Opening Tonight

Tonight is the opening up in Sedona from 5 to 8PM.  I'm excited and nervous all at the same time.  It's always this way before an opening for me.  I think it's the same thing an actor experiences before they hit the stage.  I took drama in High School and intro to acting in College and felt the same before performances.  The funny thing about acting is even though the actor is acting on stage they're always revealing the depths of their soul to you.  In my college class the instructor told us to reach into ourselves to find the character we were portraying.  I guess that's the funny thing about us as humans.  We have so many inner demons and angels within us.  It's ultimately which ones we choose to express in our daily lives or which ones we allow to control our actions more or less.  We all have the potential to be the fireman who selflessly runs into a burning building to save someone or the arsonist who set the building a flame in the first place.  

I guess that's why I love painting the canvases filled with the people and buildings I do.  It's an bottomless well of personalities and stories to pull from.  I don't have to worry about repeating myself, naturally change, grow and yet maintain the consistency that the viewing public likes to have in an artist.  I hope, but can't allow myself to fall into formulas here.  

Yes, we like for our favorite artists, directors, actors, and musicians to be consistent to some extent.  If a band's first LP is fantastic, has this amazing sound and I listen to it 500 plus times I want their second release to effect me the same way.  I'm disappointed when it doesn't and everyone else is too.  Yes, I respect their artistic integrity not to fall into a formula, but ultimately I want the next release to be a continuation of the sound of the previous one that effected me so deeply.  It's an unrealistic expectation, but it's one we all have. The reason it's unrealistic is that every human being involved is constantly changing.  They're not the same artist they were when they created the first release and neither are we as the audience. Also the more you listen or view a work of art the more personal meaning you place into the work itself.  The beauty of being an artist and being the fan is the fact that the work has a life of it's own and grows from and within both individuals. The art is alive and is given this life by being created and enjoyed.

A little about the painting above.  It's called But Now It's Gone.  I finished it right before the Modified Opening and only showed a snap shot of it in the very beginning without any further updates.  I've been painting completely from my subconscious lately, which is fun because I figure out the meaning of the works as I'm painting them.  Simultaneously being the creator and viewer at the same time. What I've figured out is that the two men in the painting are in a deep relationship with each other whether romantic or just life long best friends.  They are at an impasse within the relationship and the innocence or the way they were with each other is now gone (hence the title).  Oddly, enough though as the randomly collaged text "Gifts" implies this isn't truly a bad place to be in.  If they get through this they're feelings for one another will deepen and the relationship be stronger than before.  

Show time

Here's the working photos for Toil & Humdrum 2 and Allegiance.  I was going to photograph them when I got up to the gallery to deliver them, but forgot once I got there.  Oh, well.  I'll photograph them up there or just bring my flash drive to download their photos.  I think their camera has more pixels than mine anyway.

That was the last delivery to the gallery for the show.  I brought up the two new ones along with Trial by Ones Peers to complete the show.  I've painted roughly 36 canvases since January, so it feels good to be at a pause.  I still have three works going right now and four more sketched out, so you'll see many more updates in the coming week.

I'm getting ready for my Seattle and Portland vacation.  I plan to take as many source photos for my paintings as I can.  I'm also planning a trip to New York for September.  The focus being on street photography and museum hopping while I'm there.

Three day weekend

Here's a shot of where Allegiance is at.  It's based on a photo I took in Portland, OR. I've spent the week for the most part sketching out the next batch of paintings.  I have a 4 to 6 more canvases to complete for the show.  I think the 6 is a stretch.  I'll try though.

Something on the Windowsill

Just finished the Something on the Windowsill series along with Go Home yesterday morning.  There was only a little touch up and painting the sides after an almost all Friday night painting session.  I then loaded up the new work along with what remained from the Modified show and headed up to Sedona to the Lanning Gallery. They loved the work, which was a big relief.  

Now it's the final stretch for the Sedona show.  I have two weeks really, so painting six to eight canvases might not be the best use of my time.  I think I'm going to focus in on painting four medium large paintings and hitting them out of the ballpark.

I started working on my sketch for Allegiance which will be a 24x48" canvas. I've used a photo I took in Downtown Portland, OR of the front of some embassy or hotel.  I can't really tell from the photo.  It just has the hanging flags off the building that makes me think of ticker tape parades.  I know some are going to read political leanings one way or another.  The flag is, well a politically charged symbol after all.  In this case I'm using it, because it's an incredibly strong image and will make a fantastic painting.  I leave the viewer to decide where my politics lay and maybe just maybe, the painting will be about where their politics lay rather than where mine do.

Go Home

Go Home is almost finished.  Nothing but the fine details left to do and a few glazes. I started two other works to finish the Lines (working title) triptych up. I need to finish these works up before I make the first delivery up to Sedona this upcoming Saturday.  I'm building canvases Sunday for the completion of the Sedona show.  They have a lot of space, so I'm wanting to add at least four if not six large paintings 3'x6' to the show.

Getting ready for a trip to Seattle, WA and Portland, OR the week after the show. I plan to take a lot of urban photos while I'm there for source material.  I also feel like I need to get serious about a trip to New York to take street photos.  Frankly, I will not have the money to stay long, but even a day of taking photos and a couple days visiting museums and other sites would be worth it. 

Production time

Not sure of the title for this painting yet.  The working title is Lines or Entanglement.  I guess I should wait and see how the rest of the series goes.  I also performed more work on Go Home from the previous post.  Oh, that's a working title as well.  If you haven't guessed from reading previous posts the working title isn't always the title a painting ends up with.  It takes a while to figure out the title for some paintings especially if they go really quick.

The second reception at Modified went really well.  I've sold ten works so far in that exhibit which is really good.  It's pretty much a fifty/fifty of small and large works, which surprised me with this economy just a little.  I still have the ghost of "paintings are dark" haunting me.  I guess I should be used to it, but it still bugs me from time to time. It's not the intent really.  I simply paint what comes to me to paint and it's not worth the creative block to edit myself.

Missing Time

Missing a bit of a space of time there.  Just the final rush to get everything done for the Modified show.  I thought I'd taken a few photos along the way, but couldn't find them on the camera, opps.

This is a new piece that I started before the rush to get things done for the Modified show.  I'm figuring out what I'm doing for the figures now.  I'm going to put a little bit more color into the next batch of work.  I have roughly twelve to sixteen paintings to complete for the Lanning Gallery in Sedona.  They will be mixed in with work from the Modified show.  Once I had everything up on the wall I realized that it was a little more intense than I meant to be.  Honestly, I've done these works in such a thought stream that considerations of the pallet weren't considered, which is how it should be.  Nonetheless, I don't think it would be a bad idea to throw in a few works with some strong color to lighten the mood a little. The humor relief within a Greek or Shakespeare play.

I do think the almost monochromatic body of work currently at Modified is stunning.  I've heard a few remarks that it's a bit dark.  I can only nod and not think too much about it.  The work was created very quickly within a pure thought stream.  I really left the subject matter to my subconscious mind and consciously just painted like there was no tomorrow.  There's a lot of interesting stories within these paintings.  I can't wait until I can stop and decipher what my subconscious is telling me.  Usually, the work is prophetic in some sense and is telling me things about what I'm thinking and feeling that's buried beneath the surface.  Don't worry I'm not going Freudian on you guys.  I do believe the mind does bury things on us at times and it might even just be a result of being so busy rushing around doing things that we don't have much time to sit, be alone, and reflect on our feelings about what's happening in our worlds.