model has obliterated a painter. while some bits of the painter, who, curiously, has his back to us, remain, he has almost completely disappeared, leaving only faint traces of his cap and red stockings. confusion reigns, as the art loving public scrambles for answers!
BELOW left: immediately post-scrumble. RIGHT: the leafy hatted model triumphs....who knows for how long!
8:04 AM: i may have been too hasty yesterday afternoon when i declared that all traces of gaze 2 would be obliterated. it does need something, but something perhaps less radical than a complete re-work. if you look back at the development of all previous gaze paintings, you'll see that the pattern is a series of reinventions which culminate in a subtle, layered surface which leaves space for the imagination to roam free. gaze 35 is the best example of this. that's not to say that gaze 2 will follow the same path. but it might. we'll see in a few hours. we're walking up the trail this afternoon at about 3:30, so that's my window.
5:11 PM: so it didn't take long to make my decision. i brought gaze 2 back to the house, hung it on our east living room wall, and it became immediately clear that this painting needs work. i might even shift images. in the company of it's brothers and sisters, like the one you see on the floor, it's way out of character. too specific. beautifully painted passages? yes, for sure. but it's simply not representative of what the series is about. too specific. too much of vermeer with his back to us and too little mystery. have a good look, because by noon tomorrow, what you see will be gone; scrumbled out of existence! i did have a fun time painting it though, and learned a lot more about vermeer's technique and his spirit.
3:43 PM: i knocked myself out today. i made some changes to gaze 2 that may or may not have improved the painting. i'm just too tired to evaluate, so it will have to wait till tomorrow morning.
the figure seemed too realistic, in the sense that i felt there was a split between the free biomorphic shapes surrounding the figure and the figure itself. i collaged over part of it; his waist with the sash, but that didn't work, so i painted into it, and now i'm afraid it's lost some of it's freshness, lightness and grace.
below is the current state on the right, next to gaze 2 as it looked when i entered my studio this morning. it might need a light scrumble in the morning. scrumble, fro those of you who don't follow my blog regularly, is a light wash of color which is scraped before it dries, then painted and or collaged into.
1:27 PM: work on gaze 2 continues; here it is on my easel at 1:15PM. back to work now...
2:42 PM: a bit of collaging, a bit of painting...siga-siga or σιγα σιγα as they say in greek (slowly-slowly).
the collaged areas, mostly on the top quarter, have enlivened the image. some have said that his garb is not contemporary, and that it was something he had in his trunk of tricks. more recently however, art historians have found that his flamboyant clothing was indeed fashionable at the time. in any case, it lends itself to the painterly strokes he was so masterful at. his use of space always lends itself to riffing, i think because he is so sensitive to the abstract patterning that pervades his work and takes it beyond his time.
i'm curious to see where it goes tomorrow morning.
10:43 AM: we were in denver for a few days, so this is my first morning back in my studio. as soon as i get things organized i'll continue work on gaze 2, which you see below over the past 3 stages. pics to follow.
9:08 am: i'll head over to my studio at about 10 to continue work on gaze 2. here's haze 1 on our east living room wall.
1:47 PM: today i recieved a "no" from the national gallery of ireland in dubln. i knew from the start it was a long shot. nonetheless it's hard to deal with no. had i been aware of the big vermeer exhibition earlier, it would have given me precious time. but museums organize their programs at least 1-2 years in advance, so what i'm attempting is a long shot. and what am i attempting? in a nutshell, an exhibition of my gaze series accompanied by a talk by myself and gary schwartz, whose just published vermeer in detail has an obvious relation to what my series is about. gary is excited about the idea and loves the work, but we're up against the time factor.
so i was getting tired of riffing on vermeer's the lacemaker and today shifted imagery and am riffing on the art of painting, which i think is his greatest masterpiece. i love seeing it in this early phase, where my most recent version of the lacemaker peeks through around the figure of vermeer seated and painting with his back to us. i'm stopping early, so this new imagery will continue to develop tomorrow.
2:43 PM: that's it for today. ready to clean my brushes & go for a windy walk up north crestone creek trail with mikela.
i did a bit more work, including more collaging. i know she now looks like she has bunny ears; it was not intentional, or maybe.....at any rate it hangs together better compositionally, and those shapes in the upper quadrant add mystery, and announce that she is here and now. the calligraphic writing was inspired by one of my favorite fayum paintings, where it serves the purpose of identifying the sitter.
lets see how gaze 2 strikes me in the morning...
12:51 PM: reVISION....that's it exactly. i'm re-visioning vermeer's the lacemaker. today i did a radical series of interventions, in that wonderful state where the process is happening & there is no attachment to this or that form, whether it be a biomorphic shape created as the result of repeated collaging, scraping, painting, or a realist detail like an eye or hand.
once again children's drawings made here on my studio floor months ago have taken on a significant role, in this case allowing bright reds to enter the equation, as the lacemaker emerges into her 21st century space, no less dedicated to her craft.
