in summary ...

making forsythia + modernity

happy halloween ...
been a month of trials, tribulation, learning, growing, discovery, recovery, reward, pain, loss, and gain ...
pretty normal i guess ...
on this eve of venerated virtue ...

drawing, tools, and making - all i know - my father said if you can think it and draw it, you can make it ...
my mother taught me words ...
one of my earliest memories was parents telling me what i was saying didn’t make sense - so i keep on trying ...

if walls had ...

fog + forsythia forming

wish you could experience the odor of fresh oil paint in the studio [mmm?, scratch’n sniff interactive blog] - my first foray into oils was at the age of six - been hooked ever since - even now when i walk through a gallery where i don’t appreciate the art, if it smells of oils - i stick around a little longer - so sensuous, magical, serene, maybe promising ...
if hope had a smell ...
like the smell of an old book and the feel of its pages between your fingertips ...
i used to love falling asleep with books - breathing the thoughts and dreaming ...
bill gates has plasma screens throughout his home displaying art to fit his mood - ‘so jetson’ ...
every brush stroke is like a fingerprint - completely unique in its content, form, intention, and place in time ...
all adding up to ...

time to paint ...

is it any wonder ...

forsyth in the making + my world turned ...
amazing how the environment impacts the work i do,
in ways i’m not even conscious ...

another reason ...

early morning autumn fog flows through 'south valley' -
like brigadoon, disambiguation ...
just another reason to be in love with the place ...

it's cold this morning.
does it matter that:
the heating system is on the fritz again,
maintenance fees are killing me,
the cost of oil has skyrocketed again,
my varnishes have thickened over night,

not for the moment ...

applications ...

should always ‘be careful what you pray for’ - like ‘enlightenment breaking out in different parts of the world’ [yesterday’s blog] ...
this morning my computer delivered me articles on ram dass and OMfest in santa monica [la,ca] this past weekend , last weeks’ ceremonial making and dismantling of buddhist sand paintings at lehigh university [bethlehem,pa] in preparation of the Dalai Lama’s visit next month, and anti war/peace demonstrations all over america ...
that’s very good - but perhaps a little too inarticulate ...
what if we try ‘enlightenment’, peace, less brutality, more intelligence, consideration, and less greed or more kindness or something like that ...
what about ‘the golden rule’ - that’s simple ...
like a chinese whisper: ‘send reinforcements, we’re going to advance’ to, ‘send three and fourpence we’re going to a dance’ ...
‘gold rules’ ...
what would the news media industry do without our horrors - they’d have to modify their carnivorous and sensationalizing methodology into something educational and informative ...
i’m trying really hard to put together a few politically-free days ...
as lally would suggest, ‘an antidote for insanity is creativity’ ...
it doesn’t get any clearer than that ...
so now i paint ...

not that easy: not without some degree of ritual transcendence; - found myself cleaning - then recleaning the brushes - most of them - make sure they’re all sufficiently pliable if called upon - clean the palette - or try, til i give up trying - check the caps, squeeze the tubes, check the colors, locate some tin cans and lidded jars, check the varnish, oil and turp - check the brushes again ...
which canvas, what color do my eyes need this morning, what size, can’t find any suitable distractions - already too much coffee, choice becomes necessarily random in the end -
just begin ...

another four hours of my life lost [?] to finessing paint into a canvas - sometimes its hardly a matter of thinking - just lost in the act - ever so present, alert, and lost - i remember, “still this beating heart”, “still the world, she is changing”, and 'promises' that have [for the most part] come true ...
painting is [as i define my job], not only dealing with contemporary issues [art + ...] but also some form or practice of meditation and prayer ...

so keep the brushes clean ...

only in forgetting ...

for the past seven years i’ve photographed the forsythia blooming on the berm outside my studio - from eighteen two foot plants to a jungle of wild cadmium yellow. maybe its the promise of spring after a cold, gray northeast winter or the first burst of real color - no matter - i always photograph them with the intention of doing a painting and had canvases of varying sizes waiting along with this beautiful cobalt blue vase i found a few years back - still nothing - until this morning ...

just ‘finished’ a large abstract oil , so all the brushes and varnishes are warmed up - my chops are back for this genre and with all the vanishing leaves and cold air, my eyes and soul are ready to go there ...
i used to feel apologetic for occasionally enjoying a foray into representational painting - [with all the silly stigmatizing and categorization that goes] - anymore, i just do it for my soul ...
like keith jarrett occasionally playing a bach interlude or johnny cash singin’ gospel - its all music ...

besides, i need a little break from the brain bangin’ for a few days ... including bad news and politics - that’s a hard one because my morbid curiosity seems to end up on cnn, bbc, npr, etc. - or maybe its because beneath this socialized callous there’s an optimism, hope, and innocence that hasn’t been bred out of me and believes one day i’ll turn on news to enlightenment breaking out in different parts of the world -

wow, too much fresh air and sunshine this morning ...

consumption ...

from beginning - to end ...

‘kill the painter before he kills the painting’
said an old friend and lover of impressionism ...
lover and louvre ...
[wonder how anselm and cy are being received this weekend - best wishes as always] - saturday mornings’ warm rain and traffic [cautiously careless] reminded me of paris again ...acquaintances huddled under a few umbrellas with coffee and cigarettes - like rafts on the river, or schnabel’s ‘circumnavigating in a sea of sh__’ - won’t go there - promised myself no politics today ...

so hard to see anything without being referential. when i think i’m finished; ...what if - then i would have to - but that would change everything - and that wasn’t the point - but it could also - and that would cause so much disparity between all the good stuff while doing it and the anxiety of ‘if’ - but that could be applicable - [i could stop here if i wanted to be an art critic] - skill and eloquence can make it work - what if it doesn’t - no loss - ‘experience is what we get when we aren’t getting our own way’ - like hell - i could fail - not an option - people won’t like it - now here comes that fuked up four letter ‘f’ word again: fear -
so what really matters ...

is it finished - what is ‘it’ ? - does it work as a painting - is it a stepping stone toward something else - can it be helpful or enjoyable to someone else - does it clarify anything, at least to myself ...
doesn’t matter - at this point, barring any revelations, my instincts should be enough.

i started the piece a few weeks ago shortly after being notified by a local college to be part of a panel discussion about my career for present art enrollees. honored and humbled [guess they want to show off a few trophy fish from the pond]. now i’m thinking it might be a good example to students regarding the certainty of arts in our culture; its opportunities and rewards ...
from the cave mans’ hand to kiefer’s self portrait ...
we’re all trying to represent some kind of reality - if only for a moment.
i still see things - maybe defining overtly would minimize or prejudice someone else's experience.

peace and cruciform
pieces of crucifix
relics
praise and emulation
reverence
remnants and fragments
transept and nave
alien skin, figures, and profiles
what happened in secrets
too scarred to divulge
akin
intervention
what doesn’t look like us
or do what we do
our culture is:
what is built to sustain ...
motives, habits and heart
thought in motion
seen from above
battlefields and bedrooms
boardrooms and bedlam
entrails, deserts
washing away

heroic depictions
idiots’ wind
embowelled beauty
idea springs
to rivers, lakes, and drought
earth, wind, water, fire ...

if, with + where ...

theoretically;
if the bush regime qualifies as a national disaster, then americans should be eligible for federal relief ..?
in the arena of world politics [high school extrapolated], if one makes a harsh accusation - such as - ‘axis of evil’ toward an opponent - it doesn’t seem likely that the recipient would respond with the same insult ...
moral to the story: it’s always better to make a preemptive strike against your opponent before they accuse you first.
playground bullies: i’ve known a few - still have a chipped cuspid and shoulder from an unpleasantly close encounter - i learned a few lessons, he later shot himself in the head. troubled ? probably, but more often than not that bully behavior is a facade to disguise fear and/or insecurity. maturity, counseling, or a spiritually ‘functional’ faith will usually remedy the problem. if the behavior persists, its usually clinically diagnosed as aggression, delusion, paranoia, or psychosis ...
so how do we characterize our foreign and domestic policy ...
more schoollyard insight: what about the pudgy little smart ass nerds that the bullies, jocks, and greasers pushed around that liberal guys like myself used to defend ...
who knew that one day they’d turn their version of fear, oppression, and retaliation into ruthless lawyership or community service - i.e., rush limbaugh, shawn hannity, et al ...
regrets? as Lucille Ball would say “...only what i didn’t do”...
enough of that! i’m really enjoying fridays alot lately - sometimes i’m a little embarrassed to say that i don’t have bad days ... bad moments, hours, ... but they only remain as long as i try to hold on to whatever consumes me - soon as i get out of my own way or look at the world - i’m free to enjoy the trip ...
this morning began with the 3:30 a.m. wake up and usual self prep - met 'rt', one of the tribal elders, at the local country store - had breakfast, heard a volume of wisdom about philly’s skid row in the 50’s, with a few belly laughs - all before 7am ...
spent the day in front of my canvas with minor interruptions, learning to delete what i previously considered important ... the recent oil paintings make me much more aware and sensitive to the process - less serendipity - more intent [not necessarily more important] ...
the rhythm of falling rain [torrential at times], the scratch and flow of brushes on linen, hours of classical fm radio, a timeless gray sky, copal varnish fumes, discovery, making, preserving, navigating, eliminating, ∞ ∞ ∞
until i’m too tired to see ...

at least i know when to stop ...

if + with ...

fragments, history, and time ...
what threat do libraries represent ...
what truth, in good conscience, can be spoken without regret ...
when does the responsibility of civil disobedience violate patriotism ...
what would john adams and jefferson say ...
what power is everlasting ...
if politics is part of philosophical theory, how can its’ precepts be spoken as truth (vs. consensus) ...
what is the elemental difference between divisive and democratic ...
what is an absolute ...
as i see it, most of us [inhabitants of ‘civilized’ modernity], are nothing more than spoiled, self righteous, entitled dilettantes parasitically attached to the superficial trappings of popular culture with most of our problems stemming from the fact that we have grown callously incapable of ‘feeling’ the humanity that has been bred into us for generations. the seemingly inconsequential convenience of our ‘throw away’, use and abuse society is an illusionists’ invention of modern culture fueled by greed and money - the result of economics gone wild ...
ahh, that feels better ... the result of a lifetime of commitment and about two hours in front of the tv surfing between law & order, csi, planet in peril(cnn), the animal channels doc on animal abuse, commercials for wrestle mania, hulk hogan knows best, brittany spears’ updates, food guzzling competitions, infomercials about trump’s iconic wisdom, and the conservative christian right diatribing liberal tolerance, ... [excluding 4th meal food ads and car commercials showing all the things cars can come equipped with to relieve us from boredom while driving].
we have an obligation to question our own motives - our teachers and leaders; and as part of the checks and balances, the duty to question and object to what easily becomes institutionally driven tunnel vision. it is natural for people to seek comfort levels, but not at the expense of the ‘ideals and ideas’ that institutions are established to uphold.
upon reflection, my self hatred and anger are noticeably present in my daily goings on ...
could have, should have, would have, if ...
what about ‘if’ ... what about kipling’s “if” ...

[IF]

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

edification ramification ...

paris paintings ...

reminiscent of porte de clignancourt ... pingere saint-ouen ...

black heart, oxygener ...

john huston seems to pass through my thoughts lately - don’t know why - its been years since i read his autobiography [an open book] or seen one of his movies or an adaptation ...
always admired the guy, his work, his character, and the way he adapted his ideas to his time - a renegade gentleman for sure! also, love the genre he helped to portray - film noir; its look, melodrama, social/self consciousness, ...
maybe it has something to do with preparing to document the ‘paris paintings’ - the last 10+ years of my work - trying to figure out an appropriate atmosphere or 'look' for promotion - the work has morphed quite a bit over the years, but they still have the ingredients from the beginning; color, light, bourgeois irony, satirical, melancholy, postured, frivolous, dancing, sensuous, philosophical cabaret, ... i’ve just about exhausted my obsessive inquiry into their possibilities and permutations ...
sometimes its just hard to say good bye to familiarity ...
recently they’ve (paintings) become more about nature, evolution, editing, and simplicity - obviously on their way to something different - as am i ...
maybe its the way huston appeared to move through his life project to project - never really knowing, but knowing it’ll work out - and sometimes even undermining his own success with a cavalier attitude where his principles preceded ambition - [a gypsy credo]. and somehow, at least from a spectator’s perspective, it always did work out ...
the ‘paris paintings’ come to conclusion - and coincidentally, two of my all time favorites take an unprecedented position in the louvre tomorrow - the living among the dead; kiefer and twombly - i couldn’t be more pleased - leave it to france to take the most thoughtful position ...
does anyone know where the art capital of the world really resides - and i’m talking ‘art’ not ‘$’s’ ...

devil's breath ...

mid october in venice beach is usually pretty damp and cool at night -
cool enough that i would wear a turtleneck and leather coat if i was going out walking.
dressing for warmth is something i never considered til living there (hot, sunny southern ca by the sea and all). on this particular evening, i walked a few miles north on the beach to the santa monica pier - pretty much empty since it was off tourist season, a monday night and gusty winds blowing in from the east strong enough to throw the fisherman off balance - never could figure out why anyone would ever want to eat the fish from the sm bay - locals wouldn't even swim there ...
i took a seat on an isolated section of the far western rail, perched above the crashing waves of the pacific with the wind at my face ... i should be freezing but i was sweating - not just moist, but really doing the verb - most uncommon ... i had to ask one of the frustrated fisherman how he did as he passed ... "no luck in santa anas' " ...
this was my first experience with her - mesmerizing, captivating, and strange - especially in contrast with the feel and sound of the ocean below ...
another time i felt something similar was on the costa del sol in southern spain with the hot dry winds from north africa blowing across the mediterranean - but nothing really compares to santa ana ...
a prayer for the safety of all being affected ...

from Michael Shaw -10.10.05 - blame it on the wind.
There is also the psychological component, the Santa Ana's mysterious and soul-vexing quality. Police agencies have attributed a jump in crime to these harsh winds, while hard-boiled detective fiction writer Raymond Chandler called the Santa Anas:

"Those hot dry [winds] that come down through mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen."

Or, take journalist/essayist/novelist Joan Didion's description of this phenomenon:

"I have neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks. I rekindle a waning argument with the telephone company, then cut my losses and lie down, given over to whatever it is in the air. To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior."

a matter of taste ...

karmic medaling ...

other greens ...

working through chaos, chance, and choices ...
toward the next 'right' thing ...
shifting paradigms,
...

sunday mourning views ...

yellow light, stripes, and tears ...
lifting fog, light as air, a heavy heart,
and birthday prayers ...

places and things ...

changing ...

d. for the moment ...

some truth is - what lies - behind a painting ...
for the moment - without defense or offense - just to see, to experience the moment with paint, in paint; the alchemists’ ritual of discovery attached to something ‘otherly’ ...
experience that ...
and what if ? if i obliterate what i’ve worked so hard to accomplish - to paint over - with the hope and blind faith that i could create something more; perhaps better, different, relevant ...who else, but a painter, alchemist, or lunatic would go beyond asking ...

c. some truth is ...

pervasive - the need - to apply paint and color, color upon color, to blend, shift, and move paint, to create and eliminate everything but the experience for edification; the essentials - line, color, fields, zones, context, and perhaps meaning, perhaps nothing more than the experience of time or life with paint and painting; abstracted beyond fundamental surroundings or reality and somewhat superficial as its surface reflects only portions of passion in what is known of life and loss today ... scattered scraps in an arena where the most respected survived ... and why ...

word fields too ...

word fields ...

dawn autumn fog ...

b. what lies ...

with a terrible wound ...

a. behind a painting ...

"the fundamental fact that argues for the importance of the act of painting, is that painters spend their entire lives working with paint. there must be a reason ... it is the paint that is so absorbing, so deeply attractive, that a life spent in a studio can be a bearable life.
it is no wonder that painters can be so entranced by paint. substances occupy the mind profoundly, tethering moods to thoughts, tangling stray feelings with the movement of the body, engaging the full capacity of response and concentrating it on unpromising lumps of paint and color. there is no meaning that cannot seem to flow from the paint itself..."
'what painting is'
james elkins/2000

loving the yin of it ...

5;30 am - predawn wake up in early october to the sound of darkness, rain, and falling leaves. everything reverberates a little thinner with more distance as the backdrop of foliage recedes with the light. only a month or so ago i was awakened half an hour earlier by forest activity that mimicked times square on a saturday night [minus the horns, sirens, and rudeness - with the exception of a couple of crow]. it’s difficult to be excited without the excitement.
so those of us without ample sun and warmth become task oriented and ‘responsible’ to fulfill or fortify whatever cause that defines us.
the ‘yin’ of year depends upon self generated motivation.

the ending summer sunlight
struggles through my room
blushing trees
with autumn’s breeze
that opens winter's tomb ...
[circa 1963, minersville,pa]

since my heritage is baltic, i’m probably hardwired to respond so emotionally to the onset of winter. what was it like for my plebeian ancestors - what did they endure - and choose to continue to endure on a daily basis [obviously, or i wouldn’t be here]?

what's in a number ...

waning crescents ...

"if light is scarce then light is scarce; we will immerse ourselves in the darkness and there discover its own particular beauty".
jun ichiro tanizaki,
in praise of shadows, 1977

blue dog's dermis ...

'You're the only man who doesn't remember anything of what he's dreamed after he wakes up.'

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Eyes of a Blue Dog.

part 2 - being and breath ...

[ untitled, unfinished, 2007]

i’ve always admired painters who have a predilection
for the direct application of paint - the immediacy - and the
courage to let it stand as it is; rembrandt, franz hals, van gogh,
twombly, and schnabel, et al ...
me, i like to ‘clean up’, identify the essence of a mark,
hone the expression into something more (or less) poetic,
lyrical, or a gesture of intent ...
maybe it’s a waste of time ...

next step ...

i finally feel ready to do a nyc/la show again.
not that i lacked any confidence about the work
i’ve been doing (probably the best work of my career),
just felt there were gaps in the continuity
or ‘thesis’ of what i was presenting ...
because most of the work is ‘in the moment’,
experimental, and over-painted;
a split second decision easily breaks the ‘dialogue
of process and intent’ between events ...
the relationship between the body of work
at times, ‘read’ like an incomplete sentence ...
the continuity, flow, and evolution of an idea
is important (for me) to maintain
the ‘bridges to abstraction’ dialogue
from artist to audience.

gratitude ...

a portion of studio/barn panorama ...

“one day at a time”...
doesn’t even seem like enough prayer time
for a future to be determined ...
fate is often decided in a split second ...

summer harvest ...

from top to bottom,
[(working titles)
approx. sizes]
break, 7'h x 9'w
still water, 7'h x 9'w
body electric, 7'h x 9'w
where we live, 7'h x 6'w
river, 7'h x 6'w