Watch a dog swim
for the first time.
Or,
share your first memories
and make the present valuable.
Let us wig out over six new paintings in the studio. The top left gem might be finished on the first pass, the top row middle might not be the best color choice and may be over-worked, top right is screaming for me not to touch it, but I probably will add a little intensity. The bottom row left looks totally lame from this jpg but has so much potential. . . I'll definitely be goofin' with that one, bottom row middle, whoa. . . may be a winner, black seems to be the color that has the widest range. Bottom right is right on the edge. I am liking the Ultramarine Blue.All the "in-progress" paintings above are 22 x 30"
Paint on canvas
Paint on canvas
12 comments:
http://yasinearth.blogspot.com/
uh. . . hello yasin. . .me mombo dogface in a banana patch?
I like the minimalism/simplicity in these works. I think they're my favorite from what I've seen of your oeuvre.
The gesural moment/ accident is isolated this way and there's no distraction.
They would also be great on monchromatic grounds of various colors.
Thanks Jacques, it means something coming from someone whose taste in painting appears to be different from my own. At least superficially our paintings seem different.
The isolation point is well taken. I am thinking of them like portraits. Nothing leaves the canvas. Because of their "organic" nature, it is really easy to see them as landscapy. Isolated indeed.
I've done some tests with background tones and even slightly mottled surfaces, but it seems to either be too distracting (too much noise) or too limiting (compressing the value range).
"I've done some tests with background tones and even slightly mottled surfaces, but it seems to either be too distracting (too much noise) or too limiting (compressing the value range)."
I don't understand..
Gaugin has a very compressed value range.
...I appreciate many types of art other than my own narrow tunnel of inquiry.
The blue one seems most exciting..
I think of course of Yves Klein.
But maybe here we can continue the question that I raised on my blog but then quickly closed down. (It's quite likely that revealing too much on my own blog would be a bad move in terms of my Academic career..I have to handle that whole endeavour with care)..
Which is: how do we develop "taste" ? What do our thematic endorsements say about our personality? Would it suprise you that as an artist who is deeply involved in dark sexual apocalyptic subjects that I am a single man at 32 who will doubtfully will have a "family" or other such "normal" things..? Or maybe I'm just being melodramatic..
I wonder mostly where the line is drawn between art and artist. I start to think that my art has consumed me like some creeping vine and that I am more real in these paintings than in the dull, draining and repetitive and soul destroying existence that I lead winding endlessly down the maze of highways that form the perimeter of my imprisonment in Los Angeles. I'm reminded of a slave in a galley with a precious thought bubble of salvation like some phantasmagoric carrot before the donkey.
Which is to say that the reason I stopped bloggin for a while this spring was that I very nearly gave up in all senses of the expression....
Looking sharp Steve! Nice to see you on a good roll!
“Gaugin has a very compressed value range.”
I just dragged some of Gauguin’s more popular images into Photoshop and changed the settings to "grayscale" and pow! muddy. You're right. I always thought that his work was gaudy with its reds and yellows but no, they are fairly tame. What a great example of what color saturation and hue can do for the emotional appearance of a painting. I'm going to use photoshop if I ever teach a "fundamentals" class again.
“...I appreciate many types of art other than my own narrow tunnel of inquiry.”
Of course. I didn’t intend to make you sound one dimensional. I should know better. It is actually amazing how little the blog can relate about a person. Ironic, considering some of your forthcoming statements.
“The blue one seems most exciting..
I think of course of Yves Klein.”
Yeah. I’ve been thinking about that too. But it is more of an accidental connection than a conscious one. But, with what little Robert Anton Wilson I’ve read, I should cultivate serendipitous coincidences like this.
“But maybe here we can continue the question that I raised on my blog but then quickly closed down. (It's quite likely that revealing too much on my own blog would be a bad move in terms of my Academic career..I have to handle that whole endeavour with care).”
I find it interesting that we need to hide things. I was told to be careful about writing about my drinking habits, not because it is a habit that shouldn’t be glorified, but because it may come to haunt me later when I begin looking for teaching jobs.
“Which is: how do we develop "taste" ?
There are entire books about this. It would make an interesting first-year, liberal-arts, cross-disciple, course. History, caste, society, memes, quality, etc. I can see it now! From what I understand though, taste is developed through a combination of the ole Nature/Nurture axis. And taste is much more difficult to change than we think. We all know money doesn’t buy taste for example. How do we consciously tweak our own taste?
“What do our thematic endorsements say about our personality?”
More then I was willing to admit. Or, maybe as I’ve gotten older, I sense a desire to endorse certain aspects of my reality tunnel. I used to pride myself (with inverse vanity) on not giving a shit about my haircut, for example, and now. . . I wish I had hair I could take pride in. But as far as painting goes, I think the themes should say everything about our personality. Or, we should strive for such an exchange, unless, you are in it for the money.
“Would it suprise you that as an artist who is deeply involved in dark sexual apocalyptic subjects that I am a single man at 32 who will doubtfully will have a "family" or other such "normal" things..? Or maybe I'm just being melodramatic.”
Back on one of your posts I just couldn’t wrap my mind around why anyone would want to hide, cloak, or conceal, ones intense understanding of Life. Why hide a holy grail? Or a philosopher’s stone? Why hide enlightenment and make it a puzzle? But now I see that there will always be those who will be threatened by persecution if they freely flaunted their taste or passion. This week I am thinking that things are hidden so that the people “on the bus” will see them, and not the “others”. You are 32? That was a good year for me. 3+2=5 and all that. I started dating my wife when I was 32. OJ Simpson was #32. Etc.
“I wonder mostly where the line is drawn between art and artist.”
I see the line as a tightrope to be walked, not a fence.
“I start to think that my art has consumed me like some creeping vine and that I am more real in these paintings than in the dull, draining and repetitive and soul destroying existence that I lead winding endlessly down the maze of highways that form the perimeter of my imprisonment in Los Angeles. I'm reminded of a slave in a galley with a precious thought bubble of salvation like some phantasmagoric carrot before the donkey.”
I’m pretty sure that you just defined Hope. Which, from what I understand, is a good thing.
“Which is to say that the reason I stopped bloggin for a while this spring was that I very nearly gave up in all senses of the expression....”
Glad to have you back. I’m just not hardwired to conceive of anything else.
Thanks Harold. I found an old stash of canvases under the house. I usually don't use pre-made canvases, but they worked perfect for this. Maybe a little too much tooth for my taste. And far too spongy of a surface. And the primer is kinda lame, it starts to fail with even a little scrubbing. . .but I'm not complaining.
thanks for your thoughts Steven
I'm glad to have you as an online friend.
One of the biggest questions blogging has raised for me is "what is bloggable ?"
The medium is neither public nor private, but has the potential to be both. So I guess that bloggable material needs to be able to pass through the ven diagram that satisfies both of those criteria. In an ideal world I wouldn't consider hedging my bets as much as I do..but whenever I feel like I need to go back and delete a post it's usually a feeling I obey. Things often read different in the morning..and to this day I have no idea who is really reading my blog. Could be anyone.
I think revealing too much is a big mistake. Not everyone in the world is your friend and not everyone needs to be given the privilege of being treated like one. It increases your vulnerability. One of the lessons I've learned in the artworld is that people aren't in it for the smiles and hugs. It's really about money..and the bottom line is sales.
I'd make art whether it ever sold or not..but if a gallery didn't think it would sell they'd never show it.
Art can transcend all of this in blogversation..but I think that always there is a consideration of the "public" as a real undercurrent. Just google your name and all of these candid conversations pop up "on the record".
It's a little frightening.
Jacques has made many interesting points... my thoughts on a few:
On blogging vulnerability: be careful out there... be VERY careful.
On making art whether or not it sells: But would you make the SAME art if you had no market for it? Or as prolifically? With the same struggle to reach levels previously unattainable? I'm afraid it's the carrot on a stick motivation for me. Otherwise my art would probably become very utilitarian, crafty and promiscuous. No 'body of work' to speak of.
Enjoyed the exchange...
Good points Karen.
Actually, you both have me a little worried now. Should I go back and delete something? Should I remove pictures of my daughter? What exactly should I be careful of?
I think you are right about the public, or at least the audience. There has to be someone I am making these things for. It seems to help me though to think of that audience as just like me. I'm really bad at second guessing the tastes of other people. I've made some really bad paintings when I was making them as product for a gallery.
I think Jacques covered it pretty well, you just don't know who your real audience is. For instance, I don't express negative feelings about my galleries or my work because maybe the painting is sitting idle at one of my reps... or worse... is owned by one of my readers! But I do have neg. feelings about a lot of stuff... best to stay zipped. I've also noted that trite advice comes quickly to the fore when I complain about one thing or another. I think I'll start a private bitchin' blog just to get stuff off my chest without offending.
As to the other... follow your own beat, compromise (which isn't what I was suggesting) is not the way to go.
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