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Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Released

Posted in Recent Paintings on September 26, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I’m done with shows for the year and have been starting to do some little and not-so-little chores around the home and studio.  My time painting for a few weeks will be limited but even so, I have imagery and ideas floating around in my head while I’m preoccupied in these other tasks.  I start thinking about how the next big burst of painting will start and where it might lead and how I want to continue some things that have marked this past year’s work and set aside some other things until another time and place.

For instance, the colors in this recent painting, Released, are some that I have used periodically in the past.  Rolling orange dunes and purplish sky.  There’s something in this palette that thinks I should go a bit further with it and I set a marker in my head to do so.  What comes from it, I can’t yet say.  Sometimes these markers, these ideas,  end up only being the beginnings of something that results in something far different than I expected.  More often than not, if I let the idea just go on its own and of its own energy it is better than expected.  It’s when I try to force the situation that it ends up being less than I thought or hoped.

This is always an exciting time for me, when ideas are germinating and there is nothing but potential in the forseeable future.  The ideas are yet untested and there’s a real positivity around them.  These growing ideas really drive me to get back to the studio after doing the other tasks at hand.

 

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Zen Garden

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on September 6, 2011| 2 Comments »

I’ve been working on a series of  paintings of interior scene, many of which I have featured here recently.  They have a limited number of elements and there is an almost formal order in the way they go together, with only so many available options.  But even with this limited visual vocabulary and subtle, muted tones in the colors used, these scenes seem to have great emotional depth that transcends the apparent limitations.

It reminds me of a zen garden, those minimalist meditative spaces consisting of sand and stone and a small bit of vegetation where the sand is raked each day.  There is little there.  Pure simplicity.  Yet there is great depth in its expression.

Zen Garden at Ryoan-ji , Kyoto

One of the most famous zen gardens is Ryoan-ji near Kyoto, Japan.  It is 30 meters long and 10 meters wide and consists of 15 stones, a bit of moss and sand.  It seems so simple yet so complex at the same time. 

 The emptiness, the lack of the non-elemental, allows room for the expanse of thought.  There is a great power that occupies the stillness of this space, a concept that I hope carries through in these small paintings of sparse interiors with simple scenes outside their windows.

 
 

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Telepathy

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on September 4, 2011| 3 Comments »

I call this new painting Telepathy, a 14″ by 18″ piece on paper.  I see it as being about the connection and unspoken communication between the two red trees. 

I suppose telepathy is the right word.  I’m not talking about the ability to send thoughts to or read the  thoughts of another person like a psychic medium.  This is the telepathy in looking across a room and with a glance knowing what the other person feels about what is occurring or has been said.  The ability to read that person’s thoughts through the knowledge of their opinions. 

Actually, the word telepathy was first coined by the German scholar Frederic W.H. Myers in 1882. I doubt that we are related but the name Frederick was common in our family for a number of generations.  But I think that was pretty common for Germanic families with the influence of Frederick the Great who was King of Prussia around the time many of these families migrated to this country.  Myers’ meaning for the word was that there was communication without any use of the normal senses, such as  the sight I used in my use of the word.

So perhaps I misuse the word telepathy.  But that form of communication that consists of a knowing glance or a raised eyebrow transmits so much information that is surely seems telepathic to me.

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At First, Fury

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on August 30, 2011| 1 Comment »

I am still looking for a title for this new painting,  a piece that is about 8″ by 26″on paper.  It’s done in the same tones as my recent interior pieces, mainly a coppery sepia with small bits of color.  The color ( or lack of  color) of this piece sets the tone and gives it the sense of drama that the scene suggests. 

I am, of course, focused on the tree and its motion as I try to find that part of the painting that will reveal this piece’s title.  I see a sort of defiance in the bend of the tree trunk and the way the limbs and leaves respond to and resist the wind that buffets the landscape.  I don’t know if the tree is viewing the sun that breaks through the clouds as a savior to take away the strain of this wind or if it is railing against the sun, seeing it as a vengeful power who allows such suffering.  There is a sort of fury implied here, at least in the way I see it.

I step back and try to see it in a different way, perhaps a gentler,  more placid light,  but my mind only sees it in that way now, full of fury.  Fuuny how the mind grabs onto one aspect and refuses to let loose of it.   But I’m hesitant to fully follow that interpretation without a bit more time to perhaps see this painting in a diiferent light with a different feel.  I just think there’s more to it than I’m seeing at first blush.

I’m pleased that this piece raises this ambiguity in myself, that it sparks conflicting emotions.  That suggests that there’s something beyond what I might have tried to consciously insert in it, that it has that certain something that I could never produce with intent.  All I could hope for my work.

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Autumn Sparse

Posted in Recent Paintings on August 23, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This is a  piece I recently completed, part of a series of  small paintings (this one is only 4″ square) of interiors with windows.  There’s something in the geometry of these pieces, in the way the simple elements react with each other in the available space that really attracts me. 

There’s also a very contemplative feel inherent in these scenes.  There seems to be a direct reaction or at least a relationship to the outside scene by the objects inside, as though they somehow relate to their experience.  I think this gives these pieces a certain amount of self-propelling life, allowing them to say more than the individual elements could when taken alone.

I haven’t titled this piece yet but the term Autumn Sparse came to mind.  There’s a real spare quality in both the insterior and exterior scenes here that reminds me of autumn, both the season and that of  the middle-age period of humans.  The leaves have fallen from the trees and there’s a cool air feel in the open window and clean lines of the interior.  A time to brace  for coming winter…

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Uncharted

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on August 19, 2011| 5 Comments »

This is a small painting on paper, only 4″ by 5″, that I immediately began calling Uncharted as soon as the final stroke fell into place.  The way the path ends at the edge of the field in the foreground and the way the central figure stood there brought to mind someone coming to a point in their life, their journey, who realizes they are at a point and place they have never encountered before nor even been warned of by others.  They want to move forward, they know they must move ahead but they are filled with fears and doubts.  Second guessing.

I think most people try to avoid ever coming to such a place in their lives.  Most of us follow templates set down by many generation before us which attempt to create a stable and safe path for us to journey down. 

The known.  Familiar territory.

 But for some, that path soon comes to an end and they must venture forward using their own instincts, making their own way ahead if they can ever expect to find satisfaction with their existence here.

Again, it’s a scary route and not one easily chosen.  But for those who seek something that fulfills the inner aspects of themselves, it is the only way.  In a way I feel like I’m describing the route that the shamans of some natives tribes around world take in finding their spiritual awakening and maybe that is akin to the journey of many other seemingly normal people in other cultures who seek those intangibles that lay off the known map that we usually folllow.

 I’m not really sure.  That is uncharted territory for me but I am gratified that this simple, small piece inspires a little more thought.

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Far From Me

Posted in Influences, Music, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged on August 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

This is a painting I recently finished, a small piece, only 4″ square on paper.  It’s a mix of landscape and very uncomplicated still life with stark but distinct elements throughout.  There’s a simplicity that runs through this scene that covers a depth of feeling, a pang from the heart.

I sat this aside for a day or two after finishing it and found myself coming back to it.  There was a familiar tone to it that reminded me of something that I couldn’t quite identify until this morning when I walked into the studio.  I looked at it as I sat down and instantly said to myself, “Far From Me.”

It was the old John Prine song from his first album which came out forty years back, in 1971. There was something in this piece that filled me the feeling of Prine’s lyrics of gradual loss:

And the sky is black and still now

On the hill where the angels sing

Ain’t it funny how an old broken bottle

Looks just like a diamond ring

But it’s far, far from me

This piece will probably always be that song now for me, a personal avatar for a song buried deep inside and often forgotten.  Funny how things work…

Here’s Far From Me  done by Jamestown Ferry,  a Berlin, Germany based duo who performs Americana music as well as traditional Scotch and Irish music.  It’s a lovely and faithful version.

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Altarpiece

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on August 8, 2011| 4 Comments »

Here’s a new piece I finished this past week, a 13″ by 33″ tryptych on paper.  It will be framed in a 20″ by 40″ frame so it will have some size giving it visual impact on the wall.

From the very start, the colors that were coming out as I built the foreground were deep and saturated.  Each section had dark edges and a brightness in the center that gave it the appearance of having light streaming through it as though it were stained glass.  In fact, as it grew it looked more and more like the stained glass one might find in a cathedral.  I’m not sure the effect will come through in the photography or on the computer screen but in the studio it has that sort of color quality.

It was this feel that prompted the title Altarpiece.  I see the landscape as forming a natural altar, perhaps a marriage altar with the two trees at the center intertwined. Or perhaps the intertwined trees represent the natural world’s connection with the spiritual world.  I don’t know.

 I think there is a sense here of spiritual quiet that you might associate with the the calm silence of a large church, a stillness that prompts reflection and reverence.  I am not a religious man in any sense of the word but I am drawn to religious sanctuaries for that feeling that comes from them, one that I find much like that feeling I experience in the quiet of the forest or in a wide and open field.  It focuses one’s own stillness and clears away the chaff created by normal worry.  Which is my hope for this piece.

 

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The Encroachment

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on August 1, 2011| 2 Comments »

This is a new painting that I just finished yesterday.  At least I think I’m finished.  I’ll probably make some touches here and there on this piece simply because there are so mnay different elements, in the form of the many red roofs, that affect the overall feel of it.  A lot going on, in other words.

It’s a 30″ by 30″ canvas  that I’m calling The Encroachment, for what seems an obvious reason.  The Red Tree here is quickly being surrounded and will soon be swallowed by the growing mass of the Red Roofs.  There are many ways you can read this: as a symbol of the way our growing global population has gobbled up available resources.  Or how, though the world seems smaller and more closelyconnected, there is still an  air of alienation by many.  Or maybe it is simply a symbol of nonconformity or  freedom.

Taking it from a different perspective, it could be representing a sort of sermon on the mount with the Red Tree taking on the central role as preacher/messiah.  I hadn’t thought of this perspective until this very moment but I can see how many people might see it this way, especially without seeing the title.

I don’t really know at this point how I ultimately will see it.  I’m still just taking it in, trying to get past that stage where I am still inside it, painting, and can look at it from outside.  We’ll see.

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Talk Reminder

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged on July 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Just a quick reminder to anyone out there that will be in the Corning area tomorrow, Thursday:  I will be giving a gallery talk at the West End Gallery beginning at noon.  The talk usually lasts between 45 minutes to an hour and is, as its name implies, simply a talk between the audience and myself.  The conversation that results from questions asked by the audience normally produce the best parts of these talks and always give me something to think about. 

So, if you would like to take part in the conversation or just listen in, please stop in at the West End tomorrow at noon.  Hope to see you there.

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