Saturday, September 19, 2009

spent the morning looking at and meditating on the re-worked painting started in 2001. after several months of working mostly in acrylic, all this black oil is really moving. while the speed of acrylic opens it's own possibilities, i'm really digging the slow pace of working in oil once again-- it makes you look and understand what is actually going on in a painting... there is a lot to be said about good acrylic paint, and the improvisation that is readily available while working in acrylics has it's own poetry. but, yeah, oil paint... black oil.

something else entirely...

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

so, after crazed intensity of making four 8-foot paintings in less than 2 weeks, I'm back to the slow pace of studio work. i've spent the last week re-visiting fairly large drawings that were started last year, created in a span of 4 or 5 months of solid work on paper. now, i've pulled a 6-footer out and put it back on the brooklyn studio wall. this is another work thats been with me since 2001. worked, re-worked, set aside, etc... it's been hanging out now for about 2 years. every now and then i'd take it out and dig it for a while, for one reason or another, never hitting it. that ended yesterday...


Monday, September 14, 2009

a few notes:

*if you see a gallery show this week, make sure you see david novros at the paula cooper gallery on 21st street and vivian springford at gary snyder project space on 26th. these are museum quality shows of 2 painters who have not had their due. novros is still with us. springford is gone...

*the first big week of the art scene has come and gone. we could hardly walk the streets of chelsea, the crowds filled with those who make art, those who buy it and, of course, those who can't, or don't do either...

*another show to make would be jesse mccloskey at the christopher henry gallery, downtown on elizabeth street. this is heavily allegorical work-- painted collage, worked and re-worked into a strange poem of life in the studio. autobiographical? maybe. maybe it's the tale of what we all go through facing the canvas or the panel or the sheet of paper laid out on the work table.

* there is a bar in brooklyn i might not be allowed to enter for a while. thats probably good for both of us...

Sunday, September 13, 2009

and now the floating in the pool is done... i'm in the reality of NYC. fair enough.

a good friend is using (and abusing) my studio for a commissioned work. there should be a standard for artists bumming anothers space, as favor, as chance, etc... but i guess there isn't.

a poet from san diego is in town long enough to get me really drunk.

this is life. life attacked or life followed. either way, life...

where am i going with this?? good question.

good question...