1/8/2022 polyptych, day 2
I added a collaged element to the skateboarder image & started on a second canvas, which i’ll continue working on tomorrow. i’m not yet sure where this is going, and if it will be a 4 panel polyptych or individual paintings. clearly however, the 4 of them will constitute a family.
1/8/22 tokyo olympics polyptych, stage 1
2:37 PM: I began painting the first of this polyptych a few hours ago. I wasn’t sure what you call a painting consisting of 4 canvases, so I looked it up. four or more is considered a polyptych.
this is one of the tokyo olympics skateboarders, with lots of white space for you to imagine the rest. clever of me to do 4 together. that way I may be able to avoid overworking.
1:21 PM: last month i had cut squares of primed portrait linen from a leftover piece into squares for a possible future painting. today I decided to mount them on my east painting wall & see what happens.
11:41 AM:these were just delivered by fedex yesterday, so what i’m about to say might be a little premature. it’s extremely difficult for me to find shoes or boots that are comfortable on my feet. I have flat feet and a neuroma and usually end up having to send them back. that said, so far these are the most comfortable damn shoes I ever tried. they are made by brooks and are called beast ‘20, made in Vietnam. I had been wearing my montrail flip flops in the studio. as flip flops go they are extremely comfortable & work for my feet. but even with sock, my feet get a little chilly in the winter. so today is my first day wearing them, and so far they’re extremely comfortable. we’ll see how the day goes.
so now lets get to work!
12/20/2021 oil/collage 33x46” following todays modifications
1:55 PM: i’ve been revisiting recent paintings I thought were resolved. when I looked at this one, 12/20/2021 oil/collage 33x46”, I felt the bottom quadrant was too busy and needed simplification. rather than working into it with collaged elements, I used titanium/zinc white, which I then painted into. the delineation of the two dancers white tutus are now more pronounced, and colored pencil marks similar to the ones in the upper right have appeared beneath the dancers & to their left. i’ve learned to stop for the day when I run out of steam, & i’ll see how I feel about it in the morning.
BELOW: a comparative look at the before, on the left & after
1/1/2022 oil/collage as it looked at noon
12:18 PM: when I entered the studio this morning & cast that all important first glance at 1/1/2022 oil/collage, it seemed too cluttered. so what else is new? that happens regularly. the area that bothered me most is in the central portion of the composition, so I collaged over it with one of the cut up drawings I made yesterday & posted pics of.
the other think that was bugging me were the hands. they were coming from my head not my gut. since I put them in yesterday, the paint was fresh enough that I could wipe it out with a little solvent.
the result, when you compare the two, is rather dramatic. it’s the very definition of unclutter! it breathes. it’s relieved to have lost the excess baggage. so the viewer’s eye is now free to roam the surface and enjoy all the cool details, such as the one you see on the right.
BELOW are the comparative views, with yesterday’s version on the left.
DETAIL
1:55 PM: mikela walked over this morning & gave me some valuable feedback on a few recent paintings, one of which was 12/30/21 oil/collage, which I thought I had resolved last time I worked on it, 12/31/21.
look at the comparative pics BELOW, & you’ll see that, in the previous version on the left, there a collaged element with 3 red triangles. and now, if you look at the modified version on the right, they’re gone. take a deep breath, because that what this painting is doing now that it has cast off those red triangles! the whole composition can breathe, and the most beautiful passages, such as the one in the detail you see on the right, are so much more available to the viewer than before.
DETAIL
1/1/2022 oil/collage right side up
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.
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.
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.
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.
1/1/2022 oil as it looked moments ago
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.
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
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.
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
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
12/30/21 oil/collage, phase 2
