a new collage today and a review of the past few days /  by Philip Tarlow

2/10/20 collage, 11 1/4 x 8 3/4”/28x22 cm.

12:32 PM: i made a new collage this morning, which may signal a shift to larger, simpler forms. or not.

yesterday afternoon we attended a political event, of which mikela was the main organizer. it was well attended, and several candidates for county commissioner in saguache county spoke, as well as a virtual appearance by us senate candidate andrew romanoff. i made brownies, which were immediately gobbled up, and there were other goodies, including delicious fresh carrots from the farm of one of the candidates. questions were asked and answered, and i think the goal was achieved: attendees left with greater knowledge of the issues, how each candidate thinks and feels about them and what actions they plan on taking if elected.

BELOW starting at the top left: detail of a collage i made a few days ago showing the contrast to what i did today; a late afternoon sky announcing a few days of predicted snowy weather, starting this afternoon; a framed collage from 2012 which shares some of the aesthetics of what i did today; a view looking west in our master bedroom with mostly greek related paintings, a 2014 collage on canvas and the edge of an ano kato series painting; and finally, a shot of the event yesterday afternoon, which was held in the gym of our local crestone charter school.

a new collage today and a painting by 14 year old m /  by Philip Tarlow

2:17 PM: my day began with 3 drawings of stacked cubes which mikela needed for one of our actionlab360 presentations.

2/7/20 collage, 20 1/2 x 8 1/2 “

i was about to clear my work table so i could stretch the canvas to bring to my mentee in carbondale for her hospital commission, when i glanced at all the collage materials on the table and decided to make a new one. when i looked at the others i have here in the studio, they all seemed somewhat congested, so i wanted to keep it simple. i think i was able to do that, but i need to bring it over to the house and live with it for a day or two to determine whether it’s resolved.

on our last trip to edwards we met with one of the women who proposed a theme for the social space at the next tedX VAIL. when there’s a break in the talks, she will have a booth, which the attendees can approach to learn what it is she’s offering, which will be an experience they can transmit to other attendees. i don’t want to spoil the experience, so i won’t say any more.

when she learned that i’m an artist, she enthusiastically told me that her 14 year oldson is an aspiring artist, and showed me some of his work on her phone. i offered to post it on my site. here are her comments, along with her son’s,comments on his painting:

What M said about this picture:"Things may seem one way and when you shine a different light on them they bloom differently."And he did this literally too, he used LED lights that change color and the picture looks different when he switches the colors.

“ Things may seem one way and when you shine a different light on them they bloom differently.”

new headers for "sound of a Flute" and "New Collages" pages /  by Philip Tarlow

today was a short day; i was resting my shoulder after overdoing it yesterday and decided not to do any more work on the 2 paintings i was working on revising yesterday.

i also made some calls and sent some emails regarding the sound of a flute exhibition i’m working on putting together in japan. the people i was reaching out to will likely be visiting those 2 pages on my site soon. so i decided to create new headers for those pages. i think they’re a big improvement; see for yourselves:

tomorrow i may start a new collage, which will be the same size as the others on the new collages page. i think it’s smart for me to take it easy on the big sweeping brush movements and intense palette knife scraping i’ve been doing over the past week.

work on illusory city and il torrente continues; yellow dominates /  by Philip Tarlow

todays palette

il torrente at the end of my painting day today

3:23 PM: I continued work on illusory city and il torrente today. having run out of titanium white; an unusual occurrence, I squeezed he very last bit from a couple of tubes and mixed it with indian yellow and brilliant yellow pale, which I then proceeded to layer over what I had done yesterday. I then worked into them, and the result is, I think, rather hauntingly beautiful.

illusory city at the end of my painting day

they each, in their own way, sing a tune of mountains, plant life and distant memories of adventures forgotten. my large palette knife has always been as important to me as my fan brushes. it allows broad dance-like sweeps into wet oil paint in a way no other tool could. this particular palette knife is very dear to me, and has been since I purchased it years ago on one of our trips to my gallery there. a relatively new addition to this mix ar emu oil sticks. i’ve been using them for a couple of years at least. there are fat one and skinny ones, and they all form a skin when not used for a few days, needs to be peeled off with a mat knife. I love that I can draw with oil paint in a way no brush can accomplish. all these tools make it possible for me to dream up new avenues.

illusory city and il torrente /  by Philip Tarlow

at work today on illusory city

3:50 PM: more work today on illusory city and the first stage of a re-work of il torrente. if the sound of a flute series paintings are abstracted studies of taiga’s paintings & scrolls, then these are abstracted studies of the abstracted studies. by painting over the previous versions of these two paintings, which were themselves abstracted studies, but of Chinese 12th century paintings with guys on horseback, there now exists corresponding faint images which lend mystery to these two paintings in their current state. gone, for now, is the overall titanium buff beige overall color. instead there is an off white tone, which i’m liking a lot. more and more frequently, I see myself standing on the shoulders of archile gorky. his sensibility seems to be akin to mine: lyrical and always referring back to nature,

BELOW left: il torrente, right: illusory city

continued re-work of illusory city /  by Philip Tarlow

at work this afternoon on illusory city

3:27 PM: today, upon entering my studio, I cast a glance at illusory city, which I began re-working yesterday. I painted over most of it, leaving behind a few curvilinear shapes suggesting leaves, which today mutated into shapes suggesting mountains receding. I used a slightly pinkish titanium white to paint over much of what I did yesterday, which I then scraped over with sweeping gestures impossible over the past few weeks because of the tendonitis in my right shoulder. i’m doing the exercises my physical therapist recommended religiously, and I think they’re helping a lot. yesterday after our afternoon stupa walk, I wanted to watch the super bowl, and dropped out the exercises. I felt the pain come back immediately!

while continuing on my taiga inspired track, a new element has definitely shown up as a result of the series of collages I made during the period when I couldn’t paint on a large scale.

illusory city, 42x48” at the end of my painting day today

re-work of illusory city, 42x48" /  by Philip Tarlow

DETAIL of illusory city following todays work

1:52 PM: I decided this morning to return to illusory city, 42x48”which I last worked on December 25th. as you will observe BELOW, it has been painted over and is a very different painting.the inspiration remains: Chinese 12th century and Japanese 18th century paintings. on the left is the painting as it looked on December 25th, and on the right todays version. visible is the under layer with a figure on horseback.

I was struck, when reading the interview my son dimitri gave following the opening of his new theatre production in poreia theatre, athens yesterday, by a similarity in what each of us is up to. he has taken great greek poems from sappho all the way up to embirikos, a contemporary greek poet who died in 1975, and melded them into something new, while retaining the individuality and music of each. I feel i’m doing something parallel in my recent work, both in my sound of a flute series and in this new series. more about this once I have a chance to re-read and digest his lengthy, very well written review which was just published in lifo.

back to work on "sound of a flute" series /  by Philip Tarlow

4 PM in spite of the fact that I said I was stopping for the day a few hours ago, I couldn’t help myself & dove back in, making more changes to sparse reflections.

BELOW left: earlier in the day; right: sparse reflections at the end of my painting day

sparse reflections, 78x26” as it looked following todays revisions.

1:17 PM: I very carefully got back to work today on larger pieces. the tendonitis in my shoulder has not yet resolved, but is feeling better enough for me to make my first foray into larger paintings in oil on linen. today I began a re-work of a sound of a flute series painting titled sparse reflections, which I had painted over on November 2, 2019; almost 3 months ago. so far, the new element that has entered the picture following this recent period of smaller works on paper is a boldness not seen in any of the previous sound of a flute series paintings. I stopped when my shoulder let me know I had done enough for the day. normally I would have kept painting for at least another hour, maybe two.

my points of reference as I was working today were: chinese 12th and 13th century landscape paintings; japanese 18th century landscape scrolls and enlargements of photographs i’ve taken at our local creek, where I go to paint plein air, weather permitting.

this long, narrow vertical, scroll-like format continues to bewitch me….there’s just something about it that grabs my kichkes (yiddish for guts), compared with a traditional square-ish or rectangular format. i’ll have to see how my shoulder is feeling tomorrow morning to determine whether or not I can continue with this one.

more carbondale and edwards drawings this week /  by Philip Tarlow

self portrait in a mirror

7:24 pm: just back a few hours ago from edwards. the actionlab school meetings went very well; teachers were excited by the product and the pilots are moving ahead.

DETAIL of 1/28/20 h&h drawing

while mikela and jason were visiting teachers in edwards & carbondale, i sat in my favorite restaurant/coffee shops in edwards & carbondale and made more drawings of customers. i had a short conversation with the owners & set up future meetings about possibly creating a small exhiition with some of the drawings i’ve made at h&h over the past few years. the large, open space is at the same time intimate. it has natural lighting from the large windows facing the street. the spaciousness of this unique interior makes it conducive to these quick sketches in colored pencil of couples talking over coffee, people working on projects with their laptops, small groups planning future events……

we’ll be back in about 10 days, when i’ll be making more drawings.

BELOW: 10 drawings made between 1/26 and 1/29 at h&h in edwards and bonfire coffee in carbondale

a new collage, created 2 days ago, on wednesday /  by Philip Tarlow

5:02 PM: just back from our stupa walk. the creek, the snow, which still blankets the creek, has melted a bit with above freezing temperatures, creating some wonderful shapes. shapes that are as sculptural as the are sexual, sensual. this blanket of nsow hides the details; the little twigs and smaller rocks. there’s very little color. blacks, whites & shades of warm grey. the ripples of melted creek water reflect the grey sky and introduce patterns into the flowing smoothness of the fresh snow. what if, i wonder, brush in hand, cut pieces of note paper, maps, newspapers ready to glue down, what if these ripples were blue, red, green?

DETAIL: 1/22/20 collage

here, in this detail of my 1/22/20 collage is one answer. and this is why i love to say that art is play. not exclusively, but to a large degree the delight you see in the eyes and the movements of 6 year olds making drawings, it’s exactly that delight i’m talking about. deciding, in the moment i’m moved, to pick up a blue crayon or collage a yellow piece of paper i am listening, yes to my decades of experience and of looking at great art from around the world, but as well i’m making an instictive choice, which for me as fun, pure delight.

BELOW: 1/22/20 collage, 25 x 8 1/2”