Pictures! LA!

Chilling out before teaching

Busman's Holiday

I gave a lecture and worked with students at LMU. All girls. 

Holy crap, yes, I ordered both the mac and cheese AND fries at Ray's and Stark Bar at LACMA. 

Me with the appropriate Ai Wei (Chinese) Zodiac Head at LACMA. I'm not one to usually pose with art. And yet. 

Chris Burden's "Metropolis" at LACMA. 

You can see the Hollywood sign from here, if you know what you're looking for. Zoom in. It's at about 12 o-clock. 

Soutine at LACMA

Damn, I can't remember.... Ok. It's Maurice de Vlaminck. I had to cheat and look it up.

Detail of an old school painter trick. 

Argh, Another one to look up. tap, tap tap. I got this.... George Grosz.

Bet you never noticed the creepy Modigliani eyeballs. 

Forbidden photo of the Eames room at the California Design Exhibit

Drawing I started after getting busted- because you know, that's the real advantage of drawing- no one tells you you can't do a drawing of an exhibit. My friend, Cole, took over and drew a few things before handing it back over to me, so really, it's a collaborative drawing, but luckily it's in my sketchbook. My new F3 pen is magic. 

Some of David McDonald's smaller work at Carter & Citizen in Culver City

Raffi Kalenderian at Susanne Vielmetter

Raffi Kalenderian at Irvine Fine Art Center's Portraiture and Still Life show. Excellent show. 

Dan McCleary 

Greta Waller

Roger Herman 

NOT PICTURED: The freeway at dusk from Irvine to Torrance. I listened to the hip hop station and drove 100 miles roundtrip to see two shows on one night, one of which I was in. NEVER, ever do I want to hear someone's lame-ass excuse that they couldn't make it to a show that's 5 minutes away. Never. See the people in the pictures? They drove on a freeway to see the art. Rant over. Where was I? Oh yes, 

 "To Live and Paint in LA," at the Torrance Art Museum

Yvette Gellis' painting in the background

Tomory Dodge with a Rebecca Campbell in the background.

Tomory Dodge

Thomas Whittaker Kidd

Tom and I taught together at El Camino.

Nano Rubio

I finally figured out why my work looks like a black hole in photos from a distance. Optical color mixing. 

Julia and I almost knocked the wall down. Never lean against a false wall. Not even for a second. 

Mary Addison Hackett

The ever so lovely, Michelle Carla Handel with an Iva Gueorguieva in the background.

Get this, it was cold and rainy one morning.

Not to worry. 

10-year anniversary show of LA artists that did the residency program at Foundation Kaus Australis in Rotterdam, Netherlands. I was there for 2 months in 2004. For some weird reason, Rotterdam reminded me of Chicago, but nicer, and with amazing design and even better architecture. I enjoyed working there. 

To Live and Paint in LA at the Torrance Art Museum

The Torrance Art Museum Proudly presents

To Live and Paint in LA

Curated by Max Presneill and Jason Ramos
Opening reception Saturday, January 21st, 6-9 pm

A broad survey of current and emerging painting trends and talent from Los Angeles

Jonathan Apgar, Rebecca Campbell, Daniela Campins, Alika Cooper, Noah Davis, Tomory Dodge, Asad Faulwell, Jon Flack, Yvette Gellis, Iva Gueorguieva, Mary Addison Hackett, Carlson Hatton, Thomas Whittaker Kidd, Andy Kolar, Constance Mallinson, Allison Miller, John Mills, Aaron Noble, Antonio Puleo, Alison Rash, Nano Rubio, Conrad Ruiz, John Seal, Ryan Sluggett, Comora Tolliver, Chris Trueman, Miller Updegraff, Grant Vetter, Ben White 

* * * * * * * * * *

This is a wonderful roster of painters. I'm honored to be included. A catalog accompanying the show is available. 

Mary Addison Hackett

"The Walk," 2011

oil on canvas

10 x 8 inches

Handy indeed. I lubed my palette scraper.

Report from the train car studio:

I had a super productive day in the studio yesterday. Like heightened sense of awareness productive. At first I was going to attribute this to my car being in the shop and being marooned at the studio on a freezing cold day. I was also going to attribute it to having left my glasses at home, so I was unable to check emails etc. But no. The mechanic called just after a few hours, so I retrieved my car, went home to get my glasses, shot myself up with an Americano, stopped at the art supply store on the way back to the studio to pick up white paint since I was also marooned without white paint, and painted out everything I had done to date on that painting- at which point it was looking to be a prehistoric landscape in a cave with a stripper pole to heaven. Perhaps that theme will be occur in another painting, but the scale was off this time. So when I reworked everything, the scale changed by maybe 100 and it turned into a more or less observational still life, present day. I worked until 4:30ish on only one painting, taking my grilled cheese, ff, and coffee break at 2:30 pm. The deli knows to put mustard packs in my bag. I like mustard with my fries.

I'm trying to refrain form posting these works until it's closer to the show (131 days) but I like it for reasons I am embarrassed to admit: it doesn't look like I painted it. I mean it does, given the direction of the last couple of years, but theoretically, I have eschewed having a recognizable style, because I like being uncomfortable. On the other hand, there are only so many places I'm interested in exploring/mining at present.

I'm chomping at the bit to post some recent works. I'm in one of those places where I'm really excited about them and I don't know if I've lost touch with reality.

One more thing regarding productivity. I made a playlist called Studio Repeat. It contained only a handful of songs and I played it maybe 30 times. I'm too embarrassed to tell you what the songs were.

2012 is a Off to a Great Start

Two solo shows on the books and a few group shows, which I'll be announcing as they hit. The tricky part is that everything happens before the end of May. It's under control. I am prepared. The group shows have taken care of themselves thanks to a fairly prolific studio practice. I'm terribly excited about the solo shows of course, and the crazy good news is that some of the new work has already sold, so even though my MO is to show up and make the work no matter what, I have the additional goal of a personal quota to fill. You might recall I love pretending I am a factory and have quotas.* If I am lucky, it's the closest I'll ever get to having an office job, so sometimes I enjoy role-playing as CEO, disgruntled employee, and overachieving ass-kisser all at the same time.

*Sometimes it's hard to look up old posts. So much has changed. It's all good, just different.

list. v2

I should be-

1. in the studio
2. doing yoga
3. running 
4. writing my syllabi
5. clearing out a corner of the house
6. ferociously selling crap on ebay
7. none of the above
8. all of the above

It looks the same as the last list, no? 

I'm pleasantly calm and busy. 2012 hit the ground running. I don't ask questions. Within the course of 5 days, I met a curator, had a studio visit, and just watched several paintings leave bundled up in a van. The show opens in March, but they wanted to install some work earlier. 

The studio smalls like oil paint. This is good. For a couple of days it smelled like Mop & Glo.

list

I should be-

1. in the studio
2. doing yoga
3. running 
4. writing my syllabi
5. clearing out a corner of the house
6. ferociously selling crap on ebay
7. none of the above
8. all of the above

I was in the studio this morning, working on 2 paintings, but felt rushed knowing I have the other things to do. I can't wait until school starts. That will be two more things to add to the list. Note the slight hint of sarcasm. I'm tired already. I mailed off my pieces for _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, the anonymous auction at _ _ _ _ _.  I like them. I showed a picture of them earlier, but you didn't see these here, because the whole point is that one buys the art w/o knowing the artist. I wanted to do something with watercolor and gouache that's more like what I'm working on in the studio now. I did a still life and a a slackerish abstract, but bailed at the last minute on the slacker abstract and did the bottom one instead.

"Lucky Bamboo," gouache and acrylic, 10 x 8 inches

"The Artist/Critic," gouache, 10 x 8 inches

I had a studio visit here in town with a perceptive curator. She noted that in my current statement, I defend the work less than I did several years ago. So true. I still have both statements on the website. I mean, why not?

I had to work on some watercolors this evening. I missed my 3 episode fix of Breaking Bad. 

Happy New Year.

"Suitcase Paintings" oil on canvas, 9 x 7 inches

Whenever I get nervous about THE FUTURE, I remember that I have a roof over my head and oil paints in the pantry. Like, literally, in the pantry. 2011 was a good year. Much better than 2010, and 2012 looks good on paper so I am entering it optimistically. I bought a money plant.