I should say a BAG Gallery review with my work that’s hung in a way I don’t like – but that’s nothing new, I don’t get along with the curator – and besides that, it really looks like she didn’t know what to do with half the work she had to hang. This is the last show I’ll have submit to BAG – but I’m also thinking it’s very hard to be taken seriously, strange as it seems, in that environment.

Or it could be my own work, but I doubt it.

I’m almost, of the opinion, that for art to be seen and taken seriously, it takes a community around the artist (that they need to build up) in order to get that work seen and shown seriously by curators.

That is, unless the curator is someone of vision, which the BAG people, aren’t.

Maybe it’s time to leave them, or, at least, take a pause of a few months – I’m hardly using the space, anyway – maybe that’s part of it, too – but I doubt it (since many of the artists aren’t in this studio).

Here’s some other recent drawings that I haven’t put up yet or that I retouched a little.

The first one is of Liz Camps, a friend who is going through a pretty rough time – I think I captured that in the drawing, but who, I hope, will rise above it all (but not to high). I touched up this drawing which I posted earlier this week, just before leaving for Toronto – but my changes, and a re-scan, probably ought to be seen as a new instance of the drawing – even though it’s technically, the same drawing.

If you look at my work – and keep looking at it – it changes. Evolves.

I suppose, I really don’t need anyone to approve – I can go directly to the browsing public with my blogs, and to the Art World, directly via ArtNewYorkCity, just as I reach Web Analysts and thought leaders with Webmetricsguru and TheAnalyticsGuru blogs.

I didn’t really finish this drawing (above) but maybe it doesn’t matter – had I “finished” it – it would have ended up being a lot darker – and I’m not sure that’s always what I need.

And my last drawing is a scribbled idea that i’m not sure how to yet represent, or even, if i’m the right person to represent it – the idea is of measuring true influence in the world, today.

It all stemmed from the Social Media RoundTable I attended in Toronto earlier this week – but it was probably in my mind much longer than that – influence can’t really be measured just by online factors, alone, it needs to also account for off line factors (such as conferences attended, magazines and books published, etc) and it doesn’t.

I know, from my own experience, that influence is really “who I know” and “what I can ask of whom I know” – and while influence can be wider than that – I envision, artistically, a rotating sphere with a vector in the center that rotates (faster and faster) as the result of more “influence” – the influencers are really those who’s rotation is the fastest for a particular topic or sphere.

And I tried to paint that, but was in a bad mood last night (can’t you tell?) and this is what I came up with – and if I didn’t do better work, or surpass myself, occasionally, I don’t know why I even continue to paint – but I do – somehow, continue.

I did three studies today, including the Nude Study from my last post. Here’s the other two – and I did not spend more than an hour on each, if that long.

 

There was a woman painting the rest of the group as we all painted the model – in about 90 minutes she had done a finished oil sketch, maybe 30 x 30″ – I could recognize myself in her painting – it was quite good - though I feel she needs to take her work to the next level – but that’s for her to decide, not me.

Anyway, she took a catnap on the studio couch and I decided to paint her Palette – since her palette was the most interesting thing in the studio to me.  She kinda woke up after about 30 minutes and eventually wanted to use her palette, so I made this a quick study and decided to just abstract off it – thinking of Picasso while doing this – started with Oil Pastels and quickly used chalk over it, then spraying with fixative.

The last painting of the day, below, was another view of the studio – with the theme of “painting within a painting” that I started last week.  Only, you probably can’t tell because my treatment was loose and I got exhausted - but it was a good exhaustion.

I like this study – for all the looseness of it – there’s some color effects that happened – that I allowed to happen.

Again, I asked my self – what’s my commitment to these works?  Answer:  I don’t know.  I only know that it feels right to me doing as I am – where this all goes … I don’t know.