G

It suddenly occurred to me what I need to do with my art to bring it to the next level. (Yeah, you know the level of which I speak.) In a certain aspect, this thing is sort of antithetical to my general aesthetic. But, what are you going to do?

Or will I?

F

I love the fact that being overcautious is a built in variable for my process.

If I'm nervous, I affect the painting lightly for a while. Was about to lay down some color a couple days ago, and thought the pigment might be too strong, so I diluted it by half.

Did my work and by the time it dried I could barely see it. Nevertheless, through a type of accretion the painting starts taking its direction, and even though the marks are hard to see they will still influence everything that comes after.

E

Have gotten over my fear of the big painting. Am now working with alacrity. Just reminded myself that it's a job, and that I've done this type of work for years now ...

D

I made one mark with a pencil. Hated it. Liked it the next morning. Was ambivalent about it the evening after. I've kind of forgotten about it now, but I know it's down there, watching, waiting for me.

C

I've been holding off on making any marks, though my new big piece is now all covered with dry plaster. It feels solid and didn't warp, there is little torque, so it should be all good.

I hate the nerves that come with working on something big.

Won't someone please take my paintings?

B

Constructed the substrate for a painting today. 36" X 60" - my biggest single piece since I painted on refrigerator boxes in the late '80s.

(I did a huge sep-tych? 6 piece thing at PSU composed of 48" X 24" panels all hung in a row - Bill LePore called it 'outrageous' or something, but that doesn't count, anyway.)

I have to admit I'm a little nervous working that big, and not only because I have no storage!

Maybe my adoring public will go gaga over the size ...

A

Separated black beans from lentils for a while in my basement studio. It helps with concentration. Getting back to work after an unneeded break. Working on small pieces and also trying to go big.

I'm eager to get to it, but circumstances have intervened, I guess. Have to remember and force myself to adhere to some new things I want to work on, while maintaining the good old throughput.

Rearrange the studio

i rearranged my studio on friday. in the past i typically painted on unstretched canvas, pinned to the west wall of my studio, the canvas to be stretched later after the painting was complete. lately however i have been revisiting some of those old paintings that had been stretched, which were not up to snuff, essentially painting over the entire things. this posed a problem as i did not have an easel large enough for these big canvases (in the 40" x 60" neighborhood).

so i rearranged the studio to make more room. here is looking southeast. behind the desk area is the sink, and beyond that to the south is the storage half of the studio. my painting wall is unseen, to the right of where i was standing.

turning to the right, here is my painting wall. the material on the wall is a sort of insulation panel from home depot. it is what i pin my unstretched canvas on, like a large cork board. my new "easel" is two 2x4's on either side of the wall, with 3/4" holes drilled in at one foot increments and dowels sticking out of it which support the horizontal 2x4. this is perfect for large to medium canvases. (i have a traditional easel for the smaller canvases)

turning more to the right, now facing north, this is the entrance to the studio. i used to have a desk and shelving along the north wall, but all clutter has been moved to the storage half of my space, allowing more floor space to move around. i can now contemplate my paintings from a better distance and move from side to side freely.

it's amazing what energy i have from the new layout. just having a few more feet of floor space, and a proper set up for the paintings has given the space new life. not shown here is the painting i did on friday after fixing the space up. i think the shot of energy made its way down my arms and onto the canvas. i like it...

rumors of my death

the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

although this painting might be the death of me. i started it a week ago and it was a gray gloomy mess. then yesterday morning it became this:

showed it to kurt at lunch, and he provided some good insight into compositional issues and so then it became this. while kurt's remarks were spot on, my efforts were disappointing. blech.

then this morning it morphed into this. still not there, but maybe better? this painting has been painted over at least 15 times in the last week. i've never struggled so hard to resolve a painting. Guston says "frustration is everything", so at least i'm successful in that regard.

?

do blogs still matter?

dreams

if I could paint as well in my waking life as I do in dreams, well, I don't know, I would probably have paintings in Moma or something.

perseverance, courage, and replaced fenders

in the last two weeks i have painted five of the best paintings i have probably ever painted.

there were days i painted poorly as well, but i was aware, more than ever before, that my temperament was just not right (i was also aware of its "rightness" on the good days, and painted hurriedly to capitalize on the fleeting feeling). on the day when my temperament was right i felt a sense of control over the process - that i knew ahead of time which mark was needed and how it would look before i laid it down. i had no fear of "losing" the painting and had a renewed confidence that if i did, i could revive it.

those days were like clear skies while the others were fog.

looking today at yesterday's work (sheffield 35) i remember being generally happy with the painting but being displeased with a few areas. for a moment i hesitated, unsure how to improve them and fearful of destroying the entire, otherwise successful, image, should i attempt to fix them and fail. the moment passed quickly, the confidence returned, and i addressed the areas, sometimes making them worse than before, but, persevering, ultimately improving them to harmony with the rest of the painting.

that is the kind of courage that i would have lacked before - leaving the painting instead at "good enough". however, the longer those inadequate areas are left unaddressed the harder it is to fix them. it is nearly impossible for me to add only a few marks to a dray painting days or weeks after i last touched it. those marks appear too obvious, or conspicuous, to me, and seem false - like a replaced car fender in a mis-matched color.