start

“Wanna be startin’ somethin’, got ta be startin’ somethin’.”

Going out, looking at other art. (Not nearly enough.) Talking with other friends over beer, about art. (Not nearly enough.) Just sitting by myself at The Hop & Vine, reading the Willamette Week, enjoying a beer. (Not nearly enough.)

Stepping outside at dusk or on a fall day. It’s always Fall when I can really tell that we’re on a planet spinning around, wrapped in an atmosphere with huge water-vapor clusters floating in the sky, and stellar radiation sliding sideways through the gas.

But the basement is full of fur-balls, and cat vomit, and smelly kitty-litter boxes, and piles of junk, and bad fluorescent lights, and spiders, and laundry, and there’s a TV upstairs.

More often than not, it doesn’t get started. Gimme something to work for.

getting started

those first marks, on the blank canvas, are the easiest. there is no right or wrong at that point. it's just all playful and exploratory. things are just getting fleshed out; you're just laying out a composition or playing around with color or whatever. you're making a painting! it's ok if it's crummy on the first day. the second day is the killer.

susan rothenberg said that 90% of painting isn't actually painting, but sitting, looking, thinking, reading, etc.. amen. aside from those days of first marks, most of my days are of the sitting, thinking, drinking coffee variety. sit and look at what you did. if it's crummy, that's depressing. if it isn't crummy then you're stuck because you're afraid to ruin the good parts. the answer, of course, is to go ahead and ruin the thing, but that is the hardest part.

"how long did it take you to paint that?". aha, trick question! six hours or three weeks...

Mysteriously this week I was painting with colors I never use, oranges and purple-reds. We think our acts in the studio are of a conscious nature.