'Congregation'

I finished one more, 73' x 41'. I think I am sending this one to NC, to a designer there. The photo here is a little darker then the painting actually is.

Progress?

Attention! Again the following work is uncompleted. Just thought you might be interested in where I have gotten in a week (65 hours). I think it is getting close now. There will still a few more unifying layers but it is staring to come together. Anyone know what it is yet?

'Disturbed' 48' x 60'

Another just completed piece. It is a bit different then any of my other finished pieces. It is more sparse, and looks even larger because of it. I have received kind of a mixed reaction from the limited audience that has viewed it so far. I know there has got to be someone (maybe many) out there who thinks all of this stuff is a complete waste of time and materials; periodically I do a little. No one has been willing to verbalize any such feelings yet. I think I actually would value that kind of perspective too, if articulated well enough I can actually understand it. If there was enough traffic here maybe someone would ... anyway if any of you know any really negative, articulate people send them this way please.

Underpainting

ATTENTION! The following work is NOT finished. That is why it is scary. Actually, it isn’t nearly as scary in the photos as it is IRL. Weird, because usually I feel like the photos of my finished work don't look nearly as good as the real paintings. This is how most of my paintings get started. A lot of very active strokes in basic colors. Sometimes there are even circles or other seemingly arbitrary elements.

I am going to postpone the "subject matter" post for some later date. I have committed (unwisely maybe) to another show at Evergreen Gallery. The opening is April 18^th, I think they told me. I would love to see all of you there is you can make it. I could get you a invite if you make sure I have your address. If nothing else I would be able to send you a postcard with an image of a painting of mine. If you don't know if i have your address just go to my paintings website and use the "contact" button to send me an email.
Anyway, I have been trying to get a bunch of work finished for that. This effort is still not going as well as I have hoped. I know I am a little distracted, but usually I am able to work out more than I have this time. I am definitely trying some new things, including more color variation. The color has pretty much always been the most exciting aspect of paint- any of my art really. I think I do pretty well with color combinations for décor, but it is being quite frustrating in my paintings right now. When I first started paintings a couple of years ago, I was experiencing some similar feelings. At that time I just avoided it and figured I would get back to it. Maybe I still need to do that….

Got One

I finally finished a piece yesterday. This is " Early Morning Pogonip" (48"x60") or something like that any actually know how to spell pogonip? I think I may already have it sold too.
Molly asked some questions about the subject matter of my paintings. I have been thinking about some of those for quite a while. Before I really started painting actually. I am not sure I know the answers but I will share some of what I have thought about them in an upcoming post.

Made by Charlotte

Earlier I mentioned that sometimes I am able to get Charlotte to make something with the stuff I bring home from those stores in NYC. Today I came across these images of some dresses Charlotte made for the girls for Easter , with some fabric ribbons and buttons I brought home. I think Mom was there while I was choosing the fabric. I was pretty impressed with that store, but I hadn't yet found all the button and ribbon shops. I really like the way the dresses came out . I think Charlotte was a little worried . She hates trying to make stuff without a pattern. She got these pretty much exactly how I imagined them as I was acquiring the elements.

I

Recently

So now that I am back, I am trying to rebuild some kind of client base for Iconography here in Utah. I do wish I was totally rebuilding somewhere I actually wanted to live. I think moving right now just is too inconvenient for obvious reason. Actually there always seems to be a reason. Maybe there is something i have to learn here that i couldn't learn elsewhere... any ideas? I am a little worried about that, but I think this is like the third or fourth time I have had to basically start over, and it seems to have worked out fine each time so far. I hope this time the effort will yield similar results. It will certainly be interesting with the limited schedule I guess I will have for the next few weeks. I hope it will be a few weeks anyway.

This past year I have been able to make time to paint much too infrequently. I find that this pattern makes it hard to maintain any of what I figure out with my paintings. I have spent a little over a week painting now, with pretty much nothing to show for it. It often it has taken about 2 weeks before I have been able to really expect to have the control I need to be able to expect many of my paintings to work . I have never been able to get all of them to work, but I certainly don’t remember it being this frustrating since I first started getting some things to work.

Shown here is my most recently finished piece. I like so many things about it, however it has some MAJOR surface integrity problems, so I could never in good conscience sell it. This problem resulted from a misstep with one of the technical issues I have worked out long ago but just forgot. I really don’t think I will be forgetting that one again. My paintings are kind of a mass of paint and paint-like products that I try to keep just at the edge of totally out of control. My hope is that this will keep a spontaneity and almost effortless look to them even after I have labored over them for a few weeks or much longer in some cases. I wish I had enough skill and audacity to be able to actually just throw stuff together and have something worthwhile come out at the other end, but that kind of painting experience has mostly escaped me so far. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that periodically my efforts at the edge of control will go over that line in a way that is just plain unsalvageable. Actually, given my level experience here it should actually be amazing that MOST of these efforts would be fruitless