Funny how things work but while I often saw myself standing before Mount Saint Victoire and painted my friend Christine Boulet there, I had not painted myself in front of the great mountain and favorite landscape motif of Paul Cezanne.

Actually I did paint myself against Mount Saint Victoire yesterday but it did not come out quite the way I wanted, nonetheless, I’m posting a image of my painting here.  I had envisioned myself as being more inspired, yet what I communicate here was a feeling of being annoyed or perplexed and the mountain was much more superficially treated than I originally intended. 

But then again, I was trying to paint myself from the mirror and also the landscape from a movie I made - because my picture in the movie was too blurry to really do a good portrait - not that this portrait below is that great - again it’s a one sitting painting.

After meeting with Drew Knapp last night - I’d look at my work more critically, but then again, I have to take in information yet make my own decision on what’s right for me - I’ve decided that I can continue to work as I have, quickly, but also work on some paintings more than one sitting - in other words - I’ll try walking the Middle Path.

Actually, there’s a weird story with the St. Victoire portraits I’ve done - I sent the two I did of Christine Boulet to her a couple of months ago - but no one told me about the tax on imported goods (it just never occurred to me as this is the first time I sent anything to another country); when I shipped my two paintings to Christine I declared a value of 1000 dollars on them and she just got a bill for 163 Euros … and I never even insured the paintings.

Had I known, I’d have put a value of 0 dollars on them though that doesn’t quite feel right either - they were done our of friendship and have value - but a dollar value, what I picked was arbitrary.

However, it brings up an interesting point - let’s say I had written in 10,000 dollars instead of 1,000 dollars as the value of my paintings - nothing would have stopped me from doing that …right?   And in accepting them, they’d be taxed in France for 1600 Euros!  And yet, there’s be just me, putting down a number that came into my head.

Now, I’ll try to fix this - if I can, with FedEx tomorrow - but the reality is that I might not be able to do so.  

Just another example of money and value being created out of thin air.

I have been wanting to get my oldest friend, Drew Knapp, who now runs http://www.townzs.com/, to come over to my studio and look at my art and have dinner (truth is, I owed him dinner for a while).  I’ve known Drew since 1970, when we were both teenagers attending Cooper Union’s Saturday program; while we both have different visions about art (as all artists do) I’ve respected his opinion more than anyone else I’ve studied along with when it comes to art. 

And so, we had dinner last night but before that - I showed him the work I’ve done for the last 18 months and I have to say …. looking at work with another person is different than being alone with it - very different; so different that my work, and I, actually feel different looking at my work as it’s seen through another’s eyes.

The good news - Drew like these paintings

The rest of my work, he thought was superficial - and that was too stuck in trying to to get done in one sitting when work needed more - and that would be called layering.

He felt that if I just wanted to show up, be somewhere else than home, then it didn’t matter - but if I wanted to progress further I needed to go to the next level and make more of a commitment to my art, my process; that commitment didn’t need to be more time physically spent in the studio, but rather, a commitment to go further with my work,  to draw more - to work larger when work needed it - to go father with some of my work that I just started and to re-work some of my ealier stuff over the last 18 months.

I agreed, but I also noted how different it really is to see my own work for another’s eyes; that’s fine, that’s what I wanted - a real opinion by a good friend who I’ve known a very long time.

Now I have to decide if I’m ready to make that commitment.  I hope I am.

I was at an opening Thursday night of Andrea Lehman and Johannes Huppi at Kravets|Wehby Gallery in Chelsea.

“Mein erster Fall beim FBI,” 2007, Oil on canvas diptych, 102 x 150″

Spoke a to Andrea Lehmann and her sister for a couple of minutes to try to understand this large painting - which had a lot of good stuff in it - lots of symbolism - though I’d have preferred a little more finish in certain parts - but overall, it was well done.

It seems the big crab like creature at the center of the painting is a giant dust mite and the 7 figures - to my mind, identical (if I’ve counted right) match the arms, tentacles on the dust mite. Andrea’s boyfriend is on the left, looking in and the whole picture is painted from a tilted view. Andrea is having fun by thinking of herself as and FBI Agent interrogating a large dust mite… who makes absolutely no sense to me … much as Surrealist artists would do similar types of juxtapositions.

A lot of local color is added by the phone in the lower right, the Lie Detector in the foreground and some numeric symbolism. What does it all mean? I don’t know. I don’t like putting actually mustaches on some of the figures, actual hair, or fake hair, and that’s what Andrea did. But overall, it’s a nice painting and I like talking to Artists who come here to show (i.e.: Andrea Lehmann is from Germany and visiting).

The other guy, Johannes Huppi is Swiss, and I liked his nudes, which reminded me of Modigliani - though, again, there was symbolism that did not seem to entirely work for me.

According to the Kravets|Wehby press release for this show:

Andrea Lehmann
Johannes Hüppi

The Kravets/Wehby Gallery is pleased to announce a two-person exhibition of new work by Johannes Hüppi and Andrea Lehmann. The exhibition opens Thursday October 25, with a reception from 6-8 pm and runs through December 8, 2007.

Inner turmoil spills from the canvas in the work of Andrea Lehmann and Johannes Hüppi. Hüppi creates intimate portraits of haunted women utilizing a painterly approach and smaller scale. Naïveté ensues amongst suspiciously saccharine women despite intermittent hauntings of nightmarish beasts and beheaded figures.

Both artists explore the sinister thoughts that loom in the periphery of creative unconscious, but where Hüppi is subtle Lehmann screams intensity. Her expansive vistas of painted terror are madness writ large. Lehmann counters the somber and contemplative nightmares of Hüppi with wily hordes of women and incessant chatter.

Hüppi and Lehmann thoroughly explore the dark side of reverie and the myths surrounding. Romantic, or not, both leave the viewer with a delectable feast for the senses.

I guess both of these artists are maturing and maybe, pushing a little too hard - but both promising as painters though I doubt either would become well known for the work I saw Thursday night.