from isolation
2021 & 2022
(page in progress)
Rx: ERECTION! Rx: ELECTION!
or
SCOTUS: All Hail! SCOTUS: Aw Hell!
A near-manic response to the SCOTUS decision overturning Roe vs Wade, this piece is made of faux Viagra (painted beans) in a fertilizer spreader covered with gold leaf, atop a cloth with USA colors/images --- ironically made in China! --- sitting atop a plaster Ionic column.
COLOR LESSON
BACK TO PAINTING!
Surely my very obvious and art-worthy withdrawal from painting is somewhere on this site. (https://www.weebly.com/editor/main.php#/ I "did it") --- quit painting --- in a 4-part (or more, actually) art piece in 2007, and I meant it.
And then COVID came along, we sold our MX house, aging's health issues have begun, and the two of us have been stuck at home for 2+ years. So, in 2022, I made the mistake of saying aloud that I thought I'd start painting again. You know Ray? Well, you'd not be surprised that before I turned around he'd built me 4 painting stretchers and THEN, after my obligated painting was in a problematic place in "the gallery," he built me a studio! Of course, it's fabulous.
I had (and still have) a show on exhibition there ("Exhibition X") and will probably have a "closing" at some point and hope that the Powerpoint/computer booboos don't repeat themselves like they did at the embarrassing "opening." It's a sweet story and a sweet "show."
And then came a simple story (Under the Dead Palm ℅ lulu), "published" for my neighborhood friends in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico. My point is --- not just for me, but for all us art-folks ("creatives" = ugh), just because we were invisible doesn't mean we weren't /aren't "doing it."
I had (and still have) a show on exhibition there ("Exhibition X") and will probably have a "closing" at some point and hope that the Powerpoint/computer booboos don't repeat themselves like they did at the embarrassing "opening." It's a sweet story and a sweet "show."
And then came a simple story (Under the Dead Palm ℅ lulu), "published" for my neighborhood friends in Puerto Peñasco, Sonora, Mexico. My point is --- not just for me, but for all us art-folks ("creatives" = ugh), just because we were invisible doesn't mean we weren't /aren't "doing it."
So then... so NOW --- how to begin (again)? I need to add ANOTHER prologue to Getting It, because all the things I taught at the beginning are now out of date: it --- painting, at least --- HAS become "what you like" and not much else. It's progression is pretty much kapoot. I'd stopped because painting wasn't a way for me to explore or to express anything, and I really wanted and needed to avoid content.
Before 9/11 most of my work, especially the earlier stuff that explored painting --- patterns/pictures/paint --- had become ways to express my main point: PAY ATTENTION!!! and how "pictures, " especially black and white ones. Then came 9/11, and the last thing I wanted to do was to pay attention. After 6-12 months of meditation (and painting portraits, NOT what I do as "Art," but as visual exercises), I made 7 works in a totally new and different way, with a new and different intention. Like prayers, they "said" please please please. And then, in 2007, I quit.
Before 9/11 most of my work, especially the earlier stuff that explored painting --- patterns/pictures/paint --- had become ways to express my main point: PAY ATTENTION!!! and how "pictures, " especially black and white ones. Then came 9/11, and the last thing I wanted to do was to pay attention. After 6-12 months of meditation (and painting portraits, NOT what I do as "Art," but as visual exercises), I made 7 works in a totally new and different way, with a new and different intention. Like prayers, they "said" please please please. And then, in 2007, I quit.
An odd thing is that I had no intention: no content, nothing to "say" or to question; I just had a whole lot of paint and wanted to push it around. It was and continues to be like teaching --- or more accurately, like learning/practicing --- basic 2-dimensional design. And then, of course, a theme emerged (those stairs; those doors) and, although the images were photo-based (from my photos, of course) they are NOT what a distant view suggests, that they are photo-realism or close to it. Oh, no.
Years ago my big paintings (7' x 5') were shown around the country under the title Picture, Pattern, Paint. I should've corrected it to read Pattern, Picture, Paint, but that didn't sound as good. The point was that from a distance the works looks like abstract patterns. Then, when seen from 4-8 feet away, they revealed their pictorial essence. And THEN, up close, the paint dissolved into "brush"strokes or eventually paint pushed around by a brushless stick!
If/when I show these paintings --- so far, they are all 4' x 3' ---, a better title would be Picture, Paint, Pattern because a close reading reveals the lack of detail and the discovery of the underlying geometries, colors, textures; you know: the art!
Years ago my big paintings (7' x 5') were shown around the country under the title Picture, Pattern, Paint. I should've corrected it to read Pattern, Picture, Paint, but that didn't sound as good. The point was that from a distance the works looks like abstract patterns. Then, when seen from 4-8 feet away, they revealed their pictorial essence. And THEN, up close, the paint dissolved into "brush"strokes or eventually paint pushed around by a brushless stick!
If/when I show these paintings --- so far, they are all 4' x 3' ---, a better title would be Picture, Paint, Pattern because a close reading reveals the lack of detail and the discovery of the underlying geometries, colors, textures; you know: the art!
