4:29 PM: that red area on the right was bugging me, so I made a few other changes & tweaks as well. still not sure, but I did get two more stretched up, which will allow me to have 2 more playgrounds and the come back to this one if i’m so moved.
BELOW: the before (yesterday) and after.
anschutz from above 5
4:25 PM: i made changes until just about half hour ago. here’s the current state of the painting. i’m in the house now, so this is definitelt the final stage for the day. we’ll see tomorrow morning…….
anschutz from above 5 as it looked at the end of my painting day today, after being flipped 180°
3:17 PM: I thought I was done for the day, but after mikela returned from school and had a look, I was inspired to do more. and more I did, flipping the painting 180° and doing extensive work until I tuckered myself out. so now i’m really going back to the house and we’ll see tomorrow what i’m moved to do, if anything.
i’m finding it interesting, what flipping the painting did to the composition. the angles on the bottom are still visible, giving one the feeling that the woman reading her book is flying through space/time, caught for just a moment before flying off the canvas.
anschutz from above 5 at the end of my painting day today.
1:30 PM: I did a lot more on anschutz from above 5 and am done early for the day; mikela is on her way back from school & will be here at 2. i’ll see tomorrow morning whether this one I really complete or I need to do more. never know. but that pink on the right does grab my eye…can’t yet tell if that’s good or not!
11:53 AM:continuing work on the new anschutz from above 5 while eating pistachios
11:10 AM: this morning I got an early start, since mikela had to leave for school at 8. today by the way is our 36th anniversary of meeting in 1986.
this is a very early stage
anschitz from above 5. stage 1
the four anschutz from above series paintings i’ve completed thus far.
3:24 pm: i’m preparing 4 more 16x20” canvases, so that there will be a total of 8 paintings in this series. while stretching the remaining 4 canvases, I reviewed the four i’ve completed thus far, hanging them on my east wall.
of course there’s a connection to my Ano Kato series: https://www.philiptarlow.com/anokato
if you look carefully at that series, the first thing you may notice is that this new series leans more in the direction of nonobjective painting, using ambiguity and abstract expressionist brushwork to walk the line between figurative and abstract; now tilting here, now there. the figures in my Ano Kato paintings many of which were inspired by museum views looking down from above, are clearly recognizable. the seated figures of anschutz patients seen from above are a part of the architecture. if their forms are becoming too distinct, they are scraped and smeared with my palette knife until they integrate with the whole.
my love for architecture, which runs through the history of my work, first showed up in many of the paintings i made during my 15 year greek period; mainly neoclassical architecture. it continued during my new york period, in the early and mid-80’s.
BELOW: 2 of my many paintings of neoclassical greek architecture, originally introduced in the 19th century. the one on the left is in athens, and on the right, chora, capitol of the cycladic island of andros.
2015 painting in progress of a view from above of the MET interior
nschutz from above 4 as it looked moments ago, after taking out those browns on the upper right
2:55 PM: before leaving for our walk (looks like it might rain, but we’ll see), I made those last minute modifications i’m so prone to do, taking out those two darkish brown horizontals on the upper right & giving everybody else in the dance a little breathing room.
anschutz from above 4 as it looked at the end of my painting day today.
2:28 PM: I continued work on anschutz from above 4, bringing it to a point where it takes a breath, but hasn’t yet exhaled. amazing what can occur in a 16x20” space! I think when i’m done with this size, i’ll move on a larger dimensions, but there will be at least another 3-4 that are 16x20.”
I think the architect who designed the anschutz complex would enjoy seeing these paintings. i’m going to see if I can find out who he or they are.
mikela just texted & proposed that we walk up to the stupa. it’s 55° fahrenheit and overcast; perfect walking weather. plus, it’s been a while with the strong winds & yesterday’s snow keeping us from getting our exercise and breathing in fresh mountain air!
anschutz #4 as it looked moments ago
1:22 PM: this morning I started another in the anschutz Series: anschutz #4, inspired & emboldened by this quote from diebenkorn: “do search. but in order to find other than what is searched for.” and, as John Elder field observed, “his passion for obstacles was a defense against the end of possibilities.”
3:43 PM: just before leaving the studio for the house, I made one more modification to anschutz from above 2. that dark grey triangle was bothering me, so I took half of it out, which, if you compare it with the previous state, in the image BELOW, I think is a big improvement. I also darkened somewhat the shadow on the round white tabletop.
3:05 PM: I made further modifications to anschutz from above 2, the most obvious of which is the dark grey triangular shape on the left.
anschutz from above 2 at the end of my painting day today.
2:17 PM: i felt as though 5-19-22 oil/collage was going nowhere so i stuck it in my storage room & i’ll decide later what’s to become of it. if you follow this blog, you may have realized, as i did this morning, that there is a recovery period following the opening of a new exhibition. the one i had on april 28th at space gallery in denver is no exception.
so i’m slowly finding my way to a space where i can begin afresh, a new series destined to be shown at CMC aspen in september. today i returned to anschutz from above 2, which i had abandoned and painted over last week. here’s what it looked like when i took my mid day break a little while ago. i’m going to sit with it for a while & see how i feel about it. at the moment, it does have some compelling passages & brush strokes….
anschutz from above 2 as it looked when i took my mid-day break today
5-19-22 oil/collage today at 4pm
4:06 PM: I just wrapped it up for the day. I made some major changes to the composition, which is still very much in process. there’s more going on, especially with the addition of the creek inspired rocks & water in the lower portion. the last minute addition of persian rose in the center & upper right makes a huge difference, giving more of a focal point for everything going on, as does the small collaged bit of a hockney poster on the middle-right. a few DETAILS, BELOW, give a better sense of what’s going on as the viewer approaches the painting. at the moment, that horizontal crop of the very bottom segment could easily be a painting in itself, which to me is a sign that full integration of forms, colors, space has not yet been achieved. but tomorrow is another day!
5/19/2022 oil/collage as it looked around 1pm
1:23 PM: the wind continues to gust up to 40mph, the skies have clouded over but it doesn’t look like we’ll be getting the first wave of the predicted rain/snowstorm until about sunset. I never trust these predictions and future radars until they actually happen, so we’ll see. but, as always, we really need some precip!
i’ve continued work on 5/19/2022 oil/collage. it’s progressing well and i’m taking it slow, so this post represents a break in my process. while sitting at my desktop, I can cast furtive glances at the painting and see where I might want to go next.
today’s palette
8:26 AM: today i’ll be continuing work on the new 5/19/22 oil/collage, which i started yesterday.
in the mean time, we’re expecting a storm, starting as rain about 3pm and turning to snow later this evening into tonight and tomorrow. here’s what the eastern sky looked like at sunrise, with gusty winds continuing to blow from the S/SE.
5/19/22 oil/collage as it looked towards the end of my painting day today
2:45 PM: I found myself getting a little tired of the 16x20” format and fantasizing making a larger painting. so I started work on a 38x40” piece of as yet un-stretched, triple primed portrait linen. at the moment it’s composition merges various elements: our creeks, ancient mosaics , japanese 18th c. master taiga & van gogh, to name a few. there are currently 2 collaged elements: one, top left is a piece of wrapping paper from our last trip to greece & the other, in the lower right is a piece of a u.s. map including detroit.
DETAIL
anschutz from above 2 as it looked moments ago. this is #2 in a series, so far, of 3, all 16x20” oil on linen
2:45 PM:i took anschutz from above 2 back to the house yesterday afternoon. after gazing at it for a time, I decided it needed more work. so this morning I went over the whole painting with a thin wash of off-white oil color, scraped it and then worked into what was left of the previous image. I was in a very useful WTF frame of mind, which helped in walking that thin line between abstraction and representation.
as i’ve said many times before, pure abstraction isn’t my thing, nor is pure realism. I love the painterly, as is obvious in this detail of what I did this morning.
BELOW: all three paintings in the series. you can see how the one i’ve been working on today is more tortured than the other two. but seen together they make sense, it seems to me. all three are, it could be said, a hymn to the painterly.
this is a quote form a diebenkorn catalogue i’ve been perusing: “the ocean park works were never abstract landscapes of his surroundings; they were a far more personal synthesis of his own decisions, attitudes and process within a particular microcosm to which he was sensitive.”
that about sums it up, i’d say.
5-16-22 anschutz interior 3 as it looked moments ago
1PM: i’ve been working on this one most of the day and so far here’s where it’s at.
the seated female figure is now less identifiable, less specific,more integrated into the whole composition and more a part of the architectural scaffolding, which creates triangular shapes, allowing the viewer to construct their own interpretations. light and shadow play across the surface.
it may be time to stretch another 16x20'“ canvas and allow this one time to breathe.
this morning i’m continuing work on 5-16-22 anschutz interior 3. i’ll post updates as they become available.
quote of the day, from richard diebenkorn: now, the idea is to get everything right…it’s not just color or form or space or line…it’s everything all at once.
