Draw the Dog Before the Fleas

The Charm of a Third

Steven LaRose, Incantatory, 2009

Oil on wood, 7.5 x 7 inches

Some skills may have been undermined by their metaphorical implications

My Next Folly

Steven LaRose, Mediocrity's Fangs, 2009

Oil on wood, 7 x 7.5 inches

The Dawn of a New Suite

Steven LaRose, Enthusiasm, 2009
Oil on wood, 7.5 x 7 inches

From a Matt Smaus essay on Keat's Ode to Psyche:
Keats had been frustrated with the state of mind in which he habitually wrote poetry. Such thoughts as: "In the height of enthusiasm I have been cheated into some fine passages; but that is not the thing" (letter 123, March 8) are found throughout his letter. He felt that the way in which he traditionally 'dash'd off [his] lines in a hurry' had not resulted in his best poetry and was quite proud of the way in which he took 'even moderate pains' with "Ode to Psyche."

A favorite song

Lou Barlow sings Bill Callahan while Omeed our cat fetches like a dog.

Change

I recently changed my banner. But it occurs to me that the "Anyone can Paint!" proclamation might distract people from the luscious linen background. Those words, in their fabulous font, are merely an ironic bonus to the variegated gray field upon which they float.

Interested parties may want to peruse the "Book Covers" category in Chris Ashley's archives. There they will find not only the righteous writing of Master Chris, but gems such as these as well:Personally, I am revisiting this "Anyone can Paint" book cover because an ex-student of mine recently gave me a copy of "Free-Hand Drawing" that she had saved from the local library's dumpster.
Beautiful.
And yet, I can't believe that it has taken me this long to understand my affinity for these sorts of linen clad covers. Duh. The field color resides in the valleys while the peaks of the texture peek through. I spent years in the late nineties exploring this technical shtick. This book that was spirited from a dumpster and whose resupinate form now lies upon my scanner has the copyright of 1895. I briefly wonder if I should be more careful with it. Google has the book's contents readable and download-able at this link. Google Book Search is remarkable, even if it is still in beta. But shee-oot, they still have yet to reproduce the beauty of the thing itself. Notice that I did not say "They NEVER can reproduce. . ."

Randomly opening "Free-Hand Drawing" to page 129, I had to laugh at this passage titled "Discourse V." I laughed because it was both goofy and poignant considering my recent blog posts.

"There is another caution which I wish to give you. Be as select in those whom you endeavor to please, as in those whom you endeavor to imitate. Without the love of fame, you can never do anything excellent; but by an excessive and undistinguishing thirst after it, you will come to have vulgar views; you will degrade your style; and your taste will be entirely corrupted. It is certain that the lowest style will be the most popular, as it falls within the compass of ignorance itself; and the vulgar will always be pleased with what is natural, in the confined and misunderstood sense of the word."

Apparently, the author of the F-H D, Anson K. Cross (a person who desperately needs a Wikipedia presence developed), extracted the proceeding from a text by a Sir Joshua Reynolds, who died in 1792!
Apparently, many things never change.

Painting One

Students turned in their versions of this assignment recently. At one time, when I first started teaching, I was uncomfortable with exercises such as this. Now I wish someone had showed me this shit in high school.

The irregular web of a Latrodectus Hesperus crossed my studio door tonight

Two steps forward

The other day, Matthew Landkammer posted a brief teaser titled "Inherent Aesthetics vs. Taste" (link) in which he asks: "So here’s the question: among an admittedly self-selecting group that already appreciates his work, how is it that one painting could garner such a consensus in the comments? Is there something inherent about this painting that makes it special — something separate from the aesthetic experience we bring to it?" He was referring to the most recent painting I posted two weeks ago (link). Since then, I have dreaded going down into the basement/crawlspace that is my studio.
"Working in a studio means leaving the clean world of normal life and moving into a shadowy domain where everything bears the marks of the singular obsession." (James Elkins). This does not mean that the studio itself is scary. The space may be untidy and cluttered, but that can be fixed with an afternoon of efficient puttering. What I am avoiding, for fear of failure I suppose, is something else. "Alchemy's lesson here is that everything actually takes place within the body. The insanity of the studio is that it is not architecture - it is not made of wood and cement - but it is nothing other than the inside of the body." (Elkins again).

I suspect I have been too hung up on the end result. This is an unfortunate side effect of mixing business with pleasure. I need to start doing again. Right? Who cares about the outcome of a painting? Its not what you do, its the way that you do it? And yet, I can't shake the feeling that our knowledge of the world is not completely derived from our experience.
As the panels that I am preparing to paint on are drying, I am reading the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry Aesthetic Judgment. The phone vibrates in my pocket, making me jump. I feel confused, if not guilty, about how I am spending my time. Imagine the perverse notion of taking the time to blog about that guilt. Thanks for visiting.

Before I go, I'd like to address the thing that I've been telling my students this week and is being reinforced over at Mary's blog, Never underestimate the value of your first step.

The new neighborhood whippersnapper

Cahoots

Acrylic ink and acrylic paint on paper 20" x 30" 2009

This is a collaborative drawing/painting with Timothy Buckwalter.
The first three sessions can be seen by clicking here.
(I apologize for the image quality, but this does a fairly good job of depicting the metallic paints and rich glazes which are difficult to photograph.)

“Nothing makes one so vain as being told one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.”

-Oscar Wilde

“If you think you know what the hell is going on, you're probably full of shit.”
-Robert Anton Wilson

Signs and Symbols

New Painting

Steven LaRose, Glittering Generalities and Blazing Ubiquities, 2009
Oil and acrylic on wood, 48 x 32 inches

Too bad I had to pull this shoot

Another job I have mixed emotions about

I have a client who bought a signed limited edition print by a guy named Myke Amend. My client thought that the background needed more color and some "drama. . . like a lightning bolt." I briefly evaluated the potential moral issues of painting on another person's reproduction and weighed it against what the client was willing to spend. Another consideration was if I could even pull off a convincing paint job for the given budget.

I took the job.

I did a little research over at Extreme Instability and then started painting from the deepest space and worked my way forward. The interesting thing about painting on Myke's painting is that I quickly discovered that even though the palette was monochromatic, there was a tight internal logic to the composition as well as a consistent respect for the light source. What that meant for me was that the moment I added a color, in order to do it right, I would have to trickle that color everywhere. This is something that I didn't do. I couldn't afford to repaint the entire painting. I was only asked to work on the sky.

oh well.

More Ashland Independent Film Festival

We had gone to the AIFF's all ages showing of docs and shorts to specifically see Kick Like a Girl.

It was a sweet and poignant 24 minutes. Bundled with the film was five other shorts. One of which was Bill Plympton's "Guide Dog" which is a sequel to the Oscar nominated short “Guard Dog”. When the lights came up, Plympton was standing in the theater. I was star-struck. He offered to give Zaida a drawing of the dog. I smiled all the way home.

Give a shit? Tonight I was in the presence of

Automorphosis, a film.

I was once an "art car" proponent. Whiting and I even made it onto the pages of People magazine.