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.

Upcoming Show!

I have another show coming up in March. It's with Create:Fixate which puts on several shows a year which only last a single day. But they get massive amounts of people coming through and they're pretty well known. I have friends who don't like to do 1-day shows, but for me it seems that right now I just need to get as much exposure as possible, and that I can't turn down any opportunity to show. I'm hoping that shows like this might lead to other opportunities down the road. And more people see my work in 1 day of these shows than in 1 year if it just stays in my apartment.

The show is called "Transformation" and it explores "the topics of transformation in relation to human consciousness, energy, technology, creative expression the transformation of our environment in terms of climate-change, and how it affects our daily lives." So it's an environmental themed show, which is awesome.

I'm really excited for this show, and I've been working pretty hard on some new stuff to go in it. I decided I'm not going to post any images or detailed descriptions of what I'm working on until after the show-- so everybody will have to come out and see it in person. It's going to be a busy few weeks, and I may not blog much for a while because I want to put all my time into painting. I know I'm busy and focused when I don't even bother to make plans with friends on Saturday night. Seriously, I painted until 11 last night. Then I had dinner.

Right now I'm a little frustrated with one of my paintings so I thought I'd take a break. The canvas I made is not my best, and I don't know how it got so sloppy but sometimes it happens. I didn't stretch it tight enough-- but it seemed fine up until now. I don't know if I was tired when I stretched it or assumed it was tight enough when it was done and just kept going instead of redoing it.... But it's kind of crappy and I don't really know what I can do to fix it at this late point. I'm starting to wonder if it might be worth it to buy my stretcher bars from now on, instead of build them. Because the professionally made bars have ways you can tighten them later. But mine are dumb poor-man's stretchers. So this whole debacle is making me kind of depressed, and it's too late to re-do the canvas because it would take another few weeks I don't have. So I'm gonna make do and maybe turn to my Artist Handbook and see if there is any guidance. Or I'll just keep going and maybe later (after the show?) I can restretch it, which I hate to do and it may be even more frustrating for me. But I'll have to do something.

Tiny paintings soooo far...

Here's my painting results from a crazy couple of days of tough going. This is 8x10, and I like the execution of it, but I don't like the content. This was something I just started and finished kind of spur of the moment and very quickly. Somehow I fell into a groove and got comfortable with the paint after several days of being at odds with everything. But this is probably still more of a learning experience than a complete success. The painting below is the one that was giving me headaches galore:

I'm not sure if it's done or if it's any good. It feels overworked right now, and I think if I kept poking at it I would just scrub it out and start over. The face is bothering me... so maybe I'll play with it or change it. I think I'll put it away for a while and turn to something else. Either way, for the next few days I think I need to take a break (and watch a little Project Runway, do laundry, make curry) because between stressful paintings and a stressful day job and photo shoot coming up Sunday I'm a little worried about-- I'm already worn out. It's Wednesday and I've probably already put in over 40 hours labor counting everything.

Painting tiny paintings.

I'm painting a couple 8x10's right now because some of the shows I've been doing sell smaller pieces pretty quickly. So I thought it would be smart thing to do, have a few small things on hand. But I've realized I hate it, it's so restricting. I feel like I'm trying to climb into a cupboard. My brush strokes get stale and overworked, and the painting dies a long laborious death. Sometimes I have better days, but not very often. I also thought the small paintings would go quickly, but it seems they take just as much time as the giant ones. It feels like progress is taking ages and I am just aching to work canvases that I can throw my whole self into, with big strokes and gestures. And less a feeling of preciousness of detail. We'll see, I'm working on them a few more days until I finish up prepping some large canvases for a series of paintings I have in mind. Though even the canvas prepping is feeling like forever. I just want to spend 80 hours a week painting, I never have enough time. Though even at 80 hours I would probably want twice that. The more time I paint, the more time I need to spend painting.

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.

Looking to Van Gogh...

I've been reading some of Van Gogh's letters to his brother-- I recommend them for any artist or art lover. It's one of the best art reads out there, with many great insights into Van Gogh and the world he lived in. Today I decided to start reading from the beginning with his first letter in the collection (by Irving Stone) and I'll try to read straight through to the end in order. In the first letter he mentions the above painting by Millet and then goes on to give this advice:

"Try to walk as much as you can, and keep your love for nature, for that is the true way to learn to understand art more and more. Painters understand nature and love her and teach us to see her. If one really loves nature, one can find beauty everywhere."

Vincent Van Gogh
London, June 1873

"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.

Stretching Canvas Week! ...or the "I need a much bigger apartment" blog

I am stretching 8 canvases this week, and hopefully will get well into oil priming them by Thanksgiving. I do them in batches, because it's hard to switch from stretching to painting in the same day. Mostly for space reasons. Depending on what I am doing, I usually have to reorganize my apartment to accommodate everything. The picture above is my living room. I don't paint in this room. It's usually used as a living room/office/library/dining room. But because it has more "open space" I use it for stretching canvas as well. My apartment has 2 other rooms. The kitchen, and the bedroom/laundry room/studio. It's pretty tight. I can turn around but that's about it. I do need to spend a weekend purging a bunch of stuff to make more space, but I've been meaning to do that since January and it's likely it will be a while before it happens. Once I get this latest round of canvases stretched, the tiny space will really start hitting me. 80% of my walls are already covered by existing art. And so once I start working on these canvases I'm going to run out of wall space real quick (I like to keep my paintings out in the open on walls while I work on them-- I think half of painting is just looking at the paintings as they progress....) So I am going to have to solve my space problem, and soon. Over the next months I will either A) need to sell paintings, B) need to lend paintings, C) need to get a raise so I can rent a storage space for paintings. I'm really really pulling for option A, but that's not going so well-- at least not for the big ones. (I guess technically I've sold 8 or 9 paintings this year, but they were super tiny.) But for now I'm just going to keep on stretching and painting. I'm aiming to do a couple more paintings by the end of the year, so I can go out with a bang. Then more at the start of the year... to start the year with a bang. Hopefully I'll have more shows coming up, that I'm working on. I am going to do a 1 day show on December 13 with some small works, so I'll be working on those for the next week or so while I get my big big canvases primed and ready for action.

At Sea

It's an in between week for me. In between shows, in between paintings, kind of a no man's land of creativity. A week where nothing will happen as I am out of canvases and finished with the ones I have... and I itch for another deadline to burn myself out on. I should start planning my next pieces (before I find myself with a new and impossible deadline upon me.) But instead I've been playing rainy-weepy guitar for hours broken up by periodic trips to various bookstores to see if they have Anais Nin's Collages which I am determined to read next (even though I have a stack of other unread books right next to me. I should read those first probably....) I just read the other day that Anais Nin lived not more than 2 miles from here, and I tend to cling to any shred of literary history that Los Angeles can claim. I almost walked to her house yesterday but had to stop myself because I had things to do and it was getting dark.

I am pondering my next paintings, there are several distinct stages of painting. For me it seems the conception of paintings is separate from the actual painting. I will spend a month or two brainstorming and developing my paintings-- this usually involves sketching in photoshop, collecting reference, and just churning out the basic framework for a number of pieces. This is usually the most creative part of painting, but sometimes the physically most dull part because it involves sitting in front of a computer more than a canvas. The actual painting I love completely, because I'm on my feet in action. It becomes a sort of a dance with music blaring and my brush moving to the rhythm. I love it because it is very high energy, creative, and instinctual (versus intellectual and sendentary.) When I'm painting, I usually have a permanent high. And right now, this week is the exact opposite-- that low valley between mountains, an anticlimax.

Hopefully by the end of the week I'll find the beginnings of my next paintings, and I'll start work on some canvas frames. (Yay, woodworking time!) Perhaps the industry of cutting lumber and the rush of using power tools is just what I need. I may be fancy this time and break out my router and make my own beveled edges.

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....

Cigarettes and Red Vines

I saw Aimee Mann today on Vermont Blvd. I had her CD Bachelor No. 2 on repeat when I first moved to LA (along with The Who's greatest hits.) I got to see her perform at Largo last year, I was sitting 4 feet from the stage with best bud Guillermo and sipping on a dirty martini. It was one of the best live shows I've seen, despite the fact she kept forgetting her own lyrics (thankfully the audience could help her there.) Seeing her reminded me of that awesome show, and made me think of all the wonderful shows I've gone to here in LA. Here is my top list of the best musicians/performers I've seen:

1. Josh Ritter - I've seen him 4 times live and every show I'm blown away. It's partly the sheer energy, the stage persona, and the band as a whole. I think his lyrics are the most interesting and wonderful that I've heard. I'm really drawn to the images and concepts in them, and he uses the most bizarre juxtapositions and references. I had been thinking about metaphor in literature vs. painting for a while (See my painting "In The Ruins of the City" for a prior attempt.) But it was his CD "The Animal Years" that crystallized my thinking about this and compelled me to follow my instinct about using my own bizarre juxtapositions of imagery (see "The Edge of the World.") I'll probably write more about this later, since it's been on my mind again as I start a new series of paintings in the vein of The Edge of the World...
2. Mia Doi Todd - Every time I go see her I seriously float home and start painting or writing poetry furiously. Her lyrics are so plain and deceptively simple yet beautiful-- they often consist of simple observations but it takes someone like her to turn them from ordinary to an extraordinary song. I studied poetry in college with Olga Broumas, and reading poetry aloud was very important there. When poetry is read well, it has a musical quality. And Mia's music/voice somehow seems to straddle the world of music and poetry. Plus she performs barefoot and uses a harmonium, and I looove things like that.
3. Ferraby Lionheart - Another LA local, I first heard his music on the radio as I was moving my last load of belongings to my new place here in Silverlake. It took me a while to track him down online (now it's not as hard since he's starting to get some attention) but I was able to see him play solo a couple days later. I think what struck me about him is his reserved quality as well as how magical his music is. I also find something familiar about his music, and after some thought I decided that his songs feel like songs I would write myself (well... if I could write music.)
4. Aimee Mann- I loved her live, partly because of the intimacy of the venue and the casual quality of the performance. She had no set list, and I think some of her back up musicians were not her normal people and just following along. Also since I found her music during a transitional period in my life so it just holds so much extra meaning for me.

Un-updated?

I revised my website again, and undid a few things I did late night earlier this week. I need to stop impulsively starting on projects at 2am (notice the timestamp on this blog, I am seriously crazy and should be asleep now.) So for now the artist statement has been removed, I am once again mulling it over.

Website Updated, for now.

I've updated my website so it has my latest paintings. I also reorganized the order that the paintings are viewed, so the recent ones pop up first (sort of, they're also somewhat ordered by concept too.) I also put a semi-coherent artist statement which shall be revised once I get a 1st and 2nd and 3rd opinion on it. It's still nowhere near perfect. It's hard to write one universal statement to cover every idea in my head and in my work. There's still so much I didn't get into, I feel like I could write a book. It's is additionally hard to write a statement when I'm going through a period where I'm feeling a bit scattered artistically. I had a show a few weeks ago where I saw a bunch of my recent pieces next to each other and I felt they were so different as if they were separated by years and not days or months. I resolved then to be more focused and unified somehow, even if it was just done by a unified color palette. I'm still turning this all over in my head, and I got a sort of unsatisfied feeling in my stomach. I know at some point I'll find my new direction and start a brilliant new series of paintings. For now, I'm loosing myself in music and a bit of poetry as a change of pace.

Try to compose it,
it fails
the center vanishes

the figure
suddenly
nowhere
in sight

or hiding under
scraps of buildings
the columns of a fallen bridge
any thing hard will do
as shield
or carapace

yet nothing stays
everything disperses
you cannot draw this
dust as it rises

excerpt from the poem "To the Far Corners of Fractured Worlds" by Susan Griffin. (from The Gift of Tongues by Copper Canyon Press.)

(I just realized I don't know the protocol for quoting poetry or other published material in a blog. Is it allowed, and how much? I have absolutely no clue, it's such a new world for me. If this has crossed any lines, please politely inform me and I'll remove it.)

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"

Blogging my Paintings...

I've been struggling over writing a concise and accurate artist statement these days. Well months, I've been putting it off regularly. I feel my work is in state of change-- so it is hard for me to make statements on my body of work as a whole. Much of what I would say now about my work doesn't even apply to paintings I did earlier this year. And what's in my head now has yet to be seen on the canvas. So I thought I would do it my own way, and write a statement about each painting on my website (as well as all the details people ask like "How long did it take?') I'm gonna try to do this over the next week or two while I have some downtime catching my breath between shows. (Next show(s) to be announced soon, FYI. I have a couple things in the works...)

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.

Found out today...

Rudolf Arnheim passed away June 9th at age 102.

poem

I'm tired, so tired.
I have sleep to do.
I have work to dream.

~Bill Knott, "(End) of Summer"

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.

new drawings

I posted some recent drawings on my flickr site. I started a 2nd sketchbook of more refined drawings of ideas I am working out-- some may become paintings. I needed a way to develop my ideas for paintings that didn't take very much time-- especially since my paintings can take anywhere from 1 month to 1 yr to make.

I've also been developing new paintings by composting photos and sketches in photoshop. That way I can move elements around. change color, change sizes, and pretty much play with infinite variations. I won't post any of these because they're ugly and they only come together in the painting.

stir crazy

I've been in my house painting all day (well, painting and checking myspace) and I'm getting stir crazy. I want to go outside to stores and buy things. But I don't need anything-- except fresh air. I just need to paint paint paint.

Since the holidays I've been painting like crazy, and taking slides and submitting to things. I haven't had a moment to spare really-- just using every free minute to get things done. Today's the first day back painting after a mad stretch of self promotion. I feel rusty. The colors are all wrong and I'm getting too tight-- I think my paintings look better loose and messy-- but sometimes I start to get tight and I go too far and things start getting flat and one dimensional, like the face of a lady with a really bad face lift. It all gets muddled and lifeless.

I'm working on a new series of paintings which I should be done with soon since I've been working so much. Plus I'm submitting them to a show on Monday, so they have to be close to done by then. I got rejected from my first show of the year already as well-- but I'll stay positive, because I have so much better stuff happening that hasn't been seen by anybody yet.

For the time being, I just gotta focus on working and resist the urge to go on 5hr walks or to the mall to try on clothes. When I get frustrated with painting, I itch to quit and do something else but I've found that working through it is the best thing-- and when i learn the most. And it's no good to just paint when I'm in the mood to paint well. I'd only paint one month out of the year at that rate-- spread through out the year.

working working working

I've been working steadily on a new series lately. I was a little lost for a while about what direction I was goin in, but I've think I've found it now. I'll hopefully post some new real paintings at the start of the new year. For now I'm trying to spend as much time working as possible as well as dedicating some time to self promotion and organizing of shows. Hopefully there will be more of that in the new year.

For now, my latest venture is selling some miniature collages in a boutique on Sunset Blvd. Anyone interested can visit Bingo's Craft Emporium at 3908 Sunset Blvd. in Silverlake (next to Pull My Daisy.) It's only a temporary space set up for the holidays, but it has lots of interesting things by area artists. I started making miniature collages/paintings for friends as gifts (since I hang on to the big paintings) and they recommended I sell them as magnets. They're just the type of thing people buy for fun and as gifts, at least I hope so. We'll see.

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.)

candlelight and quill pens

My computer is currently in the hospital and while I don't think of myself particularly chained to it I suddenly feel like I am in the dark ages. I feel like I should take my technology deprivation a step further and light candles and write sordid romance novellas with quill pen.

Instead I've been pretty unproductive and have been focusing on watching old black and white films on TCM and eating loads of halloween candy (mmmm...sugar & Tyrone Power.)

I do have alot to do-- much of it tied to my computer. I am spending the weekend taking digital photos and doing pencil and photoshop sketches all for a new painting series I'm working on. (Plus I need to play with my website and make new business cards and all that self-promotiony stuff.) So I'm a little discouraged without my little silver Mac buddy to help me.

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.

holy crap I'm moving

Yes I've been missing lately (though it probably doesn't matter since I have no readers) and admittedly haven't been focused much on art. I've wrapped up most of my recent in-process paintings, photographed them, handed them over to my web designer (who proceeded to not update my website), and turned my attention to getting a new apartment-- one that wouldn't involve my spending up to 3 hrs in the car each day getting to and from work.

So I have found the perfect apartment (as perfect as it gets without thousands of square feet to spill paint in) tucked on the side of a hill in the Loz Feliz/Silverlake area. It is a one bedroom so I will be roommate free and can officially become the crazy artist hermit I am aspiring to be. And once I'm settled and have my art studio back in order in it's new home, I'll start posting pictures and blogging again.

the adventure of having a day off

I have tomorrow off, a weekday. I must say this is the best part of my day job. Even if I work a little on a weekend-- a weekday off is worth 2 weekend days (with banks and post offices actually being open.) The night before is the best part because I get to imagine all the things I'm going to do. After all, I haven't overslept yet so it's still a full day in my head.

Of course my list of things to do is getting a little long... give 75% of my clothes to goodwill because I don't want to wash them... oil prime my canvases with that annoying ground that never washes off my hands... start this new painting I've had in my mind... measure all my artwork and input it into my nifty database... photograph that cluster of pastels I forgot about the other day when I photographed everything else... design new business cards... look for a new apartment/studio to move to.... I could keep going.

Of course I could end up getting to it all since I banned TV before 10pm each day. I've suddenly found myself hyper-productive and have accomplished in a week what I've been aiming to get around to eventually for 6 months. Even though I like to have noise on in the background when I paint-- I can't deny that sometimes it sucks me in and pretty soon I'm sitting on the couch (still holding brushes in my hand) waiting to see who turned out to be the killer this night on one of the Law and Orders. Enough!

I've also banned desert. Except on weekends and only when I'm out with friends. No more binging on a whole package of Nestle cookie dough while all alone in my apartment.

photohardship

I spent the weekend re-photographing most of my paintings I have in my apartment and I'm amazed how hard it is to get clear images. Of course I'm working with limited lighting equipment and space so I expected it to be an up hill battle. If it's not glare or dust or not being able to get the perfect straight on angle-- it's the inability to really be sure of color in the digital image. I did some paintings in 32K tungsten light (using lights that usually give me a headache with glare) and some in cloudy daylight where the glare is minimal but for some reason all the images came out grayish and lacking a certain fortitude. I really notice the difference when the photos are side by side. Perhaps it is something that photoshop could even out-- but since I have spent years taking my own slides-- a task that requires that everything be meticulous on the photography end-- I prefer to manipulate the images in photoshop as little as possible. So it looks like I have some more photos to re-take. I am not looking forward to breaking out the hot lights and going through my stacks and stacks of paintings one by one.

But the upside of me slaving away taking photos this weekend is that I have new images on flickr, many are old paintings (meaning more than a year old) that I haven't posted before. Most of them are either self portraits or portraits of friends.

my sketchy book

Inspired by the Hockney show to start keeping a sketchbook again (well one that that actually includes sketches and doesn't fill up with phone numbers and random notes.) I have been pretty much been doing a drawing a day-- usually when I'm out with friends or on my lunch break from my day job. I thought I'd post a few things-- nothing is particularly stunning but I like capturing brief moments of people and things I see. I'm pretty good at capturing things quickly before the scene changes too much, and I like the challenge of moving subjects and changing places. Some drawings are interrupted by the subject walking away (or worse, the subject noticing me hiding in a corner looking at them out of the corner of my eye.) So far nobody has bothered me or spoken to me-- that's what drove me crazy a few years ago when I did a group of paintings from sketches made at the Farmer's Market or 3rd Street Promenade. (I'm real popular with old lonely men, and sketching gives them a jumping off point for conversation....) Things that prevent this: sunglasses, headphones. They are an artist's best friend when they are secretly drawing people.

This is a sketch of my friend Guillermo over an impromtu dinner at the East India Grill July 7. We discussed life, our future, Los Angeles, and the magic of double decker buses (I had come from the West Hollywood art ride-- very enjoyable!)

Some sketches over lunch. I love people watching (until they start watching me.)

On some of my quick sketches I have started to revisit them later (in my studio) and add to them in what ever way that strikes me at that moment-- usually completely out of my head and very random and impulsive. Sometimes magical things happen. Sometimes it ends up looking like mud.

I'll post more bits and pieces from my sketchbook as they can. More is on my flickr site-- just a start. It will grow...

rambling thoughts of the week

Because I'm a lame-o I only just saw the Klimt paintings at LACMA last week (I think, I lost track...) and true to my museum visits the one thing I went to see there turns out to be the least interesting thing to me.

What ended sucking me in was their American landscape stuff (now I'm wishing I had taken notes) but what I have been interested in recently is how location effects art. This is always most evident in landscape painting-- and what I found myself looking at was east coast landscapes vs. west coast, bare desert hills vs. dense, lush forestscapes. It stood out to me because I always hated landscapes and painted pretty crappy ones if I ever did (I had multiple art teachers tell me to not try them again). But that was on the east coast. The second I come to California I started painting/drawing landscapes every week. At first it was because I didn't know anybody and I didn't have any friends to model. But then I started getting into the landscape here. What I found was that I was just more drawn to paint the California geography. CA is more solid and concrete with grassy hills, rocky mountains, distance, as opposed to the dense bushes as opposed to the lush all-over greenery of Massachusetts. This was suprising because I was (at the time) prejudice against places with real trees and forests. I lived in the west until I was 11 and spent my whole childhood dreaming of tall green trees and hating the dead desert yellow color of everything around me. I'm kind of surprised I'm on this end of the country, but I've fallen in love with it- and the paintings it makes me do.

The other thing at LACMA that I saw was the Hockney exhibit. I can't say that I was a big Hockney fan before but I really enjoyed this exhibit for several reasons. First of all, I love portraits and figures of any sort. Could look at them all day, almost did. Also, again I'm really intrigued by the location an artists chooses to work in and how it inspires them-- or just seeps into their work. Sometimes I wonder if the whold NYC-starving artist thing limit's POV. I personally think that-- art being inspired by real life-- lives or dies based on what an artist surrounds themself with. And an artist like Hockney that incorporates his life so directly in his work is a very good example how an environment (social, geographic, cultural) plays a role. Just looking at his color choice-- turquoise, mint green, dusty rose, etc.-- these are not colors inspired by the northeast.

The last thing that the Hockney exhibit taught me is that I need to frikkin' start sketching more. I used to carry a sketchbook every where I went and would sketch every minute I had a down moment. The habit slowly faded when I stopped doing paintings strictly from sketches of brief real life moments. But even if I don't paint from my sketches, it is a fabulous way to slow down the process of observation as well as just get inspired.

That's all for tonight. Gotta go wash my brushes. (And my dinner dishes too probably while I'm at it, they'll get smelly.)

under a cloud

I've been painting a storm the last few weeks trying to finish off all I've started recently. I'm notorious for starting 20 paintings and working them all at the same time which makes an odd feeling of being both prolific, and moving at a snails pace because nothing ever is completed. I also never call a painting done. Paintings I called done last October got dug up and fiddled with of late. Part of this is that over time after I stare at my stuff I notice things that could be better crafted. Of course this week I've found that this habit of mine is more like picking at a scab than brilliant technique. I've found my skills have gone into crap lately because suddenly all my brushstrokes and color choices and pretty much everything is clumsy and muddled. I'll spend hours focusing on the dappled light falling on a cheek of a woman- and then when I take a step back it looks like a monkey with a beard. I've always had weeks where my flow seems to be off and I just work through it. Though sometimes I just paint like crap because I'm feeling lazy and impatient and am not channeling my full attention to what I am doing. But I'm embarrassed that whatever funk I'm in is out of my control at the moment. It hits me everytime I walk past my "studio" and feel the eyes of my bearded monkey women.

oh snap!

So I'm a compulsive canvas builder, even when I don't need canvases I find myself building them for a rainy day. So I had a day off today and first chance I got I went down to the store to get some canvas. Because the Pearl near my house is poorly stocked, and maintained-- when I got there they were pretty wiped out of canvas. All they had was 84" wide of the canvas texture I wanted-- wider than I needed but I took it anyway. At first I asked for 2 yards since I was only building 2 canvases, but then I got greedy and asked for a third yard (so I can save myself a trip to pearl on another rainy day...) When they unspooled the roll that extra bit for me, it turned out that after my 3rd yard, there was only 1 yard left on the roll. So they just gave me that extra yard for nothin'. Bonus yard of canvas=grrrreat day.

a new hope

I've been a little scattered lately because I am in the process of switching day jobs. But ultimately I think this will be a good thing-- once it's all sorted out and a routine has been set. I'm a little nervous because I never seem to get the balance I need to paint full force but of course even in the days when I had all day to work I still was short on time. Painting is addictive, and the more time I spend painting, the more time I need for it.

But the best thing about switching day jobs is the hope and the motivation it is giving me. I've reached that point where I feel like I have been waiting for my life to begin but never quite living it. I think it's a trap that many aspiring artists of all sorts fall into in LA. Everyone here is waiting for their big break. The key word is waiting-- which means everybody is waiting for something to actually happen-- like their life. At some point a person realizes how much time they have lost thinking they will get rich and successful tomorrow or the next day and then has to come to terms with the fact it may not happen, and if it doesn't-- what does that mean to their goals, identity, and happiness.

So I have decided to not wait any longer and start living the life I want to. Of course I have no money, but this new job gives me just a little more so that maybe I can change just a little bit.

First thing I need is to move. I need to not have a roommate-- I don't like having my schedule dictated by another person in my space. (Plus I don't like having food left to rot on the counter.) And I don't particularly like my apartment. The light is poor, the carpet is ugly, and there aren't any people my age in the area. So I must find a way to find an apartment with good light, young artists nearby, no roommate, and preferably hardwood floors. I would like a loft but unfortunately I think it is out of my price range so I will probably still have space issues. Also, I would like to get a cat. Preferably with a bizarre name that requires an extensive explaination. After this, I need to connect with other artists in LA. I seem to be having trouble with this (but I do know a shitload of screenwriters and aspiring directors...) and I've been told to "go to openings" but it would help if maybe all the artists could just put an "A" on their chest or something so I could pick them out. And lastly of all a show would be nice. I've gotten several rejections this year which prompted me to paint harder and faster. I'm hoping it pays off soon, otherwise I'll just put something together myself because I'm never one to wait for an opportunity to be handed to me. I make my own.

But needless to say, the next 6 months will be transitional months. However I'm looking forward to a life that involves more serious painting, artsy friends, wine, and real health insurance.

musings on landscapes and more

I spent all day Saturday at the Getty staring at paintings. What I like about looking at paintings I've seen before is noticing new details I've never seen in them before. And these are details I rarely grasp from reproductions as I hunted for decent links to the few paintings that really stood out to me this visit and couldn't find a single one.

So this weekend-- while I was originally aiming to see the Courbet exhibit before it went away (and more specifically looking to see how the color green is used in his landscapes...) -- I ended up getting inspiration in the Italian painting section instead. After finding Courbet and other plein air paintings in the permanent collection rather dull this visit (not that it is dull, it just didn't strike me this time around) I thought I would open myself up to more than just plein air painters. I wanted to see different takes on landscape. This is how I found myself in the Italian Renaissance. What intrigued me was not the figures (which is what I usually obsess over) but how everything else was arranged and painted-- the landscapes, the cities, trees, blades of grass, leaves, flowers, clouds, etc. This painting, for example, was one that particularly spoke to me.

I am not an expert on anything Renaissance (it seems as I get older and more disciplined I am starting to find holes in what I know. After this weekend I have decided to invest in several books on the Renaissance to satisfy my need for more knowledge.) What I am curious about is how a painting would be constructed using various elements.

Going back to the painting by Dosso Dossi as an example I deduced the following based on observation. Objects like the vase, the broken crushed flowers, maybe some of the foreground earth were probably done from life (maybe in sketch form first). I don't know how much of it was in one place at one time. Surely the flowers would have wilted in the time it took to paint them so I assume there were sketches and studies done-- the finished product done based on those. I am not sure of the ground beneath the figures, but looking at some of the other paintings nearby in the gallery I got obsessed with feet-- mainly because the figures in many of the paintings were not very well set into the space suggesting the models were not posed in that location. In the Dosso Dossi painting this is less of a problem-- however the legs of the centaur on the right side are unnaturally in shadow which for some reason I assume was because he had trouble painting what he couldn't observe and maybe played it down a little bit by letting it fall into deep shadow. I could probably assume all the figures were posed and worked from seperately. There seems to be very subtle shifts in scale, perspective, position in space that doesn't quite seem natural. The background is a whole other monster. The separation between foreground/background is very distinct as if the background was more of a backdrop than a continuous landscape receding into the distance. I am guessing the background was not drawn from life, but is a compilation of familiar elements arranged to serve the theme of the painting. The landscape seems more like a fantasy-- something drawn from imagination rather than life. The leaves are painted wit a certain pattern like quality and the color seems more literal as if from memory as opposed to life.

Many of the paintings I looked at had a bizarre dichotomy: beautifully painted luminous figures set in landscapes that seemed unreal and not quite sharing the same space as the figures. But at the same time-- this seemed to be done accomplish a point and they get away with it.

This way of painting the lanscape is very opposite to the plein air painters I also looked at. I thought that plein air landscapes would be more helpful to me-- after all they were painted almost directly from life. And isn't painting from life far superior? After looking at all these paintings I am not so sure. I think that painting out in the landscape is a great learning tool-- but when it comes to the core of one's work-- the real key is to figure out what your painting is all about. And what I realized this weekend is that-- yes-- lately there has been alot of landscape in my paintings. But my purpose is not to capture the landscape nuances accurately. I am trying to create a sort setting that has a subtle feeling of fantasy-- of an imagined or subjective landscape. I am thinking I may start making my landscapes more unreal on purpose and see what comes of it.

van Gogh on painting & photography.

"I am working on a portrait of Mother, because the black-and-white photograph annoys me so. Ah, what portraits could be made from nature with photography and painting! I always hope that we are still to have a great revolution in portraiture." October 9, 1888, Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh.

it's the size of the mark and the canvas that counts

The last series of paintings I have done are relatively small in size. For example the one on the right, "Away" is under 2 feet. Certainly going to any gallery with contemporary paintings, 2 feet feels exceedingly small. However if one takes a look at some of Degas' work, it is surprisingly small. Off the top of my head, most of the impressionist work I've seen is small (I'm thinking of the MFA Boston collection in particular because that is where I spent many long hours looking at it when I lived in the area.) The only larger size paintings that I remember are Monet's "La Japonaise" (roughly 232x142cm or 7.6x4.7feet)which dominates one wall of the room, Manet's "Execution of the Emperor Maximilian" (roughly 196x259cm or 6.3x8.5 feet), and Monet's almost abstract large scale water lily paintings (which I saw at the Monet exhibition, they are not part of the MFA collection.)

In art school there was always the pressure to paint big (over 6 feet big) which at the time I, being 19, thought was only an example of "bigger-is-better-itis" that is inflicting our patriarchal consumerist society, those are the terms I saw the world in then. I held out for a while, arguing that most people don't have space to hang 7 + foot paintings in their homes so they're really not marketable (not really grasping that most people can't afford to buy paintings for their homes) and then begrudgingly went about making large paintings. The problems I had in art school with size and scale were numerous. Often I would make the same paintings I would make small, but just increase the scale. Many of my paintings were giant faces which made my art teachers fill my arms with books and books about Chuck Close and of course I didn't understand why. And on top of painting giant heads, I had no money and only bought cheap tiny brushes giving everthing a very uniform brushstroke throughout. Again, I was not aware I was doing this though art teachers told me. But this last year it has been like all the things I was being told in critiques just sunk in and now I understand what I didn't when I was 19.

Now that I have no teachers telling me to paint bigger, I have finally been able to paint small. And it was seeing some tiny Degas (don't remember which ones or where) that moved me to follow my gut. While the paintings were small, it were of full figures and settings, and fully realized. If seen in a book one would probably assume it was much larger. But what really compelled me was the fluidity of the paint-- how a single confident brush stroke could high light at arm-- that was all it took. I wanted to do that but I always had too much area to fill in with a tiny brush. So I starting painting small scenes and really working on building my brustrokes, color, and confidence. By working small I started to master the paint more, get a better feel of it.
And after really working like this for a while, I felt the need to get larger. So I made larger canvases. And this time I really paid attention to the relationship between the viewer and the painting. First of all, if painting a figure larger than life size-- it stands out as larger than life. There are two reasons to paint larger than life: to give an overwhelming effect to the up close viewer, or appear life-size to the viewer if the painting is displayed up high or at a distance. I did not want to overwhelm the viewer-- not like Chuck Close. (Why is it that a viewer can relate to smaller figures rather than huge ones in pictures?) So with my larger paintings I took great pains to scale my subject proportionally with the frame of the canvas-- though still larger than my smaller paintings. And as I paint the larger paintings, I paying attention to the proportion of the brush to the painted image as well as the canvas. If I vary the size of the brush, I can control the focus of the painting much like a camera-- though not in planes of depth of field but in how the eye travels. The eye will go to areas with finer detail and more painted work. And if I contrast the fine detailing with broader, bigger, and bolder brushstrokes, the eye will interpret that as more peripheral. Plus having worked small for a while and mastered a small amount of paint, it is really showing in the larger paintings. They look more confident than my old paintings, and that is good. I hope to someday be as good at painting as I am at drawing (another thing that was told to me in art school. ) Though I still don't know why, in todays world where there hardly any frescos and murals, there is the pressure to make giant paintings-- as if that makes one a serious artist. I know that it is unlikely that I will go larger than 7'anytime soon-- at least until I get more space since my ceilings are only 7'6" high. I will post some of my college/high school work for contrast some day.

More on Brandeis

While following up on the recent move by Brandeis to pull an art exhibit of drawings by Palestinian children, I came across this article which will make more context in light of this (including comments.) (via)

Upsetting, but not surprising

This morning checking headlines I came across this in Modern Art Notes. Brandeis has apparently removed an exhibit of drawings made by Palestinian children that was put in their library by a Jewish-Isreali student and former member of the Isreali army. The argument? It was offensive to students and was declared one sided.

First of all I agree with Tyler Green that an art exhibit does not need to show balanced opinions. And I think that removing the exhibit shows a respected university's weakness that it must at some point face if it hopes to continue to say that it is a non-Jewish school (well, on paper maybe) and if more than that, if it wants to continue dreams of keeping it's place in academia.

But I am not surprised by the Brandeis reaction being an alumn myself. While some put the percentage of Jewish students at 50%, when attending Brandeis it feels much more like 80% and I would be curious to hear actual numbers. Personally I am not Jewish but have an interesting background having lived in Jerusalem for a year as a child where I attended an Israeli public school. Although I was young then, I got a unique sense of the conflict. Because of my family's background and reasons for going to Israel (which I won't go into on a public blog) I visited a few places like East Jerusalem and Jericho. Yes, I was a child and didn't know the complexity and politics of the situation-- but being approached by a Palestinian child (about 8) with no shoes living in a ramshackle shed of a house trying to sell me candy in order to support his family is something that sticks in your mind. Being only 12 myself, I found myself giving the child my entire allowance and turning down the candy that I wasn't really interested in. But the Palestinian child insisted I take the candy so I did. It was experiencing things like this that I became very curious about the Palestinian experience-- the one that is not represented on American television. And while I'm not necessarily booksmart about the conflict-- I left Israel firmly believing that there is a story of Palestinian life that is not heard.

At Brandeis, I could never express to my fellow students that I believed Palestinians had rights, including the right to government representation, or more than that the right to their own state. The allegiance to Israel is strong among students at Brandeis, and all the years I attended, the discussion of the MidEast conflict was one-sided on the side of Isreal. I remember even apolitical Brandeis students get riled at any person who dares suggest what I suggest. There I became accustomed to staying silent on the topic.

So when any portrayal of the Palestinian experience appears on Brandeis campus-- it is not one sided. It is the first glimpse of Brandeis actually having a balanced opinion and it is unfortunate that the university chose to censor progress.

shifting gears

I have slowed down on the painting the last week which I feel guilty of but really there is just not time in the day for me to accomplish everything. And this has become a week to get all those small nagging real life things done-- the things I put off because painting is more enjoyable. But at a certain point all the small things become a big monster that kills the creative impulse. And that's what has happened this week.

I did purchase my camera finally, and spent several hours documenting every leaf and blade of grass in a mile radius from my house. Though once that was done I had to turn to housecleaning (my apartment was starting to smell) and mundane bill-related tasks. I am hoping to do a little bit of spring cleaning and reorganization of my life so that I will have a more comfortable mental and physical space to paint in, as well as better time-management so I blog more often. (I have several dozen half written blog entries that I never posted and I hope to change that by setting aside more quiet time to finish things.)

But with my new camera I'm anxious to take some real pictures (not of blades of grass and leaves) which I will do this weekend as I have persuaded several of my friends to pose. Though I inadverently started a side headshot/portrait business and already have 3 appointments this weekend. I've never really done headshots, but somehow I'll muddle through it all the while pretending I know absolutely what I'm doing.