In silence

     I like to take a few moments to be silent and express gratitude when  I come into the studio for the day. It really helps to ground me and remind me of all the good things that have come into my life through my actions and otherwise. I had hoped for years to have a larger studio again after having to move from the space at 16 N. 3rd Street back in 2015. I don't like to take things for granted because everything can crumble, turn to dust and disappear in an instant. I worked hard to get here, with help along the way, and I'll never forget that. 

    Since moving here, I've been able to look at my work in a completely different way than I have for the past seven years or so. Just being able to have the room to step back from something and see it in relation to something else that I'm working on a few feet away is truly powerful. I get to walk a few yards away from a painting and can really take my time with letting it live and come into being on it's own terms and not with the crush of all of my other work right on top of it. It's an amazing feeling. 

 TM  

CONTENTS/INTRODUCTION/Vegetables

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Vegetables

    These images came together in a couple of bursts of ideas between Saturday and this morning. Saturday, I was here in the studio and had the urge to return to drawing over book pages, specifically this old House and Gardens New Complete Book of Gardens that was published in 1955. It's a used book that I bought from Mostly Books on Bainbridge Street for $5 years ago. I've been using images and pages from the book to make collages and other things. One project that I like a lot from around 2015 or so is called "Notes". "Notes" consists of several images from this book that I tore and then drew glyphs on. I had them up on my old studio wall for almost seven years when I moved out this past summer. 

    First, I drew on and collaged the pages and photographed them on the floor of the studio, with the book leaned up against the wall and the "Vegetable" page taped to the wall. I didn't want to use push pins in it. That was Saturday. This morning, I woke up too early, as usual and got the idea to incorporate some digital aspects into the photos and that's what you see above. I imported the photos into the PicsArt app to make the additions. 

    Anyway,I've been into drawing over book pages for a while now. In practice, it's been more sporadic than I'd like, but I feel like I'll be doing more with this idea now. I like drawing on these book pages because the printed images give me something to react against with my own mark making. It's another way of imposing one's mark on something that already exists, i.e., graffiti. There's also something about marking up older books like this that are very orderly and represent life from another era. The gardens and layouts presented in this book represent a certain type of suburban ideal that has levels of social complications, to say the least. 

     

    The immaculately manicured gardens and plans seen in this book brings to mind ideas about class and race from the jump. Only a certain class of people could afford many of the extravagant gardens pictured within and you definitely had to be of a certain racial background to be able to have anything like this in the '50s almost anywhere in the U.S. If you were Black and could afford it, most often, you would be pushed to consider something much less nice and in a Black enclave because the subtext is that suburbia was only for whites. I know there might have been exceptions to this, but those exceptions were probably few and far between. When I think of the suburbs, I automatically think "white", even when I know that's not the case in today's world. With the scars of segregation and Jim Crow laws from those times still here, being Black it's hard to look at anything from the '50s and feel good about it. Combine that with how much things haven't changed in our society regarding race and acceptance (witness these past couple of decades and especially the past eight years). 

    With that said, taking my marks and superimposing them over the book images feels good in a lot of ways. I even took a few pages from it to make a loose series of images I dubbed, The Great (Suburban) Outdoors. Being a fan of nature with hiking being one of my favorite activities, the sterility of a lot of suburbs with their subjugation of nature into "manageable" plots of land feels like an affront to nature (and it is) "But people have to live somewhere and not have plants, grass and trees grow wild..." *insert eye roll*

    It's complicated. This is only me getting some things off my chest. However, I like how these digital images came out and I already have more edits in mind. I'll probably make more soon. One thing that I have to balance is making sure that I don't get overwhelmed with the sheer enormity of editing options these days. If I didn't restrict my choices for what parts of the app to use and which to leave alone (for now) is unbelievable. For these, I had a couple of problems to solve. One was making sure that the image fit into the square format for Instagram because one of the original photos was horizontal. The other was using colors with each image that complimented the image in some way and didn't overwhelm the photo. i think this worked out pretty well, although I'm already thinking about how to possibly make this idea better next time. 

TM

"Evidence" install at The Shipley School

Above: Images of the works in Evidence and Tumbler being installed in the Speer Gallery last week

    

 It's been a week! I spent last Saturday installing nine paintings for my solo show, Evidence, at The Shipley School located in Bryn Mawr, PA. Months ago, I was contacted by Meredith Turner, Co-Chair of the Art Department/Speer Gallery at Shipley about the possibility of showing work there. We exchanged emails, but it took some time for her to get back to me due to a death in her family. Anyway, when we picked up the conversation again later in the summer, I was definitely ready to see what was on the table. I went for a visit between trips abroad, enjoyed meeting Meredith (meeting her again, I should say because we were students in the Department of Art and Art Education at Temple back in the 90's at the same time). 

    She showed me around and explained that her and another teacher there, Carol Royer, were co-chairs in the Art Department and for the gallery. Carol and I once shared a studio space back in the early 2000s in Old City, at 16-A North 3rd Street. Meredith explained that they had just taken over the running of the gallery and were looking to do some new things with it, liked my work and asked if I'd be willing to have a show there. She also mentioned that she was open to different ideas about how to use the gallery space, so I accepted right away. I had an inkling of what I wanted to do, but not a clear picture at that time. It became more fully formed as time passed after that initial meeting. 

    What I came up with was showing a number of recent paintings from 2020-2022 that hadn't been shown,yet, and making another site-specific wall installation. All of this I did last weekend and on Thursday and Friday of last week. The wall piece, like the past ones, is made up of drawings on paper, frosted mylar, silver mylar and clear acetate. The drawings are creased, folded, returned to their original shapes and then installed on the wall with no prior plan as to what will go where. All of that is figured out as I go along. The main part of this one, Tumbler, wound up being circular in form. I added two other parts on opposite walls and connected all three with colored rope extending from various points on the three walls. The gallery space is very vertical, so I wanted to take advantage of the ceiling height to make something that would cause the students and staff who traverse that area to experience that space in a radically different way than they usually do. 

    Like with other pieces like this, I was surprised that I was able to bring it all together over two days. The small amount of planning that went into this went a long way. As I mentioned above, none of how it turned out was planned; I only knew what materials I wanted to use and I wanted to place the various elements of the work. The reaction to it from staff and students has been very positive and I'm looking forward to talking about it more on the 17th, when I'm scheduled to give an artist talk. The reception is on the 18th. I sent out a studio newsletter announcing the show with details that I haven't posted on social media yet. I'm trying to get more subscribers because I'm attempting to give people more value with the newsletter and not post certain things online, or not posting online until much later. We'll see what happens. I don't  blame people for not wanting to sign up for another newsletter because I know we all have overflowing inboxes, but I'm still going to keep trying to expand this aspect of my marketing. It's been slow going in gaining new subscribers and I think I may have to add more incentives in the future, like giveaways of small drawings or something like that. 

TM

A slight retreat

 

It's been an interesting couple of days as I've managed to catch a head cold. Tested for Covid and it's not that, so that's a good thing. I also don't feel like I did when I had Covid earlier this year, also a good thing. Mostly congested, but not any other heavy symptoms. I went to the studio yesterday and today. I felt good enough to dabble on one of the new paintings I've been working on. Going in, I didn't want to really do much of anything considering how out of it I felt due to the lingering effects of a decongestant that I took last night. Felt a bit drowsy most of the day, but not bad enough to stay home. 

Anyway,  I wound up working on a painting that I mentioned the other day as one that has been a bit of a headache. I finally just painted out what I'd done and started again. This time, with a couple of  layers of big glyphs, one blue the other yellowish, then collaged some old stenciled images onto it that's on thin drafting paper. Love that stuff for adding layers of marks because like tracing paper, it's translucent. After, I added a couple of grids of light green glyphs. So far, it's ok. I'm trying to not be too judgemental about this painting-in-progress, but I'm also feeling like it needs to be moved to another, more interesting place form and color-wise. I have to wait until I get back into the studio tomorrow (hopefully) and see it with fresh eyes in order to plot next moves. 

I'm taking the day off from the studio today. I wish I'd have done so yesterday and took better care of myself. I had to cancel a meeting that was supposed to happen this morning after a night of not sleeping well and being just as congested as yesterday. I'm not sure what I'm going to do here at home today, but a couple of things have come to mind. It might be the day to go through my stuff that's sitting in the basement and see if there's anything I can get rid of or at least consolidate some of the stuff in boxes. 

TM

It's complicated

Afternoon sun gliding over works in progress

Because I approach most of my paintings without much of a predetermined path, there can be a tendency to over complicate things. This situation is made worse when it feels like almost nothing is working within a painting; not the color, not the forms, not the composition, and on and on. That's where I was yesterday with one piece that I've been wrestling with for a while now. The colors, in particular, felt really off. Too much white mixed in, everything felt too pastel-like. I'd also covered most of a background color combo that I liked a lot. That part was made with spray paint, as well, so it set itself apart from my other marks, which I also liked. 

None of this is uncommon for me to think about considering some of my painting habits. Most of the time, I'm able to shrug it off, but once in a while things get too messy and out of control. The over complication of ideas and, really, the proliferation of ideas that I have can serve to derail any painting I make. I was in bed thinking about this last night and the only thing that kept coming up was "simplify". I often step away from what feels "simple" because in my mind a lot of the times, "simple" is equated to "too easily figured out". That's not the reality, but rather the story I've concocted in my head about my work. As soon as I acknowledged those thoughts, an image came to me of how I could possibly move forward with this painting. I'll find out today if I'm on the right track.

TM

New flow

    

    The past couple of days here in the studio have been really great. I feel like I'm finally REALLY settling in. I'm beginning to feel comfortable moving around the space, although I have to keep an eye on where I leave whatever tools I'm working with. I'm back to working on several things at once and now that there's more room to move around, I tend to leave things all over the place. Before, in my smaller apartment studio, most things stayed within arm's reach, give or take a couple of yards for some things. I'm not complaining at all, just observing the difference in how I use this space. 

    Having the room to spread out also means that how I think about my work is changing. Being able to leave something out to marinate on one wall, while working on another and having room between the two things is a wonderful feeling and one that I'll never take for granted (not that I did in the past). It makes a huge difference in my creative thinking to be able to walk away from a work in progress and have room to not have to have it in my direct  peripheral vision. It makes it easier to develop what I consider a proper relationship with the work where I can really step back and see it without making visual and mental compromises with all of the visual clutter of the older space. 

    I was thinking earlier about all of the work that I have here in storage. It's nice being able to put it up out of the way and I'm having less attachment to it, as well. All I can think about is the work I'm making and am going to make and barely contemplating the older work. Some of it I feel like I want to keep around just for reminders of what I've learned, but much of it can go. I'm sure I'll look in one of those boxes in the loft months from now and be relieved that I still have certain things and more than I might want to keep.

    I've had some strong feelings about the demands of social media and a creative life. I'm doing my best to not become a slave to the algorithm and keep a good boundary between it and my life; mostly by not posting about everything going on in my life and keeping what I do post to a narrow lane of mostly art, some cats and an even smaller amount of other things. I've softened my feelings about making reels in the studio a bit and only a bit. I'm slowly finding my way around what I need social media to do for me and how I can make the best use of the tools available without giving over every ounce of creative energy to it. For instance, I've come to see that I can film certain aspects of my studio life without feeling like the action is interrupting my creative flow. This has been a revelation and one that I'm glad to have come to. In opening myself up to certain possibilities, I'm better able to find peace with that side of marketing myself and my work without it making me feel angry and rejecting all of it. 

 On another note, I forgot to give an update re: my Covid experience last week. So, I'm all better now and have been since at least Saturday. I was feeling sick most of last week, starting on Monday and by Friday, I was pretty much back to normal. I don't know what this means long-term, but so far, so good. My energy was fully back on Saturday and has held pretty well. I say this all of the time, but it really does make a difference when you realize that you're not sick any more. 

TM

Rest & renewal (is good for art)

(detail of new painting 2.01.22)

Last Friday, I left the studio thinking that I was just about finished with a new painting; that I was just a few small moves away from stopping work on it. Of course, when I got back to the studio yesterday (Monday), I saw that this painting's journey was just beginning. This happens a lot and I'm always telling people that it's a great practice to let a work sit for a day or two, maybe a week, when you feel that it's done or if you're having problems with it and stepping away makes sense. I mostly work in the studio during the week, leaving Saturday and Sunday open to spend time with Julia. Things tend to work out well with this schedule. 

So, last Friday I stopped working on the painting. I felt that it was nearing completion and all I needed was a couple of big or little moves to bring it to its final state. There was some  leakage of paint from under the painter's tape on a section of the painting, resulting in some feathering of paint beyond the border that I didn't want to leave visible. I thought about what to do for a bit, but decided that it was best to just leave it alone for a while since I couldn't find some resolution then. The couple of days away from the work and studio did me good. Monday, I came to the studio with new mental energy and insight into what I thought needed to happen. Without thinking about it too much, I started to add some collage elements to the painting surface with the intention of adding brushwork and drawing on top of them. It was a really risky move, but well worth it in the end.

By the time I was done for the day, I was really happy about having taken the leap of faith with adding the collage elements. They completely changed the spatial dynamics within the image, making for a much more interesting composition than previously. Part of what I was after were different sets of marks than were there previously. The mix of opaque and transparent papers made a huge difference. Adding more marks on top of that pushed this painting to a place it would have never gotten to had I not let it (and myself) rest for a couple of days. 

TM

S p a c e

Morning studio corner

I didn't accomplish much of anything in the studio today. Nothing at all, actually, aside from watching some art-related videos and, later, more entertainment based YouTube videos. There were a few things besides art that I could have tackled, but I was completely unmotivated. I had ideas of working on some drawings and leaving the unfinished painting alone for the day, give myself some time away from it so I can perhaps return to it soon and get to a place of stopping work on it. I ascribe to the notion that paintings are never "finished"-that you simply stop working on them. (I'm paraphrasing the quote attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci). 

Since before Christmas until now, I've been on a very loose studio schedule. That is, I've taken more days off than on. I started back in ernest last week, worked Tuesday and yesterday and did nothing today. Once I stopped work on the one 36 x 36 inch painting yesterday, I spent some time just looking at the other one (40 x 40 inches), trying to figure out how to deal with the feathering that had happened along the taped edges of a shape in the composition. The area I'm thinking about needs some attention, but I haven't quite figured out how to deal with it. So it sits, for now. I didn't even look at it today, which is probably a good thing. 

Part of what's causing my non-motivation these days is the ongoing feeling of not having the  studio space I feel I need right now. I don't have enough floor space and have too much work that needs to be stored. If I were to take on a storage space for most of the work, that would help a little, but I still feel that it wouldn't be enough. I could be wrong, but I don't think so. I filled out an online form to get onto the Bok Building's waitlist for spaces, but honestly, I think that those spaces, when one is even available, will be beyond my budget. I have to do something to move towards a solution, so we'll see what happens. I'm also in another phase of downsizing the amount of personal items that I no longer need to keep with me there, like clothes that I no longer wear and linens I have no use for. Most of the things I have that I can get rid of are small things that aren't going to make a big overall difference, but I need to look at everything and determine if I need to be holding onto it.

I think the work space issue is getting to me and causing a lot of the uneasiness I'm feeling about working there. I'm feeling a limitation on the scale of the work that I'm able to make comfortably these days. On the flipside, there is always the problem of art storage and, quite frankly, I make a LOT of work. I need to make less work, or sell more. Beyond that, I need to look a lot more critically at the studio space and do my best to maximize it.

TM

The physicality of life in art

(photo: ©Stanley Whitney)

"You want to bring the physicality of life to your work"

-Stanley Whitney

I was watching a short interview with Stanley Whitney via YouTube this past week and this quote really grabbed me. It hit home because I've been thinking about issues related to this in my work. A lot of what influences my work is the textures of the world around me, like different kinds of wood screwed together, layers of worn posters stapled to utility poles, cracked and lined cement and asphalt...the list goes on. I'm a fan of bringing more physicality to my paintings, but I've wanted to do it in a way that doesn't just mimic the textures that I see in the streets. I'm not looking to replicate those textures, but to develop textures that suit the specific needs of a work. 

I've always embraced various types of textures in my painting, but never anything that was too obvious, at least from a distance. Mostly, it's been visual texture through the manipulation of forms on the surface. These textures don't rise from the painting's surface, but are just changes in how the paint or drawing material is handled. I had a period in the late '90s where I made a bunch of mixed media works where plexiglas, aluminum and wood were used in a variety of ways and had their own textures. I've never embraced really thick applications of paint on my paintings to create texture-it always seemed to be too much about surface, whereas I've been more interested in making spatial environments that rely on changes in scale to create depth. I went for textures that were a little more subtle. Like the mildly sandpapery Micaceous Iron Oxide (MIO) that Golden makes. Once dry, MIO has a surface that may be equivalent to 100 grit sandpaper Not too chunky, but still noticeable to the eye, and it's somewhat reflective. 

Lately, I've wanted to make some of my glyphs stand out from the surface. I've found that a heavy gel medium does the trick very well. Not only does it create a good peak, it gives a nice, almost encaustic-like look to the paint. Now, I want to experiment with adding differing amounts of paint and dried pigments to the gel medium to see how it acts.

"The physicality of life" is such a perfect way to describe what I want to bring to my work. That can take the form(s) of brushstrokes, scraping of paint, drips, covering of areas and so on. It's not only the look, but the general feeling that I hope to communicate. I like that some of my paintings feel like they're still in the process of evolving, even when I've chosen to stop working on them. Allowing some of the making process to be seen keeps the work alive in a way that I can't explain. It's similar to when observing the changes in my environment, on my walks, subtle and not so subtle; there's almost always a feeling of small wonderment at recognizing shifts in the world around me.  Doing this reminds me of how life is in continual change and flux, something that I want to convey to the viewer. My hope is that through the work, they'll recognize and appreciate something of what I see and experience. 

TM

Nine drawings

    

Nine Drawings (out of 20), 2021

Each: graphite or conté and oil pastel on paper, 12.5" x 9.5"

One day recently, I went on a drawing spree. I completed twenty drawings during an afternoon while also watching video profiles of various artists. I don't recall all of them, and I'm sure that there were a couple of repeats, but I often enjoy watching videos when not listening to music or podcasts while working in the studio. This particular afternoon, I wasn't in the mood to paint and remembered that I had this pad of nice, smooth white paper made by Fabriano and that I had a bunch of oil pastels that  hadn't been used in years, so that was it, a drawing day it was. I made some drawings back in 2004 or so where I used graphite with colorless and white oil pastels that turned out really well. I wanted to see what could happen using those same materials with my glyph images. 

The types of mark making that can happen when dragging the colorless or white oil pastels across soft graphite or conté was interesting to see. The blurriness and break down of the original drawing does something for me and I can't quite put it into words. I think it may have to do with altering the drawing in such a way that it begins to take on a different shape and appears to be morphing as I'm manipulating the oil pastels. The drawing seems to be in a state of flux, receding and advancing out from the paper all at once. If I cover the drawing with thicker layers or darker colors, the drawing gets buried under a confluence of marks. I'm always debating how much of the original drawing to leave visible. I'll start covering it up from the middle or one side and work my way across it from there. Determining where to stop the over drawing is always the interesting part. I like pushing the marks to the very edges of the glyph grid and figuring out how much of the glyphs to leave and where to cover them up entirely. 

I'm not sure where these will lead next. I've already made some on larger paper (22" x 30") and the results were pretty cool. However, the surface of the larger paper has a mild cold-press feel to it and even though it's a shallow texture, I'm not entirely satisfied with the results. I'm going to look for sheets of smooth paper that's at least 140lbs. A hot press watercolor paper will work, I'm sure. In the meantime, I think there's a lot to experiment with on the smaller sized paper. The 12.5" x 9.5" size feels really good, so I'll probably continue with more of these drawings at this scale. Maybe make enough to fill up a good sized wall. 

TM

 

Commitment: Fuel for the Marathon

 

Not too long ago n the studio...

I was recently a guest on an as-yet-to-be-launched art themed podcast. Early on in the conversation, the host asked me how early did I make the commitment to become an artist. Commitment. Words have impact and this one hit me like a ton of bricks...in a good way. Let me explain: One of the most common questions creative people of any stripe get asked is "When did you know that you wanted to do this?". My answer has usually been something along the lines of, "Well, I've always considered myself a full-time artist in my mind, even though I've held day jobs since the age of 13...." For some reason, I could never think of another way to answer that question, until now. 

Commitment is the word that I've been searching for all of these years! It seems silly for this to be a thing after so long, but that's how things work sometimes. I mean, saying that I've always thought of myself as a full-time artist wasn't wrong, it's just that commitment gets to the core of my being an artist and how I've sustained myself mentally and emotionally all these years. Through all of the ups and downs, setbacks and triumphs, my commitment to making art is one of the main things that fuels my creative drive. 

I think that my drive to make art has been so intrinsic to my character over time, that I never consciously thought about what word or phrase best fits All I knew as a high school student was that art was the one thing that I felt I could make a life for myself with; it was one of the few interests that I truly loved and wanted to become better at. There was nothing else that held the same grip on me. I liked my english and science classes, but nothing gripped my imagination and fueled my curiosity like art.  It boiled down to the alchemy-like usage of the raw materials of paint and mediums to translate what I saw in the world around me to paper, canvas or other surfaces. That was and still is magic to me.

I understood at an early age some of what I was getting myself into as an artist. I'd read a lot about artists from the past and what they often had to endure to continue making their work. I also made it a point to educate myself as much as possible about what it may take to be an artist in the present day. I understood that, in no uncertain terms, I would be in it for life, full stop. I didn't know what that would really mean until later, as I began navigating my art life after college. The demands of adult life- bills, loan payments, jobs and relationships, in addition to art has proven challenging and the path stressful, at times. However, none of that has dimmed my continued passion and love for what I do. 

Being committed to art means continuing to do the work when no one is looking nor necessarily caring about what it is that you're doing. When I was a younger artist, I had ambitions of having my work "set the world on fire", of gaining wide recognition for what I did early on. I look back now and feel relieved that I didn't gain early fame because a lot of that work was bad. Bad, but very necessary for me to make. I still make bad work, but it's those unsuccessful ones that make the better ones that much sweeter to claim. I've made the choice to put my work out into the world through a variety of means. That's only the smallest part of my activity. What matters most is what happens in the studio, which almost no one ever sees (unless posted on social media). Even then, no one really knows what I do in there and that's where the commitment  and drive comes in. I don't need anyone to know exactly what i'm doing in the long run, as long as I get to do it and share some of the results. Everything else is icing on the cake. 

Clap 'Cause It Feels Good

 

New work :: Clap ‘Cause It Feels Good, 2020, acrylic on panel, 14” x 11”

There’s no denying that the energy around us has been visceral this year. I can’t think of another word that fits so well. Sometimes, it felt as though our nerves were being stretched to their snapping point with stress, anger, anxiety and grief.

But then, we also found moments of hope, life and laughter amid the madness. Finding space to revel in the simplest of uplift; a dance, humor, making eye contact with strangers over masks hiding our smiles, but not the humanity in our eyes.

Clap ‘cause it feels good, that’s the only justification you need.

It's all new again

Details of two works in progress (11.25.20)

It's a great feeling to follow through on giving old ideas new life. In this case, I'm referring to works from 2013, like A Hazy Reverie and Channel (the former (the former is in a private collection, while the latter is in a corporate collection. I mention those paintings because at that time, the overlapping hard-edged forms felt like something I could explore, but at the same time, I felt like there was something limiting about that work. The problem is that in the making of that particular body of paintings, I'd already started to move on to newer ideas in my head. So, I did just that.

The thing is, there was something about that series that stayed with me: a vertical diptych titled, Everything Happens At Once (seen above, currently in a private collection). It's a black and white piece, composed of two 36" x 48" panels. It was the most successful of the group,  I think, because of the sense of movement and I kept it relatively simple compared to other works in the group. It also felt the most accomplished, the one that was the most daring of my 2013 works, aside from We Dance to Pray, the 13 foot wide piece that I painted on the wall during my show, Presence. 

Flash forward to now and I've once again found a space and time to consider some of those older ideas in a new light. I stopped making those paintings because I'd done about 14-15 in 2012-13 that were of the same concept and I wasn't sure that I wanted to continue with those ideas just then. Once the show happened, I no longer felt that I wanted to continue along that same road and, as is my habit, I started anew. Recently, I had an opportunity to have my work presented for consideration for a commission. The work that had a good response was a piece from 2013 that had sold already. To remedy that, I made a new, smaller painting that had some of the same attributes. I don't usually like attempting to make something that was of an older concept, but for some reason, I jumped at the chance to do this painting. Thinking about it, I realized that I'd still held onto some of those ideas, hoping to explore them again, which is what I'm doing now. 

Since 2013, my work has changed and gone off on some interesting routes, but now I'm happy to have two distinct bodies of work to pursue that offer different challenges and interest for me. The glyph works of the past three years has been great in terms of moving my work into uncharted territory, where every step is a journey unto itself. This work is very experimental. The new iterations of concepts from  2012-13 are very different in terms of how they are approached and executed. There's already a conceptual template with this work that doesn't exist with the glyph pieces. However, that template doesn't make the new work any less challenging. There's just differences in thought and process between the two ideas. 

TM

 

...for what I want to see

New painting in progress

Last night, I had a bit of a revelation about where I am right now with my work. There is now an overwhelming need for less density in the paintings, or perhaps a different type of density. I'm not sure what that will look like, but it will be different from what I've been making lately. I came to this realization after making connections between my recent work with the densely layered compositions of glyphs and my current emotional state.

The past few days have been rough, emotionally. The death of Walter Wallace at the hands of Philadelphia Police is the latest in a too-long line of similar events that did not need to escalate to an extra-judicial execution in the street. He was having a mental health crisis, had a knife and approached the police, who fatally shot him ten times from at least ten feet away. 

This didn't have to happen. Wallace didn't have to be killed in front of his mother, family and neighbors like that. I keep asking myself, "Why couldn't they at least shoot him in the leg, incapacitate him and de-escalate the situation and get things under control?" The outcome is always the same with Black lives when it comes to policing; shoot to kill, maybe ask questions later. 

Standing in front of a newly repainted work last night, I realized that I really needed to step back and re-evaluate things. I took some white paint and covered up all but one pink, blob-like form. When the white dried, I made a loose grid of lines with an acrylic marker, over which I brushed some matte medium, smearing and blurring the grid. I looked up an album of the Daily Observation photos in my photo stream and sought out something that I could use from one or more of those shots. I found a couple of curvilinear forms that loosely replicated and over those, placed a reddish blob form in the lower left corner. 

I felt such a relief looking at this relatively pared down image! All of the denseness underneath showed through in the textures, but other than that, this painting now breathed like it hadn't before. The heaviness was gone. I realized in that moment that I wanted and needed to move to a different phase of this project with the glyphs; that I needed to focus on some of the other surfaces and instances of marks that I see every day in the streets. So far, I've been concentrating on the 'communication' aspect of this work, which has a very graphic feeling to it. The painted, multi-layered systems I make are full of a type of tension that I like, but that same density now feels overwhelming to me. 

I'm sure that my emotional state has finally caught up to what I've been doing in the paintings and it's just too much. Between the ongoing problems associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, the continuing social strife brought about by the killings of Black men, women and children by police authorities and the current toxic political climate, I'm just feeling overwhelmed. I've been fairly successful at keeping myself focusing energy on painting, but now, I need to change the energy of my paintings to reflect the breathing room I need, instead of the suffocating mournful feelings that keep coming back because of everything going on. 

TM

 

Printmaking again...

Detail: Collaborative print with Alexis Nutini

This post is an addendum to the one I posted last week. I had more thoughts about this collaboration that I wanted to share, so here goes: I'm in the midst of a print collaboration with master printer, Alexis Nutini, that is being generously funded by the Brandywine Workshop. What's happening here is we're moving into the second and middle layer. I'm trying all sorts of combinations of blocks and colors and offsetting the blocks on this layer to create some spatial interest. The third and final layer will play off of the first two. i'm hoping to capture some of the tension between layers that happens in my paintings and works on paper-the blurring of layers in some places and more distinct passages in others. 

It's been interesting working in a collaborative way after not doing so for most of my creative life. The one exception being a painting/drawing collaboration that I did with my friend, Joni Woods back in the 90s, which was an amazing experience. The current one with Alexis is turning out to be really good, as well. 

The biggest issue I've had to deal with is letting go of the spontaneity of how I usually work in favor of making instructions for Alexis to carry out in the printing. This isn't a bad thing, just way different than I'm used to operating. What I'm finding is that I'm needing to step back and be more intentional about what kinds of choices I'm making in the work. I'm taking longer to think about the possible outcomes before committing to which blocks to have Alexis use and where they are placed. Even so, there's still a ton of room for unforeseen and interesting unintended aesthetic incidents to occur: surprises in how some of the inks interact with each other, sudden changes in opaqueness and transparency depending on where your eye lands, as well as shifts in spatial rendering. 

Looking ahead, there will be a third layer to work with and this will be where everything comes together or falls apart, depending on the choices made. There's going to be some that I'll want the layers to overlap in such a way as to be indistinguishable overall and others with more 'breathing room'. We'll see what happens.