Washington DC

Here are two pictures from our recent trip to Virginia and Washington that I liked. The first is of Michael and Me at Monticello although you would never know that by the background but I did wear my patriotic tee.


This next picture is of Motherwell and Me. He is one of my most influential Abstract Expressionist painters. I didn't take down the name of this piece but from the looks of it it is from his Elegy to the Spanish Republic series though it doesn't display quite the quintessential forms as some of this series, it's just a little loose. Judging from the scale probably dates from the 1950's. These were painted as a reflection on the brutal and savagely bloody civil war and Franco's subsequent destruction of the Spanish Republic. Personally standing in front of a painting of this scale is impressive. The deep black forms surround your field of vision and seem to envelop you. Unlike Rothco whose canvases were like doorways to a bright and meditative spiritual realm, Motherwell opens you to the overwhelming destruction and pain that far too often falls upon our lives.

I thought this was nice - great wall texture - from a strangely random site. It comes from Havana but it was on this blog Iran Graffiti and Urban Art Report

Questions and Statements

One of the hardest questions for me to answer, in a casual conversation, is "what kind of art do you do" - Archi-structurally reasoned multilevel urbanistic pattern layers influenced by time and process and informed by the mid-century action painters of Abstract Expressionism and the urban thinking of Nikos Salingaros and Jane Jacobs and the visual artifacts of theoretical physics, sub-urban planning, religious creed, and abstract cartography - is neither easy to explain or understand in the two min. someone will actually give you their attention.

One of the most difficult times to be asked complex questions that require a lot more than a yes no answer is while you are lying on your back with a bunch of tools stuck in your mouth.

I went to the dentist today.

Art is Vital

"For reasons that are difficult to articulate, art is vital. As we experience it, we increase. This is not necessarily to say that we gain information, but rather that we become part of a larger thing, and in some way we know or are known more completely.
I believe it is this illusive quality that unites art as diverse as that of Rembrandt and Paul Klee. In this sense it is not a new thing that must continually be done in art, but rather the old thing, continually explored by new individuals."

Brian T. Kershisnik

Patrick Moore Gallery SLC

So at last I will show a few pictures of the big night. Thanks to Silus Grok at silusgrok.blogspot.com for the great pics.

Here are my big pieces. The man in the suit bought "re-deconstuction".


Me with some new acquaintances.


This is the scene.


Nate, his friend and me.


My friend and the reason I got this show, Holly.


My hand.


Just outside.


Michael and Me

Terrain: My Artist Statement

It seems customary in these statements to discuss how the artist's work represents them. But I'm not entirely comfortable with that convention, as I can't say just yet that my work represents me in any significant way. To borrow from literature, my paintings aren't so much personal narratives, as they're travelogues. Each piece is the souvenir — a remembrance — of a journey I took as I moved through a set of self-imposed constraints.

I rarely plan a painting, but prefer to build my paintings from individual parts and procedures — layer upon layer — hoping that the group of layers and disparate parts will, in the end, connect to form a diverse but coherent community. Separate pieces, but interconnected in some way. And it's within this framework of time and process that I find my freedom to explore motif.

In the course of developing the works for this show, I limited myself to a specific grouping of processes and parts. Processes distilled from my innate interest in the theories of city and community — how people find, maintain, and terminate emotional, societal, spiritual, familial, and physical bonds — and my boyish fascination with the visual artifacts of molecular science and astrophysics. A fascination tempered by process, by layering and response repeated over and over... by time. Thick paint strokes, textural events and personal mark-making represent my time spent with a piece. They mark my movements and emotional intervals. Soft, aggressive; periods of rest, periods of passionate engagement; a thrust of striking clarity... sometimes doubt and indecision.

I have found that my time spent in the process of painting is like traveling through rugged, mountainous terrain. Each outing is exhausting and leaves me physically and mentally depleted but on every peak I catch a distant glimmer of some larger place on the horizon — some place where I will find clarity. Until then my paintings are just relics of my travel, abandoned along the way.

And like any journey, I am thoroughly engaged in the moment and unconcerned with what the viewer will think. I return from the journey, and let the artifacts speak for themselves. Each viewer will experience my work in a way personal to them. I don't really want to interfere. I find my own significance in my work... Others bring their own story to the images. Let them find significance where they may.

The Pieces

Passing Still II

Passing Still III

Thoughts on the Individual II

Thoughts on the Group

Re-Deconstruction

Thoughts on the Individual IV

Running Errands

Small Talk

Strangers

New Blue

Freeways and Supernovae

On Approach

Interconnect You

Enemies and Blackholes

Urban Heart Studies II - VII

Here is a preview of the drawings to be featured in my show. I fell in love with this process from the very beginning. They represent the juxtaposition of the aggressive boldness and soft studied carefulness I want in my work. I began by laying out a large sheet of paper on the ground. Using a large mop-like brush I slopped on sumi ink and let it set. Days later, after I had escaped from any former ideas about what the original marks represented, I cut up the paper into 10 x 10 pieces. I spent a few hours on each one responding to the random marks covering each piece. I tried color on a few but wasn’t satisfied.

Finally, I can sit and draw something but still get all the randomness and accident I get from paint.

Franz Kline tekhnologia maybe?

My First Real Show

I have a show of my paintings this coming Friday. Here is the announcement.