Coming Up for Air (Really, this time)
Coming up for air after an intensive time in the studio.
Scissors and gloves with E.J. Rost.
Getting Out of the Way
When I'm getting ready to paint, usually there is a quieting period, taking the edge of high excited energy down to a harness-able wattage. Sometimes I'll take a few photographs, mill around looking at the work that's in process on the walls, smooth out some canvases, or often sit quietly for a very long time, listening to the wind or the stillness, so that the focus shifts to the senses and out of my busy and more linear mind. I think of this process as getting out of the way, so that the distance between ideas, what is seen, what is felt, and what goes down on canvas, is very small. I was curious to see if I could capture this process of "getting out of the way" on video. This take was 23 minutes long, but compressed into one minute.
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:
Photo Essay - Paint, Rust and Open Air
I am enchanted with painting the combine. The scale! There is nothing to prepare in order to paint; it lies in wait. Last night I dreamed about it and woke up with new ideas, barely waiting for the dew to dry to paint some more. The beautiful thirsty rust is already gorgeous in the patterns that have been created over the years. Keeping a delicate touch on what is painted and what is left natural, is the dance. The purples against rust makes me swoon. My work on canvas is benefiting from these new eyes.
Yard Art
This old Oliver combine was beautiful as it stood, but was hidden in a patch of fast growing trees on the north end of the property. With a 4020 tractor and a lot of enthusiasm, we pulled it out into the light and placed it near the studio. The lichen covered rust is a beautiful neutral background for some color.
Everything is a Universe (the beginnings of inspiration)
I'm on the Florida gulf coast in large part to work; it always having been such a fertile place for painting, but it hasn't been happening. Having come off of an extremely intensified time in the studio in December, perhaps it's creative fatigue, and surely in part physical fatigue, given that my methods for painting and scale call for considerable energy and strength.
A fresh 30 yard roll of canvas is propped up against the kitchen wall, breathing it's coppery breath down my neck as I go by. Paint bottles mixed, brushes, pencils, paper, boards set up outside to work on, not a single inclination or movement towards them is detected. I walk the beach, walk and walk and walk, no urge to consider shape, line, color. I feel guilty.
This past year, intensely focused OUT - studio building, negotiations, concrete pads, vistas, horizons, mass bird migrations, space, canvases large enough to depict space, series multiplying and expanding to 12 paintings deep, every foot of wall space having something pinned to it. But January has been an inward turn.
On the shore, Instead of as usual watching the vast body of water, the birds in flight, the horizon line, I keep finding myself kneeling, pulling in closer and closer to the intimate, camera held as close as it will focus, to see the tiny jewels of the sea, the bubbles from retreating waves, bird tracks, the tiny shadows of bird tracks. Seeing that each is a universe. Everything is a universe!
(The cosmic so readily available by the sea.)
With 3" square pieces of paper, a few pencils, some watercolor - the beginnings of inspiration.
Ground and Space
I worked all of November in the dazzling, illuminated tall space of the new studio, painting with some tired colors and a rusty process that was no longer alive. It was painful and unchanging, with dark days of autumn reflecting the mood.
At last, I gave up completely the idea of painting and began to simply live in the studio, day after day, bringing nourishment for body and soul: art related books and magazines, Japanese tea, piano concertos, breakfast lunch and dinner. Lovely but grim at first.
Gradually, in all that quiet space and time, a tree or spine form and the space around it, began to form in my mind's eye.
Canvases very wet, grays, blacks, dark greens over weird yellow under paintings, slamming paint filled brushes along edges for the joy and freedom of the process, rather than for the result, discovering new cause/affects. Discovery is so vital to keeping one's art alive, thrilling!
When completing this 12' piece, I realized the series would be called "Ground and Space". I'd been wallowing in space, and lacking ground! The studio enveloped me; I enveloped the studio. It has been a warm embrace.
Pattern and Light
Inside, outside, negative, positive, gravel and fur, rolls and rhyme, scarf and steps.
Building a Studio: The Fluidity of Sheetrock
The sanding crew was warm and fluid this morning, and moved as one, finishing each step within a minute of each other.
This time lapse clip shows them perfectly orchestrated, and they were synchronized with the many guitars on the radio, which isn't heard now.
When they were packing up, I showed them this time lapse clip and they laughed uproariously, slapping their legs and taking their hats off, running their hands through their hair, HAHAHAHA!!
They kept laughing all the way down the 3/8 mile long driveway. Then I could hear them turn onto the pavement, still laughing. These patterns make me feel like my lungs are filled with oxygen.
Building a Studio
Five years of planning a new studio, now becoming a reality!
The tallest wall is 17', and the footprint is 32'x60', which will allow tacking up multiple large scale canvases at once to view and complete, as well giving the physical space to really breathe and expand. For years, in order to get perspective and fine tune the piece, I've been tacking huge canvases up on the side of the house on a windless day, or spreading large work out on the grass and climbing to the top of the house/studio, dashing up and down the stairs to pour paint and make marks.
The building process is extraordinarily beautiful, feeling much more like a large scale sculpture project, than building construction. Long thoughtful planning to consider shapes and balance, placing windows and doors for best light and to track the sun's movement, are now lifting off of the flat page and taking form! To walk under the trusses with the sun and sky above them, is to watch a beautifully choreographed, rhythmic dance.
Back to Tree Skeletons and Monotones
It's shocking to be back in the Midwest. The north wind blows through wool layers, the trees are bare and there are only the palest hues. There's been one hoary frost, that reminds me of winter's beauty.
Usually cold weather elicits a warm palette in the studio for balance, but right now, maybe just in the transition, it feels insincere. The monotones are reflected in the studio.
A trip to the Bloch Building at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, offered a quick transformation. Walking into the building is to be enveloped within a many hued white sculpture. As always, spending time in front of William Baziotes' Crescent, reaches deeply into the warmth of being. The tag describing it, is pure nourishment for a cold February day. https://art.nelson-atkins.org/objects/4685/crescent ,
The next morning, a little shadow and light feels like a visual ballet.
The beach is the barest memory...