The Impact of the New Studio - A Photojournalist's View
Kansas City's esteemed photojournalist Julie Denesha was interested in the impact of the new studio on my work. It was an honor to be interviewed and photographed by her while working. The resulting product is here, click the "Listen" button below photos for the interview:
Connection, On and Off Court
Working extra large the last warm days in November, relishing the vast elbow room of the open air on the basketball court -
In part because I kept forgetting to bring the scissors, it grew wider, then wider.
I don't quite want to dip- or triptych it yet. It's called Connection and is 68"x204"(17').
The details...
Big Sky, a Basketball Court and Yellow
Large scale paintings begin on a concrete slab that was formerly a basketball court.
It's windy on this high ridge, so rocks hold the canvas in place. A garden hose is used to size the canvas.
The space - big sky, a slab of concrete, 30 yard rolls of canvases - naturally calls for paintings to scale. When they're brought inside, it's surprising how large they are.
Yellow borders the court.
Indulgence
Following a season of exhibitions, the dominant response in the studio is indulgence. Intense, garish colors are sought in all things - dreams, clothes, brilliantly hued foods on a plate - as well as on new canvases. As if to get something out of my system, I gave a week over to undisciplined unwieldy creative energy, abandoning any notion of a finished product or a successful painting. Slices of canvases follow.
I secretly love to pour color and tip canvases, lifting 90 degrees the other way, rivulets forming grids. The many-squared patterns satisfy something in my brain that wants to feel order, especially within randomness, ever since getting scrambled from a head injury several years ago.
The studio floor is the ongoing most beautiful, ever-changing chaos of all.
Magenta can be a reach for depth, showing up often as drama, and I’ve been trying to avoid it, so of course it showed up too, and not subtly.
Red washed over a completely dry gray blue made this hash of eggplant with silvery shadows.
In this attitude, there were no failures this week. The primaries were wheeled out as well as their brashly conjoined color wheel opposites, and laid one over the other to make welcome dark hot tones interspersed with nondescript muddy colors. They were painted for the sheer joy of watching.