August 02, 2010

A post about painting. Finally, you say.

It's 3:15am. I can't sleep. I ate 2 slices of birthday cake at the neighbor's earlier. I'll crash in a few hours.
I finally switched gears from sorting my mom's estate and trying to train wreck my way though some art writing, to walking out to the studio, picking up a paintbrush and painting without thinking about it too much. I thought about all the images and dialogues I've been having or vicariously listening to lately and got my ass out to the studio and pushed some paint around and reconnected with what's important to me, which is paint. Everything else falls in the place after that. 
I started this painting the weekend it flooded in Nashville. I thought it would be a flooded pool painting. It has morphed 3 times. Years ago, I used to be insecure about this behaviour of mine, until I realized it was my MO.  


Who's to say which is the best? It doesn't matter because  I'll never be able to get it back to either of the previous two stages. Physically, I could of course, but it would be a copy, an inauthentic attempt to recreate the past. And what purpose would that serve? It's true. You can never go home again. Home being a stand-in for many things, natch. 

It's still not finished.

Another work in progress: 


I started about 3-5 paintings before I left L.A. One day I want to leave a painting at what I would call the beginning stage. I don't think I can. There's always some obscure detail, some tiny insignificant mark I need to hone ever so slightly. After that, I am so f'ckd. 

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It's over.

Nov 7, 2020. Tears of joy and relief. It's been unreal and I'm ready to get back to a sense of normalcy. The desert has been tough.