Fish or Cut Bait

Es Aye Tee You Are Dee Aye Why

2012-02-11T22:30:00.000-08:00

I went bowling with Zaida and her friend, but we ended up in the park.

The Difference

2012-02-10T14:52:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, From Whence Arise Diversity of Sects (phase two), 2012

I recently purchased a new Canon camera. I chose to keep my right arm and my left leg. It was totally worth it, however. This lens makes my new paintings look like the mammoth doodle orchestrations that they are.

What Have I Done?

2012-02-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, Towards the Door We Never Opened (phase two), 2012

I had to buy a better camera in order to take pictures of these bigger (36 x 80 inches) paintings. Whoa. The resolution is brilliant. Now I need to upscale the lighting or wait for overcast days. But for now, the uneven light spread is just fine because this painting won't look like this in two hours anyway. I thought it was charming enough for the moment however, and I was itching to test my new camera.

The Dead Flat Mistints (a new series from Steven LaRose)

2012-02-07T16:33:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, From Whence Arise Diversity of Sects (the original Gestalt of it), 2012


Steven LaRose, Towards the Door We Never Opened (in its infancy), 2012

Today I started two new paintings. Each of them are 36 x 80 inches. I am thoroughly jazzed. I usually am not a fan of "in progress" images as they seem to be about something else other than the finished painting. But then it occurred to me, "These paintings are totally orchestrated, and they need to be animated".

Special Space Sure Feature Number One

2012-01-31T00:45:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2012

Moholy-Nagy (Harold Hollingsworth)

Photoshop

Carla Knopp and Steven LaRose, 2012

Welcome to My World

Photoshop

Request Night (Jan 24 2012) #4

2012-01-24T01:34:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2012

Just home from a lovely evening out with a dear friend . . . think back to before you knew what you thought you were doing . . . and let yourself go . . . (John Hubbard)

Photoshop

Request Night (Jan 24 2012) #3

2012-01-24T00:50:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2012

In Praise of Form as a Condition of Procurement (Michael Nichols)

Photoshop

Request Night (Jan 24 2012) #2

2012-01-24T00:15:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2012

mombo dogface to the banana patch? (Craig Overbey)

Photoshop

Request Night

2012-01-23T23:51:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2012

Fog Candy (Liyah Babayan)

Photoshop

A Closer Look At "Mother Nature's Mirth"

2012-01-22T09:36:00.000-08:00

If attempting a forgery, please click on the following details for a larger view.

Steven LaRose, m'n'm' detail 1

Steven LaRose, m'n'm' detail 2

Steven LaRose, m'n'm' detail 3

Steven LaRose, m'n'm' detail 4

My First Painting For the post-Mayan Calendar

2012-01-19T13:29:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, Mother Nature's Mirth, 2012, paint on wood laminate, 36 x 80 inches

This is what my newest and bestest painting looks like when I squint.

2012-01-17T22:49:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, Mother Nature's Mirth (in squint mode), 2012

paint on wood laminate, 36 x 80 inches in real life.

Cell Phone Back Burner

2012-01-17T22:18:00.000-08:00

Have you ever noticed how "2012" makes a circle when you type it?

Totally Mayan.

I call this, "Cat Jumping Out Of Tree From Light Saber"

The house I am living in and the tree the cat jumped out of.

Have I posted this picture before?

In order to take this picture (even though I am holding my daughter's toes with both hands), I had to prop my iPhone on my face and push the shutter button with my tongue.

I like arranging other people's fridge poetry.

These two words trigger a high school prom awkwardness.

So cool.

At the Atelier of Whiting Tennis.

While Seattle was showing off their sky the other day,

I saw this in Ashland Oregon.

I Haven't Ruined a Painting in Years

2012-01-12T23:53:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, Mother Nature's Mirth (detail) (in progress), 2012

paint on wood laminate, 36 x 80 inches (not to scale) (lighting conditions may vary)

The Universe is random

There is nothing random when I paint, and

That is what makes it abstract

I paint because it is the only time that I really know what I am doing, even when I don't.

The Village Painter

2012-01-02T19:38:00.000-08:00

For MAH

2011-12-30T17:42:00.000-08:00

While I was on the floor, I took this picture of my tricked out wiring.

Three of the cans face my "painting wall" and the fourth aims at what? my gallery corner?

The point of this post really is to show MizHackett how I attached the cheapo clamp lights to my ceiling with the least amount of damage.

Some habits are hard to break

2011-12-27T22:16:00.000-08:00

I finally put some paper on the floor of my front room and clamped three lights to some screws in the ceiling. I guess my new house is going to be my new studio.

A hillbilly's last werds: Hey y'all, WATCH THIS!

2011-12-24T17:10:00.000-08:00

"Be the first audience".

- Dennis Hollingsworth's ninth Penny Aphorism.

No matter what you think of his paintings,

. . . everyone can appreciate his aphorisms.

I went to three "events" this last week in Seattle. They were all like totally inspirational (add vocal fry). Good people, inspired people, and spurring their sleach people. I talked about painting, I looked at paintings, and I scribbled in another person's sketchbook.

But check it out, I came home and I actually wanted to make a blog post. "Dear Diary. . . this week I met some really cool people and I wanted you (the Other) to meet them too."

It is Boxing Day and I have recently returned from Seattle. Zaida and I spent a week up there visiting my family. We spent much of the time goofing with her cousin.

Her cousin is as cute as a bug's ear.

Insects can detect very miniscule and high-pitched sounds, hence they are "acute".

The Bug's Ear was a little freaked out by the Downtown Seattle Carousel in the Park, but my daughter was able to sneak in a back-handed Sign of the Horns on one of her circumnavigations.

Family stuff. I didn't take many photographs of my family this season. I missed a lot of Kodak moments, and yet I paid more attention to my time because I wasn't trying to brand it. I never once thought: "Dang. . . there goes another Fish or Cut Bait moment".

And yet, here I am and why do you care?

Is it enough to behave as if we are our own First Audience?

Apparently, I am of the opinion that we should all share our shit. We should all romanticize the mundane.

That is why you are experiencing this; you dag-nab hill-billy.

This past week I took two evening excursions out into the pre-holiday-Seattle nightlife. In case you might not believe me, I took this picture of Carla Torgerson and Jim Sangster talking at Whiting Tennis's party. I actually have video from this night of me barking into a microphone while Mr. Fotheringham clawed at an electric guitar. I will not inflict that upon you. We have to draw the line somewhere. For example, I was ok blogging about my brush with cancer (rectum, nearly killed'im), and yet, heading towards a divorce (as common as it is) is not something I can share. Well. . . I suppose I could but that is where I draw one of my lines. Instead, check out this blurry iPhone picture I took of a painting Ed made of Whiting.

Brilliant. He's got him painting grapes. Ed captured the modern nostalgia that is Whiting. It is more than "illustrative".

At the first party, I got to sit in Whiting's command chair. Every painter has a command chair. A "command chair" is an "in-sight, in-mind" chair. Usually, a painter has a chair that they can nap in, but only for a neck-crinking length of time. From that chair, I saw this.

While in that chair, I tried to capture/filter some other people who were at the party and hold them in Whiting's sketchbook.

On the right is Doug Parry. Both in the drawing above and the photo below.

Doug is admiring David Kane, who made the painting (the center piece of a triptych) below that was being exhibited at Vermillion. (This was on my second night out).

I thought about David's paintings quite a bit that night. His limited palette of house paints was echoing the spiel that Whiting was giving me the night before. Also, I think that this was the first time that I have ever seen burlap used as a convincing ground. David's paintings were large enough to make the knobby tooth of the burlap seem proportional. To top it off, there were UFO's involved.
It is no wonder that at breakfast the next morning, the ketchup bottle across the diner was abducted.

But while I was at David Kane's opening I got to meet Bette Burgoyne. She makes some awesome stuff (like the image above).

I also gave a high five to Janet Galore. She writes speeches for Microsoft and also made this video:

This was part of Don't Assume I Cook, an evening of performance and film at the Northwest Film Forum, December 2011. Two hands fight over and play with a knife in a lonely and liminal world. Here, time is fluid: rushing forward, slowing, suspended.

Direction, hands, animation by Janet Galore

Filming by Edward Galore

Sound design by Christopher MacRae

After David's opening, I went to a party and chatted with Mike Musburger. We both had a good laugh over our self-conscious chins.

I also got to pose with Kurt Bloch that evening. (photo credit goes to Whiting).

I bet most painters don't know about Mike and Kurt. Here is a video of them goofing around.

Imagine what they could do if they were being serious.

Seriously. Anyway. I sat down to make a blogpost that I might be interested in.

Thanks y'all.

Facebook Request Night Again, 3

2011-12-13T00:58:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011

Maintain Surrogates (Brian Cypher)

Photoshop

Facebook Request Night Again, 2

2011-12-13T00:18:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011

Screaming Fields of Sonic Love (Mark Lewin)

Photoshop

Facebook Request Night Again, 1

2011-12-12T23:29:00.000-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011

Oregon rain cleans the ports (Rustin H. Wright)

Photoshop

The river jumps over the mountain and the salmon sing in the street.

2011-12-11T19:13:00.001-08:00

W. H. Auden

Goofing with Illustrator

2011-12-11T17:53:00.001-08:00

Life Shit

2011-12-09T18:44:00.001-08:00

A new piece of furniture in my life.

I am sitting in it now.

&

2011-11-30T20:06:00.001-08:00

I'm beginning to think that my favorite kind of Art always has an underlying brilliant idea at its core. That seems kind of obvious doesn't it?

Art that sucks is a bit of a twist.

It wouldn't be Art if it sucked.

Art always has to be awesome.

You can't lower the standards on what you think is Awesome.

Mediocre Blues Man.

At least I'm not a poet.

Request Night 4

2011-11-23T00:57:00.001-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011

nebulotinklestab (Dean Terry)

Photoshop

Request Night 3

2011-11-23T00:21:00.001-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011

Heat Death Time Line (Brian Cypher)

Photoshop

Request Night 2

2011-11-22T23:59:00.001-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011

kerosene daydreams (Paul James Martin)

Photoshop

Request Night 1

2011-11-22T23:31:00.001-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011

Caught, Dripping, feverish (Janet Galore)

Photoshop

Box of tricks

2011-11-20T09:38:00.001-08:00

Zaida had a friend spend the night last night. There is nothing blogworthy about that save for the fact that I am living in a spartan shell of a bachelor pad. I don't have cable, Wii, or whatever eleven-year-old girls need to occupy themselves. Or, so I thought. On a whim, I opened one of the boxes that contains all of my useless vintage how-to "art" contraptions. By the third "That's awesome" proclamation, I realized that maybe hanging on to those three sets of Spirographs wasn't so futile. Last night my kitchen floor was littered with clear plastic templates, green balled tacks, and uni-ball® Vision™ Elite™ Liquid Rollerball Pens.

I was only mildly surprised when the first thing they did when they woke up was move the operation out by the wood stove. "That's awesome" again.

Facebook Request Night 6

2011-11-19T23:42:00.001-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011
Horse Play, (Susan Abrill)
Photoshop

Facebook Request Night 5

2011-11-19T23:23:00.001-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011
Mother Loves Her Child, (Dashiel House)
Photoshop

Facebook Request Night 4

2011-11-19T22:42:00.001-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011
Progressive Recompense, (Paul James Martin)
Photoshop

Facebook Request Night 3

2011-11-19T22:23:00.001-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011
Incendiary Rhetoric, (David Lane)
Photoshop

Facebook Request Night 2

2011-11-19T21:44:00.001-08:00

Steven LaRose, 2011
Pulmonary Tuberculosis, (John Wilson)
Photoshop

Facebook Request Night

2011-11-19T21:17:00.001-08:00


Steven LaRose, 2011 She Simply Said, (John Wilson) Photoshop

Versacrum

2011-11-17T00:18:00.001-08:00

I just spent waaayy too much time learning the joys of the Bézier curve.

Self Own Cell Phone Amalgam

2011-11-12T19:48:00.001-08:00

I know it is merely a cliche, but who could resist the Chocolate Lab/Meringue Doodle harmonious duality?

I have fifteen students enrolled in my Community College Introduction to Drawing (Value) class. Just between you and me, I am appalled that "line" gets separated from "value" in an attempt to let students enroll any term.

The schools I work for want bodies, they aren't thinking about their product.

I have fifteen Drawing students who all contributed a title to their first "abstract" drawing. They had to create small thumbnail sketches of fifteen words.

I love the white board markers because chalkboards in general make the hair on the nape of my neck stand up, but conversely, white boards amplify my evil handwriting.

I have another group of Introduction to Oil Painting students who are doing quite well (chops wise) but simply don't understand the concept of working outside of the classroom. Yeah. . . I'm talking to you.

Hunker down.

How many of you receive texts with photo attachments from your eleven year old that are fucking brilliant? Is it just me?

Jugendstil Wednesday

2011-11-09T11:21:00.000-08:00

Arnost Hofbauer

Hans Christiansen

A serious distractor: The University of Heidelberg has a digital library that has tons of Jugend scanned and archived. Heilige Kuh!

One hundred years later. . .

2011-11-07T20:03:00.000-08:00

. . . and the uniforms have barely changed.

Illustrations by Gabriele Galantara who was "an Italian socialist with a scientific background, known throughout Europe for his caricatures. In 1892, he teamed up with Guido Podrecca to launch the satirical weekly L'Asino. The first issue appeared on 27 November 1892, and Galantara drew covers, cartoons and comic strips for the magazine under the penname Rata Langa. Around 1924, Galantara cooperated with the anti-fascist magazine Il Becco Giallo, for which he was arrested and sent to jail in 1926. Released in 1927, Galantaro has lived in probation until his death in 1937. During the final years of his life, Galantara painted, worked in animation and cooperated anonymously with the humorous newspaper Marc Aurelio." - from lambiek.net

Neophyte

2011-11-07T12:08:00.000-08:00

I've decided to call my new enterprise Fish & Cut Bait.

Notice that the wishy-washy "or" is not part of the business plan. Illustration and Design will be my focus. I am giving myself a crash course in Illustrator through the Lynda.com services. It is so fun and enormous I had to start somewhere simple. This was my first stab at a vector logo for F&CB. More to come of course.

I know NOTHING

2011-11-06T21:13:00.000-08:00

I am quite certain that it is inappropriate to discus the creaming of one's shorts on a blog that my daughter might read, and yet, how else can I describe what happened when I discovered the Art of the Luggage Label's photostream on flickr? Note that many of the sets also contain detailed historical descriptions.

Ayao Yamana

2011-11-06T19:44:00.000-08:00

Cool.

The Interwebs still work

2011-11-06T12:18:00.000-08:00

A couple days ago I was contacted by the manager of this building.

It seems that the 3600 North Lake Shore Drive Condominium Association has a couple murals in their lobby that they are restoring. They were painted by Claude Bentley who I did a little post about back in October of 2009. Claude doesn't have much of a web presence, so it was lucky that I was able to point the building manager towards the book that contained a brief statement by Claude.

I was understandably a little excited to see the murals so they sent me these two pictures. In the second one you can see where the restoration is almost complete around the signature. Dr. Margaret Nowosielska of the Conservation Center is doing the restoration.

But what really surprised me, besides seeing the internet once again work as a tool for esoteric research, was how big these paintings are. Here is a shot of the lobby from the condo's website and that must be a ten foot painting.

I made some sketches of a fellow nekkid human.

2011-10-26T23:54:00.000-07:00

This particular human likes to play music (with a saxophone):

The Necromancer from Jenifer Jaseau on Vimeo.

Here is the link to Jenifer's website.

Alvin Lustig

2011-10-22T19:35:00.000-07:00

I suppose all graphic designers know about Alvin Lustig, but as a painter who is bum rushing the show, I feel like I just discovered my secret new band.

The cult of the jellyfish is no less an imposition of a religious movement than is the cult of the dinosaur. - Beau Sheil

2011-10-21T19:24:00.000-07:00

"But you know, there's something about the kids finishing their homework in a given day, working one-on-one, getting all this attention - they go home, they're finished. They don't stall, they don't do their homework in front of the TV."
Dave Eggers

While shuffling my "studio" over to my new digs, I came across three paintings that shared the same flocked wallpaper as a background. The funny thing is, I now see that the wallpaper was the hero all along.

While shuffling through the boxes, my daughter excitedly sat on the floor to do her homework. . . on a Friday evening no less.

A Qantas Cascade

2011-10-18T14:58:00.000-07:00

Qantas Travel Posters by William F. Schey/Harry Rogers (1950s-1960s)

Another smash hit from Jacques de Beaufort

2011-10-17T15:01:00.001-07:00

Art Criticism

View more presentations from Jacques de Beaufort

I Love It

2011-10-16T09:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was looking at old Swissair posters, and this morning I am trolling current designer - illustrator web sites. I liked Ketchup Mustard's logo and especially the "You Love It" screenprint.
K-M's about plug: "Jaime Van Wart spends her days designing software for IBM, her nights designing original typefaces and custom lettering. Saucebomb is a home for news and announcements, process work, and strokes of creative genius. Jaime can best be contacted at sauce@ketchup-mustard.com. Send her some love, or visit Ketchup 'n' Mustard to view her portfolio.

Did you notice that she has a day job? That isn't very encouraging.

Visual weight balances much as physical weight does

2011-10-15T13:21:00.000-07:00

I keep coming back to this image for some reason. Maybe I should reverse engineer my taste. Apparently I am a sucker for a translucent layer of color. A screened pull of diaphanous color works just like a medium rich glaze would in painting. Check out how the raw umber pagoda silhouette is slicing through her pupil. The composition is classic steelyard.

I also seem to be interested in a certain kind of texture. I wonder if this is a generational thing?

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? - Albert Einstein

2011-10-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

Menomena concert poster
at the Mercy Lounge- Oct 9, 2010
hand made 2 color screen print
poster measures 18 inches x 24 inches
signed & numbered edition of 75
artist: Andrew Vastagh (Boss Construction)

Just so I don't get all nostalgic on myself, I am going to force my research to alternate between the old and the current. Art is either plagiarism or revolution.- Paul Gauguin. I'm going to shamelessly steal from many. There is the interesting nuance right there; that razor's edge that makes originality so coveted in the painting world. That is, the high-horse-on-a-pedestal-in-a-white-cube-at-the-top-of-an-ivory-tower vibe that is often associated with the fine art gallery culture, doesn't translate to this illustrator/designer identity I'm exploring. Obviously, there are exceptions and cross-overs, but I can tell I am going to dig the intelligent craft of my new chosen profession. I'm sure once I get me feet on the ground, I'll feel the visceral tug of oil paint once again, but right now, I'm a bull in a candy shop.

I need to focus. I need to be efficient. Am I going to be a Jack-of-all-Trades or a Shtick Meister? Do I study hard and become an Adobe Certified Expert or do I try to make what I think is cool and see how my chops and aesthetics develop? Should I be a Designer-Illustrator with a unique brand, or the glib, facile, and charming translator of whatever the client wants?

Shit. . . I still gotta put my name on the mailbox and unpack boxes.

I guess if I've learned anything from painting paintings is that it is helpful to start with a grand idea and work the details out later. "Paint the dog before the fleas" I always say. Less obvious, but more beautiful is when I shout "You can't cram a cake inside the frosting!"

Either way I go, there is an over-arching name or company logo that needs to be developed. Am I Steven LaRose Graphic Design? SLGD? LaRose Illustration and Design? LID? The Fish or Cut Bait Group? FoCB Design? Teresa Sloven Graphic Design? Some made-up word that still has an available url and sounds like illustration? etc. etc.

Overwhelmed

2011-10-13T22:40:00.000-07:00

I am overwhelmed. I could go on-and-on about painters old and now, but I am finally 'fessing up to a certain taste in design. I have no schooling in design but it seems I have a taste that I never explored or spent the time to define. Do I have to explain why I like this label from 1951?

Nesting

2011-10-10T18:40:00.000-07:00

The First Things to Hang

I'm starting to pull everything out of the flat file because I've got to move it. It used to be under our house in the crawl space and totally out-of-sight-out-of-mind. There is some neat stuff in there. Perfect inspiration for a budding Graphic Designer. Left to right we have an infamous Flaming Lips poster that Art Chantry created, a Butthole Surfers black velvet gem by Paul Mavrides, three Kozik creations, and two Chris Ware screen prints. But the things I didn't know I had, my mom must have saved these, is two Slurpee cups.

Visceral Discovery

All New

2011-10-07T20:57:00.000-07:00

This is my first blog post from my new pad. That's right, you heard me. Don't go thinking that I'm going to get all bloggy about my divorce, but it would be silly for me not to acknowledge the situation. The theory is: Life is short, and we will both be happier.

In the meantime however, I am living the Fish or Cut Bait dream: liminality.

Rest assured, this will not turn into a blog about the tales of a single 48 year old slacker. The fact of the matter is, I've taken the opportunity to purchase the entire Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 (at an incredible "educators" discount) and a fairly large Wacom tablet. We can expect a Fish or Cut Bait makeover in the coming year. But first, I've got to move some boxes, purchase cutlery, and figure out what an "IRA Beneficiary Change" means.

It has been over a quarter century since I've lived with a wood burning stove as my primary heat source. My first official night of sleeping here, and I am digging it.

Weekend Day Job

2011-09-13T12:10:00.000-07:00

I emailed a photo-shopped proposal to the Ashland Art Center that was for a paint treatment for their ratty old blue awning.

They liked my idea so I spent the weekend on a scaffold in the 90 degree heat with a metal straight edge, tape, and yogurt cups filled with acrylic paint.

The thing I am most amazed at is this photograph I took at dusk with my old iPhone 3GS. This proves that there is something really fascinating about my phone's low-light properties. I didn't do any adjustment tweaking of this image and the reds and whites pop as much as my proposal.

Some things I remember from the scaffold place-on-high which is apparently an invisible realm to many people:

The old man (older than me) from the musical instrument store takes a smoke break every hour. I worried about him. (Also, he should refrain from scratching his hiney while standing on the sidewalk).
Grandmas are the most forthcoming regarding their advice and critical judgment regarding awning painting.
Most women are very graceful and even unconscious at adjusting their neckline while passing beneath a scaffold. Those who didn't however, were always chattering on their phone.
Gross generalization: Boys with skateboards have a chip on their shoulder.
Who is the role model for the Floral Print/Hawaiian/Jimmy Buffett shirt wearing class of gentlemen and are they in cahoots with the iZod-and-collar-up faction?
I wish I could speak Spanish.
Car alarms. . . in Ashland. . . downtown and mid-day. Really?
Acoustics of a village block are fascinating. Sounds bounce with a parabolic focus from locations that would normally seem improbable. That is to say, be careful what you say while walking down the street in a small town.
The loudest diesel pick-up trucks are always white.
I love the idea that there are so many cars fueled by discarded cooking oil in our town but the consequential aroma is something I could live without.
Nobody should think that patchouli is better than B.O.
Does Harley Davidson really have a copyright on that "lookatme, lookatme, lookatme" farting sound? Do the biggest donkeys really bray the loudest?
Window displays are more important than I realized.
My understanding of what an "artist" does, isn't the same as most people.

Starting the week off with some gas

2011-08-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

(Click on image for larger views). I came across this in an old magazine. It cracked my immature self up and then filled me with painter envy. The arching diagonal composition, analogous palette, and confident mark vocabulary had my bifocaled nose pressed up on the yellowing paper. Just an illustration? I wonder who "AM" is?

On to something

2011-08-18T08:20:00.000-07:00

Faith

Steven LaRose, Arrangement 2 2003
Oil on stone, 6 x 6"
(click here for more)

In 2003, I was painting with oil on squares of polished marble, granite, and exotic stones that I gathered from the sink cut-outs of various job site dumpsters. I painted and painted and really thought I was on to something until I read the Janet Lloyd translation of Hubert Damisch's A Theory of /Cloud/ TOWARD A HISTORY OF PAINTING find it here
In it, Hubert bursts my bubble and locks me in!

Of course, these aren't Hubert's words but he is quoting someone else's translation of Leonardo da Vinci's:
How to expand the mind and conduct various inventions:

"I shall not fail to include among these precepts a new discovery, an aid to reflection, which, although it seems a small thing and almost laughable, nevertheless is very useful in stimulating the mind to various discoveries. This is: look at walls splashed with a number of stains or stones of various mixed colours. If you have to invent some scene, you can see there resemblances to a number of landscapes adorned in various ways with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, great plains, valleys, and hills. Moreover, you can see various battles, and rapid actions of figures, strange expressions on faces, costumes, and an infinite number of things, which you can reduce to good, integrated form. This happens thus on walls and varicoloured stones, as in the sound of bells, in whose pealing you can find every name and word you can imagine.
Do not despise my opinion when I remind you that it should not be hard for you to stop sometimes and look into the stains on the walls, or the ashes of a fire, or clouds, or mud, or like things, in which, if you consider them well, you will find really marvellous ideas. The mind of the painter is stimulated to new discoveries, the composition of battles of animals and men, various compositions of landscapes and monstrous things and similar creations, which may bring you honour, because the mind is stimulated to new invetions by obscure things."

And before Leo da "V" there was Song Di, a Chinese painter from the eleventh century:

"Choose an old, ruined wall, spread over it a piece of white silk. Then, every morning and evening, look at it until at last you can see the ruin through the silk, its bumps, levels, zig-zags, and cracks, fixing them in your mind and your eyes. Make the bumps into your mountains, the deepest parts your rivers, the hollows your ravines, the cracks your streams, the lightest parts your closest points, the darkest parts your most distant points. Fix all that deeply within you and soon you will see men, birds, plants and trees, and figures flying or moving between them. Then you can use your brush as you will. And the result will be a heavenly, not a man-made thing."

Well, a couple days ago, I went to a soapstone quarry and got myself some chunks of soft rock. This stuff is totally addictive and many things are starting to make sense to me. Here is a brief turn-around video of where my first exploration is headed. I figure that the piece is about halfway done but I couldn't resist posting something because I am really enjoying myself and there is nobody else in my studio that I can nudge with my elbow and say "Whoa. . . check it out".

Nocturne Plein Air

2011-08-15T09:29:00.000-07:00

I can still count the number of plein air paintings I've attempted using both hands, but not after last night. Sarah Burns took me on a excursion into the Ashland dusk in order to have a go at nocturne plein air studies. Many painters have tried this. We raced around town looking for a good place to set up and initially landed on the planting strip that runs down the middle of our Boulevard.
The sun was setting behind a classic retro neon sign. It seemed like a no-brainer. But, of course, it was wicked hard because the colors were changing as fast as the cars zipping by. Also, before I do this again, I am going to do a little research on the best methods for mimicking light glow.

Also, I will bring pre-tinted boards that are larger than the 5 x 7 inch stupid little cheap-os that I thoughtlessly grabbed. Not only is it hard to paint that small, they are simply hard to hold on to and I dropped mine butter side down in the grass. Oh well. The whole neon thing was wigging me out as it got darker and I left my first painting flopping like a half squashed beetle.

I was so rattled, I spelled "Motel" wrong. Doesn't matter though right? I was just trying to figure out how to make light. . . at night. I thought Sarah's painting turned out really sweet.

Next we moved downtown and spent a long time just walking around looking at nooks and crannies. The two of us must have been a classic cliche with our easels on our backs and holding up our L7 fingers to frame the world. We finally settled on a simple wall across the street that allowed us to have back lighting from a storefront.
I'm looking more and more like a turtle without his shell. Anyway, Sarah once again nailed it.

She framed what was nice about the wall, the three tall trees and the open window. I had trouble editing and tried to put far too much composition on to my little board.

The whole experience was really fun, even though I felt like a hamfisted troglodyte. I haven't been painting in what seems like ages. Just getting out there and hacking and glopping away felt good. Thanks Sarah.

Gay

2011-08-13T18:19:00.000-07:00

. . . or so would I be if I had found the "How to Paint" pamphlet from the Western Auto Wizard.

I mean, even their castle/laboratory is a perfect balance.

I have been saving these two torn out magazine pages for over a decade now. I still don't think I can part with them yet. There are so many tangents built into these paintings. First of all, the painting is beautiful. I'm sure there must be an illustration geek out there who can tell me who was responsible for this account?

I stole these images from a dead-illustrator's image file. Imagine. . . once upon a time, people would cut out the pages of magazines, place them in manila folders, and then alphabetize the pages by topic, technique, animal, vegetable , or mineral.

Print Pirates.
Graphic Groupies.

Is it possible to have a crush on an illustration?

The Flower of Pain

2011-08-13T18:00:00.000-07:00

The following is totally cut-and-pasted from NLIB.
"
Not everyone will agree that art must be born out of pain. It has to be heartfelt though. And the creative process process (sic) may require that you give your utmost.

"The Flower of Pain".

Chrysanthemum, Steel grass,

Gladiolus.

In this ikebana arrangement I have used dying branches with black bark, cut into small pieces and put together with nails to create a rather compact Hana dome, a flower fixture that becomes an integrated part of the arrangement. Dark red Chrysanthemum and two more vivid red Gladiolus gives the colour.

This is my interpretation of the rather dramatic woodcut "The Flower of Pain" (1898) by Edvard Munch. The artist is kneeling on the ground with his upper body twisted in pain, blood pouring out of his heart. Out of the soil that is soaked in his blood grows a lily. The flower nourished by the blood symbolizes art forcing it's way as a necessity of life.

This is the last ikebana arrangement from the series inspired by Munch's art that I made earlier this summer for an exhibition at Oslo Rose Days. I hope you have enjoyed them. The exhibition takes place every summer in the Freia Hall, an integrated part of the Freia chocolate factory in Oslo. The walls of the hall is covered with large paintings by Munch. This hidden gem of art is now to be sold, so this might be our last year.

From The Dustbin of Tree Design

2011-08-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

This whole sculpture thing has got me in a tizzy. It doesn't help that I am boning up on my Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Century Art History. The tizzy stems from an exhilarating decision to finally venture into the third dimension. Most of my exposure to sculpture is from Whiting Tennis. I've shared a studio with him and even helped him make some editions on a limited scale for some of his earlier shows. I like to think that I know how Whiting thinks. His drawings and paintings transitioned into another dimension effortlessly.

I suppose that I have been thinking that everyone works like Whiting. Well, according to my readings on the history of early modern art, I'm a dork. I'm willing to bet that Clodion didn't work like Whiting.Of course, I know loads of other people who make sculptures, but I haven't gotten to know them like I know Whiting. His process makes sense to me; that is why I have found myself "back to the drawing board" even though I keep ranting about sculpture.

I started a recent session by drawing my daughter in order to loosen up. She chose a very funny and exaggerated posture of nonchalance.

These squares from the Pencilove suite are all 6 x 6 inches so keep in mind that I can't get too detailed with my marks (without wasting precious time sharpening my pencils (total buzz kill trying to keep a sharp point)). Also, one can't expect an eleven year old to sit still for very long. As I was shaking off my inhibitions through this self-imposed exercise of Beat-the-Clock. . .

. . . I started to wonder why one of the most gloriously peaceful things to do in my life is to try and capture a 3D object with pencil and paper. It even seemed the exact opposite of what I was setting out to do, which was to draw about sculpture. I like to compress and filter dimensions within a reasonable time limit, but now I was trying to make the drawings that would expand and spray into sculptures.

Plus, I also started thinking about representation.

Why would I ever make a realistic sculpture of my daughter? Even during the 1700's people were aware of the vanity of such practices. I suppose I am sympathetic towards things that are more universal or idealized. For example, here is a link to a tumblr page that essentially represents my adolescent development of sexy. . . and interestingly it also represents why I wanted to learn to paint. Exaggerated and mod Frazetta women inhabit my sub-conscious.
But who gives a shit?

I feel like Bevis elbowing Butt-head

So then I tried to draw something simple, non-gender specific, and more to the scale of the 6 x 6 pieces of bristol I had stacked next to my drawing board.

I began to think about how every drawing I start when thinking about sculpture, begins with the presumption that I am working with a material; that is, "I am starting this drawing by imagining a graphically simple stainless steel monument." Or, "I wonder if I could make something out of sprayfoam, clay, or wax that feels like one of those cascading Asian landscapes but also invokes/evokes the figure?"
What if I was working with something more solid and reductive? What if I quarried some local soap stone and whacked around with a chisel?

What if I built something out of re-claimed materials?
Fug the limitations of materials, what do I think is something that I would like to see in real life?

I had learned to harness ignorance with presumption. I was ready to become an unacknowledged watercolorist. (Henry Miller)

2011-08-08T19:49:00.000-07:00

Back in the late 90's, I used to go on thrift store dates with my wife-to-be. She would hunt for her things, and I would hunt for mine. Did you know that: "Entering the English language in the late 19th century, the word safari means "long journey" in Swahili?" It is a great word that I always equated with killing animals for social status. Of course, I was raised on television. Little did I know that in 1836 William Cornwallis Harris led an expedition purely to observe and record wildlife and landscapes by the expedition's members. Harris established the safari style of a not too strenuous rising at first light, an energetic day walking, an afternoon rest then concluding with a formal dinner and telling stories in the evening over drinks and tobacco. -wikipedia.

That is how we used to go thrift storing. I found a couple watercolor sets over my travels.
In watercolor, if you are not in trouble, then you're in trouble. (Selma Blackburn)

This aluminum tray is brilliant. I think I'm going to get the above image tattooed across my chest. I suppose the only responsible thing would be to get the image below tatted across my back.
What is great about this set - besides the design - is that it has been carefully used. Many of the cakes have not been touched, and yet a few have been hollowed out with love. Also, I often lose sleep over how the colors have been organized.
A little amateur painting in water-color shows the innocent and quiet mind. (Robert Louis Stevenson)

This unassuming tin was a monstrous rush when I found it. The sleek contours of the heavier gauge mixing trays and well crafted hinge system betrayed an attention to detail that is hard to come by these days. But the rush came when I opened it.

Perfect patties laid out in a responsible color wheel! AND damn it if it didn't have a beautiful guide book that came with it. To this day, I think this Symphonic Color Wheel is one of the most simple and clear examples of hue, tint, and shade I've ever come across.

Watercolour could have been used more by the modernists. It is so direct, and when the white paper convention is accepted, so powerful, even brutal, that it would seem an ideal medium. (David Milne)

I opened a box labeled "Art Kitsch" that I had under the house because I am going through an eBay phase of cleansing. I don't think I will be parting with these water color sets however. In fact, I am feeling inspired. Maybe I am even a little confused because the red, white, and black of this Kopy Kat Paint Box just kills me with its design sense, but it is peculiar how un-watercolor-like it is. And, of course, it is virtually impossible not to think of Jack and Meg, or the Third Reich.

Somebody used this set in the same mercurial way as the first one we saw. It is interesting that the browns and ochers have been soaked up but many of the vibrant primary and secondary colors remain untouched. I'm sure there is a graduate school thesis in here somewhere.

The funny thing about this Kopy Kat set is that all the cakes are in their wrong trays. It seems like somebody tried to organize them by hue. All the cakes have stuck in their place and I don't dare try and move them for fear of snapping their perfect little convex molds.

This was and adult's set for sure.

-to Erje Ayden... Watercolors is the first and the last thing an artist does. (Willem de Kooning)

This Guitar tin, even with its gorgeous chocolate eclair palette, is not my favorite. Don't get me wrong, the design is timeless on the outside, but the internal layout is
actually pretty cool when I think about it. I mean, what other colors do you need, right? These might be watercolors made by the gods for all I know. I've never painted with these tins. I wasn't on safari for them for their actual contents. Sheesh. But it makes me wonder, how many colors could I survive on a desert island with? Watercolor is like life. Better get it right the first time – you don't get a second chance! (Sergei Bongart)

Is twelve all you really need? Twelve pads of pigment? Are Black and White even necessary?
Why not wheedle it down to eight?
Where oils lumber... watercolours prance. (Doug Mays)

Being in sync with watercolor requires a confident hand and a willingness to be on the razor's edge. If you crash and burn, so what? Surely, playing it safe won't take you where you want to be. (Frank LaLumia)

Nah.
Eight is for the spartan-zen purists. Eight is for children, mad-men, and the primitives.
The sophisticated human MUST have 108 colors to work with.

Doesn't this aesthetic pander more towards the high brow (especially because the layout is entirely impractical)?

Gerhard Richter
1025 Colours, 1974
Oil on canvas
120 x 124 cm

It is remarkable how my aesthetic can swing from primal to refined in a matter of seconds.

It is remarkable how very individual technique becomes in watercolour. Every man of personality finally arrives at a method peculiarly his own, as unique as his own fingerprint. (Walter J. Phillips)

Ornament and Crime

2011-08-06T20:55:00.000-07:00

Text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Photographs from Steven LaRose's iPhone while walking to the library today (except for two black and white images taken from The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And inBorneo and the Philippines, by H. Wilfrid Walker.

Ornament and Crime is an essay written in 1908 by the influential and self-consciously "modern" Austrian architect Adolf Loos under the German title Ornament und Verbrechen. It was under this challenging title that in 1913 the essay was translated into English: "The evolution of culture marches with the elimination of ornament from useful objects", Loos proclaimed, linking the optimistic sense of the linear and upward progress of cultures with the contemporary vogue for applying evolution to cultural contexts.^{[citation needed]}

In Loos's essay, "passion for smooth and precious surfaces"^[1] he explains his philosophy, describing how ornamentation can have the effect of causing objects to go out of style and thus become obsolete. It struck him that it was a crime to waste the effort needed to add ornamentation, when the ornamentation would cause the object to soon go out of style. Loos introduced a sense of the "immorality" of ornament, describing it as "degenerate", its suppression as necessary for regulating modern society. He took as one of his examples the tattooing of the "Papuan" and the intense surface decorations of the objects about him—Loos considered the Papuan not to have evolved to the moral and civilized circumstances of modern man, who, should he tattoo himself, would either be considered a criminal or a degenerate.^[2]

The essay was written when Art Nouveau, which Loos had excoriated even at its height in 1900, was about to show a new way of modern art. The essay is important in articulating some moralizing views, inherited from the Arts and Crafts movement, which would be fundamental to the Bauhaus design studio and would help define the ideology of Modernism in architecture.

My Sculptural Taste

2011-08-05T22:14:00.000-07:00

Ed "Big Daddy" Roth's Orbitron is part of my DNA.

Sculpture Studies

2011-08-04T08:58:00.001-07:00

So.
I've got some paintings hanging in Santa Fe and some in Indianapolis as well. Last week I spent some more time up on the San Juan's trying to help Micajah with some sculptures. I find myself at a crossroads in the studio. I keep thinking about making a sculpture myself, but I don't know where to begin. The possibilities are exhausting. I've decided to spend some time thinking about it with the language I am familiar with. These are pencil sketches that I would love to have your input on, not as sketches, but as inspirations for discussions of materials, methods, and meanings.

One of my early thoughts was that I like to draw, so why not try to translate that into wire or rebar:

Of course, this would only work from one point of view, unless the subject was wrapped continuously. If that were the case, I could see drawing up figures in one of the many 3D modeling programs, but then I would lose the charm of the drawing. Also, if I were to spend a considerable amount of time making a figure, what sort of imagery would warrant such attention? I've always liked the storybook owl icon. But then, why go so literal? I imagined designing a more abstract plop-art icon.I thought it would be cool to have a monumental shiny stainless geometric form that was held up in the air by the exploding planes that were the top, front, and side views made of bars.

Cool concept, but why spend all that time on a visual pun? So then I thought I should spend time thinking about a piece that would be important to me on a monumental scale. What would I like to interact with on a daily basis?

Wow. That is tough and humbling to think about. I came up with this thing that was a macro/micro gateway. It should probably be small enough to look through from above and big enough to lay down and view the heavens with. This made me think of James Turrell. Then I started thinking about how the materials must inform the idea. I thought of Tom Friedman. I panicked at the possibilities again.

Slow down.
I decided to go back to basics and try to generate my own vocabulary. This will take years. What if I got myself some good old fashioned marble and made something as big as my head?

Why does it have to be marble? Why can't I make it out of foam, give it a fiberglass shell, and paint it to look like marble? In the drawing above, I imagined not a front view and a side view, but two pieces next to each other. There is a nod to animation. But is it too abstract? Too minimal? What if I spent some time designing a scene? Can't animation be created simply through the flow of a piece?

I imagined a life-sized cantilevered drunken old angel pushing a cart up an invisible hill. Still with his feet on the ground, I had mixed emotions about how this could be read, which is great. Maybe too ambitious. I wouldn't know even how to make something like this. Micajah gave me some sculpture wax, but only enough to make a GI Joe size maquette. Maybe that is ok. I could learn about the lost wax process. But why bronze? Why not polyester resin like Nina Levy used to use? Why not something that I can up-cycle from the landfill? Why not something more simple to start?

My final drawing for the evening, thinking about mold simplicity and concept elegance, took me to a final shape of an ambiguous toddler in a timeless costume gazing off at an uncertain vista.

Sculpture is hard.

The more I look at this the more it cracks my wtf up

2011-08-03T23:43:00.000-07:00

I'm in a group show that opened tonight. The category "group" often implies a curatorial mess but this four person show was finely honed by painter/blogger Carla Knopp.

The following is swiped in full from Mary Addison (her double first name) Hackett's blog:

Art Road Trip, part 1.

Asynchronous Salon at Herron School of Art and Design opens tonight and runs through August 26th.

The show includes Steven LaRose's, The Barely Comprehensible Realm,

Carla Knopp's latest work,

Nomi Lubin's, Not Paintings,

Carla hanging Nomi's work

My Pool Paintings from Fluid: Elusive Chapters from the Passage of Time with the addition of a couple of new ones, and the alla prima wall painting I did while listening to Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs." The album is 64:07 in length, so according to my rules, the painting took 64:07 minutes. It was videotaped. The video will run throughout the exhibition.

Mary Addison Hackett, "The Suburbs, 64:07"
alla prima wall painting

Mary Addison Hackett

Carla Knopp penned a curatorial statement about the impact of social media on artists and communities:

Independent artists are creating pockets of meaningful dialogue across the internet. They make art which continues the tradition of individual artistic discovery, and they post their findings on personal art blogs. These artists are quite familiar with current art considerations, and their work and their conversations reflect these broader concerns. They also quite relentlessly follow their own art intrigues. As blog hosts they create 21st century art salons, where they and their guests use new media to find and develop vibrant, interlinking art communities.

Asynchronous Salon brings together one such pocket of blogging artists. I have invited Mary Addison Hackett, Steven LaRose, and Nomi Lubin to join me in this show at my alma mater, Herron School of Art & Design. I have been art blog buddies with each for a few years now, and while we have not all met in person, I felt a deep desire to see our work together. It seems relevant to have this dialogue show at an art institution, where many of us first experienced these supportive relationships with fellow artists, albeit through traditional time and space parameters.

My enthusiasm for the work these artists produce is intertwined with my strong personal affinity towards each as an individual. Our art shares certain similarities, though they tend to reflect parallel coincidences more than direct influence. These often occur as an after-the-fact recognition, or as a vague sense of familiarity. When Nomi pushes round shapes to their most ludicrous physical limits, or when she negotiates coyly with visual logic, I feel kin instincts. I'd like to stage a battle between Steven's halfway-incarnated creatures and my own. I'd also like to adopt his fluid approach to painting. Mary Addison's abstractions are visually complex layerings, which echo a common tendency amongst this group, to steer hard towards the incomprehensible. Her more figurative work poignantly grasps life's transitions. As a group the work is similar formally. The color palettes, object shapes, scale, size, wry wit, and density of surface all cavort within a certain tactile range. This sets up an interesting tension for the show....a battle-dance perhaps.

As our separate artist statements reveal, we each share a strong desire to form or find meaning from unknown places of the imagination; we are the primary instigators of our own art experience. This also makes us cultural vagrants of sorts. The individual artistic meander is often a difficult process to justify; to one's community, and even to oneself. It's very inspiring to encounter artists who make this leap of faith without compromise. I believe these artistic investigations matter. I believe it is an integral part of being human, and must continue, regardless of how our means for making and sharing may change.

Asynchronous Salon is one small group show of art, but it also suggests a possible framework for self-determination
within the arts community. We can use our media technologies to find and create intimate environments. We can foster and share our most profound thoughts and discoveries. We can bypass institutionalized arts programming and cultural management, and can instead foster authentic dialogues. We can form communities of individuals who celebrate in each others' freaking amazing discoveries.

- Carla Knopp, curator

Stay Tuned for Art Road Trip, part 2. I'm a few days behind in general. Lots to post. Lots to paint.

"
sez Mary Addison.

Me, I'm drawing about sculpture. (I promise scans for tomorrow).
(Thanks Carla).

Have I Ever Told You About The Time. . .

2011-07-27T20:52:00.000-07:00

. . . when we were walking through the park?

Zaida and I went on a little photo safari the other day. One can't help but consider walking through Lithia Park when on a photo safari. In fact, upon entering the wilds of the park, we were confronted with, what looked like to me, a Julien brand easel. We approached it from behind. Zaida tried to distract me, "Ooo, look at that red tree!" she nudged. I mumbled something to the effect of "Of course, of course, that tree is wonderful and, my! how it compliments the dirty yellow-green of the grass." But really, all I was doing was steering Zaida towards what I hoped was a killer plein air painting.

I like to think that it is pretty hard to throw me for a loop. I tell you what, the fella who was wielding this brush, just expanded my loop envelope.

I was embarrassed by my assumptions. And yet, proud of humanity.

It is summer vacation in my part of humanity.

Summer Vacation was a great song idea that Steve Turner gave to a band I was in called Love and Respect.

Whiting Tennis was in that band too.

I came across this assemblage of wood while we were at Carkeek Park the other day. I'd thought I'd walked upon a Whiting Tennis memorial.I don't know who made this sculpture. I needed a sculpture garden password to get that. Seriously.

Summer vacation for me has turned out to be an inverted busman's holiday. I drove up to the San Juan Islands again in order to help my friend Micajah make some sculptures for Juan Alonso.

The prehistoric bluff and ravine landscape of my childhood has created my sense of space and composition.
Here is one of three pieces that Juan has sent to Micajah for fabrication. Actually, this is the first piece before we bead blast the surface. iPhone photographs of the booth we built just for the occasion are forthcoming.

"No-one gives a shit what you think. No-one gives a shit what you do. No-one gives a shit what you say, so you might as well do it anyway." - 'No-one Gives a Shit' - Steve Turner.

Outshine Them All

2011-07-20T13:14:00.001-07:00

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. - Thomas A. Edison
Junk is the ideal product... the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy. - William S. Burroughs
Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard. - Paul McCartney

The pencil box contains no pencils. Surely the printed colors have faded. The linen is gorgeously stained. Between the two "See and Draw Copier" boxes, I can put together one working armature. It is a fussy exercise in appropriate lighting (and squinting) to make it work. It is a novelty and doesn't help a person draw one bit.

Gillian Carnegie (TLP1000)

2011-07-18T14:57:00.000-07:00

This will be my second attempt at writing a little something about paintings that I see as jpgs on the Internet. Actually, I am working my way backwards from the list on the Thousand Living Painters blog. I wanted to dive into these images with nothing more than my visceral honesty, but lo-and-behold, I am instantly struck dumb by Carnegie's paintings. I'm not sure I can write about beautiful butts. The phrase "loaded" comes to mind. And then there is the fact that there are virtual reams of words written about Carnegie and that makes me nervous that I will be missing something obvious or overlooking a revealing nuance that everybody else can plainly glean. I don't want to glean from the reams, I want to trust my gut.

Carnegie handles the paint beautifully. I am enchanted by the reserved palette. There is a comparison to Graham Durward's monochromatic range that I didn't touch on in the previous installment. Maybe I could learn something from this temperament.

I'm too old to be interested in the psychological implications of my voyeurism. I don't feel the need to rationalize my visits to the weekly drawing sessions anymore. It has been almost twenty years since a graduate school dialog about the male gaze and I live nowhere near other painters who would ever consider deconstructing anything. I like Carnegie's paintings. It occurs to me, after two of these exercises, that I fundamentally like them because I don't think I could paint them myself. I found Durward's paintings accessible because the marks were familiar to me. I didn't swoon over them because of the subject matter. Carnegie's paintings however, seem to be built by a much more sculptural hand. I wish I could paint with those blocky planes of value.

I like Carnegie's paintings because the flowers and butts seem like the ultimate-empty-double-dare-painter-challenge which, ironically to those of us in-the-know, isn't empty at all. They are like writing a catchy pop song, if it was so easy, everyone would do it.

Disrupting Patterns Informed by Sensibility

2011-07-17T21:59:00.000-07:00

I feel like I did when I was a boy playing with my vibrating football game. A screaming metal piston in a magnetic coil agitates the sheet metal and I am spending hours looking for patterns. Everything is shaking around me. All I need to do is block out the ambient din and focus on the developing designs.

The hosting venue for my Tuesday night drawing sessions has closed. Another tourist-town experiment comes into real estate. That is to say, another art-bar dies.

I did, however, get to spend a few hours painting a model at another venue recently. I habitually spent too much time working my way "up" to the model from the background. My deep-space-to-foreground-method left a ghost.

In three hours, I dialed in the dog before the fleas. What that means is, I didn't have time to grab smaller brushes or focus on details. The vibrating football chaos was unplugged right when I started to recognize patterns.

That's cool. I'm not a figure painter anyway. Sometimes I wonder though, what it would be like to pay a model to pose for unlimited hours. I bet, given enough time, I could make a painting that looked like a painting of a figure. As I remember, given enough time, it was easy to predict the actions of my vibrating football players.

Spring Cleaning

2011-07-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

I'm in one of those get-rid-of-junk moods.

But. . . what is junk?

I've had this Melt'n Color under the house for years. I can't find anything about it on the internet, except a 1965 patent for the exclusive "Pressflo" brush which is this really cool wand that melts crayons. The box is damaged and all the cards and frames are gone or used. Only the "brush" remains. It isn't really in good enough condition to put on eBay. I'm just a sucker for these sorts of things. One afternoon I might still melt all of Zaida's crayons.

Now. . . is this junk?

The box is mashed but it appears to have all the original tools. I LOVE these step-by-step kits. Gnagy was the original television art instructor.

I couldn't find a set like Gnagy's on eBay either, but mine isn't mint and there doesn't seem to be a demand. Same thing with this Conni Gordon box I have, even though it comes with a 33 rpm flexi disc. The contents are fantastic. Really charming. I made this video from her audio and booklet.

Most of my junk is fairly junky. I should just use it or lose it. Stacy, on the other hand, has some cool junk. We're selling this rare Tex Avery Wolfie lamp on eBay this week. I guess it was featured in that horrible movie "The Mask".

Click here if you want to bid on it.

One of those ideas I'll likely not follow through on (TLP1001)

2011-07-08T12:51:00.000-07:00

I thought I might work my way through a Thousand Living Painters, starting with 1001, Graham Durward.

Graham Durward, Untitled (Incense Positive) 2007
Oil on linen 121.9 x 106.7 cm

Durward's paintings contain subtly rewarding compositions of wet pushes and dull pulls dappled with a hint of atmospheric glazing. I'm looking at jay-pegs so I can only imagine the scale of his marks. 121 cm is almost four feet so it appears that Durward doesn't fancy a brush smaller than half an inch. I bet he paints with his whole arm while glancing over at a photograph. I rather like his marks. They are familiar in a "I could have done that" sort of way. Even the smokey faux abstractions of his incense pieces feel right on. I can almost overlook all the loaded implications of incense and ritual. Incense has never been a part of my space or time, except as a negative sensory stimulus. The craft of painting is nostalgic enough by nature as it is; maybe I'm looking for a contemporary level of spirituality?

Maybe that is what Durward is shooting for? The whole seduction and denial thing? I am seduced by his marks and yet repelled by their context. If that is the case, his paintings with figures in them are even better.

Graham Durward, Untitled (Man With Fruit) 2007
Oil on linen 86.4 x 61 cm

Male torsos with their faces blocked out instantly make me think of every figure drawing class I've ever attended or taught in which invariably someone tries to cover up their shitty drawing chops by avoiding the face. To be fair, these people usually avoid hands and feet too but Durward manages a beautiful hand in the image above. Clearly there is something "symbolic" going on here. It occurs to me that someone who can clearly paint with such seductive marks, and yet doesn't want to tread deeply in the waters of abstraction, must then load their subject matter with symbolism. Great marks while filtering nature though painting is a plien air session. Great marks while glancing at a photograph is something else. This process demands that a greater level of meaning be constructed.

Although I have empathy for Graham Durward's paint handling, composition and palette, the more I dig into the subject matter, the less interested I become. But even that observation seems harsh. Maybe it isn't that I'm not interested, it is simply that I don't have a craggy bottom for his hook to catch upon. I'd sure like to meet him.

Last painting from this cluster

2011-07-05T14:37:00.000-07:00

Steven LaRose, Too Many Choices For The Jack Ass, 2011
Oil on acrylic on wood, 6 x 7 inches

Fire under my tush.

2011-07-01T14:51:00.002-07:00

Recently, Melanie Parke posted this image of a crate on facebook. She is shipping some paintings to the Marji Gallery in Santa Fe, just like me. Here is one of Melanie's paintings:

Her crate was built by her husband Richard Kooyman who is also a great painter. Here is one of his paintings:
Initially I was daunted by Richard's crate but then I remembered that because I paint on wood, I don't have to take all the precautions that the canvas folk do. I merely have to create a cardboard version of a crate. I found this honeycombed material at Precision Paper Company out in White City.
The people out there were extremely helpful and generous. They gave me a slightly damaged 4 x 8 sheet for free. Plus, I was able to grab as many of these laminated paper edges as I wanted.

I felt obligated to pay for something, so I bought a roll of tape. I've always used clear packing tape before, but now I am a new convert to this webbed paper tape.

I was able to put together an economical and elegant box for five paintings. Maybe not crate-style, but light enough to travel UPS ground.

That is one item that I can scratch off the list.
The next thing in my way is this stack of Sculpture magazines that Micajah loaned me.

But then, I keep getting distracted by things like the doorknob in my studio. I never really noticed how cool it is.

I swear I'll get back to painting as soon as this pie is finished.

I did have a good excuse this week because I was painting the Labyrinth below, but now that that is done, I am closer to indulging my own thang.

Plus, and finally for this afternoon, Carla has posted her curatorial statement for the upcoming Asynchronous Salon exhibit. If that isn't inspirational, I don't know what is.

The other day, I started a journal.

2011-06-28T22:51:00.000-07:00

A journal and a sketchbook are very different things. My journal lasted two consecutive days. I've got a couple minor health issues that are coattail riding on my recent (last year) tête-à-tête with cancer. Consequently, I thought I might measure my intake, output, and baseline. Hence the journal.

What sort of psychopath keeps a journal?

I left my gig on San Juan and ferried home with a three-quarter-finished sculpture. I haven't ground off all the spot-welds nor have I even learned how to TIG the seams.

A partially finished stainless steel sculpture can dress up the most Philistine yard.

I'm back in my own studio now. I'm getting some paintings ready to ship to the Marji Gallery in Santa Fe. I think I have had a major breakthrough in shipping technology: Insulation foam for pipes.

So here I am, back in my studio. . . trying to maintain a balance of what would be otherwise mind-numbing journal entries.

Most of the images in the video above will be shipped to the Herron School of Art and Design for an exhibition of blogger/painters that Carla has put together.

Being brought up to speed.

2011-06-24T22:46:00.000-07:00

I have been doing some fabricating.

Actually, I've been watching how Micajah built his own plasma cutter to fabricate planes that he draws in Rhino.

Worms

Micajah likes to pay a lot of attention to his surfaces. He prances around them with a grinding wheel.

They Live Up There

In the picture above, the little pieces in the foreground are my practice pieces. The bigger pieces by the door are the ones we are working on.

First Lesson

I actually welded some stuff tonight. After a couple of days of seeing how Micajah did things, I found myself dripping molted blue glue. What a trip.

Micajah takes three planes (thee 2D worms) and wrestles them into 3D cuneiform shapes.

Wrastled Into Submission

I'm here (on San Juan Island) to help him build a piece of public art. First I had to learn the difference between being in my studio and making public art. Do you realize how much money is going to a select few in the Public Art arena? Can you imagine what happens when a community meets with an artist who is meeting with an engineer in order to show a committee of god-knows-who a powerpoint pitch on a piece of public art?

Once I got past the context, I had to learn about Micajah's process. Hence the welding.

But only late in the game did we go across the island to a park in the historic seaside village of Roche Harbor and look at some of his pieces out in the world.

First View

I should point out that the titles of these photographs are not the titles of Micajah's sculptures.

Hot Head

Old Growth

There is something about Old Growth that has ironically grown on me.

It might be the yin yang simplicity.
The slumping defiance of aging.
Old Growth is Micajah's title.

Is all sculpture inherently anthropomorphic?

Forgotten Red

End of the Day

You can't get much better than that right? Solar flare glancing off the sculptor as he walks amongst his children. And check out that fucking beautifully subdued palette that is the Pacific Northwest.

"The imagery presents itself as formal abstraction, but also reads as a staged narrative"

2011-06-20T20:20:00.000-07:00

The title of this post comes from an artist statement by Carla Knopp.

When I graduated from college, I went to go work at a summer camp in New Hampshire. I had never been back East and my first night there I had a dizzy spell induced by fireflies. Coming from the Mighty Pacific Northwest I had assumed that anything as magical as fireflies was surely something like our Sasquatch.

At least we got our Banana Slugs.

Today, Micajah put me to work writing something called an RFQ.

A request for quotation (RFQ) is used when discussions with bidders are not required (mainly when the specifications of a product or service are already known) and when price is the main or only factor in selecting the successful bidder. An RFQ may also be used as a step prior to going to a full-blown RFP to determine general price ranges. In this scenario, products, services or suppliers may be selected from the RFQ results to bring in to further research in order to write a more fully fleshed out RFP.

Lucky for me, Micajah also had some toys to play with and some basic craft things I could assist him with which was a wonderful complement to the time spent at the monitor parceling out the arcane etiquette of public art proposals.

I was actually too chicken-shit to operate the fork lift.

Maybe tomorrow.

If I could get a Made in China. . .

2011-06-20T07:44:00.000-07:00

Last week Nicole Panter came through town and Dr. Boo got to meet her dog Pumpkin.

This week I am on the San Juan Islands at Micajah Bienvenu's compound.

It is sort of a fantasy studio.

One can only be impressed by a place that has the grinding wheel on top of the speaker and next to the iPod.

And 3D ideas can be spun like a gesture drawing.

"It's Like Harry Potter. Except, Instead of Spells, There's Cancer."

2011-06-16T20:46:00.000-07:00

The title of this post was taken from Glen Weldon's 2009 review of Stitches.

Stacy, Zaida, and I just got around to reading it today.

David Small's Stitches is some fine art.

Love It.

2011-06-12T17:54:00.000-07:00

Steven LaRose, Guilty Pleasure Or Leave It, 2011
Oil on acrylic on wood, 7 by 6 inches

Dumpster Dive

2011-06-11T21:47:00.000-07:00

I thought maybe if I painted my floor white, everything would make sense. In order to do that, I am having to do a studio re-org. My studio chair had to sit out in the lawn for an afternoon while paint dried.

I rather fancy my studio chair. Goldilocks would be proud. The chair will be surviving the re-org. The following demonstrations I did for various painting classes however, will not.

There is a funny prop-to-prop tie-in through these five demos. Alas. . . they mean nothing to me. They are essentially being given the same treatment as my floor. The floor went white and these are being sent to the landfill.

I'm sure everything will make sense once I do this, and possibly if I read the following:

Harold Rosenberg, "The American Action Painters" from Tradition of the New, originally in Art News 51/8, Dec. 1952, p. 22

"J'ai fait des gestes blancs parmi les solitudes." APOLLINAIRE

"The American will is easily satisfied in its efforts to realize itself in knowing itself." WALLACE STEVENS

What makes any definition of a movement in art dubious is that it never fits the deepest artists in the movement—certainly not as well as, if successful, it does the others. Yet without the definition something essential in those best is bound to be missed. The attempt to define is like a game in which you cannot possibly reach the goal from the starting point but can only close in on it by picking up each time from where the last play landed.

Modern Art? Or An Art of the Modern?

Since the War every twentieth-century style in painting has been brought to profusion in the United States: thousands of "abstract" painters—crowded teaching courses in Modern Art—a scattering of new heroes—ambitions stimulated by new galleries, mass exhibitions, reproduction in popular magazines, festivals, appropriations.

Is this the usual catching up of America with European art forms? Or is something new being created? For the question of novelty, a definition would seem indispensable.

Some people deny that there is anything original in the recent American painting. Whatever is being done here now, they claim, was done thirty years ago in Paris. You can trace this painter's boxes of symbols to Kandinsky, that one's moony shapes to Miró or even back to Cézanne.

Quantitatively, it is true that most of the symphonies in blue and red rectangles, the wandering pelvises and birdbills, the line constructions and plane suspensions, the virginal dissections of flat areas that crowd the art shows are accretions to the "School of Paris" brought into being by the fact that the mode of production of modern masterpieces has now been all too clearly rationalized. There are styles in the present displays which the painter could have acquired by putting a square inch of a Soutine or a Bonnard under a microscope. . . . All this is training based on a new conception of what art is, rather than original work demonstrating what art is about to become.

At the center of this wide practicing of the immediate past, however, the work of some painters has separated itself from the rest by a consciousness of a function for painting different from that of the earlier "abstractionists," both the Europeans themselves and the Americans who joined them in the years of the Great Vanguard.

This new painting does not constitute a School. To form a School in modern times not only is a new painting consciousness needed but a consciousness of that consciousness—and even an insistence on certain formulas. A School is the result of the linkage of practice with terminology—different paintings are affected by the same words. In the American vanguard the words, as we shall see, belong not to the art but to the individual artists. What they think in common is represented only by what they do separately.

Getting Inside the Canvas

At a certain moment the canvas began to appear to one American painter after another as an arena in which to act—rather than as a space in which to reproduce, re-design, analyze or "express" an object, actual or imagined. What was to go on the canvas was not a picture but an event.

The painter no longer approached his easel with an image in his mind; he went up to it with material in his hand to do something to that other piece of material in front of him. The image would be the result of this encounter.

It is pointless to argue that Rembrandt or Michelangelo worked in the same way. You don't get Lucrece with a dagger out of staining a piece of cloth or spontaneously putting forms into motion upon it. She had to exist some place else before she got on the canvas, and paint was Rembrandt's means for bringing her there, though, of course, a means that would change her by the time she arrived. Now, everything must have been in the tubes, in the painter's muscles and in the cream-colored sea into which he dives. If Lucrece should come out she will be among us for the first time—a surprise. To the painter, she must be a surprise. In this mood there is no point to an act if you already know what it contains.

"B—is not modern," one of the leaders of this mode said to me. "He works from sketches. That makes him Renaissance."

Here the principle, and the difference from the old painting, is made into a formula. A sketch is the preliminary form of an image the mind is trying to grasp. To work from sketches arouses the suspicion that the artist still regards the canvas as a place where the mind records its contents—rather than itself the "mind" through which the painter thinks by changing a surface with paint.

If a painting is an action the sketch is one action, the painting that follows it another. The second cannot be "better" or more complete than the first. There is just as much in what one lacks as in what the other has.

Of course, the painter who spoke had no right to assume that his friend had the old mental conception of a sketch. There is no reason why an act cannot be prolonged from a piece of paper to a canvas. Or repeated on another scale and with more control. A sketch can have the function of a skirmish.

Call this painting "abstract" or "Expressionist" or Abstract-Expressionist," what counts is its special motive for extinguishing the object, which is not the same as in other abstract or Expressionist phases of modern art.

The new American painting is not "pure" art, since the extrusion of the object was not for the sake of the esthetic. The apples weren't brushed off the table in order to make room for perfect relations of space and color. They had to go so that nothing would get in the way of the act of painting. In this gesturing with materials the esthetic, too, has been subordinated. Form, color, composition, drawing, are auxiliaries, any one of which—or practically all, as has been attempted logically, with unpainted canvases—can be dispensed with. What matters always is the revelation contained in the act. It is to be taken for granted that in the final effect, the image, whatever be or be not in it, will be a tension.

Dramas Of As If

A painting that is an act is inseparable from the biography of the artist. The painting itself is a "moment" in the adulterated mixture of his life—whether "moment" means the actual minutes taken up with spotting the canvas or the entire duration of a lucid drama conducted in sign language. The act-painting is of the same metaphysical substance as the artist's existence. The new painting has broken down every distinction between art and life.

It follows that anything is relevant to it. Anything that has to do with action—psychology, philosophy, history, mythology, hero worship. 2 Anything but art criticism. The painter gets away from art through his act of painting; the critic can't get away from it. The critic who goes on judging in terms of schools, styles, from—as if the painter were still concerned with producing a certain kind of object (the work of art), instead of living on the canvas—is bound to seem a stranger.

Some painters take advantage of this stranger. Having insisted that their painting is an act, they then claim admiration for the act as art. This turns the act back toward the esthetic in a petty circle. If the picture is an act, it cannot be justified as an act of genius in a field whose whole measuring apparatus has been sent to the devil. Its value must be found apart form art. Otherwise the "act" gets to be "making a painting" at sufficient speed to meet an exhibition date.

Art—relation of the painting to the works of the past, rightness of color, texture, balance, etc.—comes back into painting by way of psychology. As Stevens says of poetry, "it is a process of the personality of the poet." But the psychology is the psychology of creation. Not that of the so-called psychological criticism that wants to "read" a painting for clues to the artists' sexual preferences or debilities. The work, the act, translates the psychologically given into the intentional, into a "world"—and thus transcends it.

With traditional esthetic references discarded as irrelevant, what gives the canvas its meaning is not psychological data but r™le, the way the artist organizes his emotional and intellectual energy as if he were in a living situation. The interest lies in the kind of act taking place in the four-sided arena, a dramatic interest.

Criticism must begin by recognizing in the painting the assumptions inherent in its mode of creation. Since the painter has become an actor, the spectator has to think in a vocabulary of action: its inception, duration, direction—psychic state, concentration and relaxation of the will, passivity, alert waiting. He must become a connoisseur of the gradations between the automatic, the spontaneous, the evoked.

"It's Not That, It's Not That, It's Not That"

With a few important exceptions, most of the artists of this vanguard found their way to the present work by being cut in two. Their type is not a young painter but a re-born one. The man may be over forty, the painter around seven. The diagonal of a grand crisis separates him from his personal and artistic past.

Many of the painters were "Marxists" (WPA unions, artists' congresses); they had been trying to paint Society. Others had been trying to paint Art (Cubism, Post-Impressionism)—it amounts to the same thing.

The big moment came when it was decided to paint . . . just to PAINT. The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation, from Value—political, esthetic, moral.

If the war and the decline of radicalism in America had anything to do with this sudden impatience, there is no evidence of it. About the effects of large issues upon their emotions, Americans tend to be either reticent or unconscious. The French artist thinks of himself as a battleground of history; here one hears only of private Dark Nights. Yet it is strange how many segregated individuals came to a dead stop within the past ten years and abandoned, even physically destroyed, the work they had been doing. A far-off watcher unable to realize that these events were taking place in silence might have assumed they were being directed by a single voice.

At its center the movement was away from, rather than toward. The Great Works of the Past and the Good Life of the Future became equally nil.

The refusal of values did not take the form of condemnation or defiance of society, as it did after World War I. It was diffident. The lone artist did not want the world to be different, he wanted his canvas to be a world. Liberation from the object meant liberation from the "nature", society and art already there. It was a movement to leave behind the self that wished to choose his future and to nullify its promissory notes to the past.

With the American, heir of the pioneer and the immigrant, the foundering of Art and Society was not experienced as a loss. On the contrary, the end of Art marked the beginning of an optimism regarding himself as an artist.

The American vanguard painter took to the white expanse of the canvas as Melville's Ishmael took to the sea.

On the one hand, a desperate recognition of moral and intellectual exhaustion; on the other, the exhilaration of an adventure over depths in which he might find reflected the true image of his identity.

Painting could now be reduced to that equipment which the artist needed for an activity that would be an alternative to both utility and idleness. Guided by visual and somatic memories of painting he had seen or made—memories which he did his best to keep from intruding into his consciousness—he gesticulated upon the canvas and watched for what each novelty would declare him and his art to be.

Based on the phenomenon of conversion the new movement is, with the majority of the painters, essentially a religious movement. In almost every case, however, the conversion has been experienced in secular terms. The result has been the creation of private myths.

The tension of the private myth is the content of every painting of this vanguard. The act on the canvas springs from an attempt to resurrect the saving moment in his "story" when the painter first felt himself released from Value—myth of past self-recognition. Or it attempts to initiate a new moment in which the painter will realize his total personality—myth of future self-recognition.

Some formulate their myth verbally and connect individual works with its episodes. With others, usually deeper, the painting itself is the exclusive formulation, a Sign.

The revolution against the given, in the self and in the world, which since Hegel has provided European vanguard art with theories of a New Reality, has re-entered America in the form of personal revolts. Art as action rests on the enormous assumption that the artist accepts as real only that which he is in the process of creating. "Except the soul has divested itself of the love of created things . . ." The artist works in a condition of open possibility, risking, to follow Kierkegaard, the anguish of the esthetic, which accompanies possibility lacking in reality. To maintain the force to refrain from settling anything, he must exercise in himself a constant No.

Apocalypse and Wallpaper

The most comfortable intercourse with the void is mysticism, especially a mysticism that avoids ritualizing itself.

Philosophy is not popular among American painters. For most, thinking consists of the various arguments that TO PAINT is something different from, say, to write or to criticize: a mystique of the particular activity. Lacking verbal flexibility, the painters speak of what they are doing in a jargon still involved in the metaphysics of things: "My painting is not Art; it's an Is." "It's not a picture of a thing; its's the thing itself." "It doesn't reproduce Nature, it is Nature." " The painter doesn't think; he knows." Etc. etc. "Art is not, not not not not . . . ." As against this, a few reply, art today is the same as it always has been.

Language has not accustomed itself to a situation in which the act itself is the "object." Along with the philosophy of TO PAINT appear bits of Vedanta and popular pantheism.

In terms of American tradition, the new painters stand somewhere between Christian Science and Whitman's "gangs of cosmos." That is, between a discipline of vagueness by which one protects oneself from disturbance while keeping one's eyes open for benefits; and the discipline of the Open Road of risk that leads to the farther side of the object and the outer spaces of the consciousness.

What made Whitman's mysticism serious was that he directed his "cosmic ÔI'" towards a Pike's-Peak-or-Bust of morality and politics. He wanted the ineffable in all behavior—he wanted it to win the streets.

The test of any of the new paintings is its seriousness—and the test of its seriousness is the degree to which the act on the canvas is an extension of the artist's total effort to make over his experience.

A good painting in this mode leaves no doubt concerning its reality as an action and its relation to a transforming process in the artist. The canvas has "talked back" to the artist not to quiet him with Sibylline murmurs nor to stun him with Dionysian outcries but to provoke him into a dramatic dialogue. Each stroke had to be a decision and was answered by a new question. By its very nature, action painting is painting in the medium of difficulties. 3

Weak mysticism, the "Christian Science" side of the new movement, tends in the opposite direction, toward easy painting—never so many unearned masterpieces! Works of this sort lack the dialectical tension of a genuine act, associated with risk and will. When a tube of paint is squeezed by the Absolute, the result can only be a Success. The painter need keep himself on hand solely to collect the benefits of an endless series of strokes of luck. His gesture completes itself without arousing either an opposing movement within itself nor the desire in the artist to make the act more fully his own. Satisfied with wonders that remain safely inside the canvas, the artist accepts the permanence of the commonplace and decorates it with his own daily annihilation. The result is an apocalyptic wallpaper.

The cosmic "I" that turns up to paint pictures, but shudders and departs the moment there is a knock on the studio door, brings to the artist a megalomania which is the opposite of revolutionary. The tremors produced by a few expanses of tone or by the juxtaposition of colors and shapes purposely brought to the verge of bad taste in the manner of park Avenue shop windows are sufficient cataclysms in many of these happy overthrows of Art. The mystical dissociation of painting as an ineffable event has made it common to mistake for an act the mere sensation of having acted—or of having been acted upon. Since there is nothing to be "communicated," a unique signature comes to seem the equivalent of anew plastic language. In a single stroke the painter exists as a Somebody—at least on a wall. That this Somebody is not he seems beside the point.

Once the difficulties that belong to a real act have been evaded by mysticism, the artist's experience of transformation is at an end. In that case what is left? Or to put it differently: What is a painting that is not an object, nor the representation of an object, nor the analysis or impression of it, nor whatever else a painting has ever been—and which has also ceased to be the emblem of a personal struggle? It is the painter himself changed into a ghost inhabiting The Art World. Here the common phrase, "I have bought an O—" (rather than a painting by O—) becomes literally true. The man who started to remake himself has made himself into a commodity with a trademark.

Milieu: The Busy No-Audience

We said that the new painting calls for a new kind of criticism, one that would distinguish the specific qualities of each artist's act.

Unhappily for an art whose value depends on the authenticity of its mysteries, the new movement appeared at the same moment that Modern Art en masse "arrived" in America: Modern architecture, not only for sophisticated homes, but for corporations, municipalities, synagogues; Modern furniture and crockery in mail-order catalogues; Modern vacuum cleaners, can openers; beer-ad "mobiles"—along with reproductions and articles on advanced painting in big-circulation magazines. Enigmas for everybody. Art in America today is not only nouveau, it's news.

The new painting came into being fastened to Modern Art and without intellectual allies—in literature everything had found its niche.

From this liaison it has derived certain superstitions comparable to those of a wife with a famous husband. Superiorities, supremacies even, are taken for granted. It is boasted that modern painting in America is not only original but an "advance" in world art (at the same time that one says "to hell with world art").

Everyone knows that the label Modern Art no longer has any relation to the words that compose it. To be Modern Art a work need not be either modern nor art; it need not even be a work. A three thousand-year-old mask from the South Pacific qualifies as Modern and a piece of wood found on the beach becomes Art.

When they find this out, some people grow extremely enthusiastic, even, oddly enough, proud of themselves; others become infuriated.

These reactions suggest what Modern Art actually is. It is not even a Style. It has nothing to do either with the period when a thing was made nor with the intention of the maker. It is something that someone has had the social power to designate as psychologically, esthetically or ideologically relevant to our epoch. The question of the driftwood is: Who found it?

Modern Art in America represents a revolution of taste—and serves to identify the cast conducting that revolution. Responses to Modern Art are primarily responses to claims to social leadership. For this reason Modern Art is periodically attacked as snobbish, Red, immoral, etc., by established interests in society, politics, the church. Comedy of a revolution that restricts itself to weapons of taste—and which at the same time addresses itself to the masses: Modern-design fabrics in bargain basements, Modern interiors for office girls living alone, Modern milk bottles.

Modern art is educational, not with regard to art but with regard to life. You cannot explain Mondrian's painting to people who don't know anything about Vermeer, but you can easily explain the social importance of admiring Mondrian and forgetting about Vermeer.

Through Modern Art the expanding cast of professional enlighteners of the masses—designers, architects, decorators, fashion people, exhibition directors—informs the populace that a supreme Value has emerged in our time, the Value of the NEW, and that there are persons and things that embody that Value. This Value is a completely fluid one. As we have seen, Modern Art does not have to be actually new; it only has to be new to somebody—to the last lady who found out about the driftwood—and to win neophytes is the chief interest of the caste.

Since the only thing that counts for Modern Art is that a work shall be NEW, and since the question of its newness is determined not by analysis but by social power and pedagogy, the vanguard painter functions in a milieu utterly indifferent to the content of his work.

Unlike the art of nineteenth-century America, advanced paintings today are not bought by the middle class. 4 Nor are they by the populace. Considering the degree to which it is publicized and feted, vanguard painting is hardly bought at all. It is used in its totality as material for educational and profit-making enterprises: color reproductions, design adaptations, human-interest stories. Despite the fact that more people see and hear about works of art than ever before, the vanguard artist has an audience of nobody. An interested individual here and there, but no audience. He creates in an environment not of people but of functions. His paintings are employed not wanted. The public for whose edification he is periodically trotted out accepts the choices made for it as phenomena of The Age of Queer Things.

An action is not a matter of taste.

You don't let taste decide the firing of a pistol or the building of a maze.

As the Marquis de Sade understood, even experiments in sensation, if deliberately repeated, presuppose a morality.

To see in the explosion of shrapnel over No Man's Land only the opening of a flower of lame, Marinetti had to erase the oral premises of the act of destruction—as Molotov did explicitly when he said that Fascism is a matter of taste. Both M's were, of course, speaking the driftwood language of the Modern Art International.

Limited to the esthetic, the taste bureaucracies of Modern Art cannot grasp the human experience involved in the new action paintings. One work is equivalent to another on the basis of resemblances of surface, and the movement as a whole a modish addition to twentieth-century picture making. Examples in every style are packed side by side in annuals and travelling shows and in the heads of newspaper reviewers like canned meats in a chain store—all standard brands.

To counteract the obtuseness, venality and aimlessness of the Art World, American vanguard art needs a genuine audience—not just a market. It needs understanding—not just publicity.

In our form of society, audience and understanding for advanced painting have been produced, both here and abroad, first of all by the tiny circle of poets, musicians, theoreticians, men of letters, who have sensed in their own work the presence of the new creative principle.

So far, the silence of American literature on the new painting all but amounts to a scandal.

_______________________________________________________

1. "With regard to the tensions it is capable of setting up in our bodies the medium of any art is an extension of the physical world; a stroke of pigment, for example, Ôworks' within us in the same way as a bridge across the Hudson. For the unseen universe that inhabits us an accidental blot or splash of paint may thus assume an equivalence to the profoundest happening. . . . "If the ultimate subject matter of all art is the artist's psychic state or tension (and this may be the case even in nonindividualistic epochs), that state may be represented either through the image of a thing or through an abstract sign. The innovation of Action Painting was to dispense with the representation of the state in favor of enacting it in physical movement. The action on the canvas became its own representation. This was possible because an action, being made of both the psychic and the material, is by its nature a sign—it is the trace of a movement whose beginning and character it does not in itself ever altogether reveal (e.g., Freud's point about love-making being mistaken in the imagination for an assault); yet the action also exists as a "thing" in that it touches other things and affects them . . . . "In turning to action, abstract art abandons its alliance with architecture, as painting had earlier broken with music and with the novel, and offers its hand to pantomime and dance. One thinks of Rilke's Dance the orange. The warmer landscape, fling it out of you, that the ripe one be radiant in homeland breezes! "In painting, the primary agency of physical motion (as distinct from illusionary representation of motion, as with the Futurists) is the line, conceived not as the thinnest of planes, nor as edge, contour or connective but as stroke or figure (in the sense of "figure skating"). In its passage on the canvas each such line can establish the actual movement of the artist's body as an esthetic statement. Line, from wiry calligraphy to footwide flaunts of the house painter's brush, has played the leading part in the technique of Action Painting, though there are other ways besides line of releasing force on canvas." H.R., from "Hans Hofmann: Nature into Action," Art News, May, 1957.

2. "Action cannot be perfected without losing its human subject and being transformed thereby into the mechanics of man-the-machine. "Action never perfects itself; but it tends towards perfection and away from the personal. This is the best argument for dropping the term ÔAbstract Expressionism,' with its associations of ego and personal Schmerz, as a name for the current American painting. Action Painting has to do with self-creation or self-definition or self-transcendence; but this dissociates it from self-expression, which assumes the acceptance of the ego as it is, with its wound and its magic. Action Painting is not 'personal,' though its subject matter is the artist's individual possibilities." H.R., "A dialogue with Thomas B. Hess." Catalogue of the Exhibition: Action Painting, 1958. The Dallas Museum for Contemporary Arts.

3. "As other art movements of our time have extracted from painting the element of structure or the element of tone and elevated it into their essence, Action Painting has extracted the element of decision inherent in all art in that the work is not finished at its beginning but has to be carried forward by an accumulation of Ôright' gestures. In a word, Action Painting is the abstraction of the moral element in art; its mark is moral tension in detachment from moral or esthetic uncertainties; and it judges itself morally in declaring that picture to be worthless which is not the incorporation of a genuine struggle, one which could at any point have been lost." H.R., The Dallas Museum Catalogue, above.

4. The situation has improved since this essay first appeared in 1952. Several younger collectors have appeared who are specializing in the new American painting—and to some degree the work of Americans has entered the world art market.

ExGest

2011-06-09T08:21:00.000-07:00

Three gestural studies. Paint and pencil on canvas paper, 9 x 12 inches.

Muriel is an English name derived from Celtic elements meaning "sea" and "bright"

2011-06-08T17:50:00.000-07:00

It always cracks me up when people call them muriels. This client didn't, she understood what she was asking for. This five foot tall and four foot wide mural is in her bathroom now. The funky thing is, the viewer will never be this far away in order to take in the big picture. In fact, the skewed perspective is in order to compensate for the fact that this is in a very narrow space and the viewer is right on top of it. . . no more than three feet away. The client wanted it to be like one was looking out a window; in fact, she will be framing the mural in, just like the doors and windows in the bathroom.

While I was painting this, I started to recall some story about some sort of painting competition that was held during the Renaissance. I don't know if this story is true or not, but it will be, once I outline it. As I want to tell it, Caravaggio is in a battle-of-the-brush with a popular hack of the time. They each get to hang their paintings on opposite walls of a long corridor into a church. The hack on the left goes home and paints the twelve stations of the cross in a gorgeous and flamboyant style. Caravaggio, on the other hand, paints his suite on the right as if people will be walking past them. Caravaggio considers the average height of the horizon line and that the viewers will be "entering" each canvas from the right, as they walk down the corridor. The big C wins the competition because he considers the context of the paintings and they are received more favorably.

While I was painting this, I got the bug to paint bigger. Painting with your entire body and dancing back and forth is really fantastic. Too bad shipping paintings from Ashland is such a hassle. The Marji Gallery in Santa Fe has moved into a big new space and the walls there are intimidating. Maybe I should consider the un-stretched method like Sharon Butler.

(what if I could pull this off at 7 x 6 feet?)

2011-06-05T23:37:00.000-07:00

Steven LaRose, The Charitable Chariot, 2011
Oil on acrylic on wood, 7 by 6 inches

Being At The Right Place At The Right Time

2011-06-05T23:13:00.000-07:00

Our cat Omeed is cool around fire.

Where do we send The Perfect (toasted) Marshmallow pictures?

Witch's Butter

2011-06-05T20:16:00.000-07:00

I came across some Dacrymyces palmatus the other day on a hike. This bright orange cerebriform glob is actually edible. I wish my paintings could be so gross and beautiful.

Last Night

2011-06-04T17:18:00.000-07:00

Last night I painted a still life for three hours at a local restaurant/bar called Tease. I don't have any pictures to prove that I was painting, but I do have this blurry shot of Meredith sitting at my Jullian Easel. (I am posting this for Mary Addison's benefit who is thinking of up-scaling to the full size).
Meredith sat in as a pinch painter for a moment while I scooted off to practice some personal hygiene. Sarah also added some chops to the final painting while I hobnobbed with the riffraff.

It is a sixteen by twelve painting in oil on canvas. The props were a real phone, a Jart, and a sculpture by Whiting Tennis from 1999.

Three hours was just not enough time. I was working my way from the deep space into the foreground and avoiding the statuette. When all was said and done, it was more a painting about bricks in low light than anything else.

Ruskin on Perspective.

2011-06-03T12:18:00.001-07:00

Ruskin On Perspective from Steven LaRose on Vimeo.

From the preface of The Elements of Drawing.

Paradise Loser

2011-06-02T17:29:00.000-07:00

Steven LaRose, Respect Mingled With Surprise, 2011

Oil and acrylic on wood, 7 x 6 inches

Dear Studio,

2011-05-31T11:45:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry that I've only been poking my head in lately. The thing about you Studio is, you never make me feel bad when I come back. You're so cool that way. Still, I want to thank you, and if it is any consolation, I want you to know that I always carry my iPhone with me and it has a powerfully acceptable lens so I can flag some moments to bring back to you.

In fact, three days ago I went to a party/send-off for Kevin Christman (Kevin will be competing in the Grand Central Academy of Art Figurative Sculpting Competition on Saturday (June 4)) and I had to climb over some parked trains to get to it.

So I took a picture.

When I got there, one of Kevin's models was serving my favorite sort of beverage.

I walked around. Kevin had some cool paintings but the one piece that got my wheels turning was this Kissinger bust.

Conceptually (which means: good idea, but I wouldn't want to be the one who carries it through) I was marveling at the notion that there are some humans who have been photographed from enough points-of-view that one could make a really interesting suite of hyper-realistic sculptures.

But the piece that just killed me was something more open-ended.

So you can see dear Studio, it isn't that I haven't been paying attention.
I'll be back.
Don't you worry.
That's another good thing about you Studio: I don't think you worry about me.

I don't worry about my daughter. She wore a shower-cap to school today.

One of her friends (who happens to be a boy), dressed up Miso the other day.

Zaida has an amazing support group for a ten year old. They are all defining themselves. Some with more attention than others. I'm just happy that my kid can see what it is like to pull off wearing a shower cap to school.

Oh. . . sorry Studio, I got off track with photographs trying to prove my point. See, here's the thing, tonight I'm hosting a drawing session (which I do every Tuesday), so I don't think I'll be seeing you again.

Sorry.

Augmented Twenty Minute Gestures by Twenty Years of Experience

2011-05-26T16:24:00.000-07:00

Steven LaRose, (Extended Gesture 1, 2, and 3), 2011
Mixed Media (too irrelevant to list) on Newsprint, 18 x 24 inches

The other month I found John Ruskin's The Elements of Drawing in a FREE pile.

I hadn't even gotten past the Introduction and Preface before I found myself Googling: "all great schools enforce delicacy"

The lens on my iPhone 3G is not bad enough to be cool, so now I find myself spending more time with composition.

2011-05-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

ExGest

2011-05-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

The following images are extended gestures from the past two Get Sketchy at Tease nights that I co-host on Tuesdays.

I will be there tonight. You should show up too.
(click on images for larger views)

Contemporary Figurative Painters

2011-05-24T05:56:00.000-07:00

Contemporary Figurative Painters

View more presentations from Jacques de Beaufort

A slide show by for his life drawing class.

Another product of puttering last night.

2011-05-23T08:26:00.000-07:00

7 x 10 inches

An Extended Gesture or "As he who seeking asses, found a kingdom"

2011-05-23T00:25:00.000-07:00

(click on image for larger view)
Milton

Painter's Blogs Are Boring

2011-05-17T22:07:00.000-07:00

I am so far behind.
Life just caterwauls along.

I thought I might hook you with some dog porn:

. . . and then the money shot =

Maybe you are a food junky?
I married a lady who serves this for an after-school snack:

And she somehow made salmon taste good inside this pastry:

That is the bon vivant in question on the right.

On the left is our daughter.
I am so far behind.
Life just caterwauls along.
The first sunscreen of the year.

The first pit of fire has happened.

Shoot. . .
'member Easter?

I mean, dang. . . Spring has sprung.
I saw this moment this weekend from my Tai chi chuan lesson.

(detail)

I am trading Supreme Ultimate Fist lessons for a painting.
How cool is that?

Where were we?
Oh yes.
Painter's Blogs Are Boring.
Dog Porn.
Dog's nose jizz.

Dog's obviously have their parameters within which they work.

I beg you to send me pictures of your Sunday morning eye-openers.

I am so far behind.
It only seems like yesterday when Whiting Tennis took me on a John Watersian tromp through Portland.

That was before Spring.

or visit Mary Addison's new picks:
http://www.undercoverpainter.blogspot.com
http://painters-table.com
http://www.abstraktion.org/
http://structureandimagery.blogspot.com/
http://studiocritical.blogspot.com
http://progress-report.org/
http://fundamentalpainting.blogspot.com/
http://www.gorkysgranddaughter.com/
http://standardinterview.blogspot.com

An expression of connubial tenderness.

2011-05-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

Steven LaRose, When Charlie Parker Fluttered Least, 2011

Oil on acrylic on wood, 7 x 6 inches
(click on image for a larger view)