more work on quantum rocks today /  by Philip Tarlow

4:09 PM: lightening up: fortunately for this painting, thunderstorms continued this afternoon long enough to eliminate the possiblity for walking up the trail and my mentee, k., cancelled his studio visit. this cleared my afternoon for more work on quantum rocks. the two rocks i worked on this morning were too intense & needed lots of lightening, accomplished with judicious scraping, followed by carefully but spontaneously painting into the scraped areas. as a result, the painting as you see it below, has far more sensitivity & allure. yes, i use the word allure because when i look at the revised version now, from a distance of about 25 feet, it attracts me like a lover: it exudes sensuality. it SINGS!

DETAIL of quantum rocks after todays work

2:41 PM: today i re-engaged with quantum rocks. yesterday I gave one of the rocks more specificity, harkening back to the oil paintings i made in about 2001. i thought it might be interesting to mix my current abstracted approach with a more realist one, and see what happens. yesterdays fist attempt was a bit underdeveloped, i thought. so here’s what i did today, refining the rock i painted yesterday and adding one more, while at the same time focusing on how & why williamsburg oils seem superior to me. we met someone representing that company at my opening on thursday.

yesterdays version on BELOW left.

back in the studio, at work on minoo & quaantum rocks /  by Philip Tarlow

1:59 PM: the opening of environment remixed at space gallery in denver was exciting. i was so absorbed in conversation with all the great people i met that i completely forgot to take photos, which is totally unlike me. but we’ll be back in denver and i can take photos then. there was an excellent turnout, and visitors were genuinely interested in having me guide them through the work and giving them insights they may not otherwise have had. this led me to have a conversation with mike, the gallery director/owner about creating an event we’re calling a forum, on about the 19th of this month. i’m going to talk with one of other 3 the artists in the show, ben about joining me via zoom (he lives in albany) for about an hour. i’ll be physically present in the gallery & he’ll join in on zoom. so we can give our individual & mutual perspectives on the work we’re showing; how it came about, and answer any questions the attendees might have about the work.

as always, returning to the studio after even only 48 hours away is a challenge. getting back in my groove doesn’t happen all at once. so i don’t know about the work i did today. i had considered minoo completed when we left thursday morning, but when i entered the studio this morning, perhaps influenced by some of the feedback i received thursday night at the opening, i made some changes & additions. BELOW are the before (left) & after:

i also did some work on quaantum rocks, which i hadn’t touched since april 6th. along the same lines as in minoo, i added some punchier rocks, which focus the composition.

minoo/tarlow /  by Philip Tarlow

12:58 PM: it was clear the moment i entered my studio that

1)the lower portion of minoo was too busy and

2) the evolution of my vision over the past few months needed to play more of a role, and integrate with taiga’s vision.

i don’t feel we’re there yet, but we’re closer. BELOW are 4 stages of minoo, the one on the lower right being the most recent in the evolution of this first painting in my new series.

meiji becomes minoo /  by Philip Tarlow

minoo, 78x26” oil & oil stick on linen

2:43 PM: the title of this painting has changed, from meiji to minoo, a waterfall in japan.

it is now a vertical 78x26” composition, inspired by one of taiga’s scrolls. the white bit in the middle-left portion of the painting is the waterfall. as yet, it’s a sketchy approximation of what it may become. i’m going to try to get an early start tomorrow so that i can get as much done as possible on this one, for which i have a tremendous appetite, since we’ll be away thursday-friday.

the area i think i’ll work on tomorrow morning is the lower 1/3; it’s a bit congested, especially over on the left, don’t you think? aside from that, i like what happened today. the underpainting provides the perfect foil for the landscape-esque marks i made today.

and i like these 78x26” dimensions, which mirror those of taigas’s larger scrolls. i’m ordering more stretcher bars with these dimensions, and just today i received a 10 meter by 84 inch roll of artfix primed linen; enough for me to create an entire new series, which i’m envisioning showing in japan.

setting the stage for the meiji of tomorrow /  by Philip Tarlow

meiji, 26x78” as it looked about an hour ago.

detail of meiji, revealing some japanese letters made yesterday

2:30 PM: today i went over what i’ve been doing for the past few days with a coat of oil paint i especially mixed for the purpose. it’s a kind of warm yellow/tannish color made up of 4 or 5 different colors. then i proceeded to scrape into it, until i reached the right balance of revealed underlying shapes and an overall unifying tone.

tomorrow, depending on how much the surface has dried, i may begin working into it. i have something in mind, but it’s not something specific. not yet. i’ll know better in the morning. last night my sleep was abruptly and frighteningly interrupted when my iphone, which was playing white noise, rang at full volume. it was one of those annoying robo calls, but i shouldn’t have heard it since i had do not disturb turned on. so i just got that resolved with a very helpful apple support person, but i’m pretty wiped. when i bolted up in bed, i thought i was having a heart attack!

resuming work on meiji, 26x78"/composing my artist statement for the exhibition /  by Philip Tarlow

meiji at the end of my painting day

1:04 PM: having completed the selection of pieces for the space gallery show, opening on thursday, i entered my studio with fresh energy & resumed work on a new painting, titled meiji, which i had begun one day a few weeks ago, when i needed a change of pace.

i’m envisioning this being part of an exhibition in tokyo.

before coming to the studio, i composed the text for my artist statement, for the space gallery show. here’s the current draft, see what you think:

I wanted to do something different with this show. Typically artists display a series of paintings in a single show that have a similar look and feel.

I didn’t do this. Instead, I included paintings done over more than a year, as well as multiple ways of interpreting the same subject. Every painting in this show is based on my experiences at local creek near our home in the Sangre de Christo mountains.

My journey always begins with smaller plein air paintings done on site at this creek. Plein air painting is always an adventure. I’ve often knocked my brushes and paints into the creek; wind gusts have caused several paintings to take flight. And for some reason dogs always want to see what I’m working on.

Our personal signature is contained in every mark we make, whether we’re artists creating paintings or laymen signing a document. For fine art painters, those marks can be informed by our awareness and knowledge of the entire History of Art, from prehistoric cave paintings through the 10th Century Chinese calligraphers & landscape painters; through Matisse; through deKooning, through Twombly right up to the present moment.

I constantly refresh my awareness of key players in that history & reflect on how & why they impact me today.

Paintings are marks on a surface, and always have been. In some cases, they are seen as landscapes or portraits. The fact remains, they are marks on a surface. As Matisse famously said, “ I am not creating landscapes, I am making paintings!”

I believe drawing is the bones of painting. I draw constantly, wherever, whenever. I make discoveries when I draw, and they inevitably spill over into my paintings.

You may notice in this series that similar forms repeat within the context of slightly different stylistic solutions.

When I enter my studio every morning, I have no idea what’s going to happen. That not knowing is at the very heart of creativity.

The paintings you see in this exhibition contain many layers of previous paintings. If I wasn’t happy with what I did the previous day, I painted over it, sometimes allowing the previous layer to peek through. Other times, I like what I did, but have a vague sense I could take it further. So I keep going and add another layer of not knowing.

For me, a painting has reached resolution when it sings.

the paintngs are now in Space Gallery /  by Philip Tarlow

where they will be hung over the next few days, alsonside the work of the 3 other artists in the exhibition, titled environment remixed. a dear friend offered to load them on his trailer & drive them to denver. we ended up not needing the trailer, since they all neatly fit into his suburban suv. BELOW are some shots of the process. once he left and i went over to the studio, it felt very empty. but in a good way; the space has been cleared for new work. my mentee, k., came over in the early afternoon and created the perfect transition. we put our attention on what he wants to paint next, chose one of my recent sky photos, and he’ll get started next saturday.

finalizing the selection of paintings for the opening may 30th /  by Philip Tarlow

4:09 PM: today mikela and i reviewed all the paintings that are possible candidates to be sent to space gallery the day after tomorrow. we brought them over to the house, where it was easier to place paintings in the same family & see how they look together. it was the first time i got a real sense of how, based upon the gradual emergence of my rocks language & symbols, that i got a real sense of how they are, in effect, families. and as such, they look & feel like they belong together. tomorrow i need to make sure they are all properly labeled on the back of the canvas. then i’ll figure out which ones can be loaded on the trailer face to face because they are the same size, etc.

preparing for the may 30th space gallery opening /  by Philip Tarlow

7:03 PM: today was devoted to the selection of candidates to be sent this saturday to space gallery in denver. this will likely continue into tomorrow, as i gradually narrow down the number of paintings to be sent, with the final selection being made by the gallery director. here are pages one, two & three of the 8 page document:

feygele reconfigured / purple rock II: yet another transformation /  by Philip Tarlow

purple rock II as it looked at the end of my painting day this afternoon.

detail of purple rock II

3:22 PM: since august 26, 2018, purple rock II has undergone a total of 23 transformations. today may be the boldest. it has definitely been influenced by the previous two paintings, one of which, feygele, can be seen below, in this mornings post. the juxtposition of siena, tan & white, so that these 3 colors sometimes form shapes separate from and enhanced by the drawing marks, and in other instances are defining that very drawing as a rock, was begun following the breakthrough moment in the creation of pink creek on may 17th. scroll down to my blog post of 5/17 to view that painting.

12:44 PM: this morning i reconfigured the 4 16x20” canvasses that make up this new painting titled feygele. they are now placed end to end, making a 16x80” painting. my feeling is that it’s more appealing compositionally, and that the shapes have become more evocative, reminding me somewhat of what matisse did in his dance series. i’ll have to sit with it for a while, but the more i look at it, the more i’m attracted to it. on the RIGHT is ho wit looked yesterday. do you agree it’s far more interesting as a long, narrow?