a good day in the studio and then the hassle of trying to find a parking spot... life in NYC. we deal with it... or we don't. after i filled up my xmas present flask with a bit of vodka to ward off the winter night, i hit the subway uptown to the performance/exhibition/collaboration of artist, mark wiener and Panman Productions, on the roof of 123 East 47th street. film, music, and wiener with various programs on his laptop, layering images on the whitewashed wall of the neighboring building. it was cold and the artist asked who had a joint and i seconded the notion. where was my stash when so sorely needed?? it was that sort of night-- cold, cold and the wind started and then the mere cold became something a bit more horrific. but who's counting?

i hadn't realized how long it had been since i wrote in this... it's kind of like trying to keep a correspondance up with a beautiful woman a world away-- you want to put down these words, but life gets in the way and the words don't get down. and then you may or may not forget each other... but thats another story.

it's been a great 10 days out here in the valley-- mid '80-'s throughout the trip, while nyc was hovering around 6 degrees. nice... so tonight is the last night. i took out 4 new paintings (completed on this trip) to the william turner gallery in santa monica and bill seemed pretty excited by them, so thats not a bad thing. now it's the usual holding pattern of waiting. and waiting. but they're out there in the world, not cluttering up my small space out here under the orange tree. and i'm proud of them-- i think these are paintings that helped me learn a bit more about my art. there is a lot of moves from the latest nyc work in them as well, thats their strength-- these new moves entering the fray. and the best part is that driving back, on the cramped 405, i started envisioning new pieces to be made, new color, new form, what have you...

so, last saturday, jan. 17th, my great friend, the artist alex couwenberg had his first solo show at the turner gallery. the day i flew in i went out to the gallery and checked out the installation in progress. we shared some beers and discussed the orientation of three birch panels, along the massive main wall-- alex settled on an 8 inch seperation. then i drove back to the valley and got back to work...

the opening of his show on that saturday was (for all his commercial success) alex's coming out party. this was the kind of reception you dream of as an artist... period. there were the senior abstract painters of LA (ed moses, jimmy heyward), the writers (mat gleason, george melrod, peter frank and kerry kugelman) and the hot women you would imagine coming to a hot painting show in santa monica. indeed, the art was great and a lot of it was wearing high heels... sadly, i must say this isn't always the case in nyc. and, when i think about it, it's not always the truth in SO Cal, it just seems that way sometimes... and thank god for it. but yeah, the art... couwenberg has always been an inventing and gripping artist of a most graphic quality and intent. the first time i saw his work (we were both in the holiday group show at ruth bachofner gallery, maybe 2002, or so) i was floored by the material and that sensuous curve of line. through the years he's managed to maintain a startling consistancy, while, at the same time, invigorating his work with dynamic shifts of interest and compositional twists. in the end, this is the work of the wholly charged, fully engaged and focused artist. there are many painters tackling the issues of process and surface, etc, etc... there always have been. i do it myself... alex couwenberg gives us, however a bold and (dare i say?) original take on matters of such painterly importance. others, including the above mentioned writers have discussed such concrete influences as mid-century design, surf boards, etc, on and on, trying to pinpoint a hub for couwenbergs unique perspective. fine. perhaps its important to have that firm a grounding... i'll say this: alex and i were talking in NYC about inspiration. someone asked him what his inspiration was, earlier that night. it's a question that i've (and probably any other artist) had lobbed at me countless times. to paraphrase (we both had a lot to drink that night, funny enough...), alex looked at me and said something like, "...it's everything-- how can't you be inspired??"

i went into the cobalt blue and tossed in some flake white and mixed it up a bit. i can't avoid this combination out here-- how could i?? to deny these would be as phony as a murakami piece of crap tossed into the lobby of some skyscraper. i drive with my mom to get groceries and am blown away by the horizon line before me on sherman way, giant palms lining the street, the mountains ahead of me, the sky above and the sheer lines of white cloud. driving to bergamot station, in santa monica, was a bit of poetry in and of itself. no traffic, clear skies, green hills and a morning of painting behind me. yeah... of particular note was the work of audra weaser at ruth bachofner gallery. truely, some of the best painting of the year, to end the year. roughly sanded, vigorous work. very, very impressive...

now, at this late hour, i'm figuring out some paintings. theres some new directions here, the LA trip always offering it's own take on what it is that i do. how to tie it together?? do i need to even bother with such a question?? out here i'm seeing and coming to terms with the relationships between the recent drawings and my paintings, completed and in progress, of the last few years. i really think that the distance, the time away from the work, totally away and apart from the work has a great deal to do with this... in NYC i work. i see and touch paintings day in and day out, they evolve day to day and are with me, in my minds eye before i sleep and as i drive home. in LA, i walk out to the studio in the morning and the dew is on the grass and the work comes to me and i understand it with a passionate (or perhaps dispassionate) resolve. i know that i have these few days, or even, sometimes, weeks to make them come alive and sing their song. and sing they do, or perhaps not....

a cold day in LA... spent some time out in the studio and did some good work on small drawings, started on the last trip and work on the new large piece. but it was just too cold to be out there, drinking beer and listening to the bamboo, coming off of the gluttony of christmas dinner (dozens of oysters, foie gras, prime rib, an '83 chateau le tour and a '77 grahams port, etc...). tuesday evening before the flight i went uptown to the bjorn ressle gallery. bjorn was there with the artist marjorie welish, the artist mark wiener and a curator from the morgan library, who was intently checking out the work. it was really nice to be able to actually look at the work in relative peace. bjorn cracked open a bottle of white wine and mark and i moved about the walls taking it in. wiener is a sensitive and physical artist. we discussed the ephemera of mark-making and various notions of intent, admiring the wide range of expressions installed in the gallery. once again, the 2 drawings by the composer, john cage really hit me- this stuttering line, moving about the toothy paper in non-committal arabesques... i also spent a lot of time with three drawings by ron gorchov-- as with the cage drawings, these are tough, hermetic efforts, on tough, heavy paper. there is a lack of control that engenders it's own signature of beauty when working with the graphite line on such meaty, heavyweight papers. the line quivers and blurs, coasting along the curvature of surface. regardless of the artist's hand, the line takes off on it's own. and you deal with it or don't... i've found, that with my own drawing, i'm becoming more comfortable working with a lighter, smoother paper. the drawings bjorn exhibited (and the accompanying 9 in a portfolio) are all notebook drawings, autonomous works, but in their roughly handled immediacy, notebook drawings all the same. for my purposes, the acrylic (and/or oil) staining and re-workings of graphite (and/or india ink) come across truer on the smoother surface, the physicality of my efforts taking center stage, as opposed to a physicality imposed on the work by the support itself.

later i went for drinks with bjorn and mark, taking the downtown bus to the legendary, gino's, across from bloomingdales. not my usual stomping grounds, to be sure, but a fine establishment. bjorn and i ordered martinis and then we were joined by the beautiful rocio.... she was impressed when mark said he always painted while wearing a tie.

i can't blame her...

the sausage, garlic and red onion is simmering in the wine and san marzano tomatoes... this morning as i left for the dojo, it was 14 degrees. no shit. 14 degrees... but thats winter and we deal with it. in any event, after hard training and harder xmas shopping, i needed the comfort of pasta, the aforementioned sausage and broccoli rabe. and there is a bottle of chianti waiting as well. and i'm wearing a stocking cap indoors as i type this. winter...

speaking of winter, to revisit the winter salon at bjorn ressle gallery, i must say again it was quite a trip. an opening of your own work is always a beautiful time, but to see your work alongside the works of legendary greats is a totally new and humbling experience. it also (obviously) makes you feel pretty damn good. it makes you feel like you're an artist-- an artist involved in the continuum of this path that we follow. i leave for LA on wed. it'll be a good time with family and food and wine and my new niece and hopefully friends i haven't seen in a while. and the art i left behind from the last trip. LA in december can be gray or it can be brilliant blues and greens and intense sunsets. either way will work for me....

been a while... the reception for the winter salon at bjorn ressle gallery was pretty intense. the crowds were huge and there was coffee instead of booze, so i was on edge. having said that, it was a beautiful time-- great art, good crowd, friends, etc... of special note were the 2 drawings by the composer, john cage, that hung right below my work. they were free moving, circular works that one might actually expect from cage. a 1958 drawing by robert ryman was also very very special, to say the very least. tuesday i'm going to check out the show myself-- the crowds precluded any real viewing of the art.

early morning thinking about de kooning's "montauk highway..." i've no idea how many times i've stood in front of this piece over the years. to my eye, this is de koonings nadir, this where it all came together-- the surest of brushstrokes, the visceral labors to define a landscape... this body of work has been called "imperial". yeah. that pretty much sums it up.