Some Painted Flowers

Another cover

Rimbaud

Steven LaRose, O Seasons, O Castles!?, 2011

Oil on acrylic on wood, 24 x 32 inches

Cypher la Rose

Brian Cyper and Steven LaRose (title forthcoming), 2011
acrylic on ink on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches
(heck. . . maybe even you could add to this)

The interconnection in the sequence of ideas expressed during a connected discourse or thought

Wolf Eel

Seascape

Chariots of copper and of silver -
Prows of silver and steel -
Thresh upon the foam, -
Upheave the stumps and brambles.
The currents of the heath,
And the enormous ruts of the ebb,
Flow circularly toward the east,
Toward the pillars of the forest, -
Toward the boles of the jetty,
Against whose edge whirlwinds of light collide.

Illuminations is an uncompleted suite of prose poems by the French poet Arthur Rimbaud

Don't Trust Any Painter Under Forty

Eva Lake stopped by for a visit this morning. Dr. Boo took a fancy to her. He was not on his best behavior. Which is understandable as Boo has been feeling pent-up while Miso is dealing with a potentially fatal Salmon Poisoning Disease.


Eva's visit was short and sweet. We had to go down to the studio to get away from Dr. Boo who was acting like a little fan boy. It is understandable because it is not often that we entertain someone who is nominated for Portland's 2010 "Solo Show of the Year" and "Breakout Artist of the Year" before noon. (source: portlandart.net)

It occurs to me that Eva should have her own label here at Fish or Cut Bait. Click here for some of her previous appearances. Eva has a busy year lined up for 2011. This from one of her blogposts last week:

"Timothy Buckwalter has curated a very interesting three-part exhibition at the National Institute for Art and Disabilities in Richmond, CA. Life in the World to Come: Twist and Crawl features work by artists and work by individuals with disabilities. Of course some artists are both, always were. There are a few artists in this series I recognize - such as Chris Ashley (who I showed at Chambers) and Sharon Butler, who writes Two Coats of Paint. I’ll be in the exhibition in the spring."

I'd like to share three of my own indulgent links to Timothy, Chris, and Sharon that are different from the ones above.

But back to Eva; she is also slotted for a 2011 exhibition at Some Walls, and is still hosting "Art Focus" on KBOO Community Radio.

. . . and she owns a collie dog that I am sure was not going unnoticed by the Doctor Boo.

All the pictures in this post were taken with my iPhone. I think this will be the last time that I announce this. The final point is: Is it documentation or aesthetic communication? Point and shoot? Slow down and compose? Capture then edit? What if you were only allowed one photo a day? Or better yet. . . what if you had to produce (and share) one photo a day!

If that were the case, I would invest in a better camera. . . or maybe make my own digital pinhole.

Ah jeez. . . .

Where was I?

Oh yeah, Eva.
We high-fived each other and vicariously all participating painter/collage people that are over 40 years old that never imagined that they would even be considered in a "Breakout Artist of the Year" category. We both agreed, me and Eva, that the template is changing.

Some poems and paintings

 Why I Am Not a Painter, by Frank O'Hara


I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why?  I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not.  Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting.  I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says.  I drink; we drink.  I look
up.  "You have sardines in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh."  I go and the days go by
and I drop in again.  The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by.  I drop in.  The painting is
finished.  "Where's sardines?"
All that's left is just
letters.  "It was too much," Mike says.

But me?  One day I am thinking of
a color: orange.  I write a line
about orange.  Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page.  There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life.  Days go by.  It is even in
prose, I am a real poet.  My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet.  It's twelve poems, I call
it oranges.  And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called sardines.

Jackson Pollock, The Deep, 1953
Oil and enamel on canvas, 84 x 59 inches

Manet’s Olympia
By Margaret Atwood

She reclines, more or less,
Try that posture, it’s hardly languor.
Her right arm sharp angles.
With her left she conceals her ambush.
Shoes but not stockings,
how sinister. the flower
behind her ear is naturally
not real, of a piece
with the sofa’s drapery.
The windows (if any) are shut.
This is indoor sin.
Above the head of the (clothed) maid
is an invisible voice balloon: Slut.

But. Consider the body,
unfragile, defiant, the pale nipples
staring you right in the bull’s eye.
Consider also the black ribbon
around the neck. What’s under it?
A fine red threadline, where the head
was taken off and glued back on.
The body’s on offer,
but the neck’s as afar as it goes.

This is no morsel.
Put clothes on her and you’d have a schoolteacher,
the kind with the brittle whiphand.

There’s someone else in this room.
You, Monsieur Voyeur.
As for that object of yours
she’s seen those before, and better.

I, the head, am the only subject
of this picture.
You, Sir, are furniture.
Get stuffed.

The Hidden Persuaders Gather

Steven LaRose, Efflux of the Soul, 2011
Oil on acrylic on wood, 32 x 24 inches

"Seeing both an image of the familiar and a vision of the unknown."

(some guy writing about George Condo's work)

RECALL NOTICE
The following image is similar to a painting that we have posted before. The reason we bring this to your attention is that we have made some minor in-house embellishments to this painting. The staff here at Fish-or-Cut Bait would like to assure you that there is no reason to consider re-titling this piece.

Steven LaRose, Flouis XVI, 2011
Oil on acrylic on wood, 24 x 32 inches

I have become more and more frustrated with the quality of images that people have been posting on facebook these days. Of course, I am talking about painter people. Sure. . . we are officially on-beyond-slides at this point but that doesn't give one the freedom to take underexposed and poorly cropped pictures of your paintings. Heck no. That is like thinking a COEXIST bumper sticker makes your bad driving forgivable. Taking quality jpg's of your paintings is cheap and easy to do so quit making your paintings look bad for the rest of us.

Maaan. . . how am I supposed to title this?

I carried these two items from studio to studio for almost fifteen years. At some point after we moved to Ashland, I parted ways with the "No Opium Smoking" sign. I think the superheroes are in a flat file somewhere.


Hey, look! I'm the Artist of the Month over at the Bodies in Space site. (Click here to be shuttled there). Doctor G. is so gracious.

*

Steven LaRose, Beauty Will Be Convulsive, 2011

Oil on acrylic on wood, 32 x24 inches

Possible new suite title:

Max

Max Ernst, Forest and Dove, 1927
Oil on canvas, 1003 x 813 mm

Yesterday, I found myself staring at this painting by Max Ernst. For unconscious reasons I had wandered into the surrealism section of the library and pulled off of the shelf the only book without any words on the spine. Inside were all the melting-clocks and out-of-place-steam-engines that one would expect. I never really got into the purposeful non sequitur when I was younger. Maybe because I was weened on Sesame Street, The Monkees, and Monty Python, an untrammelled flow of images is second nature? The Surrealist Movement failed to seduce me. Even as I got older and really started to get into painting, I never understood how the fancy and laborious paint jobs of Dali and Magritte could have anything to do with pure psychic automatism. (Don't get me wrong, no painter has made me laugh and induce an "a'ha moment" more often than René (plus he can do some wicked good trompe l'oeil wood grain)). It was only when I saw this painting - which turns out to be from an entire suite by Ernst - did I make a connection between Surrealism and the truly painted thought that is dictated "in the absence of all control exercised by reason and outside all aesthetic or moral preoccupation" (from Breton's definition of S.)

Max worked his frottage magic on the floor and then teased an image from the controlled accident. I can dig it.

Up Loaded Images From My iPhone

I present to you - loyal followers - seven digital photographs.

Stacy, Zaida, Dr. Boo and Miso too, loaded into our wagon and we scrambled to the Oregon Coast for an impromptu couple of days.

This is an image taken from the lens of my iPhone camera while it rested on a ceramic tile that Stacy and I picked up on our belated honeymoon trip to New Zealand in 1999. It makes a fantastic wallpaper for mobile devices.

Ten year old humans can still play Sardines.

Whoa. . . check it out.
We just shared a moment.

Yesterday's Dutchbaby masterpiece.

The iphone painting apps don't seem to keep me as engaged on the toilet as some other apps do. This is the only thing I have produced since X-mas. I'm thinking of investing in a stylus.

And last but not least, here is an image sent to me by the owners of The Crown Jewel.

Once upon a time, in a far away land. . .

A Day In The Life Of Schmuck

Schmuck sure set himself up for this one. Twenty of his students followed his instructions; now The Schmuckster must pass judgment on their efforts. So cruel.

An then later: "I just want to make sure you are happy" he said to the client with the yellow cabinets.


No matter what went down in his life today, Sir Schmucksalot can't believe he finished a painting. And boy, was it a doozy too.

Steven LaRose, Louis XVI, 2011

Oil on acrylic on wood, 21 x 32 inches

(pronounced /ˈdɪptɪk/, from the Greek δίπτυχον,[1] from di- "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge.

Have I ever mentioned how wonderful the Only Diptychs blog is? Here is my Diptych Tuesday entry:



The more I thought about adjusting the levels of these images, the more I liked how dark they seemed until you tried to find absolute white.

Dreaming

Is there an organic photography movement? "Nothing added and nothing tweaked in post production" would be their mantra. And yet, is that even possible?

Here are some things that I want to remember to talk to my class about tomorrow:

• Dry time
• Sheen
• Safe use of paint thinner
• Tables Shelves and Palettes
• (I've always avoided group critiques as a teacher, but now I am thinking that maybe we should do one today. . . halfway through)
• A new twist to the assignment: Title this study
• Notice the warm/cool split at the red axis of the color wheel (and consequently the complementary break from green to yellow).

And then, in my fantasy world, we would all sit around the fire and compare-and-contrast the following images:

Jane Hipple, Fallebulge, 2008

oil on canvas, 60" x 72"

A New Cluster Sets Sail

I've had an iPhone under my belt for 15 days now. I've discovered that the apps are cool and all, but the lens quality is what I've spent the most time exploring.


I don't care for effects or nostalgic filters. In fact, I am even offended by them.


I appreciate how the lens makes me search for the limits and virtues of seeing.

Zoom in,

and zoom out.

The Barely Comprehensible Realm is complete and now I prepare for something else:


I am shifting from inches to feet. As I prepare the first surface, thumbnail renderings commence.