travel and back to painting

Out to Calif and back....just a vagabond. I'm getting so used to the travel that the bumps in the plane ride don't bother me any more....just have to keep adjusting my eyeballs to the print on the book page. And listening to A Confederacy of Dunces many times on my MP3 player. I just never get tired of that book.
Back to painting. I hate acrylic. So its on to water based oils in an effort to not poison myself any longer with regular oils and mediums. And on this last painting, it is actually working out. I'm posting the early drawing of it and part way there. The finished one to come in a few days.
But hooray....so far so good on the new oils.

swimming, the return to the beginning.

Swimming.

I have returned to the water. Where I move smoothly, effortlessly, skimming the blue, rolling over and watching the clouds pass over the sun. I blow bubbles and move my rather tired body like an old sea lion undulating over and under the surface.

I speak to no one. I hear as distant music, the noise of children and parents. I swim until I begin to tire and then I float. The water from the heat of August is almost too warm, but still refreshing. I rest. I swim again. I rest on a chaise and revel in the warmth of the sun, pulling down my hat and pushing all care from my mind. I have no age. I am invisible. I am sun and clouds and water.

toad table and painting

Cicadas and toads singing in the evenings here. Butterflies floating, and the dratted large pine cockroaches skittering about.....we have nature.

I've been working in the studio finishing large acrylic paintings...making some sort of peace with the acrylic. The water based oil paint arrived...but I'm waiting to start a new painting before experimenting with it. I think another boat painting. Such a good metaphor for the ride we are all having.

In honor of the fine Gulf Coast Toad, I'm posting a gouache of him/her looking enigmatic upon a table top. The last place you'd like to see a toad, right? Or a cockroach 2" long. The toads have been laying long pearl strands of eggs and they are now hatching. Hope they don't all eat each other. Nature is rough.

A grand day

A good day. A lunch with friends who get who you are and you get them is a fine thing. It is a relief from the work, the responsibility, the worry, to laugh at the commonplace. It is not something I do often anymore, but when the opportunity happens, it is a joyful thing. Better yet is to almost pee in your pants with laughter over the stupid ordinary glitches of life. It takes all the sting out.

And then to end the day with Tiddly Winks with little granddaughters is life full. Oh, and Popsicles!

Unstalled, paint flying.

I think I have my mojo on. Things are hopping in the studio. Paintings that have been stalled for months are moving right along. No complaints now. Hard work, sweaty studio clothes, exhausted at the end of the day....this is the way it hasn't been for a little while. I always believed in working through a problem....and finally, finally, acrylic or no, the paint is flying.

LA life magazine

Just after grousing a few days ago......I'm happy to say that my work is featured in downtown Los Angeles Life international eMagazine: http://downtownlalife.tripod.com Look for my name down a ways on the left of the main page. Thanks for looking if you check it out.

I should only paint....not talk. So that is the agenda.

art openings vs. holing up in the studio

I posted an old painting on flickr today that got me remembering and thinking about my shows in galleries and small museums and universities. It is a bitter little painting done in 1989 about the crowds at openings talking and smooching with each other and ignoring the work on the wall (which in this painting is hung upside down....not a tribute to a well known 90's painter). Many people have had wonderful openings, me included, but this was just a jibe at what can and does happen when an artist hangs his/her heart and soul up on the wall.

How does a poet get up and recite, or a singer or comic get the nerve up to perform. It's a wonder really. Visual artists are often much more shy of attention. Well, ok, I am. I love to do the work, it's great for the work to get attention.....but I'd rather stay home. I love to talk to people about my work....but on a small scale....a few people at a time...preferably over coffee or a beer. I can even talk to a big group quite easily....but I'm just happier in the studio. Bah, humbug and all that.