January 5, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

3:16 PM: I did quite a bit of work on 1/1/2022 oil/collage today, much of it using collage. as you will notice in the comparative views BELOW, I love the checkered patterning on the sleeve, top right. the two sets of hands are from a photo I took from above at a dinner party here in Crestone/baca about 10 years ago or so. they mirror the checker board the kids on the left are playing with. interesting how the red beach ball in the center serves as a focal point for the entire composition. some of the collaged paper hasn’t bonded completely with the canvas, so i’ll fix that in the morning. I did a good days work & i’m just about ready to go back to the house & have dinner with my honey.

oh and by the way, I had a conversation this morning with the director of a gallery in aspen and we settled on a fall date for my solo show. more on that later.

12:32 PM: I needed some of those drawings I make & then cut into pieces, so I made some this morning & will be using them to collage onto 1/1/2022 oil/collage in a little while.

11:11 AM: this morning before coming to the studio, I was going through some photos of past creek drawings. here are a couple I picked out.

resuming work on 1/1/2022 OIL/COLLAGE now; i’ll post in a while.

day 4 of 1/1/2022 oil/collage / January 4, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

6:11 PM: i’m posting unusually late today because we’re just back from a trip to salida for doctos appointments. nothing special; just check-ups.

i did have time this mornig however to turn 1/1/2022 oil into day 3 of 1/1/2022 oil/collage. the newly collaged elements are on the top 50% of the composition.

BELOW is a comparative view, with todays version on the right. i’ll be doing mor ein the morning. already, the whole compoistion has transformed. the question is: will i be able to do what needs to be done, putting the integrity of the composition first, without touching those beautiful bathers down below?

right now, the compostion seems more crowded than yesterday. an interesting challenge awaits me in the morning! i may have to start a new one to take my attention away and prevent me focusing on just this one painting.

days 3 4 of 1/1/2022 oil/colage / January 3, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

SQUARESPACE doesn’t want to let me post, so i’m trying this angle: posting todays blog on yesterdays post to see if that works.

JANUARY 4, 6:11 PM: i’m posting unusually late today because we’re just back from a trip to salida for doctos appointments. nothing special; just check-ups.

i did have time this mornig however to turn 1/1/2022 oil into day 3 of 1/1/2022 oil/collage. the newly collaged elements are on the top 50% of the composition.

3:02 PM: I worked solely on the upper half of the painting, since I didn’t want to upset the delicate balance of the while spaces surrounding the faux bathers on the faux beach in the lower portion I worked on yesterday.

I added the observer deck with its railings to the composition.

I found this article about Lithuania’s Golden Lion-winning performance at the 2019 Venice Biennale on artnet.com.

On View

It’s Hard to Make Good Art About Climate Change. The Lithuanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale Is a Powerful Exception

The pavilion presents a subtly unnerving performance about the laziness that leads to the end of the world.

Julia Halperin, May 10, 2019

So much art about climate change is bad. It’s preachy, literal, unimaginative, and hung up on aerial shots of floods or topographical maps. By contrast, Lithuania’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale, titled Sun & Sea (Marina), is a revelation. It is a chilling work about climate change that is also an opera about a day at the beach.

From a balcony on the second floor of a warehouse in Venice, viewers look down at a sandy tableau, where performers of all ages and sizes splay out on towels under beach umbrellas, scrolling through their iPhones and thumbing through magazines. The sounds of seagulls and ice cream trucks echo in the distance. One by one, the vacationers sing about a world very similar to our own, full of minor inconveniences.

you can find the is article, as well as a few others, here: https://news.artnet.com/art-world/lithuanian-pavilion-1543168

day 2 of 1/1/2022 oil / new arrangements on my east & south studio walls / January 2, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

*1/1/2022 oil* at the end of my painting day today.

2:55 PM: I painted most of the day. i’m calling this 1/1/2022 oil for now, since no collaging has yet happened, and may not at all. right now, this has all the markings of a purely painterly piece. brush strokes deftly suggest bathers on the beach, while a few elements of creek-scape appear in the middle of the composition. the beach scene (on an artificial beach,) was inspired by a lithuanian performance piece at the venice biennale, where it won the golden lion award. some of the “bathers” are volunteers, resting inside a piece of art. when I saw the image, I didn’t get it at first. but then when I read the commentary, I found it intriguing, exciting and reflective of the world we now live in. i’ll continue work on this one tomorrow.

11:21 AM: we we awoke this morning, the temperature was -8° F with a wind chill of -18°F. the studio is toasty, thanks to the in-floor heating, which keeps it at about 65°F.

I rearranged the paintings on my south and east facing studio walls to accommodate new work that was sitting on the floor. in the middle on the east wall is the one I started yesterday. i’m about to launch in & will post as the day progresses.

BELOW: the east wall is on the left.

starting the new year with 1/1/22 oil/collage / January 1, 2022 by Philip Tarlow

2pm: it was a snowy morning, but unfortunately we didn’t get much needed moisture. maybe a couple of inches. when you’r win extreme draught, that doesn’t really do it.

I started the year off by making the first marks on a new canvas for 1/1/22 oil/collage. but first, I added a few grey/black squares beneath the tennis player on the lower right of the one I was working on yesterday.

this new one has started out as a creek-scape. we don’t know where it will head tomorrow.

*12/30/2021 oil/collage* following this morning’s modification

continued work on 12/30/2021 oil/collage / December 31, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

*12/30/21 oil/collage*, at 3pm, following the changes I just made

3:18 PM: I went back in towards the end of my painting day and simplified the composition, getting rid of most of the green foliage, which I found to be a distracting, unnecessary part of the composition. it’s almost there. when I cast my glance from my computer table, about 20 feet away, it’s on the edge of being a coherent, compelling composition. as usual, i’ll know when I first walk in tomorrow morning.

the collaged elements, as always, add a tremendous amount and introduce that precious, for me, element of the unexpected and unpredictable. the tennis player has turned out to be one of the main anchors, as has that collaged piece of one of my cut up studio drawings just above & to the left of her head. the entire composition appears to be engulfed by what looks to me like a huge, galloping wart hog on the upper left. the figure in top the center, with the yellow vest & helmet, was inspired by a photo I saw of workmen uncovering a mosaic. it had survived an earthquake, and as result, was rippled but intact, which is kind of amazing, don’t you think?

1:28 PM: another extremely windy day, as I continue painting & drawing the new one I started yesterday: 12/30/21 oil/collage. a lot has happened since then, as you can see. a few collaged elements have appeared, as has a female tennis player, one of the tokyo olympics acrobats and two fragments of ancient mosaics. phase 1, yesterday, was based upon a photo sent recently by a dear friend in germany, of one of their potted plants. the leaves are visible towards the top left quadrant of the composition

starting 12/30/21 oil/collage / '80's painting of NYC architectiural reflections / December 30, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

2:53 PM: just started a new oil/collage, which is 34x38 in. so far, stage 1 is just a colored pencil drawing. stopping for the day & will pick up tomorrow morning.

7:49 AM: in the’80’s, i was a member of fischbach gallery on 59th st. during that period i was living and painting in my appartment on central park west and traveling around the city on my bike, shooting photos of nyc architectural reflections, which was my passion at the time. this is a detail of one of the oil paintings that emerged during that period. in was purchased by a nyc collector. it’s not as sharp as i’d like, but i’ll search for the original photo of this painting & when i find it, i’ll post.

more later when i get to the studio. as for the weather here in crestone/baca, we’re expecting snow new years eve and new years day, with temps falling below zero at night.

so what have you been up to, philip? / December 29, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

6:49 PM: the past 2 days i’ve been completing setup of my new epson printer and assembling the new projector stand that was just delivered. i had ordered and assembled one previously, which i’m sending back tomorrow. it was too lightweight/flimsy. this one is much heftier, more stable, has a second tray for a laptop &, perhaps most significantly, it has wheels. it was a bitch to assemble & i ended up having to watch a youtube video for the last step, which was pretty nutty. we postponed a couple of dinners we had planned because of the latest covid uptik. but we’re still planning on driving up to denver for the tour of the denver art museum’s exhibition: Whistler to Cassatt: American Painters in France. i was invited by the director to this tour, which will take place in the morning, before the museum opens, and be attended by about 20 local artists. after giving it a lot of consideration, we decided it will be pretty safe. all will be wearing masks and keeping a good distance from each other. plus i’ll get to meet some denver artists personally picked by the museum director, whiich i find exciting.

all that to let you know why you haven’t seen any new paintings for a few days. something is brewing however. so you may see something new tomorrow.

in the meantime, here’s a detail from one of my recent series of oil/collage paintings on linen.

the completed 12/20/2021 oil/collage / December 26, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

*12/20/2021 oil/collage* after this morning’s modifications, enlivening the greens.

12:01 PM: this morning, on this extraordinarily windy day, I made the final strokes on 12/20/2021 oil/collage. actually, there was no brush involved, just oil pastel. based on feedback from mikela, who came by yesterday afternoon, i made the green shoots scattered about the right portion of the composition pop. but not too much.

just received a text from my son Dimitri, whose latest theatre production was just named one of the 20 must see productions of the year. here’s the link: https://www.lifo.gr/culture/theatro/20-theatrikes-parastaseis-gia-ta-fetina-hristoygenna

xmas work on 12/20/2021 oil/collage / December 25, 2021 by Philip Tarlow

*12/20/2021 oil/collage* as it looked at 1:30 today

1:31 PM: I made more modifications over the past hour. BELOW is a comparative view, the the most recent version on the right. the changes are more subtle than the ones I made this morning. fro example, the black, patterned circular passage on the lower middle has been collaged over with a simpler geometric image. the white area beneath the dancer on the left now contains marks in siena similar to the ones in the upper right quadrant. a bit of the same cut off blue lettering on the lower right now appears, albeit in a very minor way, in the lower left corner of the composition. all this, as I cast glances at it from a distance of about 20 feet, gives it a more unified, less cluttered look.

we’re planning on taking our stupa walk in about an hour, so I may spend that time setting up my new epson printer. the old one works fine, but I wanted more precise, lively colors, which this new model should give me.

*12/20/2021 oil/collage* as it looked at 12:30pm today

12:34 PM: holidays & weekends don’t mean much to us; just a great opportunity to get some work done uninterrupted. today is no different. i’ve been making modifications to 12/20/2021 oil/collage since I arrived in the studio this morning. the sun is out today, making it easier to see the colors. so far, I haven’t touched a brush. so it’s just been collage and some pencil & crayon marks. it’s definitely less congested but it ain’t there yet.

BELOW: yesterdays version is on the left.