The temperature in my studio is once again safe to be in. I had finished the Ro piece before my brief exile while Swinger lay almost done the entire time of my banishment. I am very pleased with both pieces.
Swinger has special history. Over a decade ago the place I had lived part of the year every year in Paris for a long time had art supply stores all around it. I had a preference for specific things from each store i.e my pencil store, my paint store et al.
By happenstance I became pals with one of the guys at the sore closest to me. It’s proximity meant that i often walked by it and would pop in just to walk the isles, grabbing pencils or little notepads which I really didn’t need. We would chat.
He started letting me use his employee discount, plus coupons and samples. The very last time I saw him, I was so loaded up with supplies (lots free non-sample things) that when returning stateside I needed an extra bag for all the goodies.
He followed a proto-Coachella girl to Ibiza, then all around the hotspots for EDM festivals until he vanished in the ether.
Swingers is the very last piece of paper from all the paper swag he had given me. Obviously, I did not use it non-stop but I did use it steadily in-between all other papers I was exploring.
I would like to think that he got the girl or maybe he realized he didn’t need to get the girl, that it was about the adventure. And now, like Ulysses, he is heading towards a land where people do not put salt on their food.
I came up as an artist pre-internet. The thing that was drilled into everyone’s head was that you could spend your life serving the process and never be known in your lifetime, never catch that brass ring. People would disappear from the scene after a year or so of doing straight jobs and then spending large chunks of their free time in solitary pursuit of serving the process for seemingly nothing.
Of course no one would passively accept an artistic life of anonymity. We made xerox staple ‘zines, we held shows in anyone who had an living room to spares place, we played barbeques and house parties.
Another way of seeing how serious one was about being an artist was effort took to actually make a ‘zine (the way they looked often did not reflect the amount of effort put in). There was not a glut of ‘zines because it was no easy thing and it cost money.
The internet seemed to make things more egalitarian to those locked out of the studio/academic system. It also allowed an artist to reach those beyond their city.
The great promise morphed, now you had some of the gate keepers extending their kingdom to online, new submitters forced to jump through new hoops as to make editor/gallerist’s egos throb and grow.
After a few years of this though, the people seemed to have had enough. Everyone was now doing their own thing online largely under their own power. Yes, there are still journals and galleries et al to submit to. More often than not they do not look that great and their only value lay in making someone just starting out or a dilettante feel validated because someone they don’t know chose one of their works (often for a submission fee)
I am not anti-internet nor anti anything which allows one to be heard. However, it has become too easy. I have lost count of how many artist in visual medium and writing i have encountered who are not bad but need more time. With a blog, social media etc etc one can write a short story, do a drawing and put it up and even if it is not great, still garnering thousands of views. It gives very little incentive for an artist to woodshed. With no woodshedding and no serving the process there can be no evolution.
Rather than work on their voice & vision people now machine gun post what they are up to and selling on social media. We have a new generations of artists who do not have an audience but rather customers. There is an odd (and often obnoxious) Always Be Closing attitude with artists now.
All the likes and reposts which social media posted art receives, regardless of skill set and how much the work is not ready to be viewed has emboldened a sense of permission for the attachment on posts for the asking for something i.e Ko-fi, Patron, buy-me-a-coffee et al.
I am not anti selling one’s work. Of course if you are an artist you would like make some money for what you do if for no other reason than it allows you to continue on doing it. Nor am I anti self promotion but with this i do feel there is some etiquette to be observed too.
Anyone who follows my blog knows that I do not pester with the merchant side of what I do except for maybe twice a year, one of which is always the release of my latest collection. Often occurring in the spring. My new collection is out, first to be released not in the spring as I was finishing writing a novel.
I am both pleased and proud of it. It is available in paperback and for kindle at amazon.
It has been triple digit heat here so of course my AC broke. They ordered the part I need which is syrup time in getting here. Even with windows open, ceiling fan and free standing fan, my studio has been in the 90’s (and hard to breath in). This was no mere discomfort to be countered by having a large travel mug of ice water & wearing sarong as i have encountered in the past.
Exiled from my studio
I had a painting which would have been done in two more sessions, now laying on table in anticipation of our reunion. In meanwhile I have been able do my daily drawing. I only used one pencil a large Kimberley 525. The book is a hard backed lay flat 11×14 which i found while reorganizing my tabourets pre-inferno.
Here are the drawings done for my own amusement dubbed The Heatwave Series
A lot of things in the world of painting which are now common were inspired by a pragmatism. The impressionists often painted in pleine air because it was easier than dealing with the types of studios which they could afford. They used each other and friends, family and lovers as subjects since this would be less expensive than using professional models.
The painter doing self-portraits also came about from such considerations. Occasionally, it does have an aspect of symbolism, the painter proclaiming themselves as such, pledging a lifetime of serving the process.
My oeuvre contains many self-portraits. Sometimes just a body part. at others times my mug. There is no symbolism in this. Either I had some paint left in palettes or I wanted to get to work without dealing with anyone else. Initially, there was a time & money pragmaticism for the subjects of my portraits. Now I prefer to use the people from my inner circle since we have an established trust where they offer up an emotional honesty rather than anything which would be too academic or glam.
My mission is to offer up emotional honesty in my work since truth is beauty. The portrayal of myself, warts and all and of flesh in general is a major part of my lexicon.
Linguine my ever present Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches
There was an article recently about the two most influential modern artists. It got me thinking about the nature of art’s current influence. Art has become specialized. People still flock to museums but the casual viewer is there because of the totem they have made of any given artist, the mythos as it applies to them.
Picasso was important to his peers because of how he freed them up to pursue their own North Stars. The appeal now? He has become a sort of shorthand for being able to do whatever you want, seemingly effortlessly and make money, scribble on a napkin to pay for a roomful of people’s dinner at a four star restaurant, grab a collector/gallerist or peer’s wife by the breast and have everyone laugh and clap. It holds great appeal for people who aspire to become famous from nothing more than becoming an influencer or reality television star.
Picasso was an ass for sure. But credit where credit is due, he spent the majority of his day working in front of an easel and when not directly applying brush to canvas it was one of the things foremost on his mind.
People now admire Picasso not for what he did, nor what he freed up in others but because in their minds he was sort of proto reality start/influencer. They think of all they could do if they could be Picasso-like, not realizing that you can’t wish to be sui generis and still live the life you live now as you live it. That is the wish though and artists have become a totem divorced from what their reality was.
Painting has suffered the same divorce from reality. People have grown used to looking at art online often the artist’s hand/brushstroke is not as apparent and sometimes digitally smoothed out. A.I has made it worse, images made to look “real” quoting if not outright reproducing famous paintings & images do not even attempt to appear made by human hands.
These factors combined with the fact that everyone has a cellphone with which to photograph the minutia of their lives and how to look at and enjoy a painting is forgotten.
The casual viewer does not want to see the artist’s hand, they want machine like perfection as seen on their screens or phones. A painting is judged “good” now by how close to hyper realism it is. If a painting of a face can’t be mistaken for a photo then it is not good. (to me 99% of the hyper realism stuff is all technique and no soul. You forget it a soon as it it not in front of your face).
The only exception to all this seems to be some of the well known paintings, Van Gough, Monet’s waterlilies et al. With those though appeal is artificial story the viewer has told that they insert themselves into.
I was at a museum in Paris looking at one of these well known paintings and a twenty something woman stood next to me with the corners of her mouth turned down. I had to ask what was wrong. She showed me the image of the painting we stood before on her phone. She looked down at it then up. She showed me the image on the phone then waved her hand as if swatting away an insect at the painting;
“What’s all that?”
It was the impasto strokes of the brush on canvas.
For my works, I want my pieces to look like the subject but to also capture the truth of the moment before me. I am not afraid for a painting or drawing to look like painting or drawing. This is simple but important advice I would give any painter.
Spaghetti Night 9×12 inches Rembrandt cold pressed fine grain
Tongue my ever present Talen Art Creations Multi Media pocket Pad 4×4 inches
I currently have no new raw material (photos) for my next Cinefield®. I do not mind as I am enjoying painting. Portraying human flesh with paint continues to give me the same pleasure as when I initially was able to do it well.
Here are two new pieces. Both are watercolor on paper. One in my pocket pad 4×4 inches and the other a new paper I recently discovered 5×7.
There is a great quote by author Paul Auster along the lines of “Do a thing simply for the beauty of doing it.” As an artist, I came up pre-internet (this was when I also had to have a string of terrible day jobs) A buddy and I would do literal Xerox-staple ‘zines. We would run all over town bullying, pleading & annoying Bookstores, Record stores anyplace, to carry them.
If two people saw them, you felt like you were one hundred feet tall. But, this was the bonus as it was about serving the process. It was a calling, a romance, which I am still swept up in. There was not the worry of social media numbers, likes. reposts etc.
I have noticed that many Parisian artists sort of have this attitude. Of course it has become a necessity to maintain an online presence no matter where in the world one is, but you do not see heads bent in prayer to screens in the same way you do stateside.
Do a thing for the beauty of it and the rest will follow, it may not be as immediate as posting and then getting a “like” but it will be more lasting and meaningful.
I have been greatly enjoying using my newish pocket pad for painting. It is interesting how ambient light effects a piece. If a room is naturally darker then the application of paint is thicker whereas a really bright space less paint is used. This is because of how the eye perceives the colors.
My studio has a natural sort of yellowish/gold tinge to it. I am fortunate in that I can see in my mind’s eye how to compensate for it.
“M After” Watercolor & pocket pad 4×4 inches
Drawing with impulse buy pencil
One of my other favorite statues in Paris
so many buildings have plaques denoting who lived there, when and what they did. There are many for Picasso who had numerous homes in the city. Sometimes an artists had many homes because they kept skipping out on the rent! With some artists you see several plaques all within the same arrondissement.
The lighting in my new studio is different, but I feel I have a handle on it now. I am well into the swing of things. I’ve mostly been using my semi new to me pocket pad for painting. Drawings been spread out all kinds of paper. 4×4 inches
I discovered a new to me paint company. They have been around since 1830. Among many greats, Matisse and Renoir got their watercolors from them. They remain very artisan. Just looking at the paints you see the difference in pigments. They also have proprietary colors.
paints are not paints, each hue has its own distinct properties and then this varies even more from company to company.
Not knowing if I would like them, I just bought five to try. This is why on my first piece skin doesn’t have volume & mass I usually achieve. I instantly liked the paint, it handles diff than anything else I have used. Decided to go all out, new 5×7 paper, new paint.
For the first time in a decade I’ve had to change my Parisian studio. Gone the view of the dome for Val de Grace and the enormous bird who sleeps in the windowbox among the geranium, his throaty song heralding dawn.
I was a little sad of course. On the other hand in warmer weather once past the noon hour I would not have to paint clad in a sarong and tee shirt or risk baking like a potato.
I am still learning the light in new place, ideal times to paint.
Here is my first piece, watercolor and pocket pad 4×4 inches. I was pleased with the results.
Well, still have not been able to take photos to serve as raw fuel for my Cinefield® work. Ironically, I have managed to do my fine art photo work, but that’s a different animal.
I am fortunate though, I have enough other mediums to work in as to stay out of trouble. I have been doing paintings, switching styles of paper. The loose knit theme behind the pieces is the portrayal of flesh.
This piece is white * French Cotton paper 5×7 inches.
* I had a buddy in Paris who worked at one of my favorite art stores. I am lucky that right around my place are many, each one has different purpose for me: “my pencil place” et al. We would chat & he would give me employ discount, sometimes even more than that. I would load up on equipment.
I was reorganizing one of the tabouret in my studio. This block of white cotton paper he gave me had been hidden under yellow legal pad on which I had written an idea for a sculpture.
I realized that it had been many, many years ago he had thrown a bunch of landscape sketchpads into a backpack and pursued a boho girl to Ibiza. A few postcards and then even people he had worked with for years stopped hearing from him. I don’t know if he ever got the girl but I still haven’t used up all the stuff he gave me.
Paper Life Painting 