line in sight

Got a bunch of paintings out of the studio this morning to be photographed. From there, they'll go to the gallery. The best thing was being able to get a 60" x 72" piece down the stairs and out of the door. Had it been any wider than 72", I would have had to deal with lowering it out of the window, like I did for "All That Could Be", which is 60" x 84". I don't think I'll be working on anything much larger.

Speaking of canvas sizes, every now and then I'll try out new combinations of stretcher bars to see how that size feels when worked on. For a while, it was 36"x36". Lately, for some reason, 28"x32" has been a favorite.

For the most part, what's going to be in the show is done, but I'm still working on a couple of more canvases which should be done in the coming two weeks. Now that this is wrapping up, I'm turning my attention towards work that I'll do for the show at the Philadelphia Art Alliance in the fall.

......




Recent paintings by Rebecca Saylor Sack

Yesterday, Rebecca Saylor Sack stopped by for the second leg of our studio visits. We talked shop for a bit, trading comments about my recent works, art in general, and galleries. We went back and forth with comments about the latest paintings, always a good thing for me at times like this since my nose has been in them for the past few months. Along the way, she mentioned that she was chosen to receive a Fleisher Challenge exhibition for this year, so big congratulations to her on that accomplishment.

short day

I didn't get up to the studio as early as I wanted to this morning, but I did pretty good with the time I did spend there. I left by mid-afternoon because my studio mate was bringing a friend and his adult art class by to see the space. She asked me a while ago if I wanted to be involved and at first I agreed to, but then thought about the timing and declined. I'm just not in the right headspace at the moment to deal with hosting anyone at the studio just before a big show...especially strangers.

I also needed to leave early because I desperately needed to catch up on some cleaning around the apartment. I've had a pile of dishes in the sink for too long. I just washed what I needed at the moment and left everything there. Between my work and hectic studio schedule, dishes aren't on the daily priority list. I got through them this afternoon, though. It's kind of nice seeing the bottom of the sink again. There's also a good deal less cat fur and dust around, too, which is good.

I could really use a nap, but not much time for that. It's already after 6pm and I have to get cleaned up and head out to catch some First Friday openings. If it weren't for a couple of people I know having openings tonight, I'd be on the couch right now. It's ok, I'll just head back home early. I need to anyway, since I have to be back in the studio first thing in the morning. Need to finish up a couple of things and then some works are going to be picked up to be photographed tomorrow evening...

statements, pt. II

Here's the statement I wrote up earlier this week. This version is written in the third person because it's being used for an ad for my show in the Gallery Guide. I've written statements like this before, but it's always a little strange to write about one's self in the third person. I'm going to rework it in the singular voice and change a couple of small things, but overall, I think it works for where I am with my work at the moment....

"When is Now"

Inspired by the ambiguities created in the chaos and quiet of overlapping events that make up everyday life, from the macro to the micro, Tim McFarlane continues to challenge himself and the viewer with the exploration of painterly linear abstraction. At the same time, he is moving his paintings into new directions in this new body of work.

McFarlane employs a loosened, wet-on-wet technique to produce networks of sometimes dense, layered fields of color in his new compositions. This technique allows for a wide spectrum of color and brushstroke complexity from one layer to another, creating shifts in depth without the use of traditional perspective.

McFarlane also engages the viewer with a heightened sense of emotional content through the use of rectangular canvases. While relying on a mostly square format in past works, here McFarlane has shifted to the horizontal and vertical. The format allows for expansion of the forms across the painted field while also enabling the viewer the potential to connect with the works through his or her experiences in the world, thus creating an open-ended emotional space for the viewer to explore.

online curating

I was asked by artist, Timothy Buckwalter to curate a show of his drawings. Every week, Buckwalter has a different curator for his works. He posts the selected pieces online for about 6 days and moves to the next set of selected works on the following Tuesday.

The show I curated consists of about ten text drawings Buckwalter has done. The title of the show is 'Under The Skin'. The common threads I found running throughout the ones I chose resonated with me largely because of the times we live in. That, and the unversal emotional content they contain...

statements

Writing artist statements can be downright annoying sometimes. The problems are usually confined to the beginning of the process, especially after there has been a fairly significant change in my work, as there has been over the past year or so. It's difficult enough trying to figure out just what I'm doing with the work itself, adding trying to figure out how to translate and convey whatever meanings/feelings I have about it to the outside world can be headache-inducing.

I've just gone through this process again for my upcoming show and I think I've gotten it as concise as possible without sounding too bloated nor too vague. I try to keep my language in a place where there's obvioiusly some thought behind it, but at the same time, I don't want to alienate potential readers with art-speak and possibly put them to sleep in the process. Nor do I want to sound pretentious and put viewers off from the work entirely, which can be easy to do with contemporary abstraction.

The best writing from artists, in terms of statements, articulates their ideas and processes in an educated, concise manner without being intellectually condescending, deliberately obtuse, or plain lazy. As with other writing, the audience has to be considered. In the case of artist statements, the potential audience is going to be people from usually a wide range of experiences; from art students and peers to 'the man on the street' who may come into contact with one's work and wants to learn more about it and the artist.

I try to hold myself to a high standard when writing my statements. I fail a lot and have certainly missed the mark at times; at other times, I've nailed it. Just like the work itself, writing about it is an on-going process. It's also one that will define what you leave behind. Some people are perfectly happy to leave it to others to define what you made, which is going to happen, anyway. However, I believe it's important for the artist to have a voice in whatever future history there is about the work, in addition to those of critics, curators, gallery owners, museum boards, etc...At the very least, the artist's ideas at the time can be known.

The present is important to consider also. When I jot down notes which might lead to a formal statement, I'm also clarifying for myself what might be going on with my work. On top of that, it aids in allowing me to be clear when I'm talking to others about my work. There's a repository to look back on and gain insight from so that any future writings might be seen as part of a continuing thought process...

Moo

(*click photo for larger size*)

New business cards arrived in the mail today, courtesy of Moo. The front images are from recent paintings and the cards are small, but functional at 28mm x 70mm. The paper stock is nice and heavy, also. If you have a Flickr account, you can have cards printed from photo images you have online. You get 100 cards for $20 (plus shipping which brings it to around $24). You can choose the color of type and they give you about six fields that can be filled out with text.

I love the cards and they seem to be a hit with people I've given them to, also. This is the second set I'm working with; my fianceé surprised me with the first set when she came here in December...

behind the lids

Just over a month before the show and things are typically up and down. Mostly up, I have to admit. There's just a lot to attend to at this point in the process of getting ready for an exhibition. My grand plan was to be up at the studio by 9 or 9:30am today to get some painting done. Then, I would deliver a couple of paintings to be photographed for the exhibition card and Gallery Guide ad. The latter part was accomplished, but I didn't get up to the studio until nearly 12:30, which means going straight to the gallery, grabbing the paintings and a cab.

Got back to the studio, had lunch and promptly fell asleep on the couch. Didn't get a thing done while I was up there except some magazine reading after the nap. My studio mate came in and after relating how non-productive I'd been all afternoon she said something to the effect that "sometimes it's enough to just be in the space looking at what you've done and thinking". A good point. One that I don't think about often enough. When I'm in the midst of completing work for a show, I feel like I have to get something done in the way of either painting or prepping canvases in order to feel like I'm getting anything accomplished.

Art is as much about the looking as it is the doing. I do a fair amount of thinking about my work as I'm painting. There are times when I'll work on something for 30-45 minutes and spend another 10 or so looking at what I've just done; figuring out what is working and what isn't. It's rare that I'll spend whole afternoons or days, even being in there and not physically doing anything. Today I couldn't muster the mental nor physical energy to do much. I ate lunch, napped, read, and stared at paintings getting a feel for where I am with the finished ones and what I might do with the ones in progress.

The longer I sat there, the more comfortable I was with the thought of leaving without having laid paint to canvas. I just let it go and rode home looking forward to tomorrow...more rested and ready to go...

slipping from here to there

Today was supposed to happen this past Saturday. I had big plans to get in the studio for most of this long holiday weekend, but I wasn't feeling good and wound up losing out on two of those days. As I like to say, life happens...

It was a different story today altogether. I met up with Jessica Puma for art conversation in my studio. We talked about the new stuff I have in various stages of completion as well as some older works. It's always good to talk with someone about what's going on with the work. I live in my head with it all of the time and it's very difficult to have perspective sometimes.

She took off to meet a friend for lunch and I headed over to Utrecht to pick up a couple of things. I'd had a 20% off coupon from them sitting by my computer for over a month and today was the last day for it to be used. There have been quite a few of those things that I've just forgotten about. I usually find them a month or more past the expiration date under some god-forsaken pile of bills, exhibition invites, and whatever else... I was proud that I even remembered to take it with me. I bought a grinding stone to use with a stick of sumi ink Jessica gave me last week when I was at her studio. I also got a pack of four 'gesso panels' to experiment with, as well as a box of water-soluable paint sicks.



Back in the studio...after painting for a couple of hours, I had one of those moments that I don't notice always, but it happens. I realized that I'd slipped into my working groove for this project, this series of new paintings. Of course I'm worried about finishing everything and wondering if it will live up to my standards, but I'm feeling more in control of the process. The past few weeks I've been fueled more by panic than anything else, because of my late start. Now, though, I'm not panicing as much. Instead, I'm seeing several works begining to take shape, ideas flowing from one to the other and a real dialogue is starting to happen for me.

That wasn't there last week. I had no works that I considered finished, but that's changed this week. Several pieces are getting to the place where more minor changes in details are needed, while I've designated others 'finished'. I'll see how I feel about those in another week or two, but right now I'm ready to leave them be...

Studio visit with Jessica Puma

Went to a friend's studio for the first time today. I've known Jessica Puma for about a couple of years. We've been talking about trading studio visits for at least the past year. You know how life goes sometimes; you're busy, they're busy, you fall out of touch and back again. Anyway, we finally got our act together and hung out at her work space for a bit Friday afternoon...

*click photos for larger sizes*



Jessica is a painter but for some months now, she's been working on drawings with collage elements in them. Her formal concerns are architectural, but on top of that base she forms layer upon layer of emotional content. Part of her process involves using parts of old drawings and bringing them into the new work, forming new surface and emotional textures.

According to Jessica, her drawings evolve "organically", meaning there's no preplanning involved and resolution comes slowly. There's a lot of going back and forth between unfinished drawings, letting them sit for a bit then adding lines, forms, or glueing something down here or there until the drawing is completed.

Blanks

Blanks

It's true, a blank canvas is a little scary. The truth is I love having a bunch of blanks around to work on, especially with a couple of deadlines looming. Things are moving along for my upcoming show in June. I'm not as far along as I'd like to be, but I always feel like that before big shows.

I've stretched a couple of larger canvases over the past week. I'm figuring out ways to deal with bracing them in the rear and so far, it's working out. I have to improve my measuring so there's less waste and less time spent trimming. I'd rather have to trim the wood than have it be too short. I also found out that if you tighten the screws in the 'T' braces too much, the wood will tend to bow out after stretching. I wound up loosening the screws and left the canvas on the floor overnight. Today, everything was fine. I re-tightened the screws and everything was good to go.

I often don't like the process of prepping canvases, but now that I have a process down and materials at hand, it's not so bad. Next week I'll hate it again...

leaning straight

left: old and busted
right: new and shiny hotness

Really, it's the little things that count. I've used the leaning tower of a cart on the left for more than a year or so. I finally got around to replacing it today. The new one was actually a spontaneous purchase. I happened to be in Loews looking for some hardware when that lightbulb went off over my head (new flourescent one at that). I felt proud of myself because I'm so prone to forgetting that I need to replace certain things because I come from the school of, "eh, it's almost falling apart...BUT it's still standing...".

I'm slowly working my way out of that mindset...

stacks

Hanging Stack
grapihte, oil stick on paper


Floater Stack
grapihte, oil stick on paper

(click images for larger sizes)

These are images of two drawings from a couple of years ago that I mentioned in this post. Rebecca Crowell wondered what they looked like and I finally got around to photographing what I had in the studio.

I did a bunch of these in 2005 and I'm thinking about continuing with the series, called "Stacks". The idea grew out of observing floorboards in my studio. The building is probably nearly a century old and was once a factory of some sort. Consequently, what were once flat, even floorboards are now very worn and irregular in spacing and surface from years of use. The irregularities were what intrigued me the most. I also wanted the 'stacks' to more or less float in space as opposed to being anchored somehow to the edges of the drawing surface.

Commission complete

L: Float On II
R:Float On I
both are 60" x 50", acrylic on canvas
(click photo for larger size)

New paintings completed recently for a commission. Met with the client and Bridgette at the studio on Monday and the client chose the one on the left, Float On II.

Something new

Click To Play

I was done with painting last night and remembered that I have video capacities on my camera. I hadn't forgotten, really, but it's taken me a while to return to experimenting with it. Last October, I had a computer meltdown and had to have my old one replaced. At the same time, I had just barely begun to understand the processes involved with creating and posting videos online.

Last night, after I was done with painting for the day, I decided to turn the video function on and get back into the video habit I began last fall. I'm thinking about doing an ongoing series of video studio journals along with other ideas. As much as I like the creative possibilities, there's the inevitable time-suck that comes along with experimenting with new media (new to me, that is), but I'm looking forward to whatever may come next...

Then again...

Seriously, I needed more sleep than I thought last night. Sometimes, ideas that come to you in a sleep-deprived state of mind should sometimes remain just ideas. For example, I set about working on some of the ideas I wrote about in my last post today. Sadly, I remembered that I'd already engaged said ideas last year sometime and had proof of their failure.

Basically, the 'stack' drawings with graphite and oil stick are best left to that medium; not enlarged from the 12" x 12" format they were originally done in and defintirely not with other materials. They just don't work. Today, found a couple of experimental works on paper where I used acrylic paint and medium in an attempt to replicate the smaller graphite stack drawings. The newer attempts completely lacked the spirit of the earlier drawings in two ways; the beauty of the graphite over-laid with oil stick was completely lost when I used ink or acrylic paint with brushes. The size, quality of line, and beauty of the pencil lines softened with a layer of clear or white oil stick are integral to the successes I had with the older drawings, most of which I did in 2005.

Some drawings are just never meant to be worked up into paintings. I have sketchbooks full of sketches and color thumbnails that have never made it to fully-realized paintings or other works; they might look great as a little sketch, but once taken beyond that realm, they'll sometimes just fall flat. That's the beauty of art, though. If you never attempt to push things, you never know what's possible or what's best left alone.

I don't need no stinkin' sleep...

Studio Corner


I didn't sleep enough last night (for a change). I was tired as hell today, but had to be in the studio.

Worked on a couple of small paintings and re-worked two paintings on paper that I began last week. Tomorrow I need to get going on the large canvas I stretched last week. The show is coming up fast and I don't have the work I want done yet. There's some things moving along, but not enough and not the works I want to show. It's coming together, though...I can feel it happening...

......

I've mentioned already that I'm tired and have the red eyes to show for it. Yet, my mind is racing with ideas and excitement when I should be sleeping right now. In fact, if it were warmer and I wasn't in such a need of sleep, I'd be up in the studio working out the painting ideas confined to my head for the time being. Just an hour ago I was just about to crawl under the covers until E suggested taking a shower. I always take a shower before bed but this was one of those nights where an exception was about to be made.

Before getting in the shower, I'm read a little of the latest book of writings of painter Sean Scully, when I started thinking about my work after reading something about his. Just like that, I almost felt fully awake. I don't know what to call it, but it was one of those moments when your brain snaps to attention and suddenly you find yourself thinking at a mile a minute. Just a moment before I would have fallen asleep on the bathroom floor. Now I'm ready to tackle a new idea...

Globalartism

Two Artists Talking: Miami-me-me-me

I found the above blog post on Two Artists Talking (Joanne Mattera and Chris Ashley) and interesting for it's look at the possibile ways art practice is changing due to the shifting of art marketing in recent years. Basically, there seems to be a movement towards ever slicker, celebrity/personality-driven art fairs that are run on an "entertainment...consumerism" model of globalism, where, according to the post's author, Chris Ashley, "...mostly it is about the bottom line, profit."

LIke Ashley, I'm a fan of the 'album' approach to an artist's career, where you might get to see the development of their work over time in a gallery or museum show and not just 'the hits'. I like seeing works that might not have been completely successful but were important to a particular artist's development. Art fairs certainly have their place, but what disturbs me is if the bottom-line approach becomes the model for other arts institutions (galleries, museums, etc...). That's already what happens with block-buster shows museums come up with to ensure more cash flow at the front door. However, what will happen if that's the only model for exhibiting art.

I like to think that will never really come to pass on a large scale; that there will still be places to experience the album effect of an artist's career and not the top ten hits version. Retrospectives serve this very purpose, but if a 'for profit' model predominiated, who knows what we'll have...

New show

New exhibit I'm a part of in West Philly at the Green Line|Powelton.

Here are the details:
AltGeo loosened structures for line and color
Chris Ashley (Oakland), James Erikson (Phila), P. Timothy Gierschick II (Phila), Rodney Harder (NYC), Jerome Hershey (Lancaster PA), Jeffrey Cortland Jones (Cincinnati), Tim McFarlane (Phila), Linn Meyers (Washington DC), Vincent Romaniello (Phila), Anne Seidman (Phila), Paige Williams (Cincinnati)
Curated by Douglas Witmer

February 5 - March 31, 2007
Reception Friday March 9, 6-9pm

Green Line | Powelton
3649 Lancaster Avenue Philadelphia
215-222-3431
http://www.greenlinecafe.com/altgeo.html

New photos

Three new photos taken recently...


Phillyscape
Center city Philadelphia looking west from twelve floors up.


Black Tower
Water tower above 7th and Chestnut Streets


Nicole's Corner

I hate it when I stretch a canvas and it winds up not being as tight as I thought it would be.

studio (1.17.07)

Another day in the studio. Only this time, E was there, too. She managed to take a few shots of me working without my knowing it. I tend to be able to stay in my own headspace even with someone there. I'm concsious of her being there, but I'm also able to stay focused on whatever it is that I'm working on, too. E kept herself busy with painting wooden cigar boxes she's purchased recently.



I'm working on a commissioned painting and stretched the canvas today. This is going to be a vertical work-60" x 50".



In addition to stretching the large canvas, I also worked on a couple of smaller paintings...

Just standing and thinking about what I was going to do next with the painting and had a lot of nervous energy. I was unconcsiously tapping the brush against my leg...


Looking, thinking...

Charlotte Yudis (1939-2007)

This week is becoming sadder by the minute, it seems, when it comes to people in the arts that I know dying.

I was just reading through Artblog and came across a notice of the death of Charlotte Yudis, printmaker and teacher. Charlotte taught at Fleisher Art Memorial for many years. I studied etching with Charlotte Yudis for three terms. She was amazingly knowledgeable about printmaking and went to great lengths to make first timers as well as more experienced people comfortable with taking risks with printmaking. I'll always remember her easy-going, bright nature and encouraging teaching style.

Here is a link to the announcement of her death on the Fleisher website

There is also a video of her done by Vincent Romaniello on his site (scroll down to 'Blogroll' and click on the links under her name to access the videos)

a death in the family

Some sad news to post. Chris Lyon, a fellow painter and all around genuine person, died this week due to a motorcycle accident. I don't know the details, but either he was hit by a large truck or vice-versa.

It's always difficult to know what to say or even feel at times like this. I only know that Chris was one of the finest people and dedicated artists I've ever known. Chris was always good-natured and easy to talk to.

He will be missed...

Review review

”The Red Show” has more alizarin per square inch than any show in town, with the possible exception of “Tesoros,” the PMA’s roundup of colonial Latin American art. While “Tesoros” runneth over with blood-red hearts and flowing red robes, the Mayer show—commissioned new works by 13 gallery artists and one outsider—is mostly abstract. By design or by serendipity, the show suggests the season’s festivities: bubbles and ribbons, ebullience, love and optimism. Tim McFarlane’s big, bold All That Could Be—a monochromatic work in shades of pink and wine—continues the artist’s motif of overlapping ladders that suggest teeming masses of people. Contemplative like Rothko but more generous and community-spirited, this piece may have antiwar underpinnings. For me, the title nods to the Army’s old “Be All You Can Be” slogan, and the flow is tinged with blood. Also notable in a solid show are Neil Anderson’s eye-popping Red Dancer and Charles Burwell’s Red Line With Three Figures. (Burwell is a new artist with the gallery.) Kate Davis Caldwell’s faux Polaroid paintings and Michael Manuel’s eco-themed stained glass with audio component by Clint Takeda are reminders of beauty’s fragility. Excellent show. (Roberta Fallon)

I've had a little time to think about what was written about my painting in the above review of The Red Show at Bridgette Mayer. For the most part, I have no problem with what was written about my painting, All That Could Be, or the show, but this line caught my attention:, ...this piece may have antiwar underpinnings. For me, the title nods to the Army’s old “Be All You Can Be” slogan, and the flow is tinged with blood.

I'd like to put another angle on what Roberta wrote, the angle that All That Could Be originally sprang from. At the outsest, I relished the challenge of working within the constraints of a certain color. The next level of meaning didn't surface until I was well into working on it. Sometime between start and finish, the idea of a title came to mind. All That Could Be came to mind because of the open-ended sense of possibility the phrase has. Some of that optimism has to do with recent events in my personal life. The reds, pinks and oranges I used, likened to blood flowing in the review, I saw as being akin to passion and life. As much as red can stand for violence and loss of life, it can also stand for the opposite.

Here is where the world of the artist and the viewer diverge greatly: what the artist is feeling or thinking during the concieving of a work of art means absolutely nothing because every person looking at or interacting with that piece of artwork will bring their own history, beliefs, and ideas to the piece. The work will mean one thing for the artist and can mean a thousand other things once it's out in the public. That's nothing new, but this is the firs time that I felt that the interpretation of my work in a widely read publication was at such a variance from the spirit of which the painting was created.

Puryear at Moma in '07

I was just perusing Tyler Green's Modern Art Notes and came upon this bit of news that almost made me have an art orgasm. Martin Puryear is one of my favorite contemporary artists and I'm very happy that he's finally getting a long-overdue retrospective at MoMa in late 2007. Images of his work can be seen on this page.

I've loved Puryear's works for years and got to see a bunch of them up close and personal at a large exhibition of his works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art almost 12 years ago, probably more. My memory isn't always the best, but I do remember Puryear being shown at the PMA a good while ago. I'll see if I can find mention of it somewhere.

His work is amazingly beautiful, powerful, and seductive all at once. I can't always put my finger on it, but Martin Puryear's sculptures have a way of drawing me in and I don't care to resist at all. He's one of those artists who pulls together craftsmanship and formal interests in a way that goes beyond the limitations of labels like 'craft' or 'fine art'. Puryear's work trandscends such labels simply because it is good, solid art.

This exhibition will definitely be on my 'must see' list for 2007

the red show-review

I've just come across a link for the first review of The Red Show, the latest exhibition I'm involved with at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery through this Saturday, December 23rd.


All That Could Be, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 84"

Review on Philadelphia Weekly's website

Same review with photos and additional commentary (scroll down to "weekly update 2-the red show")

“The Red Show”

Through Dec. 23. Bridgette Mayer Gallery, 709 Walnut St. 215.413.8893. www.mayer artconsultants.com
”The Red Show” has more alizarin per square inch than any show in town, with the possible exception of “Tesoros,” the PMA’s roundup of colonial Latin American art. While “Tesoros” runneth over with blood-red hearts and flowing red robes, the Mayer show—commissioned new works by 13 gallery artists and one outsider—is mostly abstract. By design or by serendipity, the show suggests the season’s festivities: bubbles and ribbons, ebullience, love and optimism. Tim McFarlane’s big, bold All That Could Be—a monochromatic work in shades of pink and wine—continues the artist’s motif of overlapping ladders that suggest teeming masses of people. Contemplative like Rothko but more generous and community-spirited, this piece may have antiwar underpinnings. For me, the title nods to the Army’s old “Be All You Can Be” slogan, and the flow is tinged with blood. Also notable in a solid show are Neil Anderson’s eye-popping Red Dancer and Charles Burwell’s Red Line With Three Figures. (Burwell is a new artist with the gallery.) Kate Davis Caldwell’s faux Polaroid paintings and Michael Manuel’s eco-themed stained glass with audio component by Clint Takeda are reminders of beauty’s fragility. Excellent show. (Roberta Fallon)

Looking ahead

'Pulse'

I've had that word on my mind for quite a while now. Originally, I was going to use it as the title for my latest painting (All That Could Be) but chose not to. Last night, as I was laying in bed attempting to get to some realm of sleep, 'pulse' came to mind again. I thought that I might use it to title my upcoming solo exhibition at Bridgette Mayer in June '07. That's six months down the line and there's still the little issue of actually having work done for it. Still, I don't think it's too early to have something to think about as I'm doing the paintings and whatever else I wind up with for the show.

There are a lot of ideas bouncing around in my head for paintings, works on paper and even an installation. I've had some ideas for one for a while now, and I'd love to use the vault room in the gallery for it. Now, all I need to do is whittle down these ideas into one that's workable and I'll be fine...

New painting

All That Could Be, 2006, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 84"
(click image for full view)

Currently on view at the Bridgette Mayer Gallery as part of The Red Show through December 23rd, 2006.

Naming

All That Could Be
That's the title of the new painting. I've been trying to come up with something for the past couple of days and this is the first one that I liked. I wanted to avoid anything that featured the word 'red'. The exhibition is titled, The Red Show and the painitng is mostly red, so why make things more redundant?

Titles don't always come easy. If something doesn't hit me right away, I'll wait and let the work sit for a bit before attempting to name it. Honestly, most of the time, I'd not bother with titles, but I also hate using 'Untitled'. I do, here and there, but I try to avoid it when I can.

All That Could Be came to me today while at work. I was thinking about what I was listening to a lot while working on the painting. During one session last week, I was listening to some Nine Inch Nails. I hadn't done so in a while, but I'd recently purchased the latest book about the work of graphic designer David Carson, whose work I'm a fan of and who designed the cover for NIN's The Fragile. Nine Inch Nails has a live dvd titled, "And All That Could Have Been".

Love the title, but it was kind of the opposite of what I felt the painting was about. So, I inverted the meaning and wording to suit my needs. The suggestion of possibilities in All That Could Be appeals to me on a lot of levels in my life right now...

Ahead of schedule

I actually think the painitng is done. I'm pretty sure of it, at least. I did'nt think I'd get this far so fast with it. I like surprises that come out of nowhere like this. I'll have to look at it again tomorrow with fresh eyes, but I'm feeling pretty good about how it looks now.

I'm always a little skeptical when things work out sooner than I think they will with paintings. I just had this fear in the beginning that this piece was going to be tougher to bring to a resolution because of the size. Of course, there's still a week to go before I have to get it to the gallery, so who knows what may happen. Usually, once I feel a piece is done, that's it. I don't mess with it any more.

Busy stuff

Life has been crazy busy lately, both with good and bad. More good than bad, though. The bad is that I've been battling an eye infection-Uveitis. It's a swelling of the eye that anyone can get but is usually caused by some underlying health issue. I went today to have blood drawn so my doctors can figure out if there's anything else I should be looking after. Beyond that, I'm taking drops and the redness in my right eye is just about gone.

The rest of the busyness has to do with a large painting I'm working on for the next group show at Bridgette Mayer, The Red Show, opening on December 28th with reception on Friday, December 1st. The big deal about the painting is that it's 5' x 7', the largest canvas I've worked on in a long while. I thought I'd have a difficult time stretching it, but it came together much easier than I thought. I must be learning something because it's also one of the tightest canvas I've stretched. I thought it would have been sagging much, much more than it is at this point, as I've been working on it for a couiple of weeks now.

I actually considered having a stretcher fram made for this project, but with little time to work with, just about a month at the time, I purchased the stretchers and canvas and did it myself. I'm glad I did that because I discovered a way to stretch the canvas so that it was really tight. I still have to come up with a standard for rear supports but I think this piece is pretty solid.

Morning Light

On my way to work one day last week, I was struck by the light of the rising sun and how it affected how the streets looked and what they felt like. There was something about that particular time of morning, especially the strong light that seemed to push the shadows to the side. It was that point in the morning when these residential streets were pretty empty, but not very far away, expressways were still clogged...


Morning Light: Queen Street


Morning Light: Catherine Street


Morning Light:Fitzwater Street


Morning Light:Monroe Street

the other stuff

I'm getting to the point where stretching large canvases is becoming an annoyance. I'm talking about anything 48" x 72" and larger. I like some of the preparatory processes of art; tearing paper for prints, preparing plates or stones for printing, putting stretcher bars together and stretching canvas, etc... I like maintaining some connection to the tradition of preparing materials for painting, to a degree; you won't find me attempting to grind my own colors as I barely have time to actully paint sometimes.

I really like stretching canvas. I like having that period of time to get acquainted with the surface I'll be painting on soon. I like the time to think about what I'm going to do on it. It gives me another chance to put my hand in the work-to feel like there's even more of myself in the work besides the layers of paint and marks, etc... on the canvas's surface that will make up the final image. That said, I've determined that I have a limited ability to keep a canvas's corners straight above a certain size. It's so tedious sometimes, trying to make sure that each corner is square during the stretching process. I wind up checking and re-checking corners over and over because I'm so fucking paranoid about the corners and sides not being square once I've spent so many hours preparing a bunch of canvases.

I've gotten used to spotting irregularities in the shape of my canvases over the years. There's really nothing more aggravating than having to re-stretch a canvas I'd just spent nearly an hour or sometimes more stretching one canvas, a large one, anyway.

I hate the pre-stretched canvases sold in Utrecht and Pearl, so I think I’m going to order a couple of large, pre-made stretcher frames from
French Canvas I’ve heard good thinga about their products, so I’ll probably give them a try.

New life

Things are moving in the studio these days. I've had to do some re-arranging and finally got to stretching some new canvases last week and working on a couple of new paintings, as well. Felt good to breathe some new life into the space...



New painting that's currently untitled.


New drawing: graphite, oil stick. Lots of addition and subtraction with this one-scraping, smudging, recovering...

immersion

detail of recent, unfinished painting

It's funny how things work out. Yesterday, I had something of a breakthrough from my latest creative blockage. I can't say that there was some kind of "ah, ha!" moment. It was more like the gradual build-up of a series of moments until I found myself suddenly thinking in a wide-open space where ideas were pouring in. The space was there the whole time; there was just something blocking the entrance. Slowly, ideas began creeping around the edges of the blockage, finding weaknesses in the armor of the space's guardian whose only interest was keeping that space clean and pristine. Now, there's all sorts of thngs messing up that space, the way they should.

......

The past couple of days have found me re-engaging myself with the mental side of art, which I hadn't been able to really do for a while this year. I've done a few paintings here and there, but for the most part, I've felt myself divorced from real, active engagement with my work. Just like my re-immersion in it, there was a gradual separation from my art life over the months since my last solo show, almost a year ago now. I think I hit something of a wall after that exhibition. Just like the end of any project that you've spent a considerable amount of time and energy working intensly on, the end of that period can bring a lot of questions about what's going to happen next. It's always like that with me. "I've done this, now what next?" As always, the answer is "continue working"

......

I feel reanimated now. Refreshed and ready to re-engage my creative self in ways I haven't in a while. There's a lot swirling around in my head. Ideas for paintig, photography, drawing, printmaking...everything, almost. The only thing to do is work...

from here to there and back

It's been a while since I've been back from my foray to the other side of the world (Australia) and I need to make up for lost time. Needless to say, the trip was great. I managed to lose two days in the beginning due to a variety of mishaps that are only usually only expeterienced one or two at a time. I got hit with a bunch of biggies:

-three hour delay at PHL due to mechanical problems
-missed connection in LA
-diverted flight due to fog
-lost luggage
-cancelled flights

It all worked out, even if by the end of the ordeal, I was way beyond tired and giddy because of stress and lack of sleep. The details can be found in my personal journal. Scroll down the page and start reading at "7.14.06"

Of course, being the shutterbug I am, there are plenty of photos

Australia was beautiful. I was around Sydney most of the time, but did get out to the Blue Mountains for three days of mountainous nature...and loads of fog.

While there, I got to see some art via the Sydney Biennial and going to the suburb of Paddington to visit a few galleries one day. The art there is as diverse as it is anywhere in the States or elsewhere. There's everything from contemporary painting, video, and installations, to gorgeous Aboriginal art and a lot in between. I only got to see the part of the Biennial that was at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, but there were exhibits around the city and region, also.

......

One of the questions I've been asked a lot since I returned has been variations of "So, were you inspired?" A normal question, but I couldn't really answer that question, as I had a ton of stuff to take in and digest. I'm still going through that process after almost a month of being back. I have no clue as to how things might shake out for me. The experience was short and very intense on the senses and emotions.

It was the first time I'd been away in over five years and going around the world is enough to handle alone. I took some materials with me to draw with, but never used any of it. I thought I would, but never had the time to really get into the mood for doing anything art-wise. I did write a little, so that helped. I was more interested in taking in as much of the sights, sounds, tastes and smells as I could in a short time. That, and get over jet-lag at the same time. By the time I was leaving on the 27th of July, I was *just* beginning to adjust to the time there. Returning to the US was even harder on me. It took almost two weeks for my body's bio-rhythms to return to normal. There's a 14 hour time difference and that's a lot to recover from.

In that time, I've only been in the studio a couple of times. Last week, I was in for a whole day and part of another, so I'm slowly getting back to things, though not at the pace I usually have. I'm having a crises of not knowing what I want to do at the moment, but I'm attmpting to work through that. This year has been very strange for me in terms of my work. I can't really explain it. Just feeling unsure of what I want to do next. My usual remedy is to just work until something comes out and that's still the best thing for me. I just need to re-establish a routine.

I just feel that this trip has changed a lot for me and I'm still struggling to figure out what it means. There are changes coming around beyond just my work. That has to do with my personal life and how things are turning out with *E*, whom is one of the reasons I went to Australia in the first place. We met through Livejournal this past spring and almost three months into our conversations, I told her that I was going to come there to meet her. We've gotten along great and our time together there was fantastic. She's planning on coming here later in the year and what happens from there is anyone's guess, but we've both said that we'd like to close the gap.

So, yeah, life got a little more complicated this year, but in a good way. It's just that I don't deal well with big changes in my circumstances, so I suspect that's partly behind my inability to focus on my work like I usually do lately. It's not that I'm out of ideas or anything, I'm just not sure what form the work is going to take. I'm still painting, but there's other things coming up for me, as well. I'd like to do more printing or just work with paper, in general; drawings, collages, whatever. I was thinking the other day that I do miss working with paper and the processes of printmaking. Perhaps I should look into doing some of that this fall and winter.

Moleskines

moleskines
Originally uploaded by tilaneseven.

I love, love, love Moleskines and I've finally satisfied my craving for them.

I went to Borders the other day and after a lot of going back and forth to the blank journal section (the guard probably thought I was up to something considering the amount of times I went back and forth changing my mind about which ones I wanted), I finally settled on two sketchbooks-one small and one large, and a pack of three black, plain pocket-sized journals.

I think I'll take both of the sketchbooks with me to Australia and maybe purchase a large plain journal for the trip, also.

My main sketchbooks over the years have been the plain, smaller hardcover ones that Utrecht sells. I figured it was time to switch things up a bit and try something new. One thing that I like about the pages in the Moleskine sketchbooks are the heavier pages. They seem like they can take a lot of abuse and I can use a variety of media with them.

My history with sketching while on vacation hasn't been that stellar. I did some five years ago during my trip to the southwest, but I came away with few actual sketches and a ton of photos and experiences. The latter were much more instrumental in the concieving and execution of a few paintings I did between 2001 and 2003.

Honestly, the sketches didn't do much for me, not nearly as much as just being in a new place and everything in through my senses. Attempting to record what I saw directly didn't do much for me and those sketches weren't very instrumental in the subsequent paintings.

It had to happen...

I knew it wasn't going to be long before I did something about the vlogging idea. I was supposed to go to the studio today, but declined because I seem to have a slight cold and wasn't up for dealing with a hot studio and not feeling well. However, I just had to do something, so I followed up on doing a video.

I had a dream during a nap I took this morning, of which I remember little of except the ending. At that point, I was with *E* and we kissed. It was a good, long, sensual kiss, the memory of which left me feeling good despite the mild cold. Now, mind you, we haven't even met yet, but we have established a good connection over the past few months and there's some good feelings floating across the miles. I wanted to make something that I could share that captured how I felt upon waking up.

Since I've been experimenting with iMovie lately, I decided to cobble something together with some of the photos I have of *E*. I found four that I liked, edited and uploaded the fragments into iMovie, where I added some layers of sounds and vocals. The result is really basic, as editing and so forth goes, but I like how it turned out for a first attempt.

You can see the results of my first video here: A Dream...

That's the first of what I hope to be more videos I'll make. I have no clue as to where this might lead, but I'm just diving in and seeing what I come up with, hence the name of my vlog: "A Path Unknown".

where is it?

This painting no longer exists. Well, it exsists, but under more layers of paint, as is my habit. I was working on it yesterday in a state of sleep deprivation and was feeling that I'd lost it. I was feeling lost with where it was and where it might be going. Of course I can never tell where any painting will end up, but looking at where it had been and where it'd brought it, I felt like I'd missed a moment where I could have left it alone and it would have been fine.

Viewing it yesterday after an hour of adding more and more layers of grid structures, I felt like I was staring at the biggest mess and tangle of ideas. It was one of those, "what the fuck am I doing with this?" moments. I had to leave the studio to run an errand, and it was a good time to get away from it.

I returned to the studio maybe 20 minutes later and decided to leave it for the next time I'm there, which will be today. It's a good thing I had to go to work. There's no telling what I would have done with it if I had the time to stay and work on it some more then.

It's a good thing that I'm used to times like these and know how to handle them. I will admit that I can become very emotionally and mentally engaged with a piece and when I feel that things are going south, it can get very annoying. When it happens, I'll usually just go and do something else, take a break, or sometimes, just plow through and see what happens. It just depends on what state of mind I'm in.