Tag: journals

Boogie

Honey Child wanted me to touch her face, the lines of her body, memorization as a blind man might.

I took one of the rooms higher up as I felt it safer. The trade off was that unlike some of the better rooms, my one window did not look out into the courtyard.

At night when not actively pursuing anything, the Hyenas walked softly, their paws crunched on the sand as if it were snow.

This did not seem to bother anyone but myself. To my shame, when the  sun was at its most brilliant a pair of little boys would get the disregarded scraps of leather from the cobbler.  They would then almost completely bury them in the sand, leaving them there until the end of the day.

They would then go back and dig up their treasure. Over the course of the day the sand became hotter and hotter. Each grain burnt the leather so that it became dimpled like a more expensive version of itself.

While drinking mint tea these would then be made into wallets to sell to tourists at the medina.

I had my pen and paper to keep me company but sometimes that was not enough. I would play my records but not too much as i worried of some misfortune befalling the player for which i knew I would not be able to get parts easily.

Mostly I played James Johnson, Willie the Lion, Fatha Hines. Their looping frenzy seemed of another world to the locals.  No one ever complained as they were sure that it was part of some incantation similar to that of the men up in the mountains with their rams horn instruments.

“What do you call it?”

“Boogie.”

To them, the word had a deeper, primal,  meaning and i think it was better.

Fini

 

“Boogie” (1st painting new studio) 5×8 watercolor & paper

 

boogie1stnewstudio

by Wayne Wolfson

new Studio

Just moved studio after six (almost seven) years. During the whole process I could not paint as it was all packed. I did continue to draw.

My first night, even though waiting for few pieces furniture to show up, my long time companion-drawing table is here and ready to be of service. I knocked out few quick sketches using 2 mm lead clutch & usual suspects pencil.

It will be interesting to see what new colorations are added to my palette.

 

by Wayne Wolfson

Me I

There is an age old tradition of the artist doing self portraits. Some consider the value of such a work as offering psychological insight into the artist via how they see themselves/how they are presenting themselves to the world.

Often, I am my own subject. With all my portraits I go for a sort of visual raw reportage, presenting the subject as they are for better or worse.

For this reason when I am my own subject, I might be sidestepping the issue entirely. Or the fact that, here I present myself as I am but with the batman mask of a hood could still be a revelation of its own.

 

Hooded 9×12 graphite & paper

hooded

by Wayne Wolfson

songs About Women:Song Two: To The Na

Second piece in ongoing series:

 

Song Two: To The Na:
She initially endeared herself to me when I discovered that if she or someone in her life were going on a trip (flying) she always said her goodbye as if it could be for the last time. The same mistrust of planes as I, acted upon.

She had a thing for feet which she insisted was not sexual, when I suggested it might be otherwise w/her male social media pals, she became incensed.
In short order, I was proven correct as most of us, especially on social media, are dogs.

In her anger & embarrassment, we didn’t talk for a year and a half.

Something about her eyes and the real estate around it reminds me of a Vasquez piece I once saw. Of course she is my kind of beautiful.

Halfway around the world, she popped into my head unexpectedly when late one night when Mar-Mar wanted to paint my toe nails. I said no and we all prowled the bars around Montparnasse ,eating olives and salted almonds out of tiny white dishes in between drinks, until becoming on the verge of queasy.
W.Wolfson ’18

 

20181007_104956

by Wayne Wolfson

Not Capri

“Calamari, some campari & soda. We will eat while listening to the surf smash against the rocks.”

She hoped the fishmonger still had some available as after a night of us all mixing drinks while throwing our arms around one another in song & passion she was getting a rather late start.

She would have asked me if I wanted to come with but there were things needing her attention as to mull over their true meaning. The added benefit was that she looked the better person for allowing me to work for several hours uninterrupted in my makeshift studio.

I noticed she put on the earrings she had been wearing last night, normally not worn except for on special occasions.
They were thick circles of shining gold that tightly hugged the bottom of her lobes the aesthetic for some reason making me think of long gone Romans.

It was a way to get an extra dig in to Gina who had not been invited last night and who had for years been refused the lone of the earrings regardless of the occasion.

There was every chance to believe that she would still be at the market, purposely waiting to run into her as to wrangle an invitation to whatever we had planned next.

Later we take a walk as she did not like the thought of me hunched over my drawing board all day.
“What do you call that flower, the pretty one with all the prickers on it?”
I tried to pronounce it several times, my tongue not complying with the dialect.
She laughed kissing my cheek.
The word was said again three times in quick succession.
“Ah, “friendship”.”

W.Wolfson’18

“Not Capri” 5×8 Watercolor & Paper

 

NotCapri

by Wayne Wolfson

What the Eye Sees

Where ever I am, I draw & sketch. Even more so if I do not have time/space to paint. My pencil musings are not all meant to be formal accomplishments ready to frame.

Sometimes they are just personal references to what I am doing or seeing, done in my 3×5 pocket pad.

After years of doing this, I find myself going to some of the same places which are now part of my life. It made it tricky in that, i can only sketch same rooftops etc so many times.

Without any forethought, I found a way to keep it fresh. I now sometimes indirectly record things.

I was in a little bar, the air thick with sausage smoke, that and Parisian sandwiches being their only fare. The owner had two cats which come and go as they please, all the regulars saying hello as they take over empty stools.

He had a penchant for playing Jacques Brel. The bar is located between my place and favorite record store so I found myself stopping in often on my way home. Either to celebrate a new purchase or to console myself for coming back empty handed.

Now when i hear Brel, for half a second I smell the fragrant sausage and regardless of lyrics, feel a mellow warmness.

W.Wolfson Paris ’18

brel

by Wayne Wolfson

Reel #3

<metallic sound of film spool plinging as projector starts its lopsided spinning>

The screen is taken up by circle in which focus shapes in gray and numbers counting down from ten as clock like hands spin all accompanied by a beeping.

Slurred orchestra of Nino Rota is heard as an office comes into view.There are gilded edged books in green and red leather under glass barrister bookcase glass, a hat rack on which a trilby hangs at a steep angle as to indicate that its positioning an intentional joke. The camera Panning right, a large mahogany desk whose surface in only broken up by a green blotter and big mouthed ashtray in which two dead snake looking matches lay.

Viewed from profile as he looks out the window, a man awkwardly sits on the corner of his desk , one leg extended, foot on the floor while the ankle of other foot digs into its knee.

He turns towards the camera, taking his pipe out of his mouth, putting it in the ashtray:

“Oh hello, i didn’t see you there.”

The rumples in his cardigan are smoothed out. The music turns playful with the flute taking the lead. An image of rabbits or some other smallish animals rolling around in a tangled mass among the grass is conjured.

“Well…”

The music turns ominous but the reel has too much slack and so slurs which only adds to an abstracted danger.

“Notice the nostrils flare and quiver in anticipation of <inaudible>.  Indubitably, the female of the species is the more deadly than that of the male. Even more so for the unwary  for whom pleasure has become more than merely a matter of biology. Notice how the lips part just slightly as if to wordlessly say…”

A white hole appears at center of film getting larger and larger, the edges of  frozen image becoming a mountainous relief map of burnt celluloid before retreating further back to allow more whiteness to appear.  The unpleasant smell of something man made burning.

W.Wolfson’18

 

“Rachel” Watercolor & Cotton Paper  7×10

 

rachael

 

 

 

 

by Wayne Wolfson

B

(This is from a new series “Songs About Women”)

First Song: B

Did glitch art

As university student she sat at feet of a professor who was for her, one part jesus, one part father figure. He was infallible in all things which upped her worth by acolyte association.

She mentioned a tome, one of the dead Roman’s that I am into, which he had turned her onto.

I had just finished writing an essay on translations. This was the worst translation, full of errors. Politely pointing this out caused discord in her established narrative.

A picture I found while pruning my papers of no longer necessary accumulation. the drawing from it to serve as a tombstone.

 

9×12 Quick Sketch

 

20180908_150210

by Wayne Wolfson

Falstaff ‘Riffing

It was magical in that the rain held out every day, aside from minor flare ups, until I was home for the night. I would lay in bed and see the lights of other people’s home’s flicker through the sheets of heavy Parisian rain. The steady rhythmic sound as it hit the zinc tiles made music unnecessary.

I was reading Harold Bloom’s “Falstaff Give Me Life”. A meditation upon the character & literature. Some of his pronouncements (in general) are controversial but he always walks the reader through his thought process. Unlike a lot of essayists of later generations, he does not insist he is correct because it is how he feels but instead presents evidence cited to back up opinion.

Of course personal taste enters into it too. I confess some works of which he is passionate about do nothing for me. The mark of a great thinker and essayist, I am still interested to read what he has to say.

For me, Shakespeare is not the same end-all-be-all. I prefer my Greeks & Romans. It did prompt me to revisit the bard and also the Verdi Opera. (In the book he mentions the opera, making a specific point of  “that Falstaff not being the one written about”.

I got more enjoyment from revisting the bard. I already owned the opera, bought originally solely because Bryn Terfel was in title role. I delved into it again and found I enjoyed it much more than at the time of my original purchase, now listening to it at least once a week.

Falstaff, just under the surface of his merriment can be glimpsed a bent to self sabotage or a fatal purity, to not play the game of politics & ambition but rather stay true to himself via  appetite. Appetite that is not always to be satiated but the attempt to do so being the best way to honor & live life.

It all makes for some great base material of art in any medium. Here are some quick sketches, riffing upon the theme.

 

 

 

by Wayne Wolfson

Seattle

Smaller works of art might be of ideal size for where it is going to be placed. There is resistance to this though, as on a subconscious level (at least),  some people equate “more” of something with it being better.

It is faulty logic, unless a work’s size is an intentional component, bigger to near on point of domination of a space, is not better. Bang for your buck should never be a cultural consideration.

In the age of consumerism, a sort of forced perception resulting from faulty logic.  Just as physically bigger books with higher page count are automatically deemed harder reads (most of the densest books I have read all have had relatively average page counts, it is ideas and style that create density) it is letting the wrong factors inform opinion.

More and more I lean towards smaller works. They lend themselves to lessening the “I am looking at art” sensation while furthering the “I am feeling something/something from this”.

It could be a generational thing, I am wary of deflated attention spans and lapsed concentration of gallery goers. People having become used to necks bent in worship of i phones or tablet will do a cursory look at larger piece, eyes flitting across the canvas to capture “the point” of it at cost of all the other things going on which contribute to a work’s tension & release.  Smaller works, there is no dead space all the poetry and flavor is enmeshed with “the point”.

I do vary the sizes of my works but with the largest being 11×14, no one will ever call any of them big.

Seattle 5.5×8.5

 

Seattle

by Wayne Wolfson