dates confirmed for my athens exhibition / framing watercolor 106, 7/10/2020 /  by Philip Tarlow

1:49 PM: this morning i went back & forth with the director of genesis gallery in the kolonaki neighborhood of athens and we settled on the dates for my exhibition: opening march 14 through april 1st, 2023. i’m going to get started in the next few days on watercolor sketches for the oils. there will be a total of 20-25 works, most on canvas and some on paper.

i’m kind of on a framing kick right now, replacing the work i had in some of the white 20.5” square frames with watercolors & watercolor/collages. this one is pure watercolor with no collaged areas, & was painted on 7/10/2020, measuring 9 3/4 x 12 1/2.”

watercolor 106 7/10/20

going through my 2014 work on paper / replacing yesterday’s smaller painting / ceramics /  by Philip Tarlow

5 of the 2014 works on paper i picked out this afternoon

2:34 PM: today, after switching out the piece i placed in the square white frame yesterday, i went through other works on paper from 2014 mostly. i picked out a handful that stood out to me & tacked them to a wall and placed others on the ledge beneath my west facing window.

4 more of the 2014 works on paper that caught my eye (upper left & the 3 on the bottom)

11:14 AM: it’s rather rare to have a dark day in crestone, with no sign of sunlight. it’s been raining on & off, although, as usual, the predictions for “heavy rain” have not materialized, other than a very brief period at 1am this morning, which woke me up it was so loud.

neither of us really liked the smaller of the two pieces i framed yesterday & brought to the house. so i brought it back and am replacing it with this one, which i picked out of a stack of watercolor/collages in my watch series. i’ve been a big watch guy for as long as i can remember, and in 2014 i included cropped images of watches in this series. it’s kind of depressing that, after going through the whole group of 15 or 20, this was the only one that held up. and we won’t know till i place it in the white frame & hang it in the entryway of our house, whether it passes the test. what makes me feel somewhat better about this is that, when i browse through the work of even the greatest of the artists i love, like matisse, i have a similar experience of finding only one in ten or even twenty that really sings. that’s just how it is. even when i look at those fabulous 1st c. pompeian frescos, the same holds true. if you could hit it out of the park every time, or hit an ace on every serve, there would be no point to the game.

5-26-14 watch 1, 13x11"

6:54 AM: these are a variety of ceramics on out living room table; some painted by me, along with local crestone conglomerate rocks.

framing two gouache-collages for the house /  by Philip Tarlow

4:15 PM: today was my first day in the studio after getting all the paintings to aspen yesterday. it was so great not to feel i’m under a deadline that i just did whatever i felt like doing, which was to frame two gouache/collages i made over the past year and had stacked on top of my file cabinet.

they look pretty cool hanging in the house.

delivering the paintings to aspen cmc gallery /  by Philip Tarlow

5:24 PM: we got going a little before 7am & arrived at the aspen cmc gallery at 10:30. driving the uhaul truck over independence pass was a little tricky, but we made it. we unloaded the paintings, stacked them agaist the wall in the gallery, which doubles as a classroom, talked with the director lauren about where she might hang the pieces & were on our way back by 11:30! mikela has a talk in saguache tonight, so she wanted to have a fe whours rest before then. she’s there right now & then has to leave at 8am tomorrow for a full day at school, and gaian on wednesday. i’m going to get started on planning work for my march exhibition in athens.

heavy rain is predicted over the next 2 days, but i’m not holding my breath after so many predictions that didn’t pan out over the apst few months.

loading the truck! /  by Philip Tarlow

4:11 PM: a few hours ago we loaded the uhaul truck with 28 stretched paintings & 8 watercolor/collages under glass. we’ll get going at 7am tomorrow & should arrive at cmc aspen gallery about 10:30. after unloading the work, we’ll look at what looks best where and take back the ones that don’t seem to fit on the walls. it’s a very varied space, and i suspect it will take more of the paintings than we had suspected.

the paintings will be hung over the next week, ready for the opening on september 29th.

13x19" printouts for the exhibition /  by Philip Tarlow

2:53 PM: this morning i finished surrounding the stretcher bars of the paintings to be included in the show, and then moved on to create a series of 13x19” printouts, which will be posted on the gallery walls and are intended to give visitors a deeper understanding of what they’re looking at.

this is the one i just now printed out, and speaks for itself.

another one i printed today, BELOW, shows a series of recent plein air drawings. i’m going to create an accompanying text talking briefly about how & why these studies are important and the role they play in my studio paintings.

impromptu fruit & veggies signs /  by Philip Tarlow

12:54 PM: suzanne & kurt, who have become friends over the years, drive to crestone every thursday in the warm months with fresh fruit & veggies from their garden. two weeks ago, their normal spot at the kiosk was suddenly closed to vendors, so they, along with the honey guy & others had to find someplace else. last week they were near the post office in downtown crestone, but nobody was aware of where they were , and their normally robust sales plummeted. today, they’ve set up near the golf course, about a mile from town. once again, their customers are not aware. so i made them 3 signs to put up, which hopefully people will see. i just talked to them and, indeed, people are seeing the signs and coming! here they are!

this morning's trail/creek drawing /  by Philip Tarlow

9/14/22 trail/creek drawing

2:53 PM: we took our trail walk this morning in cloudy, chilly weather. as we did last time we walked, we stopped earlier than usual, at the spot we used to go to before we bagan extending our walks to about an hour each way, this spot is just half an hour, but has a full view of the creek and, in terms of drawing subjects, is preferable. i can’t count the number of colored pencil drawings i’ve made at this location, but there are a lot!

so it’s really kind of an exercise in finding essence. what’s the core/essence of this creek-scape? today i looked in the opposite direction from last tim we went, and the main feature was this log, from a tree that had fallen across the creek. it divided my view of the creek in two. so without planning or thinking consciously i used different colors for the rocks above the tree trunk. works pretty well, i’d say!. what i may do at some point is to look at a series of these drawings over time next to each other & see what i observe.

after the dust settles /  by Philip Tarlow

6:25 PM: in a week, we’ll be transporting the paintings to aspen in a rented uhaul van, driving back a week from today. then there will be a little over a week till we go to the opening on the 29th , when we’ll stay over at a friend’s home in carbondale. then back home on the 30th.

then what? i’ll finally be able to get back to work. but of course it’s not like going back to the office! no idea of course what i’ll do. none. which is as it should be. but my hope is that i’ll raise the bar a bit. that i will use this break to further integrate all that i’ve done ove rthe past decade or so and allow new buds to spring up & sprout.

BELOW are some of the paths i’ve taken.

sending out invitations /  by Philip Tarlow

7:19 PM: so far today i’ve emailed out 40 invitations to the exhibition. above is the one i designed and below, the poster designed by cmc aspen’s design department. as the opening gets closer, i’m feeling more anxious than i normally do prior to the opening of an exhibition. i can’t really tell you why that is, but i wouldn’t say it’s a bad feeling. just ususual.

i’ll continue going through my list of names tomorrow, and send more out, as will mikela to her list of contacts. i’m going to leave it up to their crew to decide where the various paintings should go, although the larger verticles will definitely be hung on the big 2 story wall.

my talk is scheduled for 6 on the evening of the 29th. i’m planning on keeping it short, although i do have lots to say about the evolution of these new paintings and what they represent in the arc of my career as an artist. i’ll make sure somebody tapes it so that i can post it here for you to see.