Heading Out
The most difficult part of any trip is leaving. Shutting down my studio for a couple of weeks is kind of traumatic.
Travel Art Stuff
The most difficult part of any trip is leaving. Shutting down my studio for a couple of weeks is kind of traumatic.
Machu Picchu
The poet Richard Robbins and I are taking a group of students down to Chile and Peru. It's a class focusing on art and travel or perhaps the art of travel. We will be making watercolor painting and poems about our experiences. The idea is to be in a new place that challenges our assumptions about things. Hopefully there will be some insight into the creative process for those on the trip. I believe travel opens ones mind to those opportunities.
My beginning painting teacher Tony Wong replied "travel" to my question "what should I do to become an artist?" It was one of those questions that no one ever wants to ask. His straight and honest answer has stuck with me. One of those little sign posts along the path. I've had several of those in my life. They provided simple advice that seems to grow brighter the older I get.
Southern France 2015
When I am presented the opportunity to head off, I do. It's a mini-reinvention of the sense of self. That sense that guides one along that path. I still hate shutting my studio down, washing the brushes. I'll come home and everything will have changed, again.
Inspiration as Inspiration
Bird Hill 2017 Ink on Yupo
private collection
A Facebook friend Arturo Cruz asked me recently about inspiration. He was making astute observations (as is his habit!) referencing artists that have influenced me. His questions got me thinking about originality and influence. How artists really never create in a vacuum. We work to make something new but that newness always has a patina of the individuals varied and unique influences and experiences. Arturo was asking me about my inspirations.
I was taught to be suspicious of the word inspiration. I began my formal art studies in the mid-seventies. It was a time when overly romanticized impulses regarding motivation were looked at askance. The notion of inspiration was linked to words like “divine” and thus viewed with a lot of skepticism in a secular world. “To be inspired” seemed so external to the idea of the individual’s assertion of self. It smelled like religion.
Several years later I read Agnes Martin’s thoughtful book titled Agnes Martin: Writings. It’s a series of meditations on her painting and process. It’s a book that I recommend for those interested in what makes an artist tick. What is pertinent to my comments here is her use of the word inspiration. She used it constantly. Reading this word within the context of her rigid formulaic (I mean that in the most respectful way) oeuvre was highly impactful. I started to think of inspiration as not being given to me by some divine source, rather, I started considering thinking of inspiration as the workings of my mind. The churning of memories with the moment. The overlay of history, thought and time with my actions as I painted. To be inspired entered my vocabulary.
I can’t help but see each mark I make, created in the present moment, as immediately and instantaneously surrendering to my memory of that mark. I turn and make another mark, that again mixes with my memory of everything. This process continues on and on. Each work I create is thus a compilation of momentary glimpses into and subtle mixtures of everything I am and everywhere I’ve been. They are contemplations on the infinite expanse of mind and consciousness.
Ok,….that was some crazy stuff. I agree. Yet, while writing those sentences, I was inspired. I was thinking about a whole bunch of different things, different artists, trips and moments in my life.
Here is my greatest problem as a visual artist. I can’t simplify. I recall my mentor, the painter Rodney Carswell, telling me to “settle down”. Rodney always talked about making work that was in his words, “clear”. An artist works towards clarity, I never (still don’t) fully get this although when I see certain work I can feel it. My brain always seems to be going in a hundred different directions. Even back then, in 1975, I would be making about twenty different things at once. My ideas would rapidly ebb and flow, change and shift, contradict each other, subvert the subversion. You get the idea, I was always a mess.
Yet I was a focused, driven and an impulsive mess. A big part of my evolution as a maker of things was that I had to accept who I am with what I was doing. Meaning I had to allow the thing that I was/am making to dominate. I can’t impose order or structure on this thing, it has to be.
I inherited some of the DNA of late modernist painting mixed with the moment by moment shifting sands of pluralism and Post-Modernism. This was just luck and timing. For those of you not accustomed to those terms think of this as being between rock and roll, disco music and punk. Think of it as coming of age in a time between being rooted in an idea and being untethered from ideas. Sort of mixed up and sort of not.
I was pondering this dilemma while visiting The Chazen Museum in Madison Wisconsin to see the great exhibition by the painter Dan Ramirez, titled “Certainty and Doubt”. It is an exhibition that touches on aspects of his work from the mid-seventies until the present day. I've admired his work for many years. Ramirez is an artist that is firmly rooted in the modernist ethos. He is also attempting to push it into some unfamiliar territory. Territory that seems to contain a spiritual necessity.
While viewing this exhibition that reflects on the artists relationship to modernism and his contribution to a formalist painting discourse, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own struggles. His work is clear, precise and focused.
Mr. Ramirez struggles with the formalist strictures of abstract painting combined with the romantic desire for meaning and ultimately a spiritual recognition, thus the title, “Certainty and Doubt”. It's hard to imagine a better title to sum up this particular moment. It was an outstanding exhibition that I am grateful to have seen. Does doubt overcome certainty or does certainty eclipse doubt? I don't know. I left his exhibition inspired.
Rembrandt River With Wooded Banks
But back to me.
I saw a show of Rembrandt's landscape drawings many years ago. They were these small horizontal gems that seemed to be about everything and everywhere. They were tiny but infinitesimal.
I've always wanted to make something like those Rembrandt drawings. Oh, and Turner. I forgot about Turner. The Turner exhibition I saw in San Francisco a couple years ago had a huge impact on me and the creation of this new body of work. His watercolors were especially impactful. Loose and evocative they seemed to be born of some strange alchemy.
Turner, detail photo by Brian Frink
Turner, detail photo by Brian Frink
I've been busy working on small landscape paintings and ink drawings. I call these my "Everywhere/Everything" series. Not sure why I'm calling them that except they have a kind of trippyness about them. I feel like I'm looking out at the landscape and seeing it full and with wonder. So, these are water, sky, field, land, forest. This work feels like the fullness of experience not an attempt to pare experience down to some essence. This fullness is so very compelling.
One of the things that intrigues me about what painters like to call "the idea of painting", is that a painting always places the viewer within a particular context and frame of reference. A painting implicitly assumes the gaze and attention of the viewer and that attention is essential; without it the painting would not exist. Without the interpretive attention of the viewer a painting becomes an extremely shallow, uninteresting box, a shadow really.... on a wall. Sculpture, by contrast, assumes the viewers presence but not necessarily their attention. A sculpture still exists.
The idea of a landscape image as a metaphor for awe and wonderment is a critical idea for this recent work. I understand the the landscape I stand before is a completely created space. In a very real sense the natural is the unnatural. This is what I find inspiring, the complex web of compromises, conditional relationships and contradictory thinking of contemporary life. We are so fraught! I hope these paintings of mine ponder the forbidding wonderment of life now. If you are curious about this new work, please follow the link provided below. Thanks !
Everywhere/Everything 2017 Ink on Yupo
The First Decision
My studio is a disaster, my shop is a disaster...stuff everywhere!
My work is back from different exhibitions. I just finished a huge remodel of a space in the Poor Farm. Now I have to start organizing. I've learned over the years it's all about the first decision. I'll pick up that bit of string over there on the floor, that tiny little bit of junk, the hunk of plastic--that is how things start. My personal philosophy to anything is to just start with the tiniest problem, or the most insignificant action, focus on that and the rest follows.
If I think about the enormity of the problem, before I make those tiny decisions, I would never start.
Making a painting is exactly the same way. I have to make that first, usually very small, random decision, then the rest falls into place. It's almost easy. I try to teach this to my students but they are so often focusing on the grand things, the big questions and problems that they often become frustrated and don't do anything. Or what they make is compromised by their frustration.
I hope you have a good day focusing on the tiny things.
I'm Starting a Gallery
Matt Willemsen
When Wilbur and I bought the poor farm back in 1998 we envisioned a place where we both could develop and grow into our creative lives. Living here has always been a mixture of wonder and anxiety. The wonder of it is the solitude and space. Nine-thousand square feet is a lot of room to let ones imagination wander. We also love the woods and the fields that surround the property.
The anxiety has always been the cost. Remodeling and maintenance is always completely insane. It's the kind of house that a person with financial common sense would never, ever buy. A few years ago we even nearly lost the place. It took some hustle and scheming, (and asking for help) but we got through.
Another part of our vision has been to share the place with our friends and community. This was a goal right from the start. Within a couple months of buying it we had a musical event and poetry reading. Then I invited a bunch of students to create installations in all the rooms. Since then we've had many more readings, fundraisers, political and musical events, so many in fact that I've lost track.
All this time I had a vision for a gallery space down in our basement. It's really the perfect spot. A decent size, a walkout entrance, a few windows, eight foot ceilings, concrete floors, old stone and brick walls and a great New York loft sort of vibe. I've been hard at work sheet rocking and installing new lighting. We are naming it the Rural America Contemporary Art Gallery or RACAgallery.
Our first show is the work of my friend and colleague Matt Willemsen. Matt is a graphic designer that creates paintings incorporating his deep understanding of branding and brand identity. His work has this underpinning related to graphic design. His work also possesses a sense of color and space firmly rooted in a dialogue with a lot of contemporary painting. When I think of it graphic design has always had an interesting relationship to the world of commercial design. Andy Warhol is the classic example of an artist using processes, techniques and imagery rooted in the world of design. Or consider the painter Elizabeth Murray and her amazing riffs off comics and cartoons. I view Matt's work as part of this interesting legacy of American art--what we used to call high and low culture.
Plus his paintings are just beautiful to look at and THAT is the most important thing.
So if you are in the Mankato or Southern Minnesota area come by the opening on February 17th, 7-9. It promises to be a great party with some great painting to look at.
Matt Willemsen
Algoma
Stop turn left
A while back I drove east from Mankato for six hours, stopped at Lake Michigan turned left and ended up in Algoma at the James May Gallery. I had been invited to be part of an exhibition titled, The Art of Water. It was an ambitious effort by the two owners of the gallery, Kendra Bulgrin and Jimmy Eddings, as they were coordinating the display of over fifty different artists in multiple venues around Algoma’s downtown. The vibe opening night was all about the community as the gallery opened its doors to a flood of art lovers loving water.
Great turnout for The Art of Water
Algoma is a town at the entrance to the famed vacationland of Wisconsin, Door County. Growing up in Illinois and spending my summers over on the Western side of Wisconsin I had never been to Door County. My mad dash and left turn was the first time I had been there.
Algoma’s downtown has a Midwestern understated elegance that I’ve come to appreciate. The kind that hints at former prosperity and then loss. The Mason Lodge Hall dominates with typically decrepit silence. There are old stores, a few antique shops and a couple amazing restaurants in particular Scaliwags and a fantastic hamburger joint.
Wilbur and I took the backroads across Wisconsin on our way to the opening. I love back road Wisconsin. Lots of meandering curves, hills dotted with cows and strange little towns. There’s a European feel to a lot of them. I always fantasize that I'm driving in Southern France. We stopped at some cool little coffee shops, checked out some lunch spots and had a nice slow roaming day in our car.
So many small towns in the Midwest are looking to “the arts” to save them. It’s kind of odd. That idea that arts will save a crumbling downtown. What I think will save downtowns, what will save communities, are the things we do to bring us together. Things that we do that create dialogue. Things that we do that fill our souls and fills our spirit with air and lightness. That’s what art does, it fills us with light. Art will save us from ourselves because art is not about us.
Art is about asking questions, it is not giving an answer, it is about twirling a poem around your finger snapping it out into the night sky shaking the stars, sparks rising, wind blowing cold from the north.
Art must challenge. Art must challenge. Art must challenge. I needed to repeat that three times.
I live in a smallish town that is using art to revitalize itself. When people ask me about this I always say “Art is subversive”. Art is not an acknowledgement of the status quo, it is something that digs down to question the status quo. Nothing else does this. Art is a subversive gesture. It asks really simple questions like, “who are you?” or “are you who you think you are?” or “is the color yellow really the color yellow?” or “Why do you hate?” or, “Is this circle the sun?” or "Why is love everywhere?"
Nothing else does this. Nothing.
James May Gallery
The James May Gallery is a spunky gallery in the middle of a little town on the shore of the magnificent Lake Michigan or Lake Mishigami. It’s a body of water that dangles down into the Midwest like a watery negative Florida shape. Chicago, Green Bay, Gary, Milwaukee perch on its shoreline. All old industrial cities, rusted artifacts. The foundries and factories are gone just lightness and grace. How do they cope?
Partially through art and it is happening in both cities and rural outposts like Algoma. I admire people like Kendra and Jimmy that are working hard to create a place of energy, beauty and heart.
I'm in an exhibition with two other artists, Jimmy Eddings, who creates gorgeous ceramic work and Clare Doveton, who creates beautiful ethereal landscapes. I am honored to be included with these two artists.
Our opening is October 6th from 5:30-8:00pm. Wilbur and I will be there. If you are in the area I hope you will be able to stop by and say hi. If your travels take you anywhere near the area, check out the show. It is up through October 30th. They also have a wonderful online store at:
https://squareup.com/store/jamesmaygallery/
Check them out!
http://www.jamesmaygallery.com
Kendra and Jimmy
Starving Artist, Fat Book of Poetry
Two things are happening in Mankato this coming weekend that you don't want to miss.
First is the massive Twin Rivers Center for the Arts fundraiser/awareness party at the Masons hall in downtown Mankato. The Poor Farm Studios hosted this party exactly a year ago and I’m still in recovery. It was simply magnificent! The objective for this event is to create what I like to think of as a “creative head space”. A space where a non-artist person gets inside the head of an artist. It’s scary, exhilarating and slightly confusing.
Last year at the “Starving Artist at the Poor Farm” there were many randomly occurring events that the party goers interacted with. If you want to get a sense of what happened please check out the great video created about that event.
When? Friday September 22nd starting at 8pm.
Here's a link for more accurate and well written info including how to get tickets...
http://www.twinriversarts.org/starving-artist/
Here's the really cool video of last years event. It will give you a taste of what this is about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQPzlpnaYGM
The Starving Artist at the Temple has the same objective as the party here at the Poor Farm but it’s in a different location. It’s at the mysterious Mason temple in downtown Mankato. I’ve never been in there and I can’t wait to check it out. You should to! Expect many delightful randomly occurring happenings as you “get into the head space” of an artist!
THE SECOND THING!!!
The second thing happening is a book launch reading by the Poet Richard Robbins. Rick and I have been friends for a long time, Wilbur and I are thrilled to have him launching out here at the Poor Farm Studios.
His new book titled, Body Turns to Rain New and Selected Poems, also features a cover by yours truly. It’s a wonderful FAT collection that includes new work as well as returns of some older works. Rick is an incredibly prolific poet who writes of the American West, roads, Hollywood, fishing, nature, ephemera.... all with a finely tuned sensibility. (Ok, I stole finely tuned sensibility from the back of his book) But it’s true! His work is fine, his readings are always inspiring. For me there is nothing better than having an accomplished poet read their work in my studio. The words float around bumping dust motes, sticking to the paint on my walls. It’s delightful, come on out! Maybe we will have some beer. You can float around and stick to the paint on my walls!
When? Sunday September 24th from 2-3. What? Only an hour?? We will hang around and chat. Come on over we would love to see you.
I'm In An Opera
Ok...not ME...but my work is going to be featured in a multi-media opera. It's one of those wonderful opportunities that drops in a persons lap.
The composers name is Peter Michael von der Nahmer. His operas have been staged all over the world. He is from Germany and currently living in New York City. The McKnight Foundation generously funded his visit to New Ulm and the community art center The Grand has been facilitating his activities.
He seems to thrive on collaborations, as he has been very busy collaborating with many of New Ulms residents. I was invited to meet Mike and discuss the possible use of my paintings in the opera he was working on.
I met Mike had a terrific conversation about art and music. We seemed to have very similar approaches and philosophies about our respective work. Of course what he does is entirely different than what I do. Yet I think that is one of the interesting things about collaborations. You discover that a person, another artist, working in entirely different forms, has parallel interests and creative motivations. His work has a rhythmic structure that "feels" like my paintings. For me it's a kind of "syncopated" sound. Or movements with sharp pushes of energy. Hard to explain but I can feel it in my arm when I paint.
The production is titled Growing Young/Growing Wise and I have no idea what it is about or what it will look like. For the record I love that. Mike has an incredibly organic, flowing quality to his creative process. We talked, we exchanged emails, we talked more, I've been listening to his music, he's been looking at my paintings and the thing has grown. He's also been doing the same with all the other collaborators. For a lot of the process I wasn't at all sure what we were doing. It changes and moves. It is a living, breathing, moving created thing. I think Mike will be making adjustments right up to the performance. It looks to be an amazing multidimensional experience.
Reflections/Sunset
I was inspired to create some new paintings by two of his musical compositions. One is titled, Small Object the other Reflections. Small Objects tells a story, it has a strong narrative that I responded to. Reflections have a very different feel to it and I ended up creating a bunch of work in response to its tone, feel and movement. We have talked a lot about the emotional impact of a work of art. That's always been a difficult idea for me. I think emotionality is somehow more "hardwired" into the musical experience. Although James Elkins in his great book "Painting and Tears" writes extensively about the phenomenon of people breaking down into hysteric fits after looking at certain paintings. So it can happen. I've never cried while looking at a painting, although I've cried while reading a poem. Poems get to me.
It's this Saturday August 26th at the State Street Theater, New Ulm. Time, 7pm.
Here is a link to one of Mike's works. Check it out you will love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soEtO_KJy80&list=PLTZfifSJANRkBY85dFotufksCLYUvV37O&index=1
I love the United States...but Ohhhhhhhh Canada!
After six straight days of driving and camping Wilbur and I finally arrived at The Cape Breton Highlands National Park in the Canadian Provence of Nova Scotia.
We are nearly as far as a person can drive eastward, ok...if that isn’t true then let’s just say it feels that way. We are in the Atlantic time zone, a time zone that doesn’t touch any part of the US, so that would seem pretty far. Anyway after that drive I really don’t want to drive any further. I have deemed this as far east as it is possible to drive.
Wilbur contemplating the ocean
It’s incredibly wonderful here. We are camping a short walk from the ocean and the air has a quality unfamiliar to those of us landlocked in the Midwest. A tangy freshness with a hint of rotting kelp-like stuff. It's nice.
Wilbur and I try to travel as much as we can. When the opportunity presents itself, (meaning money) we head to foreign soil. Our cheaper alternative is to camp around the United States and Canada.
In my opinion we are kind of lazy travelers. We mostly just go to places and hang out. Neither of us are into checking off the boxes of things to see. We are not really into rigor or being overly ambitious. Mostly, both of us, like to hang around reading, eating....drinking a bit. My favorite travel advice is to try and do nothing, let things happen.
Well, that's not entirely true. I also love to make paintings when we travel. I sold my very first painting back in 1987. It was to the University of Wisconsin and they bought it for 600 bucks. It was a big sale for me and more money than I had ever received for a painting. We used the money to buy some super basic camping gear and headed with our two kids, ages 4 and 6 months for a week long camping trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was a memorable trip for a few reasons.
The first memory was that on our way home we only had enough money to buy a big Mac and an order of fries to split. The second was that each night after Wilbur and the kids were asleep in the tent I sat at the picnic table, with the Coleman lantern hissing away making weird little ink paintings. I fell in love with the idea of making my work in places that are unfamiliar and new to me.
Sitting on the beach promoting Freisen's Bakery!
My interest is not in painting what I see or do what is called "plein air painting". Rather I'm interested in capturing a sense of the place and maybe a quality of air and light. Call it a tone or a vibe or whatever, I can't figure it out. It's just a sense of the place.
My typical process is to do a few location paintings and then just hang out in the campsite doing work. Sometimes I paint what I'm looking at in the campsite, a tree or a rock. Other times I paint from memory. During this trip to Canada Wilbur and I hung out at the beach for a day. I did a couple of paintings, then the rest were done at the campsite. The campsite becomes my studio.
People are always interested and will stop to look and chat. This time a really nice family from Ontario kept checking in on my things; kids love seeing someone painting outside. Once in Colorado at the Longs Peak campground I even did a little exhibition for a family. I leaned the work I had done up on picnic tables and we had an opening.
My French Easel and paint stuff
I think my painting is the way I relate to the world of my experience and consciousness. When Wilbur and I are driving or walking we will talk about stuff, point things out, enjoy something especially odd or beautiful. Yet for me, it's the painting that creates a coherent understanding of these new places. It's like I absorb the rhythm and sense of a place.
I have another memory. Years ago Wilbur and I were camping at Bandolier State Park in Colorado. (A marvelous place BTW), we were hiking. As we hiked along I observed Wilburs hand brushing up against some small pine trees. Later she wrote a poem that contained an image of pine trees. Her hand and body had collected it through touch. That taught me that most of our observations--the ones that matter--are deeper and not necessarily associated with vision or sight. This is why I paint when I travel. It's a way to retain a deeper sense of a moment and a place.
If you are interested in seeing some of the work I have made on our last two trips to Canada please check out my Canadian Portfolio.
A Bit on Manual Transmissions, Politics and Being DegeneraTe!
I’ve been invited to participate in an exhibition at Allison Ruby’s wonderful little upstart gallery called Red Garage Studio. It’s her garage. It’s her studio and it’s her gallery. Tucked away behind her home it has become a community workshop and space for engagement. Her space and spirit is what I like to think of a “punk upstart”, she is making something happen and bringing incredibly positive energy into her community.
Red Garage Studio is in its second full season offering exhibitions wryly referred to as the “Manual Transmission” series. Last season I had the pleasure of participating in one of these exhibitions. An important part of her exhibition philosophy is that the work has to be:
“created using hand processes, with minimal or no technology or digital fabrication. Even multimedia work, which obviously involves technology to produce, is created with the direct action of the artist such as hand-drawn animation, hand photographic manipulation, or performance.”
So Manual Transmission….get it?
I love it.
I’m in the upcoming exhibition titled the DegeneraTe Show. The title of the show makes clear reference to the famed exhibition in Munich Germany staged by the Nazi party. We all know what happened. So it is a timely exhibition considering our own current political climate. The exhibition features forty fantastic artists, you can expect a lot of energy and outrage, a great mix for incredible art. I am very honored to be included in this group.
I never think of myself as a political artist per se. In the past I’ve done a few works that made direct political commentary but it is not my typical mode of work. However I do think my work is political, all art is political. Any human activity that asks the question “Why”? becomes a political statement. It is a statement questioning the status quo and the perceived order of things. The original Degenerate exhibition in Munich is a good example of what I’m talking about. It is also why repressive regimes, like the Nazis, work to silence creative human expression of all kinds.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_Art_Exhibition
The Degenerate Exhibition, Munich Germany, 1937
About a year ago I started making paintings of dark waves. These are paintings that come wholly from my imagination, not based on observation. They are paintings of a turbulent sea or lake at night. The water is thrashing and threatening, a storm is coming. These paintings were done as our political season was thrashing along. I see them as metaphors for upheaval and turmoil. Perhaps a foreboding future.
Dark Wave, 2015
The painting I’ve included in the Degenerate exhibition is called “Dark Sail” and it is a continuation of my dark wave paintings. It was inspired by a recent trip to the shores of lake Michigan. As I stared out at the water I kept imagining a sailboat with a black sail drifting by me on the lake. The sky was an eerie dystopian brown. I didn’t want to paint the entire boat so I chose to crop it, almost as if I was hiding from the people on the boat, seeing only the top of the sail over a wall. It’s an image that also pays homage to the Klansmen paintings of Phillip Guston, one of my favorite painters.
Dark Sail, 2017
The opening for the DegeneraTe Show is Friday July 21st from 7-10pm. Allison throws a great party and I hope to see you there!
http://www.redgaragestudio.com/event/the-degenerate-show/
Memory of Water
Brian Frink
Memory of Water
Two Rocks 2012 Collection: Swanson and Hinsch CPA
What I refer to as my Memory of Water series began during a month long artist residency on The Great Cranberry Island, an island thirty miles off the coast of Maine.
John Heliker and Robert LaHotan were two painters that had established New York careers. When they died a foundation was formed and a residency was created in their summer home and studios on The Great Cranberry Island. It is named the Heliker-LaHotan Foundation Residency. In 2012 I was invited to spend the month of September making work there as a resident artist.
The space I worked in was once a small two-story boathouse situated next to a tidal basin. It had been renovated into a studio for Mr. LaHotan. A large picture window faced the ocean. Windows surrounded the space and the central part of the studio was open to a second story. A narrow spiral stairway connected the two levels. On the second floor there was an ornate desk and a small day bed.
My original plan for the residency was to wander the island and do more traditional landscape paintings. When I was assigned this studio my plans changed. Walking into the studio I instantly realized that I would be sitting in front of that picture window making paintings.
Every day I woke up around 5am, made some coffee and walked out to the studio. I watched the sun come up the fog break and the water move. I painted and made drawings. The tide slowly rose, the tide receded, I would have lunch and then climb the spiral stairway to the second story. I took naps on the daybed. Waking, the ocean would have risen to the very edge of my studio. It felt like I was on a small, tall, light filled boat. The reflection of water rhythmically played across the ceiling as I drifted in and out of sleep. The tide went out, leaving shelled creatures for the seagulls to fight over. Rocks, hidden by the high tide were fully exposed, sides slick with kelp. I was in a magical, dream-like place.
After three weeks of steady work I had one large sheet of paper left. My residency was nearly over. I contemplated what to do with this final work. Without being aware of why, I rotated my painting surface so I was not looking out of the large window that I had been staring out of for the previous three and a half weeks. That was when I made my first Memory of Water painting. By not looking at my subject I began to understand it. By focusing on my memory of water--previous experiences, conscious, sub-conscious, genetic, became part of the subject.
What I think of as my first "Memory of Water" painting
My Memory of Water series is a contemplation and consideration of the mysterious, defining, paradoxical relationship between memory and experience.
Welcome to the Poor Farm!
Welcome to the Poor Farm!
Hi all,
I'm really happy to finally have a new website up and running. I'm still working out the kinks and adding new work but it's about 80% there.
I had a great website that launched about ten years ago. It was designed by the talented designer Matt Willemsen. We maintained it for a good number of years and it served me well. Yet technology and my creative production kind of outstripped its usefulness and I ended up taking it down a few years ago.
Then I started working with another terrific designer, David Rogers. We kept talking about the website, how to make it, how it would work and all that. David even created a wonderful prototype a couple of years ago. Yet nothing seemed to stick. My artwork kept unfolding and changing, we couldn't keep up with it. So about a month ago David mentioned Square Space to me. I checked it out and began working on my own website through the Square Space platform.
Thus my new website! David advised me a bit on some basics but I did it all myself. However, my conversations and previous web related work with Matt and David taught me a lot about how a website works. It is far more than just the content. I owe them a huge THANK YOU for all their assistance.
So this blog.
I keep asking myself "why should I blog?" Really, why should anyone blog?
So far I haven't come up with a good answer except the obvious one, my ego. It feels good to put my ideas out into the world in any form I can. That's the reason I do my paintings. I also like to write and initiate dialogue or at least try and make a point about something. My hope is that this blog will contain ruminations on my studio practice, my processes and my thinking about what I'm making. I expect it will be a bit freewheeling but I'll also always try and make a point about something. Oh and this blog is about marketing my artwork, just being honest.
Anyway, I'll try and make it interesting, irritating (because that's just me) a bit provocative, maybe funny and for sure whacky.
Here are links to Matt and David's websites…they are awesome artists. Check them out!
Me in Southern France