One of the few paintings I own that I did when I lived in the East Village in 1987-1989, before moving to Brooklyn. I was subletting an apartment on E10th Street and 2nd Avenue for a year after returning from a summer painting at the Vermont Studio School (or whatever it’s called now – I knew one of the founders from another life). The painting is After The Bath, it’s large, around 5ft long by 4ft wide, oil on canvas.

Last night, as I worked on my study of the door at the Brooklyn Artist Gym I thought about this painting – all the mini paintings that I did right … things I left alone - the parts that I could not intergrate into one – into my life then. I could not accept my touch, my approach, my vision, was good enough – I kept trying to make it better. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that – except that extra work I put in did not, often, make the painting better.

I am standing back, right now, and honoring what I did right here (and you can click on each picture to blow it up more).

When I painted the orange bottle, shown in the left picture, I saw a flash of light – pure energy – it was sometime early in the morning one day – I remember the flash (hopefully not an optical issue) and said – let it be – the elementals told me to leave it this way ….I will leave it. Also, the light blue coke bottle – similar thing – a light being, an elemental appeared to me, jumping out of my paint brush and into the painting, I said ….let it be. Is it finished enough? The elementals had spoken, I let it be.

At the time I was looking at Velazquez (esp the Maids of Honor - one of Velazquez’s most famous paintings) and Delacroix, more for his Journal, which I read several times (that’s whole other story that I won’t go into here – I suppose the painting I might most have in mind would be The Algerian Women in Their Apartments). The woman, at that time, was my girl friend, Maxine, who I no longer know.

At that time, I let the elementals guide my painting – I put myself in a passive role, but was often “stuck”. I had not yet worked out that it’s ok not be guided by elementals – not everything needs to be “inspired” or dictated from some voice or source that appears outside of me or inside my head.

Even as I look at my pictures – that I tried my best to balance for color and sharpness to match the painting, next to me, I see the elementals – sometimes popping out of the picture. At the time, I believed paintings could serve as a “doorway” between the elemental world, and this one – but if was the fusion with this reality that made the painting real, authentic.

Here’s some more parts of the painting, After the Bath, that I painted in 1988. Perhaps all this “parts” of the work are better than the whole – and now, when I paint, I just do the sections (I honor what I did right … here).

There’s more, but I can’t fit it into one post. Anyway – I feel this work has a “sound” much like what Fred Stonehouse mentioned he’s after. Also, was thinking about Joe Coleman, with the passivity he uses to let ideas flow into his head – and that’s what he paints.

Now it’s time to finish up packing for the EMetrics Summit - I have a train to catch to Washington DC.

I’m going to have a work exhibited in the A.G.A.S.T. Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour on the weekend of October 21st – 22nd – it’s my “Segmented Life” Self Portrait I painted earlier this summer. I had to come down to BAG today to make sure my work would be exhibited. And here I am as I sit infront of my laptop, which I had to bring along today.

But I managed to do a sketch today – I had the burning feeling I needed to…. and I’ll bring my crayons with me to Washington DC where I’ll be covering the EMetrics Summit for my WebMetricsGuru.com blog as well as meeting up with several of my web metrics analyst coworkers from IBM.

And here’s the sketch, and then I’ll let you in on some thoughts about it.

Things “come to me” as I paint. I see myself – ways that I express myself in color and let them be expressed – I’m creating a painting, not copying nature.

On the wall to my upper left hangs one of my nude study sketches, next to some other works. I like my own stuff better – but I also hear others like my stuff too. What’s interesting is the “time element” of painting. When you put works of different artists, different styles, next to each other – it’s often distracting. Work that is more photographic tends to be more easy to understand, more immediately in view. But a funny thing happens over time……

Over time, as you come back to work that’s good, that has feeling – it can grow on you, on me. I’m not saying my work is good, or even that is the only good thing hanging on that wall now (or it just well might be). What I’m saying is … time reveals the true art, and the true artist.

BTW, you might want to see the scene that inspired my oil pastel sketch (below).

Happen to past by the School of Visual Arts Westside Gallery today and went in to take a look. I am impressed with the quality of the work, esp this person’s work.

Matt Lifson, Blackface in the Bathroom, 2005, 48 x 36″

This is a pretty powerful image – yes, it’s “illustrative” and it looks more so from the photo then when I stood in front of it – and it was not as well lit as it should have been.

Matt Lifson, Denise Giving Birth, 2005, 48 x 36″

It was easy to photograph, maybe the aspect ratio is just right for a digital camara. What I’d say ….. I’m not sure about where this work is. … is it something that would work well in a magazine shot? Is it something I’d want to look at?

The quality of the work I see is really good. I’m impressed even though these artists have yet to really express anything new – they have energy that I find refreshing.

Tierney, Bethel, 2006, 16 x 20″ Digital C-Print

I liked the photo.

I stumbed upon ArtByDNA’s work at the CrossRoads Cafe, near where I live.

 
Looks like there will be a show in December in Midtown Manhattan, perhaps I’ll go.

   

I’m not sure which of the two paintings above is the stronger work, you’d think the red stripes would make the painting on the right stronger – but I’m not so sure.

The idea of “reductionism” is nothing new – the artists, what appears to be a couple (but I’m not sure of that) jointly work on each piece, trying to reduce a picture to it’s fundamental elements of meaning.  

It may be the “idea” of what the painting is and supposed to do is better than the actual painting.  I found the paintings unusual and decided to note it on ArtNewYorkCity.