|
It's always seemed best to me to go where I'm led: paint first, ask questions later. Some pretty different kinds of work get generated this way, but over time the components seem to inform, or cross-fertilize one another. This process has been fascinating: it all comes from me in theory, but I often have no idea what is going on, am always puzzled, trying to catch up. Learning to wait and see has been a big lesson, patience for me has been a learned behavior. The process is alive and willing to teach me all kinds of things I had no inkling even existed, but in discreet increments, not all at once. The key seems to be to let go of what I think, and work with what I feel. This can be many things as well, and is sometimes scary. But it's led to a process that I believe in, a relationship I can trust.
|
|
Morandi's work was a lifeline for me, solved the issue of a meaningful path within realism. I worked with many permutations of a similar -- at times very similar -- style for over as decade beginning in 1988. Often this work seemed to also be somewhat Japanese, aided in this case by an antique raku tea bowl that came my way. It soon became apparent that the search for simplicity was complex. More importantly, I realized that exploring this paradox was immensely fulfilling. Alla prima, from 1997, 10x12 inches, oil on gessoed canvas over panel.
|
|
I also looked for this wabi-sabi quality in work done outside. Another alla prima study from 1997, 10.5x12 inches, oil on gessoed paper.
|
|
By 2003 I'd found a way of working with Morandi that I liked, felt it all made sense, but also realized that it was to go my own way. The evanescence would have to be sacrificed for a new beginning. Alla prima still life, 2003, 12x16, oil on gessoed linen over panel.
|
|
The paint then slowly began to get more solid. I worked more from life, with more paint, and slowly began to see things more my own way. This was, in its own way, very traditional: learn the teacher's way first, becomes yourself second. Another alla prima still life from 2004, 12x16, oil on gessoed linen over panel.
|
|
The cans eventually became a series of their own, with many variations on the theme. The tension between their mechanical and human nature was really interesting to me. Alla prima still life from 2005, 12x16, oil on gessoed linen over panel.
|
|
I also made work which was more closely observed, more about color, paint, and the mystery of the object on stage. In this type of simplicity, there's no place to hide. From 2003, 12x14 inches, oil on gessoed panel.
|
|
Corot is another painter I've been really interested in. Small copy of his Crecy-en-Brie Road10.5x14 inches, oil on gessoed paper.
|
|
Constable's outdoor work has also been important. One of several copies made after his first small study for The Hay Wain, an extraordinary painting. 9x12 inches, oil on gessoed canvas over panel.
|
|
Working outside is important, most often I make small studies on gessoed paper simply working with what is there. The intensity of the blue and green element in summer has proved to be a perennial challenge.
|
|
The outdoor work involves a lot of heat of the moment, and seems to anticipate elements that will be coming into the studio work. More energy and essence in this study from 2005.
|
Study from summer, 2008, a front moving into Farr Cross Road early on a summer morning. This is a place I've painted for a decade, always interesting to see what has changed there.
|
|
Sometimes outdoor studies become more abstract. This one was done at Button Bay on a hot, hazy summer morning, 2008.
|
|
Usually I work small, but sometimes I work big.
|
|
This one is still in progress, maybe I'll be able to finish it this summer. 30x80 inches, oil on gessoed panel.
|
|
Some of the work has it's origin in two trips to Tuscany. Simple and happy to be there, the land felt oddly like coming home. From the first trip, a villa in Pieve di Brancoli outside Lucca.
|
|
From the second trip, a farm in the Mugello region above Florence at the beginning of a thunderstorm. Painters from other countries began arriving in Italy in the late 17th Century, a great sense there of something special which has been understood and interpreted in many different ways.
|
|
I still return to these images, they are an important portal into a calmer, more pastoral world. Study from the Garfagnana, 9.5x12 inches, oil on linen over panel, 2009.
|
|
I usually paint realistically, but ever since the 80's I've worked off and on on color-oriented work. This took over full time for a while in 2006. Image here from June, 13.5x15 inches, oil on gessoed paper.
|
|
Close-up showing the additive-subtractive puns that go on in these. Very fun when the style arrives, but impossible to manufacture otherwise.
|
|
A favorite from the latest interlude of these, in 2007. I think a lot about the early use of color in Italy, these paintings often seem to be a way to use that interest.
|
|
The more closely observed work continues, these can take a long time to complete but the closer it is, the more fun it gets. However, these become almost impossible to photograph accurately. I still think there's something basically comical about painting cheese.
|
|
Working quickly alla prima is a good antidote to many layers over time. This image features some recent developments in the medium department. Susan's Porch, 9x10 inches, oil on gessoed paper, 2009.
|
|
For many years I drew everything in red chalk first. This material and I developed a decent working relationship.
|
|
But I've always liked the focus of fine line drawing too.
|
|
The chalk style can be expanded to include pastel.
|
|
But careful drawing is more reliable in determining whether composition is correct.
|
|
At one point I made lots of small monoprints. It was interesting to observe the interplay of realism and abstraction in these.
|
|
And sometimes drawings happen in reed pen. But these are often more like paintings.
|
|
Sometimes I'll make small watercolors to explore an idea. A step even closer to an oil painting.
|
|
I make a lot of the materials I use. It's a fine line between inspiration and chaos.
|
|
The materials work involves reading the older texts, a real labyrinth, but also the new research, and some period material. As above, so below.
|
|
I've learned the value of taking good notes.
|
|
And making careful tests.
|
|
At first I made lots of hard resin varnishes: copal, amber, and sandarac. Complex pyrolysis is a great way to stay in touch with one's inner ten year old.
|
|
I also experimented with making the infamous mastic gel mediums, very seductive to work with but unreliable over time.
|
|
The National Gallery publication "Rembrandt: Art in the Making" put an end to all arcane materials exploration. The technical research in this book suggests that Rembrandt worked with natural chalk and oil. After a certain period of resistance, I had to try it.
|
|
Starting in 2007, this made my life solvent-free, and opened up a whole new world of ideas and possibilities based on the interaction of two simple materials -- chalk and oil.
|
|
Some of which turned out to have a more complex rheology than others.
|
|
The chalk putty enables the paint to be cut but remain dense, and retain more color than lightening the values with white.
|
|
This led to a greater understanding of how older painters were able to get so much color from a limited palette. The separation of translucent color without white in the shadows from opaque color with white in the highlights creates tremendous dimensional movement with a limited palette.
|
|
Moving away from resins naturally suggested studying the oil in more detail.
|
|
Which has slowly led to greater understanding of how to process the oil.
|
|
The oil I use now makes paint I like better. It has more boing, contains only pigment and oil.
|
There are also many things that begin to happen in relation to the viscosity of the white.
|
|
And some materials that appear to have been forgotten or left behind.
|
|
It mostly happens here.
|
|
But no horizontal surface is really safe.
|
|
Every few years there's a show, both harrowing and fun.
|
|
But it all leads back to making things.
|
|
Fixing what went wrong.
|
|
Trying the next new thing.
|
|
And starting over again with a slightly better plan.
This is painting. The rest, ultimately, is talking.
|
|
An introduction to the chalk putty medium in the context of older painting practice is here.
More detail, history, and formulas can be found here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mitigating the modernist miasma.