9×12 Graphite & Paper quick sketch
no one knew that the sky was open
purple silk languished until merely an afterthought
(Me)
Tag: diary
Herbert West Sings Songs of Romance
This piece upon initial glance can seem an arresting or slightly off putting subject. Continued observation allows for awareness of the delicate coloration and despite subject matter, a beauty.
This dichotomy is what I was after.
The piece is part of an ongoing series “Drinking with Doctors”.
The paper is a mixed media paper 98LBs It is my second ever painting using this paper
Urges
Some of the greatest painters considered drawing not a preparatory work for painting but rather complete works unto themselves. I get as much pleasure drawing as I do putting brush to canvas and deeply share this point of view.
People talk of the “lizard” part of the brain. This might exist on deep subconscious level but i think closer to the surface of modern man is a simian. Few now are gracious in defeat or frustration of not getting what they want. I myself am constantly throwing bananas at my more primal self to keep him compliant as I make my way through society.
Urges 9×12 Graphite & Paper
Audrey’s Birthday
Audrey wanted to do something different for her birthday which was one of those momentous numbers, more so for women than men. The thought of drunkenly lurching about town with some of her girlfriends all festooned with cheap feather boas while being too loud held not appeal for her.
She asked if I would paint her and then afterwards would be a party.
I agreed readily enough as there was something of an awkward swan or perhaps giraffe about her which I thought would make for a compelling piece.
There was no preconceived notion of how I wanted to put her, organic body language was of the most importance to me.
“How do you want me?”
I told her to just get in any position that was comfortable. While I worked fast, she still needed to be able to maintain the pose.
I began to study the way her shirt draped on her shoulders, the bunching of material at her wrists.
She settled by the window but there was too much light coming from behind her. Moving to the couch she stopped a moment inhaling then exhaling deeply as would a diver before a fall.
One of the buttons to her shirt went missing with a sound that reminded me of candy as it hit the floor. Now nude, Audrey took a Cleopatra pose on the couch.
To my surprise she was calm during the session. It was only afterwards, at the party she seemed to become a little giddy as she told people what she had done.
None of us want to talk about the weather. I understand the etiquette need for small talk. For someone who has just done something; come back from a trip, bought a house or dog, executed a painting, it is more fatiguing as the same comments and questions are presented over and over.
I did participate until I had encountered one example of everything there was to say on the matter of being an artist & the painting I had just done of Audrey.
I found a quiet corner to sit and nurse my drink. Audrey’s friends were all polite so that she could put out the good stuff and the crowd would show some restraint, allowing it to last the whole night as opposed to merely an hour as some other crowds would have done.
An old man sat across from me. He had on a short sleeve powder blue shirt in whose pocket i saw poking out an eyeglass case and the rounded end of a cigar. We gave each other the casual nod of our chins.
When I was younger and asked about my work or art in general there was an over earnest need to try to make people understand. Now I realize that , when it comes up in the casual conversation, at best it is on account of a mild curiosity. No one wants to to sit through a soliloquy on painting at some social function.
I had expended all my painterly small talk. A woman holding a martini glass at a perilous angle wandered over to our spot. She asked the old man:
“What is it that you do?”
“I…am what you call a tinkerer.”
A friend called to her from across the room and she flitted away.
“I was going to say that.”
He pulled out his cigar.
“Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
As he lit up with three deep puffs his eyes twinkled.
“I know I am not supposed to be smoking in here but no one ever yells at an old man. An old man and midgets can get away with anything, taking the last slice of pie, over staying our welcome, anything. Because no one wants to reprimand us. One would think it would be similar for children but if a child annoys, you can let go at them and then make yourself feel better by telling yourself that it’s a teaching moment.”
The scent of his cigar was good. I thought of my grandfather’s study while imagining that Berlin now was very different.
“Audrey’s Birthday” 9×12 watercolor & mix media paper
“Sy” 9×12 graphite & paper
Hot House
People have forgotten how to look at figurative art.
This largely is on account of the always present phones in our lives. Ever present and ever ready to capture whatever we deem important or interesting. The ability to now document the minutia of our lives has made it so that the “merely” representational images seem “off”, wrong or not impressive, so used to the availability of actual photos have we become.
Now, if you draw a person, it needs to be hyper real to be appreciated by the casual art peruser.
It is all right for a portrait to look like the subject but also like a painting/drawing.
We treasure the paintings of Matisse and while when he portrays a woman on a couch we know what we are seeing, no one is going to ever use it to do a technical anatomical study from. The emotion resonating from his work not technical portrayal is where the joy is to be found.
Another aspect which seems largely forgotten are the dynamics between artist & model. While most artists want to convey the likeness of their subject, ultimately it is as if the artist is describing the model using their words, words in this case being their style (technique).
A final important component in portraying a subject is that none of us look the same all the time. Mood, health, ambient surroundings all dictates changes on our faces, bodies and even body language.
I often use same people over the course of many works, each time there are little differences. This is not imperfection of technique nor chops operating only at a certain skill level.
Doing it right, a series of pieces using same subject is not dissimilar to Bird & Diz riffing off of Hot House. The basic structure remains familiar but with changes built off the initial theme, always slightly different but containing recognizable components.
Here is informal series I did. I never think of what I want to portray, I just execute what I see without agenda. After the first piece, this series showed a playfulness along with a bemused surprise at a until then, thought secret vulnerability.
Music Addict Paris ’18
Jam session
Anytime one sees Paris on television or in the movies, as a character passes by a window or stops in front of one to gaze out and ponder some plot point, the Eiffel tower can be seen.
More often than not, this is not geographically accurate for where the action is taking place.
That aside, not a bad view to be sure. But I think there are more inspiring views which would have less ambient noise of tourists etc which can distract from living one’s life (working) in the city of lights.
Year after year I live in the same place, same arrondissement, in Paris. It is a working neighborhood, meaning no tourists.
However, every other door which is not a residance seems to be a bar or boulangerie.
I am ten minute walk from places to sketch like the Luxembourg gardens.
I have, after all these years become a part of my neighborhood.
When I am elsewhere in the world, I dream of being back. I have decades long relationship with my wine merchant, butcher, greengrocer and baker.
There is established level of comfortability that I know I can sit in a bar sketching on the sly and not be perceived akin to one of those people with their laptops “writing” to be found in every Starbucks stateside.
It kept raining off and on…steady rain would be all right people would click clack down the wet cobblestone streets holding a newspaper or their jacket, cape like, over their heads.
Sporadic rain, it got humid. Clothes got wet, then you find yourself cold, followed by a type of sticky as body heat working over time dries away the rain.
Stop-start of the skies festivities, people are just staying wherever they are at.
I am in one of the little intimate bars which despite my now having a studio, serves as an unofficial office.
There is a tall brown haired girl sitting alone at the bar. She wears a still wet dress whose true color is slowly being revealed as it dries.
I am at my usual table, stealing pieces of her with my pencil.
A guitarist is in the corner playing.
At first he is playing for her…his fingers conjure up abstractions which encapsulates something that could make one happy to be blue.
She is forgotten, now he plays for himself.
Her change on the counter, the cymbal fall, the end of a song.
He sees me, I nod.
I hold two fingers up to the bartender. He has never cared about busy versus dead nights so long as he sees the familiar faces of regulars over the course of the week.
We Klink our glasses.
I see him look at my sketchpad. Without hesitation I hand it to him to inspect.
He had originally wanted to be a poet using language and words as to convey the emotions which are now brought forth via his fingers. Words to make people feel.
I had wanted to, in my youth be a musician .
We had both found our way, just not in the manner originally envisioned.
Paris May ’18
Quick sketch
Return to France
Before heading to my home in Paris, I was down in the south of France doing research for an essay of French gastronomy of a bygone era.
It was not conducive for my painting but I did sketch non stop. I utilized my ever present midori passport pocket pad.
I enjoyed the challange of such small size, 3×5 to create fully realized pieces.
Some of my reading inspired me to shake things up as I had long been familiar with the size. I started using both sides of the page, holding the pad vertically (so that what were the books edges became the too and bottom).
It was interesting ng in that more space does not necessarily equate to easier .
One has to think of compositional balance differently.
Back in paris. First morning in studio started a painting 5×8. The weather going from overcast to rain has not facilitated progress so I am back to sketching.
I find myself now also combining my own texts to pieces.
Even with the rain, it is great fun adding to myself in a way which shall remain with me.
On The Road
I travel a lot. One thing I have noticed is that for the last twenty years or so, go to any great city in Europe and inevitably you will see tourists walking down the main streets filming.
Excitedly, they want to capture what they are seeing and where they are as to show friends & family back home.
This is faulty logic on several levels:
Technology is constantly changing. One year i saw people walking down the Champ-Elysees using the camcorders that you just insert an actual VCR tape into. The next year cameras were far smaller. People are inherently lazy, no one is going to do transfers of all the footage shot over the years and even if you had the gumption to do so, it will look terrible.
When showing footage to friends back home, although somewhat of a sitcom cliche, it quickly becomes boring. A shakey cam view of streets, unless something amazing is caught on film, quickly becomes dull. And although most friends most likely will not say so, the mind starts to wander as they watch the footage.
Photos are a little better. A photo potentially offers a more obvious immediacy of what is “important” that the viewer should be noticing.
However photos offer their own drawbacks. People in search of the perfect instagram photos are so busy concentrating on that, that they are not in the moment. Go to any museum and watch as people run up to an immortal work snap a photo with it behind them, then run off. Yes, one may have “seen” a Van Gough et al but aside from location and year of trip little else is remembered despite getting massive numbers of likes & retweets on their sites.
I am by no means anti technology. I enjoy the instant gratification of emails, skype & texting when on the road. I also do take some photos. These things though are given very little of my times. I have found that I absorb more and it becomes more memorable doing quick sketches and some notes of what i am doing and seeing.
To whomever I show these records of my journey to, they are seeing what was important to me and it is more engaging. (Even the best photo one takes or Paris, Rome etc etc thousands of other people have gotten the same exact shot!)
Not everyone can draw but anyone can jot down the interesting or odd little things they come across. Anyone who would claim to not come across anything to write is probably missing it because they are texting or posting to social media.
For any journey the thing is not to be ourselves as we are at home, making everything around us adapt. Rather, it is to explore and be open to a life lived differently as to draw new things into ourselves fostering evolution (intellectually, spiritually etc)
Charcoal Text & Image improvisation 9×12
Paper Life Painting 