Been too busy the last few days to post here – a lot of important meetings – most which belong in my Webmetricsguru.com blog.  Did not see any good openings this week till today – nothing that really attracted me to want to show up.   But that’s different today – a couple of good openings happening now in NYC, in Art in New York City.

So tonight I’ll try to make an opening of Alfred Jenson: The Number Paintings at Pace Wildenstein Gallery.  Here’s a little part of the writeup describing the work in this show: Alfred Jensen:  The Number Paintings will be on view at 545 West 22nd Street, New York from September 29 through October 28, 2006.  The public is invited to attend the opening on Thursday, September 28th from 6 to 8 p.m.

“Alfred Jensen:  The Number Paintings looks at how the artist used Pythagorean theory, the Mayan Calendar, and other numerical systems as well as Goethe’s color theory in his work.  The exhibition consists of 11 paintings and 16 works on paper spanning two decades from 1960 to 1980. 

It was in the early 1960s that Jensen read the work of J. Eric Thompson, the pre-eminent scholar of the pre-Columbian Maya Civilization and soon thereafter, Jensen earnestly began to investigate the relationship between numbers and color through his art.  In his catalogue essay, William Agee discusses how Jensen pursued this investigation and how his life and art intersected. Agee remarks in his introduction that Donald Judd and Allan Kaprow, then young artists in New York, viewed an exhibition of Jensen’s in 1963 and had the highest praise for it, although for different reasons. “In retrospect,” Agee writes, “this seems fitting, for Jensen’s world view was based on the opposing dualities that he saw as the source and substance of life – light and dark, positive and negative, male and female, life and death, among them.”

I think I’ll also attend the opening of Junko Komatsu, David Harry, Atsumi at Caelum Gallery W 26 street, 526, Suite 315.  The photographs and paintings look pretty good based on what I can see on the Caelum Gallery website.

It looks like a new gallery called MEHR is opening up with a debut exhibition (if I have it right that it’s a new gallery) located at 436 West 18th Street, again between 6-8PM. 

That’s enough for one night.  I’ll let my readers know what I thought about these openings after I attend them (and anything else that strikes on my way to or after the openings).

I went to a poetry reading called the Transparent Dinner  read by Anne Hains and art exhibit called Tidal Channels by Todd Erickson at the 440 Gallery in Park Slope, NY.

I’m not really into poetry but I enjoyed listening and looking, I’ll leave it at that. 

As far as the art exhibit, Tidal Channels, I spent some time talking with the artist, Todd Erickson, an Environmental Artist, plus I took some pictures of Todd’s work and the 440 Gallery.

The photos on the wall, sculptures on the floor and windows of the gallery are based on a particular topography of Fire Island.  The photos illustrate one day’s journey around the a part of Fire Island by the artist, who is looking at nature.   Todd does not see himself as a photographer – the photos are taken to track is journey.  

The photos move with the wind and are mounded slightly off the wall, by about an inch.

While I don’t have much experience with his type of work, I feel it celebrates nature and is sincere.  The goal, I think, is taking on larger, funded projects which include doing something with, or to, nature.

You can get more information about Todd Erickson at his website, www.twerickson.com.

 

I wrote two extensive posts in Webmetricsguru about Banksy’s Buzz.

Banksy’s art buzz and Angelina Jolie’s 400K purchase

Banksy’s Demographics and Angelina Jolie’s 400K Picnic purchase

I had no idea that when I wrote Painting an Elephant Pink – a live Elephant Pink, it was Banksy’s work.

Did another painting at Brooklyn Artists Gym this afternoon – it balances out my life as a Web Analyst at IBM and puts me back in touch with what I feel I am, at the foundation of all of this, an artist. 

My path is synthesis and seems to have come to me, or I realised it, only recently – but I was doing it all along.  I feel empthy when I look at work I can identify with, mostly paintings – it’s as if I can feel an artist’s feelings in paint – I probably had it all along did not know what to do with it, or what it was.

I did a drawing first, to warm up, as well as decide how I was going to approach the model; decided on the pyramidal theme, which sorta suggested it self, based on the composition and lighting.

Occured to me, as I painted (I see myself a channel, both in Web Analytics, Search Engine work and painting – I see no difference in the creative enegry or guidence I get based on intuition – I’m just learning to listen to it and not murder it, as I used to do). 

This is what came into my mind, it was the memory of a saying from Paul Cezanne, my favorite artist (but my sensability is much different than his - it took me many years to sort that out).  I can’t find the actual quote but it goes something like this: “art is a way of organizing sensations“.  

In that sense, I feel that’s what I’m doing and I hope my work, while I was thinking of Matisse and Bonnard, does not look like anyone else.  In fact, that’s what the model of this painting said to me as she photographed it - “does not look like anyone else’s work she could think of“. 

Why would it?…it’s my own way of organizing sensation, and that’s what painting has become for me.  I don’t stop it, I don’t murder it, I let it be, and go as far with my sensiblility as I can – and then I stop and walk away.  I spent between 2-3 hours on this nude model study.

One other thought, my own, has been in my mind a lot lately, as I do my work in one sitting these days (I can change back but right now, it suits me): “if you can’t improve something by working on it more – it’s better to leave it alone”.   What I mean – I used to over paint my first impressions, over and over, trying to be something I was not, Cezanne, for example.  I did not trust that what I put down was good enough.  I murdered it, over and over, and after maybe 10 sittings, I had what I accomplish in one sitting today – except the work is much fresher.

 

 I don’t see a point in working and working on something – if that work does not improve the end result.  I’d rather get it right the first time than go over it 10 times, blending this, blending that.   I gave up on that – I ended up with less, in many cases, than I started with….but just being in tune the first time.   Because I trust myself now…and did not then.

I did this Oil Pastel last night, during the Collective Becomings show that I reviewed, with a glass of red wine next to me.   I feel really good about just trusting myself, and letting work happen.  It’s a struggle to “organize my sensations” and I’m just following my own intuition now.  I’m not following, or looking up to anyone else…been there, done that.