Turns out I might know what the work is about and how to articulate it after all.

And, I might add, without mentioning specifics. Unfortunately I did not tape the convo, but no matter.

I had a studio visit today with a woman who used to be the curator for the Skirball Museum. She's conducting a class in conjunction with a George Segal piece recently acquired by the museum. Because of the nature of this piece, the class will be focusing on artists and their processes. The class will be visiting different artists' studios and she has included me in the schedule later this spring.

She stopped by this morning for an initial meeting and although I cleaned up a little, I pretty much just showed her what's been going on in the studio the last few months. I'm always surprised at myself when I make sense, get to the point, and don't drag in messy details that are directly responsible for the work. It was also the first time anyone has seen the work in the studio since late last summer-the new direction, if you will. I showed them along with some of the earlier new works and talked about the relevance. I talked about scale and gesture, time and space, specificity and abstraction, control versus lack thereof, and linear narratives. I'm writing this down here so I can remember it. It was a good visit.

So although I have yet to write an updated statement for the work, I discovered I have internalized it to the point where I can speak about it with some sort of distance. It's been a year, after all. The paintings have become some sort of residue. This pleases me.

I felt better after the studio visit. She noticed last month's moribund floral arrangement sitting on my painting table, along with yesterday's fresh buttercups, and commented that I work from life. If you looked at the paintings, you'd be hard-pressed to identify the flowers as coming from real life. I explained that it was more about the concept of setting up flowers in the studio as a marking of time rather than the actual need to paint from them verbatim, though I do try for some sort of accuracy in the beginning. I mentioned the garden club calendars.

I've been feeling disconnected from the seemingly important and uber hipness of the art world here in L.A. or anywhere for that matter. There's so much hype for the trendy and popular, the gimmicks and the one-liners. It seems I am better when I forget about how, when, or why my work does, or does not fit in, and just focus on the work. It's nice to have the work appreciated for what it is, rather than dismissed for what it is not.