On the Road – Page 6 – Paper Life Painting

The Sprawl

Please my friend, Nothing happens here ’till after10.We will meet at the Metropole and I will make you a party the proper way.

All my muscles twitched in anticipation but also preemptively in sympathy to how I would feel tomorrow.

They call it the sprawl. People seeking their fortune, power over others, their past, themselves or simply distraction come here.

Often it doesn’t work out. Either to settle debt or naively thinking they will work way up to better money and position people become window shadows, living come hither ads.

One grows used to seeing the writing silhouettes but always upon first entering the sprawl and encountering them one looks up, not necessarily a good idea here.

The higher up window shadows had to go further than mere writing & dancing to get attention. In compensation for attitude, entire acts could be witnessed occurring perhaps a floor or two before the rooftops.

Both my cheeks were kissed in the proper way as is only right. He clapped his hands together. Everyone nodded to themselves sensing the expansiveness of the boss’s joy to once again see me and hear me talk.

(Notes & images from the sprawl December 2018 W.Wolfson)

sprawl

December 14, 2018 by Wayne Wolfson

Fish

Watercolor and paper 5.5×8

I have always needed to be engaged with what I am drawing/painting. However, it need not be an overly dramatic thing, snapshots from my daily life often do the trick.

This is because most of the joy and excitement for me comes from serving the process. This perhaps is indicative of what is referred to as having “a calling”.

I just found a great fishmonger near new studio. Here is dinner. 20181202_114817

December 8, 2018 by Wayne Wolfson

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

November 15, 2018 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

October 16, 2018 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

October 5, 2018October 5, 2018 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

September 28, 2018September 28, 2018 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

August 8, 2018 by Wayne Wolfson

Lion Alone

I was safely ensconced in my hotel room and ready to work. There was heavy marble topped table on wheels atop of whose curved feet I put my own while painting.

In between, i would walk up the hill for drinks and let strangers make confessions to me as i swirled the cubes in my glass counter clockwise with my left hand.

No one here would call to see when i would be out and about which then delayed the process. Instead I would see on the peripheral, people who surprisingly quickly, had learned where I liked to haunt, waiting.

My first stop would always be the record store. Everyone was always telling me that they were willing to accompany me. While it might have been nice to have company on the way, I had a process. I had learned with Tania that it was not enjoyable for anyone but myself. The record store was too hot, to my surprise after having walked back and forth between several bins, upon leaving I had spent way longer inside than I had realized.

I showed up to the cafes and bars with my brown paper wrapped purchases, ready to build an empty glass cityscape upon the tabletop with whomever had been waiting for me.

I am not anti drama, but I think organic things and beauty have more power. A pleasure for me is the ability to take some thing from my daily existence and then conjure it into my work.

It is not necessary and also has the potential to become a trap if an artist uses their personal lexicon of totems and symbols for every piece. But once in a while, the organics of it make for art which resonates emotion. Not necessarily as upfront dramatic as an artificially induced thing, it is of a more lasting impression to the viewer.

Lion Alone watercolor & paper 5.5×8.5

Lion Alone

August 5, 2018 by Wayne Wolfson

New Sketchpad & Paper

Disclaimer: I received no compensation/incentive for writing about this, nor was i given any type of review copies.

Up until a few years ago, I was hung up on finding “the perfect notebook (sketchpad)”. There were a few that were outright belly flops, more effort being put into articulate descriptions which initially caught my attention rather than actual construction.

Others, like my now ever present Midori Passport had a good system but do not exactly have that eventual heirloom feel to them.

I did not seek to start a collection and although I eventually ended up with several drawers of my taborets full of pads, it was not done at a maniacal pace.

Often I am on the road. Several trips I packed more equipment than I would end up using. Not a happy flyer, I like to pack as light as possible so my shoulders do not hurt, adding to already uncomfortable situation.

When one finds the most efficient or best way to do something, after the fact it seems so obvious that there is the self asked question “Why wasn’t I doing it this way from the start?”.

There is no “perfect” notebook as different situations, what is ideal or required varies. The one constant prerequisite was that it be refillable. Other than that, sometimes I need one which fits in a jacket pocket while at other times something larger or an in between size for a few day jaunt carry on bag.

I now have a preferred one for every situation. When not on the road but merely woodshedding, i mix it up, trading off which I use.

Despite now having my methodology down, I do still occasionally buy more notebooks. There is no rhyme or reason to it. A matter of if something captures my eye.

Using the last nubbin of a pencil which had been a great collaborator, I went to the store only to find they did not have any. Ordering it online, i decided to poke around for the hell of it. A less vapid version of shopping therapy.

My shelves groaned under all my books, I could not add to their number. I kept looking. I came across Le Vent notebooks by complete happanstance. They had two styles one which held 7×5 spiral bound notepad and the other a 8×5 sketchpad.

Staggered by a week or two I ended up getting them both.

Aesthetically, they are very different. The 7×5 looked like a new take on the classic portfolios that Torquato Tasso or Casanova would have kept their papers in. Modernized with two brass snaps to hold it shut in lieu of cumbersome leather straps. The leather was of surprisingly good quality. With leather goods, be it a bag, shoes or notepads there are nice things which daily life leaves its marks on, creating an “Oh No” effect upon initially being noticed. Then there are the leather good which do not mar so much as tell the story of where you have been, taking on a nice patina. These pads fall into the later category.

Unique among this type of thing, it opens and lays flat on the table which makes the act of writing for any length of time much easier. It came with two pads of thick good paper. As long as you size it correctly, any pads will work although the included brand is far from cost prohibitive.

The 8×5 sketchpad looks like a book with a snap buttoned strap to keep it shut. The leather is a different one from the other pad but of equal quality. The paper it comes with is a flat spined, sewn binding. The paper is heavy and has a vellum like smoothness to it. Again, any pad sized correctly will work.

All the times that I have purchased new notebooks, I use the paper it comes with, the main incentive being merely because it’s there. Rarely is the paper something which I would use regardless, often seeming an afterthought on the part of the company. This is paper which I would continue to use. It handles a little differently the what I usually use but I like to mix things up.

Their Site:

https://www.levent.design/

Here are my initial forays with my new notebook: