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Posts Tagged ‘Gillian Welch’

I’ll Fly Away

Posted in Early Paintings, Music, Video, tagged , , on September 16, 2012| 5 Comments »

I recently was asked  if I ever painted any landscapes from a bird’s eye  perspective and this piece immediately came to mind.  My records on it are sketchy but I believe it was a 6″ by 9″ image on paper painted sometime around 1996.  It’s long been a favorite in my mind.

There’s something in the way the blue of the barn’s roof and the red of the silo stand out against the stripes of the fields that does something for me.  I know that’s not very deep analysis  but, hey, it’s early on a Sunday morning.  Also, there’s something about this image that  always brings to mind a song, the old gospel favorite I’ll Fly Away.  Maybe that’s the connection here.  The song is about a final release from the earthly bonds of life and this piece is definitely about  a freedom, a release of some sort.  Maybe not about  the final departure but definitely about being freed and moving from one state to another.

Transformation?

I don’t know.  But I do know that I like this version of I’ll Fly Away from Gillian Welch accompanied by her husband, David Rawlings.  Enjoy and have a great Sunday, the last of this summer.

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Throw Me a Rope

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on February 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Tuesday morning and now that I’ve started on the big canvas I showed in yesterday’s post  I find myself obsessed with getting at it.  It’s moving slower than I want but the size makes every decision have more variables to weigh and more angles to inspect.  I’m at the part of the process where I am roughing in the structure of the painting in red oxide paint and even though I am about a quarter of the way through this segment, I can see it starting to take shape and can now see several steps ahead.  Although I don’t yet know where it will finally come to rest, I now have at least an inkling. 

 As I said yesterday, the difficulty is in not trying to hurry the process,  letting it grow slowly and not rushing for my own instant gratification.  And as we all know, that can be a difficult thing to rein in.  But so far, so good and I’m liking what I’m seeing on the canvas and in the forward looking part of my mind.

That being said, I’m going to work now.  I think I need some music today and I think I’ll listen to some Gillian Welch, one of my favorites.  This is a beautiful song with a Neil Young feel called Throw Me a Rope that she’s performing with her husband, David Rawlings.  Oh, and the painting at the top is called Audience, which I will now become.

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The Harrow & The Harvest

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged on August 25, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Cool, wet Thursday morning and I’m ready to get to work a little before 7 AM,  I’m in the midst of several paintings and am thinking about where they’re headed, how they’ll finish.  Iam pretty focused this morning and don’t feel like taking the time away from this sometimes elusive drive but want to at least put something up on the blog.  I’ve been at this for almost three years and it has become a part of my morning ritual to the point that when I don’t post something I feel as though I am shirking my responsibility.  Or at least straying away from the discipline that this requires, which is part of the attraction of doing this. 

There’s something gratifying at doing something every day, even something as sometimes trivial  as this blog.  The idea of doing a small task each day and seeing it build becomes almost obsessive for me, something that I very seldom can do in other aspects of my life.  Maybe I’m hoping this discipline will spill over into those other parts.  Time will tell.

Time is the revelator.

Which brings me to one of my favorites, Gillian Welch, who has a recently released CD called The Harrow & The Harvest .  Here’s a taste from an appearance on Conan.

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The Contrast of Influence

Posted in Influences, Video, tagged , , , on January 26, 2010| 2 Comments »

I was listening to music this morning as I read email and puttered around.  My iPod was docked and in random mode so anything could come on.  At first one of my favorite pieces, Tabula Rasa from composer Arvo Part, played.  It’s a modern classical piece that I have always identified with.  Tabula Rasa translates as empty slate and was actually very influential in a lot of my early painting, helping me visualize the feeling of wide space as I painted.

Next up was Highway Patrol from Junior Brown, which is worlds away from Tabula Rasa.  It’s clunky and chunky and throttles along on Brown’s deep twangy voice and his unique guit-steel guitar licks.  I began to think about how the mood shifts so quickly between the two selections, how the mind is suddenly thrown from silence to chaos.

Something very interesting in this contrast.  I began to wonder if this has an effect on my painting, on strokes and color selection.  Am I looking for different things in my work when different types of stimuli are present?  It’s something I’ll have to examine further.

The picture shown is of a visual/psychological phenomenon called the contrast triangle.  Just above the reflected light on the water is a dark triangle in the sky.  Supposedly, it’s not really there.  If you cover the water, the darkness fades away.  It is only in our eyes and minds that it exists.  Don’t know why I put this in today except that maybe this little area of created vision is similar to the influence of other stimuli on someone’s creative work.

I don’t really know.  I am working off the cuff here, you know.

Here was the next song that came up this morning.  Another favorite, Gillian Welch with Miss Ohio.  I think that fits somewhere in my contrast triangle.  We’ll see…

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Red Clay Halo

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged on October 19, 2009| 2 Comments »

994-305 Given to the Wind

I came across this piece in my archives from several years back with a title, Given to the Wind,  that I’ve used on a couple of paintings over the years.  The composition is also similar in it’s basic design to a number of pieces of mine, particularly from the time that this piece was completed, around 2004.

I’ve overlooked this painting a number of times when I’ve been scanning my records, not giving it  much mind.  Maybe the shape and ratio of it in my thumbnails didn’t allow me to see it as well as I would like.  But yesterday when I came across this, it was like seeing it for the first time, which for me is an odd thing.  I was really pleased with it, really felt it had a fullness, a sense of completion in all ways.  It was one of those pieces that didn’t stand out in my memory and didn’t live with me very long, having sold very quickly at a gallery, yet when I saw it made me very proud to call it my work.

I don’t know what I’m trying to say with this.  Sometimes I stumble upon something I’ve forgotten and am pleased to discover that it’s mine, pleased that it’s out there somewhere in someone else’s life.  I hope they are as pleased with this as I am.

Given that there is a guitar in this piece, I suppose I’ll have a little Monday music.  This is Red Clay Halo from one of my favorites, Gillian Welch. As she says, it’s a song about dirt.  I’ve always fancied myself a dirt man so this fits, although the clay around here is stony gray.

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Rock of Ages

Posted in Recent Paintings, Video, tagged on June 13, 2009| Leave a Comment »

The Way of the Brave Well, the show was last night but I won’t report on it until tomorrow since I’m actually back on the road home.  I never carry my computer when I travel so it will have to wait.

But I wanted to leave something here today so I’ll leave a painting from the show, The Way of the Brave, and a video from one of my favorites, Gillian Welch, with a song called Rock of Ages.  Her songs are always like a rhythmic mantra to me, a kind of harmonic drone that I feel very comfortable hearing at this point in my life.  I think this painting fits in well with the song.

Anyway, enjoy your weekends and check back in…

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I’ll Fly Away

Posted in At the Movies, Favorite Things, Video, tagged , , , , , , on April 20, 2009| 2 Comments »

Far WatchI use a single bird sometimes in my paintings.  The most common meaning for me is of the bird being the watcher, overseeing everything.  It represents patience and wisdom in this case.

I see the bird most often as a hawk but sometimes it’s a crow.  I admire both, the hawk for its physical prowess and the crow for its intelligence.  I remember watching a group of crows chase a hawk and when it appeared the hawk had nowhere to go he started leading the crows upward in  long loops.  As he rose, the crows closed in and just as they were about on him he made this powerful dive that carried him from above the spot where I was on a hillside to a point in the valley below, nearly a mile away.  The crows couldn’t match the dive and were left so far behind they gave up the pursuit.  It was an impressive escape.

Sometimes the bird represents to me a type of memento mori, a reminder of our mortality.  The bird is still the watcher but more of a spirit guide.  

In the spirit of this meaning, I’m segueing into a video of the old gospel song I’ll Fly Away sung by Allison Krauss and Gillian Welch. It feature scenes from the movie from which was taken, the Coen Brothers’ O Brother Where Art Thou?, one of my favorites.  It’s one of those films where when I see it’s on television will turn in it at any point to see what point the movie is at.  I particularly like the look of the film, the way they pulled a lot of the color out, replacing it with a sepia tone that kind of gives it a dated look.  The title of the movie is taken from the great Preston Sturges  film, Sullivan’s Travels.  In it, Sullivan is a movie director of mainly comedies who wants to make a deep, socially conscious film chronicling the poor and downtrodden, to be titled O Brother Where Art Thou?  He sets out disguised as a tramp to get a first hand look at the conditions of the poor and encounters many obstacles along the way.  Ultimately, his film is not made.  That is, until the Coens took the baton and finished the job.  Both are great, great films.

Anyway, here’s I’ll Fly Away…


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Elvis Presley Blues

Posted in Biographical, Favorite Things, Influences, Television, Video, tagged , on January 8, 2009| 1 Comment »

Today is the birthday of Elvis Presley.Early Elvis

I’m not going to wax rhapsodic about the man or what he has meant to so many people.  Everyone knows the facts:

Elvis was and is big.

For me, it’s memories of going with my sister and cousin to the movies to see his films.  I was 5 or 6 years old but even then, Elvis’ charisma was unavoidable even in those sometimes awful films.

I remember sitting in front of the TV with my dad in’68 when Elvis made his comeback special.  We both sat mesmerized as we watched,  which struck me because my dad was not one to show much obvious interest in a lot of things.  It was an amazing thing to watch.  Elvis had the air of absolute desperation around him, as if everything in the world hung on  him pleasing us and gaining our love and approval.

 It seemed to be, to quote an Elvis hit, now or never.

It was a mythic performance, obvious to even a 9 year old.

But like many mythic beings, intermingled with greatness there was the aura of tragedy and sadness.  That’s how I think of Elvis.  A simple man elevated to myth and burdened with a talent and charisma with which few are equipped to handle.

Here’s another Gillian Welch song, Elvis Presley Blues,  which kind of sums up that feeling.

Happy birthday, E…

.

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The Revelator

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Video, tagged , on December 28, 2008| 1 Comment »

The RevelatorI find that whatever is playing in the studio, music or film, at the time I’m painting has a great influence over my work.  Songs or movies that have great dramatic impact for me often manifest themselves in my work, with me picking up their tone and rhythm and trying to lay it down in paint.

This is a great example of this trait.  It’s a painting from a few years back titled The Revelator and even takes it’s name from the song that influenced it, (Time’s) The Revelator from Gillian Welch.  This was a much played song in my studio at the time and I felt that it had emotional weight that mirrored what I was trying to get across in my work.  Wistful but warm.  Accepting of the fact that time eventually reveals what is true and what is important.

Good stuff…

Here’s the song performed by Gillian Welch.  Enjoy.

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