Silver Lake

Silver Lake
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

However I feel like I'm out on a limb by not drawing something observational-- like drawing things like this are somewhat silly. Though that feeling sometimes means I am doing something right. I'm thinking of doing some in oil just to see what happens. (This one is colored pencil and acrylic paint out of my sketchbook.) But I don't know if I could do abstract paintingse exclusively because it only satisfies part of what drives me to create art. Sometimes I feel like I'm two different artist in one body-- an old fashioned observational artist and a (budding) abstract artist. I wish I could combine them somehow but I can't seem reconcile the extremes.

View past map drawings:

the streets run like the lines on my palm
Eight Years in LA, A Portrait

This is very old, from High School actually

This is very old, from High School actually
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

Being back in MA means I get to see artwork I did ages ago. Back when my parents were still trying to frame everything I made (they gave up by college.) I did this piece when I was 17ish when I was a senior in high school. I never really painted before this so this really where I began. It's still one of my favorite paintings. Old pieces like this remind me why I wanted to paint in the first place. Lately I've been questioning the direction my painting has been going-- and looking at this piece makes me want to go back to the beginning and start over. Early on I just wanted to paint people-- interesting people in unique moments. I was always drawn to different non-traditional poses, angles, faces. I want to go back to painting people, just people. I just need some people to paint. Anybody game?

the streets run like the lines on my palm

the streets run like the lines on my palm
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

another map, maybe a better one. but it looks more like a map than I wanted. I wanted it to be more abstract. though the streets aren't right-- because memories of where things are always shift and when you try to draw them you see it put down muddled and out of order. but I kind of like the lack of precision that memory has.

Eight Years in LA, a portrait.

Eight Years in LA, a portrait.
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

This is a departure. I was going to post another entery in my steady flow of people sketches of late. But my mood has skewed to the other end of the spectrum this week. Instead of looking outward I am looking inward I guess. It is a rather large jolt to suddenly be 3000 miles away from my home for the last eight years. I forgot how to live anywhere else. I'm still comparing everything to LA as I find stores, things to do, concerts, art galleries, museums, the cafe that will have my new favorite tea.

Tonight I'm in a particularly reflective mood. I go to many concerts. Many. 1-3 a week, depending on my usualy flux of commitments and projects. And always local musicians because I enjoy small venues and lending support to musicians I like. Since I've been in the Boston area (4 months now?) I've gone to just two concerts. It's sad. Because I only know Los Angeles music I found myself at a concert tonight of an old favorite from LA, Ferraby Lionheart.

But what I thought would be a night of getting inspired or getting lost in music became a night of being homesick for Los Angeles. It was also sad because I know that many of the most important things I loved in LA have since left or ceased to exist. Jobs. Friends. Music venues. Radio stations. Art galleries. It was time for me to leave as well.

However I miss having eight years of memories around me-- of places I went, things I did, people I met. When you stay in one place for so long the city becomes layered with personal experiences.

So this week I wanted to find a way to draw those experiences-- like a web of places and paths and emotions all over the city. I decided to draw a map of Los Angeles, but not a street map-- a map of everything I did in eight years there.

This is not meant to look like Los Angeles really, or be accurate with streets. This is out of my head and it may not make sense to anyone else. But here you go....

Where the Inspiration Is

I'm in the midst of starting some new pieces, but have been in a bit of a creative funk lately. I've been having a show pretty much ever other month this year, which is great, but has caused alot of disruption in my creative process. I've been using the shows as motivation & deadlines to create new pieces. So I paint madly for a month or so, drop everything off, hang it, go to the opening on next to no sleep... and then promptly pass out for 2 weeks. Then I repeat. So it has been this constant stop and start all year instead of a fluid and steady work flow.

So when it comes to ramping up for another show after a period of sitting in pajamas watching Project Runway reruns while painting my toenails, I have a hard time diving back in and picking up where I left off. I'm working on a piece (or pieces...?) for a small September show and I'm stuck. I rarely get stuck. But it's not that I don't have ideas. It's that I am not fired up, and that is causing some doubt about my direction. I need to feel inspired.

When I need inspiration, I don't go to galleries or art museums.

I try something new or go somewhere I've never gone before. Like the Natural History Museum.



So there are dinosaur bones that are millions of years old, and I decide take a photo of their shadow. But with the big dinosaur exhibits closed, most of what I saw were displays with contemporary animals, some which were endangered but none were extinct.



I liked the polar bears, but I don't know if they were really inspiring for paintings. Okay, so what I really wanted to see were woolly mammoths and saber tooth tigers and dinosaurs. Where can I see the really really cool old dead things?

I guess they're not at the Natural History Museum. But this was:



Does this really fit in this museum? I'm not sure. But of all the things I saw, this is the sort of thing that should be extinct.

All in all, it was great to finally see this museum. But it wasn't what I expected, and it didn't get me fired up like I hoped. What I really wanted to see was something that made me contemplate how infinite and old the universe is. Because even though I hate feeling small and insignificant, I feel like much of my inspiration lately comes out of being uneasy or scared of things bigger than me.

Paper Craving

ulcer04
Originally uploaded by Bekka Teerlink

I suddenly am craving working on paper. Not in the doodling in a sketchbook kind of way. Something more ambitious. I'm always more experimental with paper and mixed media as this image shows. Though part of it might be that I'm not trying to be ambitious when I do stuff like this. Though generally stuff like this comes out when I'm working through some sort of stress. I tend to not produce it except under the right circumstances since it is more art therapy than anything else. It's more personal and expressive, and feels much more primitive I guess. Maybe I mean instinctual. Like the art equivalent of sucking my thumb. When I'm in a good mood and I try to reproduce this sort of thing I usually come up with nothing. This piece was done at a time when I was particularly stressed about a money situation, so stressed that I had a bad stomach ache for a month. Eventually I dealt with the situation and the stomachache and these pieces about ulcers went way.

But there is something freeing about making stuff like this. Generally I am no good at expressionist or abstract or non-observational art. I am mostly inspired by things I see. If that's taken away, then I'm just swirling colors around like a kid and I have a hard time figuring out where to put the blue and the green and the red and what it will all add up to in the end. I need to have a concept or idea, which I generally always get from things I see around me. Drawings like the one above come from out of my head which I am more suspicious of. I don't know if they hold up well and they usually seem kind of trivial. And then there's the fact that I don't produce them consistently. Maybe if I did more stuff like this they would develop and grow. In school I would do things like this and art professors would always push me away from it, as if it wasn't worth my time. I suppose it is insecure territory. But still there are moments where it is incredibly satisfying to do stuff like this.

Perhaps it is because of the rigid painting schedule I have been in the last couple of months. But I want to make messy pictures of nothing on paper.

So tired. So happy.

I can't be someone who's always on, always going going going... which has been proven by the last 2 months of mad furious productivity... and then the inevitable energy crash that came yesterday. I was so tired I was physically shaking for a good part of the day. Some good tea helped to steady me.

I told myself I would keep going strong, I've been painting so much and I have soooo many new ideas but I need a break to sleep and eat better for a while. And maybe exercise. (I'm buying a bike and going to bike to work!)

I think I'm going to read a book for a change of pace. Another thing that went by the wayside. "The Night Watch." And I joined a book group. Another change of pace, and one of my new years resolutions. And I'll go see some live music again (Hello Avett Brothers!) And I'm going camping too, and it will be the first time since I was 12 surprisingly (well not counting setting up the time I slept in a tent in my backyard in high school.) OH AND THEN THERE'S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING-- I'M GOING TO PARIS IN APRIL, A MONTH FROM NOW! I'll be eating tons of pastry and looking at my most favorite paintings in the world and doing a series of artsy photos hopefully for a future show.

I'm really looking forward to all of this. I love my life, even when I'm grumpy and hungry and tired like right now.

Lastly, if you live in LA (or surrounding areas) come to my show this Saturday!

High on fumes.

I just painted straight through the weekend only stopping long enough to go to an art opening for few hours Saturday night. I didn't even watch the Academy Awards which is a first for me, well a first in a long long time (since 1991 at least... when I didn't have TV.) I made immense progress though not everything is quite finished, probably 80% finished. But it's good since Friday I was at 20% or less and very much freaking out. I tend to bite off more than I can chew. If I'm required to paint 1 new painting for a show, I paint 8. I already have more work than I could ever put in one show, but I like to always have new cool things to show. And I like to look like I work hard and make consistent work, not that anybody really keeps track besides me.

What I like about painting at such a maddening pace is that I tend to learn massive amounts overnight, and that ideas flow more easily. What I hate about it is that there's that inevitable crash that comes after the show or after 7 too many late nights. Then I go into lazy mode (TV, eating tons of dessert, reading crap on the internet) which is hard to get out of once I fall into a routine. I'm going to try not to let that happen after the show, because I have way too much taking off creatively. But sometimes it's unavoidable, just because there's no more deadline and the motivation fades away.

So I'm working on 8 (holy shit!) new paintings for this show. I just counted them in my head now. And I got more ideas too, that I probably won't get to unless I start taking drugs to keep me working all night too. I'm really I hope I sell a bit, just because I think I officially killed all my brushes this weekend. And I'll be out of pretty much every earth tone as well as cadmium orange and Williamsburg's Sevres blue (BEST COLOR EVER!) And I'm getting short on storage for paintings real fast.

I've been listening to a bunch of Bob Dylan while painting, it's the mood I'm in, and I think it's getting into the paintings. I wanted to call one of my pieces "Bob Dylan's Dream" but then I decided it was lame. Especially because I'm only now discovering Dylan and everybody else on the planet knows his music so much better than I, and he's been referenced so many times already. But yeah, I've somehow gone nearly 3 decades never having really listened to any of his music except what I've heard on the radio in passing. But I get it now.

Too much to see, too much to do... I'll paint instead.

I didn't see the Dali exhibit, and probably won't get around to Murakami at MOCA. These giant super-exhibits never seem to impress me. I did like the Hockney one at LACMA though, and kind of liked the Magritte-- it made me respect him (which was hard because for 4 yrs during college I worked in a museum gift shop and I lost interest in any artist/artwork sold on mousepads.)

But I did to go to the Harvard art museums and the MFA in Boston over the holidays, and that was magical. I had the idea to see all the works by John Singer Sargent in Boston, but then totally forgot about the Isabella Steward Gardner Museum's El Jaleo which is probably the most impressive Sargent there (well, that and The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit, which is my personal favorite.) The good news was that the MFA Sargent's are back on display (apparently construction of the new addition made them inaccessible earlier in the year.) The bad news is that I never made it across the street to the ISGM to see El Jaleo, and instead wandered down to Faneuil Hall to get fresh chocolate chip cookies and watch break dancers.

But after seeing the Sargent's and their very fresh lively use of paint, I couldn't be bothered to see the Dali exhibit. I find his paintings kind of drab and dead. I'm not a fan of surrealism, which is maybe odd because I've been painting surrealistically lately. But I really dislike it. And everybody asks me "Did you see the Magritte exhibit?" or "Are you going to Dali?" and I feel like a traitor. But when I explain to them the difference between what I'm doing versus the official surrealist movement, people's eyes glaze over. But after seeing the Magritte show, I was even more convinced I am not Surrealist (with a capital 'S'.) Surrealists are interested in the subconscious and dreams. Their movement corresponded with Freud's own work on dreams and the subconscious, though it had not been translated into French at the time-- the Surrealists just happened to be intrigued by the same ideas. Stuff like this is very intriguing to me, people exploring the same ideas in two countries unknown to each other. (The filmmaker Kieslowski was also intrigued by this, watch the extra features on "Blue"... and see is films, it is a recurring idea.) But I am not exploring the subconscious or dreams with my paintings. I think of it in a more literary way. I used to call it magical realism, and for a while I called them metaphor paintings, but still those terms don't seem right.

Most of my paintings are exploring issues and ideas that I see around me, in the media, in everyday life, and in my head. They are more collages and juxtapositions of real life things than anything else. More than anything else, they are about environmental issues, mainly because I'm completely scared shitless about this stuff and I am working it out in my head and it comes out in my paintings. I'm not trying to make "message" paintings, and want to keep away from that completely. But I want to let the confusion, frustration, and fear seep into the paintings.

This is probably why many of the paintings have figures with their backs to the viewers, it gives the painting a point of view so the viewer knows they are observing something instead of being lectured about something. I also think having a figure's back to the viewer will pull him in, because there is that natural instinct to want to see someone's face. I like to deny that to the viewer. I think it creates a tension, and also makes the viewer see the rest of the painting differently-- because then they are seeing what the figure in the painting is seeing. And they relate to the figure. Also I like the idea of viewing things through innocent eyes, which is why these days children are appearing in my paintings. (Many of which are in process and not posted anywhere yet, sorry.) It's like the book To Kill a Mockingbird-- it's about a controversial subject but because it's seen through the eyes of children there's more of an honesty and straightforwardness about it.

I'm rambling a bit today, and my thoughts are going million miles an hour. I've been working like crazy since the new year building new canvases and starting new paintings. Hopefully more coherent posts will follow, as well as pictures. And maybe I'll have a new *show* to announce soon, I've been working on that as well....

Making a Painting

I'm busy doing some businessy stuff to finish off the year. I don't have much time to get much done before the holidays, but I'm working on developing some new pieces and getting some projects lined up for the new year. I'm getting ready to dive into starting a new series of paintings in January. I spend more time preparing paintings than painting them sometime. Here's a bit of what I'm working on. The following painting I'm preparing is tentatively being called "Free Will." It was inspired by the painting above ("Original Sin" by Hugo van der Goes, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.) I seem to be fascinated by the Eden story right now, and love how it is portrayed in painting. I especially love the lizard-serpent creature with the head of a woman. When I first saw this I didn't realize it was the serpent, only with legs and a human head. Then I started looking at other paintings of the same thing and realized how many ways it has been painted. I was originally going to work this into my painting, "The Bible Tree" but it has developed into having its own canvas. Below is a color sketch:


I somehow had the idea of placing it into a flooded world that's more like the flood story than Eden. (The theme of floods, water, and tidal pools also keep recurring in my stuff lately.) I put some dead trees sticking out of the water, having seen trees like that in flooded areas on the east coast. I eventually removed all trees but one-- thinking of making it more of a dead and drowned Tree of Knowledge. However I was unhappy with the composition and color somewhat, so I tried another color sketch:


I felt a little better about this one, I liked the lone tree but didn't quite like the foreground or some of the fine detail. It still seemed off balance, but the concept was much closer. I'm still not happy with the color, it feels chalky. But I will be able to refine it in the final, and get much more depth (which comes from spending weeks on the painting instead of the 3 hrs this one took.) I did a detailed pencil sketch to refine the detail and composition, I'm not sure if it's perfect, but I like it much better. It needs some more space on the right side I think. But I nailed the lizard-serpent creature.

I think I might put a rotting apple in the final painting (and straighten out the horizon line....) In this I also changed the eyes so they are looking at the viewer, and I'm still thinking about the face. I start out my paintings lately by photo-collaging them to work out composition and ideas. I thought I would include the photo-sketch as well-- even though I work from photos I change a good deal once I translate it into a painting:

For this painting, I will most likely paint more from the pencil and color sketches than the photos. While photos can be helpful-- I find they lock me into things (like where the rocks are, lighting, color, specific positioning) so I make an effort to question and rethink what's in them. You can see that in the tail and hands of lizard, the placement of the rocks, the woman's head and eyes.

I haven't started the final painting yet. I may start a small 8x10 of it this week, and may do a larger one later. I want to finish one more painting before Christmas, this may be the one but we'll see. I haven't done any Christmas shopping yet and am buried in parties and concerts and art shows for the next week. Hopefully I'll get some time this week to at least start.

"The Jungle" 2006. Oil on canvas, 48x72 inches

This is the first *big* painting I did in Los Angeles. Both in size, and in seriousness. I was in film school when I started it, and was pretty unhappy with where I was geographically and mentally. I'm not a big fan of film school or the film world in general these days... but this painting was begun when I was coming to terms with that fact. I consider this painting sort of the starting point to everything I am doing now. Though it was actually "finished" (more accurately abandoned) quite a bit later. I probably spent 3 years off and on working on this painting. The concept emerged out of a series of photographs I did called the "Imposed Geometry Series" which loosely about humankind vs. nature, chaos vs. order. It explores how people impose order and shapes on nature, and try to contain it. Another theme that runs through the photos is femininity and vulnerability. This was inspired my Francesca Woodman photography who is probably one of my biggest visual artist influences, and my biggest photography influence. I liked the idea of woman in traditional dressy feminine outfits out in nature where they are seemingly out of place and out of their element. Below are some of the photos I took that inspired The Jungle....

In the photo above I was aiming to get a feel of a jungle, and I wrapped myself in plastic I took off a dress hanger. Somehow it reminded me of how dolls are packaged in plastic. I play with various materials in my photographs, plastic is one of my favorites. I like the connotations has, and how unnatural it is. And it doesn't hurt that light really interacts in interesting ways with it. Also note the oil derrick on the hill in the upper right corner, this park in Culver City where I took many of these pictures in was full of them. I tried to avoid them in most of my photographs back then, but they are now featured prominently in recent paintings.... Just to show how the seeds of ideas are planted.

In this one I wanted to have that fairy tale feel of a woman stumbling through a forest wearing heels. I liked that the pattern of the leaves is almost echoed in the design of the shoes.

I started the painting of "The Jungle" soon after these photos, and the concept was pretty much the same thing. I know at the time I was questioning why I was painting something that I already did pretty decently in photography. But it was what I was thinking about at the time, so I went with it. It was later I realized that in painting I had much more control of the content much like visual effects artists can escape the physical limitations of locations, actors, reality. All the reference of plants and the background was taken from photos of plants around LA and a bunch from the jungle garden at the Huntington in Pasadena. The model was my friend Julie who is a phenomenal actress. I met her when I cast her in a short film I did that was inspired by a scene from Franny and Zooey. At the time she had this long wild mane of red hair which I decided I had to paint. I really got into the jungle scene of this painting, and the idea of a woman lost in it. I had the impulse to put a tiger and some other creatures in it, but in the end I decided to leave it more simple than over the top. I don't know if I feel like this painting is finished, but I worry that if I worked on it longer I would kill it. I sometimes feel like I quickly kill my paintings if I work on them too long and get too precise. I also stop working on paintings more because I get distracted by new ideas and concepts that often make my older ones seem sort of obsolete.

Spaceland Sketches

I've posted some fun little sketches I did at the Parson Redheads show last week at Spaceland. I kind of wish it was less crowded so I could've snagged a table closer. But instead I was tucked between the merch table and the trash can looking at the backs of heads. Spaceland is not the best place to sketch, Silverlake Lounge is better, and perhaps Bordello. Also El Rey is good (when they have the tables & chairs set up along the side) because it's easy to see over heads and sometimes the lighting guy throws up some crazy stuff. I think my new fantasy is to someday paint a large canvas live on stage with a band. I heard it's been done before, it never occurred to me it could be done. In high school during talent show time I would feel left out that as an artist I couldn't put my talent in front of an audience. But live painting side by side with music would definitely work. Some day I will find a way to do this. Meanwhile I will keep drawing at shows I go to sitting quietly off to the side....

bohemian night

Walking at night is lovely in silverlake, I think i could walk forever along the dark curvy roads that seemingly go nowhere. this time of year there aren't as many flowers blooming, that I missed. their scent is stronger at night and reminds me of northern Israel where there is a city I visited where the air is filled with the aroma of every flower possible and I've tried to figure out what flowers they were ever since. And I swear there are the same flowers here in LA.... But tonight the aroma was more of mulch and dirt which is pleasant in a different way. And the hills were very quiet, just the hum of traffic in the distance. I don't like to listen to music when I walk. Natural sounds are even better... the brief bits of conversation, TV, music. The constant rhythm of my feet. I steal glimpses into lit windows that feel like frames of pictures. I see vases, couches, chandeliers, framed art, books. I wonder what they read, who they are, what they do, where they go. Everything looks charming in a window, it's like a miniature stage with much quieter drama. Sometimes there are no characters at all. The roads are very narrow with little lighting and steep inclines. The homes are build into the hills and overgrown plants in a haphazard terraced manner. Some of the homes look like the big earthquake has already hit. They have crooked doors and sagging beams and the paint falls off like paper. There are vines every where, and hidden staircases and lamps meekly radiating yellow light. There are no straight lines or order, and it's almost as if you can see all the changes and incremental movement of the landscape from decades layered on top of each other like multiple exposures.

My walk ended at spaceland-- which was more a reason to walk through the hills at night than a destination. I have returned to sketching musicians and crowds. It seemed like I needed to be a bit bohemian and return to living fluidly without structure or discipline. When I draw from people (especially in a public place) there is no control. People move, stand still, turn around, block your view-- whatever is unexpected. It's nice to sketch them because I can't get too precious about anything. I see a nice moment... such as a person whispering in another's ear, a couple embracing, a person walking through my view... and it's gone. I draw what I can. Sometimes it's a figure, somtimes it's just an elbow or outline or nose. I layer the drawings on top of each other and they form a sort of messy shape of gestures. Again, it's kind of like multiple exposures. Little is recognizable, I capture the energy of a person or people moving by and it's gone. And then among all this I like to put the sketchpad down and join the picture because behind all of this is the music which always put's me in a transcendent mood and makes me skip home giddy and glowing.

"Walden" 2006. Oil on canvas, 15x19 inches.

This painting was done along side of "Away." I had the idea of a girl sitting in a rowboat with no oars. Originally it was going to be set on the ocean. But then I changed it to a New England setting, out of a bout of homesickness probably. (My family has a canoe that they often take out onto the Concord River.) I set this painting on Walden Pond, mainly since I have a large obsession with Henry David Thoreau and have read Walden and Civil Disobedience way too many times. This painting was made at a point in my life where I felt I was going nowhere, and I started was asking myself what was most important to me. It was at this point where I taped the following quote onto the wall of my studio:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary.

"Away" 2006. Oil on canvas, 13x16 inches.

This painting is significant to me because I painted it at a time where I was in a crossroads in my life. I wasn't really very satisfied with my life and had come to a point where a decision had to be made... the type of decision that takes 9 months to make and you don't realize you're even making it until you look back and realize how far you've travelled from where you started.

This painting is about withdrawing from one world and going into the unknown. The figure is walking away from us, and we can't see her face or what's ahead of her. I'm fascinated with painting people from behind because the first impulse when we see someone from behind is to try to see around to their face. And in this painting I deny the viewer the woman's face, and it creates a tension that pulls them in.

I also wanted to have an element of darkness in this painting. I didn't want to literally paint anything threatening into the image-- but by placing a woman into natural setting there is an implicit quality of vulnerability. Nature is wild and untamed, and dark forests hold the unknown-- the looming possibility of danger. But there is also a regenerative quality to them as well as a spiritual one. I think of this painting as sort of a fairy tale-- the moment our hero embarks on a journey into the unknown.

Because music is very much intertwined with my life and my paintings, I want to include a few songs that were in my head when I made this:

Earlimart - Treble and Tremble, "Tell the Truth, Pts. 1 and 2"
David Kilgour - Frozen Orange, "G Major 7"
Seekonk - For Barbara Lee, "Maps of Egypt"
The Dissociatives - The Dissociatives, "Lifting the Veil from the Braille"
The Shins - Oh, Inverted World, "New Slang"

switching gears... again

I'm doing a bunch of photos this week. I thought I would be back to painting now that my open studio show is done, but I think painting will have to wait just a while longer. (This is what happens without an impending deadline. There's a tiny show next month I think I might see if I can get in on, just for a deadline. But I'm procrastinating that as well.)

I'm taking photos these days. And not self portraits for once. I've been doing headshots off an on for a while as a side gig. But I wanted to do a little more so I've angling to take some publicity shots for musicians. And since I've been thinking along photography lines lately-- it is always my style to get carried away. Because I've already come up with several series worth of photos. (It's hard, everything I look at inspires me... it gets ridiculous because I can't keep up with myself. But I do this when I am concepting new paintings too... come up with 20+ at one time until I just come to the natural end of the line of thought.)

The photos series I'm going to do first was inspired by a trip to the 99-cent store (the best place for inexpensive inspiration, 2nd only to the fashion/garment/jewelry district downtown.)

I call it the "Bubble Gum Series", because it's going to be completely over the top with candy colors, childlike themes, playful feel, and a complete lack of seriousness. It's so easy to get serious with fine art portraiture. I want to do something all out goofy.

So it started by my not being able to afford photo backdrops at $40 each just for the 53in roll of photo paper. Let alone the apparatus to hold it up. So I went to the 99-cent store to have a look around, mainly for anything matte, and black or gray. They didn't have that. But I found other stuff: bright wrapping paper, table cloths, shower curtains. All perfect for backdrops. Then I found balloons. Ribbons. Childrens make-up. Very mundane 99cent stuff, but I always find that it's the simple stuff that is the most promising.

Now I'm saddled with the chore of coordinating my "models", mainly my friends and acquaintances who say "Sure, I'll up for that" and then promptly get busy with other stuff. Which means by Monday I'll be doing self portraits again.

hmm... I should write more.

I've been missing for a while. Somehow months slipped by. But they were busy months, full of art, as well as annoying stuff like 15 yr old cars with dying transmissions, subways, working weekends, logistics of organizing a show, preparing for the show, having the show, and now recovering from the show (recovery means watching re-runs of shows on cable wearing pajamas at 5pm.)

I think I'm now into a new period of creative things. I'm going to paint more, photograph more, write more. I have to stop going in so many directions, and not rush. Deadlines are good though, but I've had too many lately. I just hope I don't get lazy without them for the next little bit.

Above is a commission I did recently in the middle of all the craziness. It came out great-- and I think I need to do more like it. It's mixed media (acrylic, gesso, gel medium, pages torn out of Franny & Zooey) & covered by a couple layers of UV gloss, on panel.

It of my friend Julie who was in a Franny & Zooey inspired movie I made a couple years back. For this piece I worked from video, which is unique. Actually I recently saw a show where the artist supposedly painted from video-- I don't know if he painted from video as it played or from a video still (I'm curious...). But for my piece, I captured a couple stills from a scene and superimposed them, and fiddled with them a little in photoshop-- and then painted from the photoshop image as well as a series of 3 still frames. I'm thinking video might be a cool way to work now, even from moving video. I have to play with it more. But I like having a digital step to my art-- even if there is no digital element literally in my work. I do all my preparatory "sketches" in photoshop now. Sometimes I sketch stuff and composite it in the computer (so I can move it around.) Other times it's photos. I can play with color and composition-- and it is much faster than painting a series of miniature painting studies. My teachers in school would have a heart attack about this though. And perhaps a miniature painting could serve a purpose too. But I have limited time, and I never allowed myself anything digital before... and I always had such purist art teachers who never planted the possibilities of technology in my head. But I'm sure had the Renaissance or Impressionists, etc. had photoshop-- they would have used it like crazy.

good art day

I had a 3-day weekend-- 2 days of which I spent trying to unpack a little more (at least the boxes I keep tripping over) and get my living space in order after 2 weeks of utter stress and chaos.

But today, day 3, I painted all day. It was the 1st real painting day since I moved in. I have spent the last month or two doing cute little sketches while I got myself together. But sketches are not totally satisfying because they are light and quick and not at all serious and rigorous.

I've started some new paintings. One of them was an idea I started planning before the whole moving thing interruped me. Because of that they go along with the last group of paintings I did more than anything. However, since I'm in a new location new ideas and inspirations are creeping into my head that will affect how the new things come out.

I'm also thinking I need to start a new series of paintings because I'm in a different place emotionally and mentally. I have new ideas bubbling to the surface-- I don't really know how to express them in words since they're still in that murky area between thoughts and images. But the key thing I am after (which is really just a criticism of my last group of paintings) is to make them less precious and beautiful. This may be from seeing how people react to my paintings-- they think they are "beautiful." However I intended them all to have a subtle dark side too. They all are meant to have a fairy tale quality and part of that is a sense of adventure and exploration as well as danger and vulnerability. In the next paintings I do I want to amplify these elements-- but without beating the viewer over the head with a mallet.

I feel like I need to take some time to think about what I have been painting for the last year. Generally I paint what I want to paint without much second guessing. But when I turn a page and start painting new things-- that's when I feel the need to look back and analyze myself. Not to say that there's no thought put into choosing a painting idea at the beginning. It's just that usually at that point it's more of gut idea or response to something around me than an intellectual thought process.

For now I need to spend the week prepping new canvases and getting model(s) for this weekend. For tonight I don't know if I can keep going-- or if I should eat dinner and go see a band play or something. I probably won't sketch if I go out-- I'm not in the mood. But I don't know if I'm in the mood to have idle hands at a concert. (I really like having that sense of purpose that comes with sketching in public... like carrying a drink around... except I can't afford to keep a drink in my hand all night.)

More Music...

I just uploaded some new sketches I did at the El Rey the other night. I got there early to get a prime view and was able to knock out some good sketches. It was also different to draw a bigger space with stage lighting. I would kill to be able to bring oil paints and get control of the light board one day.

Silverlake Sketches

I am almost officially done moving in, a few boxes of random odds and ends still. I need a few more pieces of furniture since I sold or tossed out 70% of my previous furniture because it was tired and uninspired.

Being in a new location my mind is ablaze with new ideas. I heard somewhere that Picasso moved often to keep inspired, and now I see that reasoning. Though if I move again I doubt it will be for quite some time. I am thoroughly exhausted and sick of having a head full of packing tape and UHaul reservations.

I have been exploring the new neighborhood and already am planning some new paintings that are pretty different from what I have been doing. Also I have plans for a new photography series (self portraits/landscapes still) that I want to do in Griffith Park. I got lost driving around in there one morning and found some interesting locations, I may have to tresspass a little to get the photos though. But I like to break the rules to take a photo, it comes through. Like the time I stripped down to a slip in Malibu Creek State Park within earshot of families picnicking.

What I have been occupying myself with mostly of late (since I have not jumped full force into painting quite yet, I just barely unpacked my tubes of paint this week) is sketching out and about.

I was drawing on people in restaurants at lunchtime for a while with the goal of doing a drawing a day. But over time I became bored with that-- partially because of the staleness of most restaurants. People don't move around that much, and they generally have one pose (sitting down stuffing their face.) Plus it is often hard to get a good angle and to be discreet about it. People often come up and watch or talk to me-- which sometime I don't mind-- but it distracts me and sometimes my audience lingers a little long and a little close.

Somehow I decided to draw people at music clubs instead. On average I attend 1-2 live music shows a week. Not all of the clubs are the best places to find a corner and sketch people-- but sometimes the stars align and it works out. And it is much more dynamic than restaurants. First of all, the people are more interesting (in the way they look and dress) and they tend to move around much more. There is so much more variety.

Most of all, I love to draw musicians while they play. I think this started when I studed at Yale's Summer School of Music and Art at Norfolk. I spent the summer living in a pretty remote part of Connecticut-- and had my own studio with no real obligations except eating, sleeping and painting. (There was also a good darkroom and this was my first time to dive into photography.) The head painting teacher that summer was Sam Messer (google him if you don't know him.) He was very big into mixing painting with literature & music & film. He prepared a reading list for the summer all of novels. He had some of the authors come and speak. Paul Auster, Siri Husvedt, Mary Gaitskill.... (Mary Gaitskill was the best, she spent 3 hrs in my studio looking at my work and discussing narrative structure with me.) He also had the same approach with getting models for the students. One model was a gymnast who gave us some of the most bizarre poses I've ever seen from a model. He also would have the music students (mainly classical) come and practice while we worked from them. We could draw, paint, take photos-- anything-- as long as we participated. Musicians are great to draw as they play because they are not stiff and posed-- the move and change continuously. Their minds are on what they are doing so they are not self conscious about being drawn.

My favorite musician subject that summer was a cellist. I've forgotten her name, but she would play these incredible songs that she wrote-- very contemporary and unique-- all on cello. Here are some of the oil sketches I did of her.





They are each about 2 inches square-- and were done from pencil sketches I did as she played. (I was going through a miniature phase to protest the teachers urging me to do 8 foot paintings as if big paintings meant better paintings.)

I find myself returning to the same exercise of drawing musicians. Not only does challenge me by trying to sketch fast and capture brief moments-- the energy from the music, the performer and the crowd inspires me. It's not about accuracy of likeness, or finding a perfect poetic image meant to last centuries. It's about the experience, the accidents, the fleeting moments that come and go and get fixed in memory much like the performance itself.

Here are a few of my recent sketches. I usually draw in pencil or pen at the club first. When I get home I go over them with either goache, pastel, watercolor pencil, charcoal or a mixture of them. I think this is similar to how the impressionists worked catching fleeting moments-- they painted from life and then added more back in the studio going off of their memory.



This is a sketch of the crowd-- done with pencil, goache and charcoal. All the figures were backlit by light from the bar as well as red light flooding from the stage.



This one is from the same night and falls into the category of happy accidents. It wasn't so crowded so I had a good view of the stage. Ferraby Lionheart is performing-- he is seated at the piano. He is partially obscured by this guy seated on a stool. I love when figures are cropped unexpectedly-- it adds mystery because the viewer can't see the action. It makes one want to peer past the obstruction. This reminds me of one of my favorite Degas paintings:



Here's another from the same performance:



I've started to go to see the same bands/musicians play over and over again. Every performance is completely different-- even at the same venue with the same songs. And my sketches are different too. This is Ferraby Lionheart another night. It was much more crowded so I didn't draw as much, but I managed to do this one page of sketches. I've also included what I drew in the club and what I added later. In this sketch I also scribbled some of the lyrics as I drew. It was all drawn during one song while I was standing on a bench to see.




I have more sketches I did of other musicians, performances & crowds on my flickr site. I'll post more as I go.