Journalistic Abstraction
There's a journalistic component to my abstract work, coming from the neighborhood of the subconscious. If I try to cook up a visual idea of some event or place, the painting turns out to be a remote translation - stilted and awkward, lifeless. If I am able to paint with a more open focus, working from a felt sense of color and mark in a conversant way, there's a better chance of mining something more authentic, and the painting can carry something closer to the direct experience of my surroundings and recent history. It's an odd thing to try to describe from a process experience, but evident in the work itself.
Having recently returned from living on a quiet island off the Florida coast, some of the work that has emerged continues to reflect the memory of the seashore, the high winds and storms of January, the ocean and sky teeming with life. There's a sense of the experience of living and walking and swimming there, taking in the sea oats grasses, dunes, occasional turquoise waters and washed up lobster baskets. Also the sea life shows up: tunneling hermit crabs, fish wriggling down a pelican's long throat and being swallowed whole, starfish, clams, octopuses, blow fish, scallops, mullet, fish bones washing up on the shore. A few painting details shown here:
Below, I've included a painting image from an earlier post along with a photo of the woods near the studio, to look at the the different imagery arising from experiencing the midwest in February: north winds, silvery tree skeletons, golden sedge grasses and the hardy wildlife that survives the harsh winters.
Getting a Few Things Off My Chest
I've been rattled by events of the world, and wasn't able to let the angst go in order to work in the studio, so I invited the misery in and pinned up a canvas to get a few things off my chest. It was very helpful, and while I softened some of the initial output with more marks and washes, the cacophony of words and imagery were pleasing. In this video, the painting is nearly complete.
Painting Process - Autumn
It's autumn, and the colors of the woods and prairie are coming into the studio. The doors and windows are open, the air is sunny and fresh.Paintings begin on the ground, where thinned acrylic paint is pushed into the canvas, using gloved hands, brushes, gravity and sometimes brooms. This forms the atmosphere in which the painting lives. Then the canvas is pinned to the wall, where more opaque mark making is laid down. Sometimes it goes from floor to wall and back again, numerous times until it is completely resolved.
Easing Back Into the Studio
This past month has been heavy with sales, inventory and installations.As usual after not painting for awhile, it takes some time to clear my head, relax, open up my senses and be able to work. First, it's time to sweep the large floor, open the doors, take in the landscape, make a pot of tea. Maybe read a little something beautiful, listen to some soul piercing music. Untangle.
The Studio Opening 2017
The official studio opening celebration was the first Saturday in September, in the peak of sunflower and zinnia season. 200 people parked in the meadow and walked up the hill to the show, which spilled out of the studio onto two painting patios. Paintings were hung on the outside walls of the studio as well as inside.
There were lots of bouquets.
The people who came out were talking about art, I loved that most of all. It was a lovely group of people.
Sunset was beautiful from both sides. A painting was hanging on the lightening struck tree..
The nearly full moon....
These two pieces that were displayed from the After Dark series, spanned 24'. They are my most recent paintings. On the left is "After Dark - In Spirit" and on the right, "After Dark - In Body"..
Then it was after dark, and the party was over.
Thanks to many friends for the photos!
Photographing Art
Photography Day
I used to try to photograph my own work using a good camera and lighting, but the images were never as alive, the colors never balanced as a professional photograph, and the large scale of my work added to the complexities. How can I expect someone to select work off of the internet without a near perfect reproduction of the painting?
It takes this team: A steadfast and cheerful studio assistant and I measure, title and pin the canvases perfectly smoothly to the wall. Kansas City's premier art photographer, E.G. Schempf, brings massive high quality equipment, sets up, shoots, color corrects. Another professional photographer joins us out of kindness, friendship and a greatly appreciated fine eye for color balance, and assists in every step.
I sometimes am working just ahead of the photograph, with a paint brush or spray can, tweaking the painting before it's frozen (snapped) in time.
Immediately after photographing, each painting is color corrected. This involves commitments by each of us (four) individuals dedicated to accuracy in color, tint, contrast and clarity, to truthfully represent the work's luminescence, intensity, saturation, depth, brilliance, muddiness, agitation, peacefulness. Sometimes it takes over an hour to get a heavily pigmented painting to come into color balance.
All specs are then put into virtual and physical inventories.
The above 1 minute video covers a 7.5 hour shoot for 10 paintings.
Music: James Cotton with Joe Louis Walker & Charlie Haden playing Vineyard Blues.
Note: 2 of the last 3 paintings are vertical; we always shoot horizontally.
Waiting for Inspiration
Sometimes I'll hit the studio full of ideas and energy and exhilarated to be able to paint, and nothing happens. I can pick up some tools and begin to work, but it's obvious before the first brushstroke, that it isn't going to work. Where does inspiration go? Sometimes you have to wait around for it.
How Paintings Begin Sometimes
Paintings don't begin with paint. There's canvas to unroll, size, dampen, colors to mix. Even then sometimes it feels good to simply be in the studio for awhile, checking brooms and brushes, watering the plants, opening the windows, staring out at the landscape, until there's not a sense of time, but rather of being aware.
I usually start a painting the day before I'm going to work on it - getting the basics out of the way, and maybe laying down atmosphere, pouring thinned pigments and mediums into the raw canvas, letting it dry completely. The second day, it may get pinned up on the wall, and internally driven mark making process begins.
Sometimes, however, there's a piece of fabric or a form, or a line that had been seen on a Grecian urn, that ignites something inside me. This painting began with a begonia leaf, and later a pink bloom from a geranium. Usually the actual form is simply a catalyst, but this time the mark making came directly from these items.
Working in the Studio, and a Fresh Coat of Paint
I worked on many canvases over the last few months, many of them pinned up on the walls at one time.
It really helps the process to move from canvas to canvas, sometimes getting stuck and moving on to freshen up my eyes. When the canvases are wildly varied like these, it keeps me untied, and in a mode of discovery. Having many to work on at one time with no hurry to complete, felt so luxurious, and allowed them to unfold naturally.
Having completed most of the work, it was time to document, photograph, inventory and notify galleries - the nuts and bolts of the business.
Having done that, I decided it was time for a fresh coat of paint:
A fresh start! It seems so quiet here now. Imagining the stillness could be reflected in the next body of work.
Saturday Painting Frenzy
Saturdays have long been my favorite studio day. Even though I work every day, the luxuriousness of a Saturday from my corporate days lingers. The phone rarely rings, my favorite radio station has good music programs, and it feels free and unfettered.
Yesterday was wild - fast and furious energy, I pulled some older canvases to rework (always free-ing) and kept the camera going to watch the progression of some narrative work. When watching them all together this morning, these time lapses seem to capture the frenzy. Mozart's Symphony #25 sets the perfect pace.
The work is unfinished.
Photography Day, June 2016
This minute long film is from a time lapse that spanned 8 hours. Surely we walk five miles plus on Photography Day.
Music: Mozart Sonata in D for 2 Pianos, K 448, Molto Allegro, Murray Perahia and Radu Lupu
Photography Day - April 2016
With EG Schempf and Cassie Rhodes, respectively, Photographer and Studio Assistant extraordinaire.
Music by Beethoven, Piano Sonata #21 In C, Op. 53, Waldstein, 1. Allegro Con Brio, played by Emil Gilits
Photography Day
Photography day is always fun, with E.G. Schempf - photographer and Cassie Rhodes - assistant.
Music: Beethoven: Piano Sonata No.21 in C, "Waldstein"
A Short and Poetic Film About Building a Sculpture (the Studio), with Cello
While I've been in the new studio for nearly a year, the collaberative design and construction remains a memorable project, yielding a giant, functional sculpture. I recently swept together all of digital miles of video taken during the construction, and asked Gigi Harris, a talented young filmmaker, to make this piece.
Starring roles:
The general contracting (and construction) by Leon Morgan, construction and electrical by Keith Meeks, framing and roofing by John Ediger and crew, sheetrock by Ray Williamson crew, concrete by Dave Rockers and crew, Polygal installation by John Davis crew, water work by the Kenny Sloans, HVAC by GK Smith crew. Combine moving by Leon and Keith. Bin moving by Leon M., Keith M. and John H. (bin and combine events were spectacular). I worked between shifts.
The visionary architect: Steve Bowling, Hive Design Collaberative