an ano kato painting in our entryway /  by Philip Tarlow

6:12 PM: this long, narrow ano kato painting hangs on an equally narrow wall in our entryway. two images are combined here: the two girls sititng on the floor a a school and, above, students walking down the hallway in the same school, while in the foreground is a detail of a pool.

as the late ny times reviewer john russell wrote in 1982: “there is about him something of the storyteller, even if we never quite figure out what the story is. he makes us wonder what his people get up to when they aren't in the picture-and that is after all one of the perennial aims of painting.”

so what did i do today in my studio? i felt 80% recovered from my oral surgery on thursday. i used my energy to take high quality photographs of the oil/collages that will be hanging in the show. they are destined to be included in the new i fly catalogue on the first page of this site.

post-op /  by Philip Tarlow

1:05 PM: I had my gum surgery yesterday afternoon in boulder. the procedure took 2 hours, and I have stitches which will be removed in 2 weeks. he numbed the whole area up, so I didn’t start to feel pain till we got home last night. i’m applying ice to keep the swelling down. I came to the studio today thinking maybe I could get some work done, but i’m still too out of it. maybe tomorrow or sunday.

i’m probably going to include 2 paintings from my 2019 sound of a flute series in my upcoming I fly exhibition opening April 22 at space gallery in denver. here’s one of them, titled 10th month, dimensions 78x25” oil on portrait linen.

9 of my polyptych oil/collages mounted on board /  by Philip Tarlow

3:57 PM: today i mounted 3 more out of a total of 19 paintings inmy polyptych series. it’s a messy, difficult process making sure the surface is perfectly flat & air bubble free before the acrylic bonding liquid dries. as you press out the air bubbles, excess sticky acrylic oozes out the edges and needs to be cleaned off. i’m employing lots of old washcloths to accomplich that, which i plop into a basin of water once i’m done.not my favorite activity!

BELOW are the 9 i’ve thus far mounted on board. 10 to go, unless i decide to leave some of them out. tomorrow afternoon i’m having my osseus gum surgery (google it) so i’m hoping to get back to work on friday, depending on my level of pain & swelling.

looking back at gaze 16, 32x32", 2017 / continuing work on watercolor/collage 12 /  by Philip Tarlow

3:25 PM: before leaving, I noticed those two letters on the bottom, which are remnants of the image when it was upside down and are part of the word TOKYO. so I collaged partially over them and now my eye no longer goes there first. it still looks a bit busy on the bottom, so I may work on that in the morning.

2:52 PM: I took WATERCOLOR/COLLAGE 12 a lot further just now, and I think i’ll stop for the day, as I listen to an aboriginal dreamtime song called devil spirit.

so this piece is definitely influenced by the music. for a few minutes I was moved to dance to it. a dance unlike anything i’ve ever done. right now i’m listening to ginung (farewell). so farewell for the day my friends!

1:19 PM: i’m continuing work on the final in my series of 12 watercolor/collages today. moments ago, I flipped it 360°, and we’ll see where it goes from here. no collaged elements as of yet, but that will likely change soon.

7:43 AM: 2017 was the year i created my GAZE series of paintings in mixed media on primed linen canvas. this is one of that series, which is 32x32” visit the gaze page to view the rest: https://www.philiptarlow.com/gaze

6 of the watercolor/collages on grey board / I may have finally found the right sneakers to wear in studio! starting WATERCOLOR/COLLAGE 12 /  by Philip Tarlow

4 PM: after mounting & photographing 6 of my watercolor/collage series (see BELOW), I embarked on what may be the last in this series: watercolor/collage 12. thus far, it’s a partially completed pencil drawing of a woman’s basketball game at the 2020 tokyo olympics, viewed from above. I’ll take it further tomorrow morning.

we had some light snow today, and it was overcast all day long; rather unusual for crestone/baca. right now it’s 37F, but the sun should be back tomorrow, when there’s a slight chance for some afternoon snow, and by the end of the week our temps will reach 60F.

2:54 PM: UPS just delivered a pair of brooks glycerin GTS 19 running shoes. i’m trying them on my cement studio floor, & so far so good. “like walking on air,” as the doctor at anschutz medical center said when I asked him about what he was wearing. i’ll try wearing them all day tomorrow, and that will let me know if they really work as well as they seem right now.

1:11 PM: this morning I had to photograph some of the watercolor/collages for a flyer they’re putting together for the Anschutz eye center. I found some grey board, mounted 6 of them and sent them to mikela, who is very good at graphics. she’s working on it right now & i’ll post what she comes up with when it’s ready.

BELOW is the grey board with 6 of the watercolor/collages

1976: the miracle /  by Philip Tarlow

the miracle

8:01 AM: during my 15 years in greece, i spent a lot of time on the cycladic island of andros, just a few hours by ferry from the port of rafina, which is about an hour from athens. during that period, i made many studies, drawings & paintings of andriots. one day in about 1976, while shooting photos near our house in the plakoura neighborhood of chora, capitol of andros, i encountered a fisherman bringing his days catch to a small taverna on the sea. he told me the story of a miracle that occured when he was a child in asia minor. in one of the first movie theatres at the time, he was watching a kids film with his parents. as frequently happened, there was a problem with the projector and the attendees were asked to leave until the problem could be resolved. once the last person had left the theatre, the theatre, which was a wooden structure, burst into flames and burned to the ground. he and the others attributed their miraculous escape to the virgin, protrectress of their village.

as he told the story, i shot a series of b&w photos, which i later used to make a series of small paintings in oil on canvas mounted on board, collectively titled the miracle. it’s one of the few paintings i made during that period which i have in my private collection.

3/20/22 watercolor/collage 11 stage 1. /  by Philip Tarlow

4:35 PM: at the end of the day, I made changes that reverse the predictability of the image, interrupting the 2 legs and giving precedence the the forms and spaces. I feel that the collaged piece on the upper right makes the composition pop in a way it didn’t in the last iteration.

3:22 PM: so I did go back in to watercolor/collage 11 and I think it has improved from the previous stage, which you see BELOW. the b&w bit of collage above his head was more in my head than in my gut. so I collaged over it. his trousers were somewhat timid in execution, whereas now, the richness of the browns has increased, as has the patterning. a bit of white gouache color was used in the area between his head & leg, and the color of his face is also more pronounced.mehinks it sings, and i’m going to let it be for now & see what I think in the morning, when it’s forecast to be snowing. with the inaccurate snow forecasts recently, i’m doubtful.

by the way, in case you were wondering, the surface of his skateboard is a collaged piece of a printout od a watercolor/collage of our creek, which sold recently in my denver gallery.

2:29 PM: I did quite a bit to watercolor/collage 11, but I don’t think it’s quite there yet. something’s not quite right when I cast that all important furtive glance. I have maybe one more round in me before stopping for the day, so let’s see what happens. remember, I have to be willing to totally fuck it up in order to reach resolution.

so OK, here goes.

BELOW: paintings in various stages of framing

10:24 AM: go a nice early start today so I could meet R who arrived at the studio precisely at 10, as promised. he’ll likely complete work on the wood frames today.

I started 3/20/22 watercolor/collage 11 stage 1, and in an unusual move, began with collaging 3 bits of paper before putting brush to paper. here it is on the RIGHT.

watercolor/collage #10 /  by Philip Tarlow

the title of my upcoming space gallery exhibition, with the images i’ll be using on the invitation.

2:55 PM: while R was mounting the wood stripping frames on my paintings, I worked on watercolor/collage # 10 of 12. it’s in the same vibe as the others, and i’ve used maps plus a piece of the wrapper from a greek bakery I kept in my pile of papers used for collaging. that’s what the blue lettering in the central portion of the composition is.

I could never have imagined that i’d be so heavily drawing on these images from the 2020 tokyo olympics celebration; to the degree that they have dictated the title of my upcoming exhibition!

watercolor/collage #9 of 12 / stretched paintings for the petAow exhibition /  by Philip Tarlow

3:55 PM: this morning I prepared my studio for a virtual tour, which ended up not happening. so I mounted one more of the polyptych series paintings on board. so now 6 out of 19 have been mounted, 13 to go. it’s a painstaking, messy process which is well worth the effort. but you gotta get all those little air pockets before the adhesive dries!

then I started work on #9 of 12 watercolor/collages, also destined to be shown in my petAow exhibition, opening April 22 at space gallery in denver. I think it’s resolved, but i’ll bring it over to the house & we’ll both gaze at it tonight & tomorrow morning. this is it on the right.

BELOW: the stretched paintings, the mounted paintings and the watercolor/collages on my studio walls for the virtual studio tour.

exhibition title? RE-STARTING WATERCOLOR/COLLAGE#8 /  by Philip Tarlow

i’m considering this as the title of my upcoming exhibition

1:26 PM: I did some collaging on 2020 tokyo olympics, so here’s how it looks now. the collage makes a significant difference, as do the two figures of dancers on the lower portion of the piece.

11:47 AM: following a couple of false starts a few days ago, i’m re-engaging with watercolor/collage #8. the central figure is a drummer from the 2020 tokyo olympics final celebration. i’m about to do some collaging. once it’s complete, i’ll finish stretching the last of the seven canvases i’ve been stretching so that R (keeping his name private) can attache the thin wood stripping frames on saturaday.