The
Official Tom Waits apparel is undermining the Youth-of-Today's faith in PoMo (tip thanks to
Tracy).
Before Hugo there was Constable.
Before Constable there were generations of practitioners of
po mo, "spattered ink," and
yi pin, "painting with no constraints." The painting above is a detail of a scroll by
Sesshu, a person who lived during the Muromachi Period (which I just learned was in the 15th century). This image is from the Tokyo National Museum. What I gleaned from my two hours of World Wide Wormhole surfing (or am I Burrowing the Web?) is that the brush mark, like sumi ink or even plein air painting, is something that can be copied. 
A brush mark is something valuable if you believe (like I do) in studying the ancients. But the brush mark can lead to scrupulous imitation of the models and masters of the past. People have tried to break free of the shackles of imitation since. . .since. . . well, at least since the 15th century in China.
It is not just me.
I am just more "self-aware" (read: Post-Modern (aka Po-Mo)) of my return to sources in the "quest for the supreme rule that was born from an absence of rules and that encompassed a multiplicity of rules."
What was that quote?
It seemed to feel right.
I got it from page 205 of Hubert Damisch's A Theory of /Cloud/ and he got it from Les Propos sur la peinture du moine Citrouille-amere de Shitao which translates ala Google to "Remarks on the Pumpkin-bitter painting of the monk of Shitao." (I love this wormhole machine). All I needed to find (I'm sure there was more but my mind was subsequently blown) was an English Google translation of a French translation of a Chinese text.
Here is my soft-edit version which might actually be my Manifesto and Statement of Purpose (except it doesn't account for my take on my drawings approaching The Uncanny Valley which I'll tell you about soon). Barthes-a-licious style:
In highest Antiquity, there were no rules;
supreme Simplicity had not divided yet.
(We are talkin' pre-
Fish or Cut Bait).
As soon as Supreme Simplicity divides, the rule is established.
On what is based the rule?
The rule is based on the Single one Milked Brush.
The Single one Milked Brush is the origin of all things, the root of all the phenomena;
its function manifest for the spirit, and is hidden in the man,
but the vulgar one is unaware of it.It is by oneself that one must lay down the rule of Single Milked Brush.
The base of the rule of Single Milked Brush resides in the absence of rules which generates the Rule; and the Rule thus obtained embraces the multiplicity of the rules.
Painting emanates from intellect:
that it is about the beauty of the mounts, rivers, characters and things, or that it is of the gasoline (sic and cool) and the character of the birds, the animals, grasses and the trees, or that they are measurements and proportions of the fish ponds, the houses, the buildings and the esplanades, one will not be able about it to penetrate the reasons nor to exhaust the varied aspects, so in the final analysis one does not have this immense measurement of Single Milked Brush.
So far you combine, so high that you go up, it is necessary for you to start with a simple step (in my case it has been a drop of ink or a pond of paint).Also, the Single one Milked Brush embraces it all, until the most inaccessible distance and out of ten thousand million blows of brush, it is not one of which the beginning and completion do not lie finally in this Single Milked Brush whose control belongs only to the man.
The beginning and end is with us all. We are the puddles that belong to me, and consequently you, you self-aware mammal you.
By the means of Single Milked Brush, the man can restore in miniature a larger entity without anything to lose
(Micro = Macro, is my first and (so far) truest peace):
since the spirit is formed of it initially a clear vision, the brush will go to the root of the things.
If one does not paint of a free wrist, faults of painting will follow;
and these faults in their turn will make lose with the wrist its ease inspired.
(Watch your Groove without watching, for it can turn into a Rut).
The turns of the brush must be removed from a movement, and the consistency must be born from the circular motions, while sparing a margin for space.
The finales of the brush must be sliced, and them attacks incisors.
It is necessary to be also skillful for the forms circular or angular, right and curved, ascending and downward; the brush goes on the left, on the right, in relief, in hollow, abrupt and solved, it stops abruptly, it lengthens in oblique, sometimes like water, it descends towards the depths, sometimes it spouts out in height like the flame, and all that with naturalness and without forcing less world.
Once you master The Rules (and that means practice-practice-practice), it is your responsibility to break those rules with a Blink and a Flow.That the spirit is present everywhere, and the rule will inform all;
that the reason penetrates everywhere, and the most varied aspects could be expressed.
Giving up itself with the liking of the hand, a gesture, one will seize formal appearance as well as the interior dash of the mounts and of the rivers, the characters and the inanimate objects, the birds and the animals, grasses and the trees, the fish ponds and the houses, the buildings and the esplanades, one will paint them according to nature or one will probe of it the significance, one will express of it the character or one will reproduce the atmosphere of it, one will révèlera them in their totality or one will suggest them elliptically.
Paint what honestly feels right.
When well even the man would not seize the achievement of it, similar painting will fulfill the requirements of the spirit.
Because Supreme Simplicity dissociated, also the Rule of Single Milked Brush was established.
This Rule of Single Milked Brush once established, the infinity of the creatures appeared. This is why it was known as:
“My way is that of the Unit which,
embraces the Universal one.”
The Official Tom Waits apparel is undermining the Youth-of-Today's faith in PoMo (tip thanks to Tracy). 
Before Hugo there was Constable.
Teo González, Untitled #514 (10,000 gold on copper blue direct 100 gauge), 2006. Acrylic polymer emulsion, pigment, 22 karat gold, and acrylic enamel on cotton over board. 48 x 48 inches (Good bio to read)
Agnes Martin, White Flower, 1960
Holy moly. What the heck is going on here? Ink sessions separated by time I think. Me and then Me 24 hours later. Two bursts make a rule. I feel bad for the lack of color on the blog. I self-consciously want to paint a still life with grapes and mandolin to prove that these are not accidents.
I want to give a blast of color. But I also want make sure that everyone (or at least someone) is on the same page as me. That page is being slightly dragged up from the Second Dimension. I am allowing myself to lurk around the threshold of the z-axis for a slightly more self-indulgent amount of time. 
"nearly all of these (exceptions: the dr sketchy and the musicians) were done by first randomly sticking on the tape, then having a look and thinking what it looks like and finally adding the lines. great fun to do!" so says Till Lassmann on his flickr photostream. I can't seem to connect with the end results however. Still, I sense a certain level of brotherhood.
Steven LaRose, Overt, 2010
Steven LaRose, Larvameadow, 2010
Steven LaRose, Sub, 2010
Line
Witness
Moment
The pencils are all gathered together and every pen is handy. Because of teaching, there is a chaotic tackle box for both acrylic and oil. I don't know what I've got. I do know however, that my next solo show will be titled Out of Mind, Out of Sight.
When Zaida found out that I was regularly dropping my trousers in front of people that I don't know, she thoughtfully gave me some new underwear for Christmas. Talk about exhibitionism (a disorder that was first described in a scientific journal in 1877 by a French physician and psychiatrist Charles Lasègue). I was wearing this exact pair when the Facebook meme went around regarding bra color. 
Public nudity has become a hot item in our town. I am trying to come up with an example of a situation where being naked in public is essential to the freedom of expression. Do I want my nine year old daughter to see some great masterpiece if there is genitalia involved? At what point am I comfortable with her attending figure drawing sessions? Do I want random naked dudes traipsing in front of our house?
Along with my underwear, I received The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus Collector's Edition. It contains 21 DVDs. Zaida is loving it. She claims that her favorite part is the "random" nature to it all, at which point she pauses, shifts her body to indicate a scene change and drawls "The larch." I, for one, forgot how many bare chested women appear in the sketches. Is this artistic expression?
If one doesn't artistically express, does one lose it? I haven't been to the studio since last year. Even if I could have mustered the energy, I couldn't fathom the reason. Why make stuff? I am beginning to remember. It is different than the Thank You cards I am trying to make. I have received some wonderful out-of-the-woodwork packages these past couple of weeks. Locals have shown up on our porch with meals. It has all been slightly overwhelming. Complicated by the chemo which made even shitting, eating, and sleeping overwhelming. But that phase is over now. I am un-hooked from the pump. I didn't even take a nap yesterday. I am blogging. Who knows. . . maybe I'll be in the studio soon.
I am amazed at how much the meals that people brought over, resembled the people themselves. Even if one could separate the presentations from the food, the tastes revealed soooo much about the cooks. Maybe that is something that has been forgotten or downplayed at today's potlucks.
I wanted to thank people with a hand pulled linoleum print. Sharp things and overwhelming fogs of chemo are not wise. Also, endless hours of spacing out in bed can lead to blockage. I simply couldn't understand what would be appreciated by all those concerned. What image would say something beyond Thank You? I couldn't think of anything new. I couldn't recall why "new" was important. I began to think that every possible black and white combination had already been composed on a 4" x 3" plane. I imagined every human's face, past, present, and future on the block. I imagined every possible combination of pixelated snow. Originality is definitely not as important as some other unspeakable thing. 
I have been running into the word "notan" a lot the past couple of months. It describes when darks and lights are in harmonic relation. Arthur Wesley Dow described it as when "synthetically related masses of dark and light convey an impression of beauty entirely independent of meaning." This makes perfect sense as I feel I may step even farther away from pure abstraction this year. Not far, mind you, just farther than my current modus operandi. And I suspect I will be shying away from block printing.
