illusory city, stage 3 /  by Philip Tarlow

illusory city, stage 3, 42 x 48” oil, crayon & colored pencil on linen

1:43 PM: we had a couple of inches of fresh snow last night, with a very overcast, threatening sky this morning. the sun has finally broken through, heating our passive solar house to over 90 F, making it necessary to open some windows despite the temperatures hovering just above freezing.

ALLEE WILLIS, 1947-2019

i’m still recovering from the flu, which was lighter than normal because we both got the flu shot, but still took a lot out of me. and my shoulder, although it’s getting better, still requires that I take it easy & don’y over-use it. so I decided to come to the studio for only a couple of hours & do whatever I could in that time frame.

in addition, I was delayed this morning when we learned of the sudden death, from a heart attack yesterday afternoon, of an old friend, very well known in the music industry: the great ALLEE WILLIS. if you read about her, you’ll quickly understand she was a totally unique being, who once said, when being interviewed, “my favorite form of art is creating parties.” we’re fortunate to have been to a couple, at her home in LA. she couldn’t read music, but that didn’t stop her from becoming one of our greatest song writers.

perhaps best known for having written the friends theme song, being co-writer of the music for the color purple, as well as having written earth, wind & fire’s September. she won 2 Grammys for Beverly Hills cop & September. Allee was a total delight to be around, very funny and very warm. we’re still in shock.

so limiting myself to just 2 hours of work today seems to have worked out. just when my shoulder started hurting & I began feeling that flu-ey achyness & chills, I stopped to shoot photos & post this.

I love painting on holidays like xmas. it’s like you know nobody is going to bother you or interrupt your process.

BELOW are 6 details from illusory city:

illusory city /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL

2:18 PM: this new painting, 42x48”, is inspired by an 11th c. li gonglin painting. it’s in an early stage and, for now is dominated by one color: a warm beige. as with il torrente, a story is being told, which overlaps stories told by 18th c. Japanese calligrapher/painter taiga, whose scrolls were the inspiration for my sound of a flute series. figures on horseback and on foot move across the picture plane, in the shadow of tall mountains. what, exactly they are up to is up to the viewer. they exist in a cascade of curvilinear shapes suggestive of animals, birds.

illusory city, 42x48” oil & colored pencil on linen at the end of my painting day today.

il torrente: out with the orange/red /  by Philip Tarlow

2:03 PM: mikela has always been bugged by that red/orange strip across the top of the painting. this morning she came over & gave me some feedback, which was very helpful in making the changes I just did. these are evident in the BEFORE & AFTER images below. I was attached to that orange/red swath of color, which, although it did serve a purpose compositionally when I started the painting, had become an eye grabber, serving no real purpose in the composition as a whole other than to grab your eye and scream look at me!!I the faint traces of its that remain contribute rather than detracting from the composition as a whole. in its place, the mountain shapes have moved up to the top of the canvas and beyond, so that the imagination completes them. the horse & riders also gain more prominence and meaning in this story; a thousand year old/contemporary tale of adventure.

il torrente continued /  by Philip Tarlow

2:40 PM: today was the first day, following my shoulder tendonitis diagnosis, that I felt comfortable getting back to work on il torrente. I was avoiding doing anything to it because my mentee, k., was so positive about it. but the more I looked the more it seemed too crowded. so was I started the drawing for a new, as yet untitled painting, I gingerly wandered over & started making some changes to il torrente. it’s looking more coherent to me now, but still needs work. the eye travels more easily & smoothly around the composition, and it’s just a more interesting painting. BELOW are images of the before (left) & after.

moving from 1979 to 1980 /  by Philip Tarlow

1979 was the last of my 15 years in greece. on some level, i knew this when i mad ethis painitng, titled long distance call. an unknow figure is making a call in one of the last long distance phone booths in greece; this one in chora, andros. in a few months time, i would be separated from my then wife and my dearest andriot mother-in-law, painter niki karagatsi. i would be living in paiania, attiki as a stepping stone to my final departure for new york. i was that unknown guy in the booth, calling home. which is why there is so much feeling in this painting. unfortunately, the scourge of egg tempera painting: little mites that love eating the dried egg, all but destroyed it.

within a little over a year, i would find myself in santa monica, california. my new friend, david hockney who lived up in the hollywood hills, invited me to house sit during his travels. i was still painting in egg tempera when I made this painting, based on a photo I took of myself standing in my robe on david’s deck overlooking his famous pool. this painting was purchased by hockney nd is in his collection.

the lights and shadows; the warmth and intimacy of the spaces; all reflect the lessons i learned under the guidance of my teachers, friends & mentors, which led me to recognize & revere my core. what i see when i look at these two paintings comparatively is a continuity of spirit; a love of light; a love of story.

on hold /  by Philip Tarlow

4:23 PM: today is the first day since I fell & injured my knee that i’m back in the studio. I got here about an hour ago to prepare for k., who will be continuing work on his land/sky-scape. it’s the best he’s done yet, in my opinion. I was all set to do more work on il torrent, but when k. saw it, he loved it in it’s current state, so that opinion plus the pain in my knee made me decide to make this post instead.

the other day I got the urge to photograph ceramic plates that sit in various parts of our house, & post them on FB. the reactions were many; all very positive.

as I peruse them(there are 7 below, although that’s not all of them) i’m admiring them more & more. my collaboration with sculptor & ceramicist joseph meerbot was unexpected. one day he showed up at four door in the home we owned at the time in palm beach, Florida. he had a truck full of ceramic plates, and said “i’m not good at painting these platters, but I know you would do something wonderful, so lets collaborate.” so we did, and every so often he’s drive up with his pickup full of unglazed platters. we showed some at helander gallery on worth avenue in palm beach. I sold some & we split the profits. looking back, I love what I did & wonder, if someone showed up today with a pickup full of platters, what would I do?

il torrente: stage 10 /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of the detail on the lower right

3:17 PM: il torrente entered it’s 10th stage of development today, with many marks, the majority of which, I predict, will disappear. and who would know better? stage 1 looked like this on November 21.somewhere under this web of new marks, that original, elegantly simple heart pounds.were it not for my painful, freshly injured knee & the tendonitis in my shoulder, I might well have gone over some of what you see here, resulting in a cleaner, simpler image. but that was not meant to be, so here it is.

on the right is a detail.

more work on il torrente /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of il torrente at the end of my painting day today

5:01 pm: today i continuedd work on il torrente, modifying the whites i added yesterday & continuing to be judicious about using my right arm so as not to aggrevate the tendonitis in my right shoulder.

as you can see, yesterdays whites, in the image on the left, have been scaled back & somewhat muted. i added some new images and modified others, allowing a story to begin to emerge; a story with it’s roots in 12th century china, being told through the brush of a 21st century colorado painter who was born in brooklyn.

returning to "Il Torrente" /  by Philip Tarlow

4:48 PM: today i felt like i could no longer resist the strong urge to paint in oil on canvas once again, even though it’s only been 4 days since i last worked on it. so, gingerly, carefully, using my left arm whenever possible, i dove back in. and, as usual, it appears that i totally fucked up a beautifully delicate construct. maybe. we’ll see.

hoogeloon continued /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of hoogeloon today

2:49 PM: I brought hoogeloon over to the house & after gazing at it for 24 hours, brought it back to the studio for modifications. it needed simplification. i’ve run out of archival glue sticks & had to use neutral ph adhesive, which is in liquid form & can get messy. watercolor marks can be seen, in addition to the various collaged elements. i’ll boring it back over to the house soon & see how it holds up. BELOW: yesterdays version on the left, todays on the right.

4:30 PM:

while i liked the white shape on the upper left, which i kept seeing as an eagle in profile, the composition as a whole was a bit too obvious, even predictable.

my work today opened the space, allowing it to breathe, and introduced a more painterly element with the calligraphic brush strokes in blue watercolor on white. as a result, the forms and marks are more biomorphically suggestive. that yellow line, together with the green marks at the bottom allow this collage to finally sing; that unpredictable moment i always hope for but can never plan. hwile i sorely miss working big, i’ve always loved working small with collage on paper, where an entire section can morph by simply collaging a piece of white paper; a map; an old drawing fragment……