no more wiggle room! long live purple rock II! / August 26, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

2:10 PM: after working on wiggle room for 2-3 days, i got that it was unsalvageable and whited over it. it happens. what counts is to recognize when you've hit a brick wall & let it go.

at work on *purple rock II* around 1:45 PM

i've been in the process of whiting over varios motion series paintings i consider unsuccessful and using the layering to my advantage. it tends to create a surface rich with suggestive marks & forms, which, i believe add to the mystery and up the discovery factor. i want the viewer to never tire of looking at the painting over and over and always discovering something new. part of that is folded into this new direction of the meta-motion suite of paintings. they all hint and suggest rather than hitting you in the face with indisputable forms & marks. they are more dream-like, less specific. some passages want to transmute into other forms, and are deliberately left, leaving you wondering.

a new title image for the MOTION page, which you see below

more wiggle, more room / August 25, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

4:17 PM: i did more work on this painting, scaling down the size of the central rock, but i feel it's still too dominant, so lets see what tomorrow brings.

BELOW: 3 stages of wiggle room over the day

BELOW: wiggle room earlier today, on the left, and just now, on the right

3:05 PM: a dramatic transformation, and now the central image is the large brownish rock, which, as i gaze at it, seems too dominant. i'll see whether i have the energy to do a bit more, or i'll wait till tomorrow morning.

*wiggle room* , 36x36" as it looked at 1:30 PM

1:45 PM: i worked back into wiggle room today. a bit late due to our morning trail walk. it's still deciding what it wants to be when it grows up.i'm going to continue painting till about 3 or so, when we'll drive to elephant cloud to get ingredients for a stir fry tonight.

at work on 2 more meta-motion paintings / August 24, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

*wiggle room,* 36x36" as it looked at the end of my painting day.

*blue rocks,* 38x38" at the end of my painting day

4:28 PM: i think purple rock may be resolved, so i'm bringing it to the house, where it will be hung in the living room for the acid test.

so i continued work on 2 whited over & renamed, reborn you could say, motion paintings, now known as the meta-motion suite. they now have names instead of numbers, and have in common a lighter touch, a whitish ground and suggestive forms which are less descriptive than the earlier motion series paintings.

BELOW: details of blue rocks, left and wiggle room, right.

purple rock continued / August 23, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

here's purple rock at noon today

BELOW: comparison of yesterdays version (right) and todays

more purple rock & prep for new paintings / August 22, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

studio view at the end of my painting day, with purple rock on the right & 3 painted over motion paintings

8pm: at the very end of the day, somewhat frustrated by todays slow paced work on purple rock, i began painting over 4 earlier motion paintings i wasn't entirely happy with. BELOW are 2 of them: right-logs in motion and left- zigzag. i may strat work on one or both tomorrow morning.

3:25 PM: delicate painting it is. delicate work it requires. but don't be skittish; sometimes bold strokes are what's needed. how do you know ? gut.

BELOW: left-yesterdays version; right-todays

more work on upper left of purple rock / August 21, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

*purple rock* at the ned of my painting day today

4:36: today was k. day (my 12 year old brilliant mentee) so i stopped at 2:20. i returned with fresh vigor to purple rock (don't you find it nicer that the paintings to have names rather than numbers?) iwhat i did was very little, very subtle. it's a delicate surface but it does read from where i'm sitting, about 25 feet distance. the whole thing has a pastel ring to it, yet it still has it's bones. i'm starting to thing this frequent travel schedule, due to political events we need to attend in different parts of the state, is beneficial to my work. it allows for a fresh eye.

purple rock / August 20, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

back from basalt, i returned to my studio this morning and began work on one of the earlier motion series paintings, which will become part of the POST MOTION series. this new series will not be numbered. rather, each painting will have it's own title, and this second one (the first was pink rocks) is titled purple rock.

i may leave it in this state as i white over another of the less successful motion series. the object is not to be stuck working on one painting, allowing me to leave it in a state where more is hinted at than fully elaborated upon.

a great visit, a new friend / August 18, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

today we visited the home of a very unusual couple. i had a long and gratifying conversation with john, and my wife had one with his wife out on the terrace. they have a beautiful collection, mostly limited edition prints purchased over the years at manhattan auction houses. the collection includes works by goya, rembrandt, miro, rivera, picasso, gaugun, and delaunay.

on the right is a view from their window, and included in the images of his collection, below, is a drawing i made based on this view, which is now in their collection.

basalt / August 17, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

this morning i discovered yet another ceramic piece recently made by my friend dan in his workshop. it displays the same level of skill, artistry and playfulness we've seen in all of his pieces, large & small.

this particular bowl has a beautiful transition from the interior to the exterior, in terms of both color and pattern. those little hatchings incised into the very bottom of the bowl, in my opinion, take it even further beyond what you might expect looking at it from the side or above. they give it an unpredictability as well as a connection to a more aboriginal sensibility, where marks are often made purely for the delight of it, and unintentionally reveal the artisis personal signature. his dot design on the outside of the bowl is also evokative of aboriginal sensibilities. dan's creations are refreshingly unpredictable, while giving the impression of a ceramacist who has been at it for many years,along with the fresh perspective of someone who has only been at it for a relatively short time, and has a reservoir of tricks up his sleeve reflecting an awareness of the history of art,

LAST NIGHT mikela spoke at a fundraiser for candidate diane mitch bush, running for congress representing Colorado CD3. the well attended event was held in a beautiful aspen home. diane spoke, answered questions and then gave the floor to kyle and mikela, who is in the position of field director, organizing volunteeres in the various counties. diane is hoping to unseat scott tipton, who is a disaster. he's got lots of money, especially because he accepts corporate donations, as opposed to diane who does not. he was given a high likelyhood of winning until recently, when it was announced that the election results were "a toss up."

drawing made yesterday at our boulder meeting / August 16, 2018 by Philip Tarlow

yesterday morning & afternoon we had meetings related to our educational product. they were very productive, and moved us ever closer to our 2019 launch date. as usual, i couldn't miss the opportunity to draw one of the participants, our dear friend & team-mate, J.

BELOW: a shot of some of our friend dan's recent ceramic pieces, which i love.