Looking, thinking, digging deep...

Contemplating a new painting

      I like to say that at a certain point in the painting process, watching me work is like watching paint dry. At first, there's usually a lot quickish choices being made about color, form and placement. Then, once I've gotten over the usually annoying mid point of making the painting, there's a slowing of mark making and much more contemplation of what's in front of me. I have a habit of looking at my paintings from all sorts of odd angles at times. One of the most unconscious positions is turning my head sideways instead of the painting. I was taught long ago that you should rotate your paintings to see how they are working from different directions. The classic move is to turn it upside down. This is used as one way to determine how the painting is holding together compositionally. The point is that there is a lot of thinking going on when we're sitting or standing in front of a work. Even when I'm not in front of it, like at home or some place other than the studio, the work is on my mind. I'm mulling over possibilities of changes or placement of forms as I'm walking down the street. I'm trying out all sorts of compositional possibilities when I'm in the shower. I'm considering which new materials I could use as I'm washing dishes. The work is never ending, but I also love it this way. 

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   Last week,  I found a couple of chairs in the hallway of the floor I'm on in the Crane Arts Building that someone didn't want any more. I took them in because they're softer and generally more comfortable than the hard molded plastic chairs I already have. They both have old thin leather covering the back and seat. The frames are made out of silver metal of some sort. I brought them into the studio, wiped them down and am enjoying having them. I still need to get a couch in there. Studio naps are essential not only to my well-being, but the well-being of the work. 

    Trying to push through sleepiness in the middle of the day or late afternoon is tough without a proper place to take a nap. I feel like a good hour to hour-and-a-half is a good period of time for a nap. They are so necessary for helping to keep my mind clear during the day. Taking time to nap is so beneficial for thinking. Art is really taxing mentally and physically sometimes. It's best to try and keep your mind sharp so that you don't go about making bad choices in the work. Well, bad choices happen regardless of napping or not, but the likelihood of them increasing is greater without resting a little during the day. 

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    I watched a "behind the scenes" video with Tom Cruise that's the beginning of the hype machine for the next installment of the "Mission Impossible" franchise. This one was interesting to see because it shows how much of a committed actor TC is. He is known for doing a lot of his own stunts and this video showed just how deep that commitment is. One of the big stunts is him riding a motocross bike off of a huge ramp, off the side of a cliff and then parachuting down into a ravine that's closed in on three sides with rock face. He trained on riding the motocross bike, practicing the jump, learning to parachute from a helicopter and even more than that. He did all of that and did those actions over and over and over again to get everything as right as possible to make an action sequence as believable as possible. Seeing that kind of dedication to honing just one part of his craft made me think about how much we as artists need to make sure that we're doing all that we can to keep ourselves educated, doing research and pouring as much as we can into the work that we do. Being persistent, consistent and risk-taking with your work habits in the studio and digging deep within to make the best work possible will pay off. Show up for yourself!

TM

 

Paintings being free

 (Detail :: work in progress)

    Online recently, I made a post that mentioned a shift that I feel is happening in the work. Yesterday, that feeling became even more clear to me. What's happening is that I need to take a break from making the dense, glyph-filled work that I've been doing for the past few years. The glyphs will still be in the work, but I'm kind of done with the denseness of mark making that's been going on for a while. Two recent paintings that I've worked on sealed that feeling for me. I was having a real struggle to complete them and couldn't figure out why until just this past weekend; I'm just tired of what I've been doing. These paintings feel heavy in a way that bugs me. Everything about the work feels heavy; the surfaces, the compositions even the colors, many of which are repeated in similar ways throughout recent paintings. The paintings are breathing laboriously at this point, wheezing even. It's funny how palpable the feeling of discomfort around this work has been for me lately. It literally weighs on me, almost oppressive to a certain degree. I feel the need to think about why this is a little deeper.

    Even as that revelation has become more clear to me, I've already begun making some paintings that are moving down a separate, but parallel track. I've been making some works on paper centered on these forms that are basically interconnected triangles. It's been something that I've played with off and on over time, but now I'm feeling more comfortable with how I might be able to put them to use. I'm hoping to create some different color and spatial relationships within the work where they behave somewhat similarly to the glyph paintings, but are completely different in execution and how they behave on the canvas or panel supports. 

    I can trace these new works back to some things I've done since 2013, but I haven't been able to figure out what they mean for me, yet. That's probably a good thing because they will define themselves over time. Compared to the various connected influences of the glyph paintings, these new works are very much their own thing. They exist outside of everything that I've been focusing on over the past seven or eight years. They are as alien to me as anything that we may call biological that might exist somewhere else out in space. They have a history for me, but I haven't been able to identify them, yet. They are resisting categorization, which is somewhat frustrating, but also very freeing. They aren't tethered to any kind of ready-made philosophies or uses. They insist on being what they are without outside intrusions of meanings. 

I'm perfectly fine with 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

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.

Stretched thin, holding too much

A new untitled work in the studio: 12" x 12", acrylic on panel

I've been making some new, small, non-objective paintings over the past week, of which the above is one. I'm returning to these connected, elongated forms that I started working with back in 2013 with paintings like Channel, which I showed in my solo show, Presence, at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery. I felt something about the forms and constructed spaces I used then, but, as has happened in the past, I felt that I couldn't really continue making paintings in the same way, even as I thought then that there was more to investigate. Instead, as how it happens often, I went down another road and set about exploring the glyph forms that I experimented with years ago (late '90s). So, here we are seven years down the line and I'm once again digging into the past and bringing something forward (art as time travel). 

The paintings I did in 2013 weren't about the body, but they spoke to the conditions of the body as being acted upon by external and internal forces. The main paintings I'm referring to measured 72" x 24", dimensions that a human form could fit into. I looked at these canvases more as mirrors reflecting a myriad of possibilities or incarnations for the human body. It's the human body being acted upon that's spearheading my latest investigations. The social upheavals of the past few years in the U.S. over the relentless and senseless killings of black and brown men, women and children by law enforcement and especially this year with the backdrop of the pandemic, the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and white supremacy being enabled by the president (and followers) has been almost too much to bear. Combine that with the absolute criminal anti-Black and, frankly, anti-human policies of the president and the Republicans making each day a stressful unknown and you have a recipe for mental and physical breakdown. 

The trauma and stress that I have because of all of this is both physical and mental, internal and external. There are days when I feel like my mind is being stretched so thin that it might snap from attempting to comprehend all of the anger, hatred and outright criminal behavior coming from the GOP, the president and their followers, not to mention having to adapt to how rapidly things went bad. The new paintings are shaping up to be avatars for a lot of what I feel is going on within and around me. The forms within the paintings seem to contract and stretch against the boundaries of the panels at the same time, reflecting the conflicts I feel internally. 

So far, I've only been working on small paintings (12" x 12", 14" x 11"), getting a feel for how I may approach the subject matter on a larger scale. I feel like I'm in a good place with how things are progressing. I keep finding novel ways of dealing with a limited set of forms, and a limitless amount of potential colors to use. It's a good place to be. I'm pretty sure that I'll start working on the third five foot canvas I have here this week. I'm feeling pretty confident about handling the work on a larger scale, so I may as well get going on it. I have three, almost four, small panels completed and will have more done by the end of the week. 

I'm not abandoning the glyph work, but I am reassessing how I want to work with those forms and reconsidering the proper formats for them. I'm currently feeling like they work better on a smaller scale than, say the 60" square canvas I just finished today. I also think that they work better on panels or heavier paper instead of canvas. I'm looking into making some collages with paper and cardboard glued together instead of adhering the paper, etc... to another surface. There's a lot of work to get to this week. 

TM

The same and yet, different

In my studio: It's Not The Same You, 2020, acrylic on canvas, 60" s 60"

I've been letting this one sit for a while, although I mentioned it in my last post. It's a new 60" x 60" painting on canvas titled, "It's Not The Same You" (the title comes from a line in The Cure song, Labyrinth, that I happen to like a lot). This is the first large painting on canvas that I've attempted at my home studio in a while because, until a few weeks ago, I didn't have room to even think about making something of this size there. Most of my work in this space has been smaller and was being made in a former smallish bedroom that lacked adequate wall space for something this large. Most of the work that I've been making in-studio has been up to about 30-36" on the longer side. 

I realized a few months ago, that I was going to need more work space, but was stumped on how to make that happen. I don't have money to pay for an outside space, so I chose to convert the front room of the apartment into a work space in addition to the bedroom. I got rid of a couple of dressers and a bookcase, put plastic on the walls and floors, plus and additional layer of drop cloth on the floor. Now, I have a version of a studio that I've envisioned for a long time. I can make larger paintings like this and be able to step back at a decent distance to evaluate them. However, the only way that this is possible is because I've moved a good amount of my personal belongings into my girlfriend's home. Without that support, I would still be trying to figure out how to make this work. 

Over the past couple of years, I've been able to make large temporary murals and installation pieces, but they were either made on-site or in another space that could accommodate the scale of those pieces. Being able to return to stand-alone paintings on canvas of this scale has felt great and has also brought some of the usual challenges. From the start, this painting has felt like one that I had to get out of my system; it's a large scale amalgam of ideas that I've been working on in smaller contexts over the past four years or so. In the past, I've been fond of working on similar paintings at the same time, forming a series of sorts. My present feeling has me looking to break with the past by having more visible distance between some of the paintings. The glyph forms are the only thing that will carry over from one painting to the next. Some will have more of those forms and others will have fewer. For example, I've already begun painting a second 60" x 60" painting that will probably have little in common with this one, compositionally and colorwise, in the end; it has a shimmering black/purple background with a layer of gridded glyphs, so far. I've gathered a lot of new visual ideas these past few years and now I'm feeling comfortable exploring them more deeply on a one-on-one basis, and not rushing to make too similar paintings so much. 

TM

 

Thorough considerations

 Detail of a work in progress, September 2020

A few weeks ago, I purchased three 60" x 60" pre-stretched canvases made by *Fredrix. In the past, I would not have dared buy a pre-stretched canvas, preferring to stretch my own instead. Back then, and I'm talking about 15-20 years ago, store bought canvases were simply not well made at all. They were usually prone to warping and the quality of canvas, in addition to overall workmanship, was pretty bad. However, having worked at Artist & Craftsman for just over four years, I got to see and experience first hand the different kinds of quality of art materials that are out there. Seeing how well the Fredrix canvases were put together was great to see. The solidity and strength of the wood stretchers themselves won me over. That, and the fact that a very well-respected painter colleague of mine uses them for her work prompted me to try them out. 

Aside from the occasional temporary mural-sized pieces I've made over the past couple of years, I had not been making larger paintings of 60 inches plus for at least 6 years. All that changed this year  because of two things: needing larger sized works for some of Bridgette's clients and starting to work with a new gallery in Los Angeles called ParisTexas LA. Before this year, going back to 2013, I hadn't worked on canvas much at all, preferring birch panels, instead. For a lot of my work, I prefer the hardness of panels over canvas because the panels can take a lot of abuse from sanding and scraping. The flexibility of canvas is nice in it's own way, but I still prefer panels, overall. The only thing about panels that I don't like is the propensity to warp above a certain size and they tend to become too heavy and cost a lot to transport. 

So, a couple of weeks ago, I began painting on one of the three canvases I have and I love how the first one has turned out. With canvas, my painting habit is one that's additive, as opposed to the panel works where I can employ both additive and subtractive methods of image-building. What I love about the Fredrix canvases is that they are really tight. I've been able to stretch larger canvases pretty tight, but these are drum-tight for well into the painting process. 

The one new larger canvas I've completed is titled, "It's Not The Same You" and employs a lot of image-making practices I've introduced over the past three years of so on smaller surfaces. I feel like it's one of those stand alone paintings that I absolutely had to make in order to fulfill the promise of so many recent small works and ideas pulled from the temporary mural pieces  and wall- based installations I've been making as of late. The second of these canvases has already started out being something entirely different in how I'm envisioning it and I'm loving the potential in it. 

One thing about being able to focus on my painting full time is having the time and head-space to more thoroughly consider what I'm doing with my paintings. Being able to have the time to really let a painting sit for a couple of days and to be able to look at it any time of the day is still somewhat foreign to me. I'm excited at being able to engage with the work on a day-to-day basis and not have my energies redirected to day-job tasks. Having had all of those years of making the most of a few hours a week dedicated to my painting has helped a lot in terms of realizing how much I can get done now.

*Note: this is not a paid endorsement for Fredrix products, I'm just voicing my own opinions about their canvases*