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...

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...

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...

the fires are burning around LA and it's late. about 2 weeks ago, while sitting in traffic on the LIE, i got a call from my atlanta gallery about a commision for the Palazzo Tower in las vegas. so i ended up having 4 96"x48" canvases made and delivered and flew out to LA to get down. that was august 19th. after 7 days and about 90 hours of work (given breaks for the pool) i've got 4 eight foot paintings standing in the studio, waiting to be picked up and i'm still trying to understand it all.

luck? the gods, finally smiling? a matter of time? who knows?

i do know this:

keep making work. go to the studio and lay it down. find a way to make the rent. find a way to make someone understand. keep in it. remember why it should happen. believe that there will be your moment. continue to fire up the dream. life doesn't always work for you. thats not what it's supposed to do. but sometimes, once in a very blue moon, it does...

and tomorrow, i will float in the pool and sip a cold mexican beer and remember just that.

the days after an opening are strange... personally, i tend to drift a bit.

troy tecau of 210 gallery and michael brennan met me U in the afternoon before the reception. before they showed up i actually laid a little paint down. it had to be done...

the opening was an awesome experience. great, large, happening crowd including gary snyder, lilly wei, the artists james little, michael rouillard, don voisine, linda byrne, jerry thomas, wayne dobson, The Artist Without a Name (heroically slurring by 10pm),and of course, bjorn ressle and the beautiful denora... the wine flowed and when it stopped we took the party under the BQE to mojitos and kept it going a while longer. i think i drank my first 10 beers in about the first 5 minutes...

and today it's back to work...

so, today i set up the lighting for the show and figure out any additional fine tuning... i'm actually thinking i might put a little paint down on one or 2 of the pieces... so hard to let them go.

last weekend bjorn ressle came out to the studio before i began installing the work in the gallery space. he was very positive on the large work and also the smaller work in the square format. i think with these large pieces finally behind me, i'm going to focus once again on the square (24x24) and my drawings. i'm going to go back into the large charcoal and graphite drawings of last year-- new layers, new insights...

so today i installed my paintings for the show at the gorgeous and enigmatically christened, U... This is my first 2-person show, fittingly, with a sculptor. the challenge of course was the reality of walls versus space. though it seems that reality has been met with aplomb. the sculptor is christine howard sandoval, an artist of intense focus and realization. i've been challenged by and interested in the pursuits of her work for over a year now. there is a ballsy, historical resonance to her recent endeavors and, at the same time a rather playful exploration of form and material. this isn't the "exploration" you might hear or read regarding some MFA discourse on culture and or what have you-- this is real exploration and real discovery-- the found object made real, if you will, etc, etc...

the work i've included in the show are paintings that have been worked and re-worked for years now. 2 of the pieces were started in 2002. the other 3 first saw the light of day in 2005. for any number of reasons they were set aside and brought back and set aside, etc. of course, today i actually laid some additional paint down after the installation... and then came back and put down some more. such is life. a painting is something that becomes what it should be. long ago, i gave up trying to "make" a painting. these objects are beyond us, they resonate of their own volition and our hand merely guides the motion. the painter comes to the canvas with an idea, perhaps with a compositional theory or possibility, but it ends with the painting itself...

the space is incredible. i stood there in the unlighted expanse surrounded by art and a weak raking light from windows shrouded in plastic. it was ghostly. a powerful way to end the day.