I guess I’ve seen everything - I like the picture - of Angelina Jolie as a Madonna. 

Go to Kate’s Blog to see more on how this large painting was created.

I spent some time reading Kate’s blog and found most of the work that led up to his painting is detailed and photographed in November’s Archives.  Kate Kretz’s blog is actually pretty interesting - and while I’m not sure (probably have read it more closely) why she chose to paint Angelina Jolie hovering over a WalMart - it was a smart move - I think WalMart ought to buy the painting - that or Angelina Jolie (but that’s just my opinion - I think Angelina is more into Banksy and might not like to see herself “deified”….but then again - maybe it’s too much to resist).

I think it’s fairly courageous to give up a tenured career as teacher in Florida to go to North Carolina, get married, and now have the time to just paint - to just create.   I think Kate had a hunch this was the right thing to do for her - I think she was right.

I took a couple of pictures over the last two days - it’s been slow at the end of the year.

I’m pretty happy with the new space and I did a study for about an hour (see top view).   I reflected back on the work I did this year.

I’m also attending a Brice Marden Retrospective talk at Cuny Graduate Center - Proshansky Auditorium next Sunday at 4:00PM, exactly a week from now - figured I should go because I wrote a fairly descriptive review of Marden last month and sorta wished to have a personal interview with him.  Well, this is sorta like that - it’s not really an interview I can direct, but I can certainly extract out of it and get the level of interactivity I want out of it - and will.

Well, I think that’s about all for this year, 2006 - the year I started painting again.   But this year was more about just re-awaking energy - next year will be more about focusing it.

I painted my last view of BAG’s current studio - later this week the studio will move across the hall and be much bigger - looking forward to the larger space.

I had the studio all to myself this afternoon and evening.  Kinda lazy about doing something ambitious - and maybe in a little big of a dry spell - worked though it today.

I also had an idea for a still life but I was not able to make it work.  I was busy listening to Beethoven’s Symphony #7 and a couple of other classical works while working on this still life - which was inspired by the fabric interplay between the three scarfs - but then I stuck a wine bottle in the middle - and it did not belong there.

I knew the still life was lame as it was (even when I started it) - maybe it was the size of the bottle - I needed to get closer up.  Anyway - as I tossed and turned tonight as I could not sleep - I saw what I needed to do with this still life (see below)

It is more honest and truthful to say - this wine bottle does not belong …. in the picture (itself), so I read the picture into Paint and put a nice big “X” over the bottle and put some writing on my picture.   And now the picture is sorta a “hybrid” of what I saw and felt and what I reflected on afterwards.

It got cold this afternoon - and the studio was chilly - but I enjoyed my time alone.