a look back before going to the studio & getting to work /  by Philip Tarlow

1962: in the dunes of provincetown, mass. , where i spent a couple of summers painting

1:40 PM: we’re getting our daily dose of afternoon thunderstorms. lots of drama, claps of thunder and wind but as yet no rain. love these events.

the eastern sky as seen from my studio, 1:25pm.

at work on 5/9/2021 creek oil on may 9th

12:35: as predicted, I arrived in the studio an hour ago, following our absolutely delightful zoom with our dear friends in germany. my big A-HA! moment came while we were telling them about our participation last week in the Salida bluegrass festival. as we were describing how much fun everyone was having in part because we were all feeling release and joy at being in a large group for the first time in over a year, we described how wildly we started dancing. for me, perhaps more wildly than i’d ever danced! and it suddenly dawned on me what the source of my groin pain was. i’m still icing and taking acetaminophen, but i’m so happy I can let go of my fears that it might be something more serious. WHEW!!!

so remember this period back on may 9th, when I was working on 5/9/2021 creek oil? of course it ended up as a vertical, and until moments ago was still stretched over a piece of 1/8” plywood. well, this morning I un-stretched it, then re-stretched it on stretcher bars without that heavy plywood, and this afternoon I plan on taking it over to the house and hanging it at the top of our stairs to see how it holds up with the rest.

8:22 am: we have a zoom at 10, so i won’t be heading to the studio till about 11:30 today.

i’ll post once i get to work, but before then, here’s a look back: 1961, 1988 and 2012. the ceramic plate was made by a sculptor friend in palm beach and is one of many he brought me to paint on with glazes. the drawing was made on a trip to paris we made in 2012 and that’s photo of me in the dunes of provincetown, mass. in 1961. at the time, i was painting in a rented cottage. i was working as a dishwasher in a provincetown restaurant & hanging with my friend peter manso, who went on to become the biographer of mailer & brando. it was there that i met henry geldzahler, who went on to become curator of 20th c. art at the metropolitan museum and commissioner for cultural affairs for nyc. you can read about it if you scroll down on my story page by clicking on the drop down menu, above or copying & pasting this link: https://www.philiptarlow.com/chatty-bio

5/9/2021 creek oil 26x78”

5/30/21 creek oil now complete, I move on to un-stretching old paintings and stretching new canvases /  by Philip Tarlow

1:13 PM: when I walked in this morning, 5/30/2021 creek oil felt resolved. since it’s stretched over masonite to facilitate collaging, i’m un-stretching and re-stretching that one as well as the previous one, seen BELOW.

once I get everything un-stretched and re-streched with fresh primed artful quadruple primed linen, i’ll be able to launch into some new work.

generally in the break periods between painting days, I get new inspirations (I was about to say ideas but thought better of it.)

it’s also very valuable to go through this process because it allows me to compare new work with older work. I feel it’s getting better, brighter, more playful, more inventive while at the same time honing in on that fugitive who am I, anyway?

continuing work on 5/30/2021 creek oil following yesterdays paint-over /  by Philip Tarlow

3:55 PM: end of day additions, with a beautiful light blue in the center. for the past hour or two, i’ve been doing more work on 5/30/2021 creek oil. it needed more white space, which I provided by collaging some of my b&w ink drawings at strategic spots. and it needed more pop, which now comes from a red oil pastel mark left-center and a bit of radiant turquoise in the upper portion.some blue bubbly water at the bottom provides a balance, and some black strokes add punch. I enjoy looking at it more than I did when I came in this morning.

think I may take it further tomorrow, but right now I have to return to the house, lie down & ice my groin, which is very sore from something that got strained, likely on one of the trickier parts of our trail walks.

below: a few details

5/30/2021 creek oil 26x78”

1:23 PM: following the paint over with titanium buff yesterday afternoon, I took the painting outside on this beautiful day so that I could rub into it with an old sheet, clearing away some of the paint I applied but leaving a sketchy see-through image. I took it outside because this involves using a lot of solvent, & even though gamsol is odor free and relatively safe, it’s better for my nose & lungs when I can do it outside.

after bringing it back in, I did make more marks and apply a few small collaged pieces, but this painting has a ways to go. ihave a errand to run, then i’ll return & do a bit more.

a paint-over of 5/30/2021 creek oil / waffles with blueberries & walnuts / more afternoon thunderstorms /  by Philip Tarlow

this afternoon when we returned from salida, scattered thunderstorms continued to roll through crestone/baca. as we had an early dinner on the deck, they surrounded us, but allowed us to finish our dinner before closing in on us. i shot this from our deck looking across the valley towards saguache and to the northwest.

5:51 PM: i spent the morning in my studio and had to leave about 11 am so we could get to our salida appaointment this afternoon. during that space of time, i went over 5/30/2021 creek oil with titanium buff, which i’ll likely scrape and wipe over tomorrow morning, so that important passages remain and the overall busyness calms down/.

as i worked, i got hungry and made myself waffles with fresh, organic blueberries & walnuts while surveying the painting and those areas i’d like to remain intact.

BELOW are 4 stages; the earliest on the left, the most recent on the lower right

BELOW: a few details i may want to keep. these two passages, for example contain marks that perfectly reflect the kinds of calligraphic marks that flow from my brush, from my pen.

continued work on 5/30/2021 creek oil /  by Philip Tarlow

working until i could no longer stand up, i mushed up this painting until it was fakakta as one might say in yiddish.

blues are coming and going; pinks are trying to shout their names while whites pretend they mean something in this chaotic, wind driven world.

i worked compulsively, trying too hard to make it work.

there are however some cool passages, llike the one on the right.

2:03 PM: i was interrupted during my continued work on this painting and was a bit thrown off course when i resumed. i’ll have to sit with it in this state till tomorrow and see what i think in the morning.

mikela wandered over a while ago and had an issue with the new green up on top. so that’s mostly gone, replaced by collaged pieces of a pen drawing i made while eliminating the green. also new is the tree trunk on the right, which anchors the composition. in real life, it looks a lot less busy than in the photo, and it’s actually rather beautiful. no way could i do any more today, and besides i’m on the phone with apple support for the last hour, addressing an issue that came up when my printer didn’t recognize the latest OS, so i’m having to revert to the previous. HUGE pain in the ass!

i just have to keep reminding myself what a luck guy i am in so many ways. as i just messaged mikela, life sometimes throws you a curve ball…..no biggie.

5/30/2021 creek oil 78x26” today at 2 pm

11:19 AM: after getting an early start, i picked up where i left off yesterday. we were up at 5 this morning, so mikela was able to get to work early, as was i. i’m still in my flow state, so i don’t want to say too much. i’ll get right back to work after i post this.

i think my next move may be to break up that big rock….possibly with a few tree branches. the green on top is new, & i think it works.

5/30/21 creek oil flips 360....again.. /  by Philip Tarlow

1:35 PM: i continued work on 5/30/21 creek oil, flipping it 360, yet again. a big rock has entered the composition, as well as collaged pieces of a cut up ink drawing i made this morning. the blue ripples in the creek water are always an opportunity for me to make the wavy, painterly marks that permeate my recent work. the pale pink border frames the entire composition, giving the eye edges to bounce off of and containing the multi-directional movement. a piece of bubble wrap pressed into the blues beneath the rock creates the illusion of, yes, bubbles!

it’s getting progressively darker, and we may be in for some thunderstorm activity. so i’ll see whether there’s enough light for me to continue today.

drawings / flippin the berde 5/30/21 creek oil /  by Philip Tarlow

2:56 PM: after flipping 5/30/2021 creek oil upside down, i continued working on it, despite the very poor natural light due to a series of thunderstorms coming through. i’m going to start using my own spelling, which ayve been doing when messaging mikela laitlie. there’s a relationship between this spelling and my love of flipping paintings upside down.

lette me ex-playne. shifting perspective on an known entity even a litel jogs the brayne in such a way that watte maide senss before now maikes even morr. but upsyd down. this allows for the introdukshun of new percepshuns, previously blokt by our expectayshuns of how the werld looks.

even a slight jogging opinz the dorr.

this clenzing uv the wyndoze of percepshun, evin fore a momint, opinz the dore a krak and letz the lyte inn.

so wyle this payntinge is bie no meenz compleet, it’s onit’s waye

BELOW: lefte: yesterdaze verjun, right: momintz ago

1:27 PM: i’m in the studio with thunderstorms rumbling outside and bursts of heavy rain.i searched through some old sketchbooks and chose to post these two drawings from 2003. they were both made in a now extinct excompta french made sketchbook with superb paper. why do they stop making all the best things?

1:31 PM: here’s one of the drawings i made yesterday at the bluegrass festival in salida in between bursts of rain & thunder.

6:42 am: i didn’t have time to post the latest state of 5/30/21 creek oil ysterday before leaving with our friend for the bluegrass festival in salida.

STARTING 5/30/2021 CREEK OIL AND A SMALL MODIFICATION TO 5/9/2021 CREEK OIL /  by Philip Tarlow

1:08 PM: i completed stretching a new linen artfix canvas & commenced work on 5/30/21 creek oil. it’s starting out as a vertical, and as yet has no collaged elements. but since the canvas is stretched over a piece of 3/4” masonite, i can collage whenever i want. like all it’s predecessors, the joruney ahead will be a circuitous road.

in looking at the two paintings side by side, i realized that, while both canvases are artfix brand quadruple primed linen, the one i just started is not dead white. more like a tan-ish color. that will make any collaged piece of paper that’s white “pop.”

1:16 pm: so the modification i made to 5/9/2021 creek oil is mid-way up on the right. i was looking at a close up i shot last month of a rotting tree stump, which was orange-siena-deep red in color and riffed on that to make the marks you see here in this detail.

a friend is arriving in an hour, and we’ll have dinner together. so i’m planning on stopping early today & will likely start a bit later than usual tomorrow since we’ll have breakfast together before he leaves.

DETAIL of the modification i made today to 5/9/2021 creek oil

returning to 5/9/2021 creek oil /  by Philip Tarlow

5/9/2021 creek oil at 3:30 pm today

3:18 PM: de-phallic-ing: mikela walked over from the house & liked the new version of 5/9/2021 creek oil a lot. but, she said, the ink drawing on the lower portion kept drawing her eye to the detriment of the entire composition. actually, i agreed. i don’t care if it’s phallic, but it does concern me when any one element in a painting dominates.

so i simply collaged over it, and i do think the painting has improved because of it.

now that it’s become a vertical, i think 5/9/21 creek oil has found her voice, and begun to sing.

i especially love that new turquoise blue next to the cadmium yellow up on top.

and my discovery: making pen and ink drawings before starting to paint, cutting them up & introducing them into the composition, has evolved since i made it last month. it’s become an integral part of my language in making these larger creek oils. i say larger because it all started with small, 10x15” works on paper.

BELOW: are a few other details

1:51 PM: i collaged some of the pieces of the cut up drawing i made this morning on to the painting surface. then i had the urge to turn it into a vertical, and worked into it with a few of the new oil colors that i ordered, which were delivered a few weeks ago. one, a turquoise blue, really made a difference and livened up the composition , taking it from a 6 to a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10.

BELOW: on the left you see the painting following todays work. and on the right, how it looked as a horizontal before starting work this morning.

DETAIL of 5/9/21 creek oil at 1:45pm

12:52 PM: i’m finally back in my studio with no likely interruptions today. after having 5/9/21 creek oil on my easel for weeks and not including it in the 26x78” creek oil paintings i dropped off at space gallery this past week, i’m feeling ready to return to the spare painting, which definitely needs something more.

so i started by making some ink drawings of whatever was in front of me. as you can see, i placed the white paper i’m drawing on atop the painting, which is a solid surface due to the masonite beneath the canvas. in case you forgot, i use that as a way to be able to collage onto the canvas without it giving way.

once i move on to the next stage of work on this painting, i’ll post.

more denver drawings / todays podcast /  by Philip Tarlow

this morning i participated in a podcast on the occasion of the exhibition of the work of my late friend and mentor yannis tsarouchis : https://wrightwood659.org/exhibitions/yannis-tsarouchis-dancing-in-real-life/

it was my great honor, and a lot of fun. the podcast will be editied and made availavle to the public at the end of next week, and i’ll post the link.

i should be able to get back to work painting tomorrow morning and will begin posting again as usual. some new oils will be happening, following up on the ones i dropped off a few days ago at space gallery in denver. BELOW is one of them:

5/3/21 creek oil 26x78”

11:51 AM: i made some waiting room drawings yesterday and here they are.

i ove drawing people in waiting rooms. by definition they are all waiting, and thus, until the nurse come out & calls their name, they will remain more or less motionless.