A belated post on "Red," the play about Rothko

"If the restaurant would refuse to put up my murals, that would be the ultimate compliment. But they won't. People can stand anything these days."

"Rothko kept the commissioned paintings in storage until 1968. Given that Rothko had known in advance about the luxury decor of the restaurant and the social class of its future patrons, the exact motives for his abrupt repudiation remain mysterious. Rothko never fully explained his conflicted emotions over the incident, which exemplified his temperamental personality.

Today's post is lifted from the parallel universe of Wikipedia.

Occasionally, I, too, just want to quit and play chess

Dave Hickey retires from the artworld. Says it has "become calcified by too much money, celebrity and self-reverence."

And that's the good news.

Waiting for Yupo

A suburban home studio. A table.

Mid-morning.

MAH is sitting at the computer trying to order paper. She pulls out her credit card with both hands, hyperventilating. 


I had a good day working on some watercolors/gouaches for a project. It might be 2 projects, but I'm waiting to hear. Optimism prevailed and I ordered enough paper for two projects. I also reeled off an artist philosophy statement for an application rather effortlessly after a couple of years of working too close to the bone. On the way to the library, I had my hair chopped off about 3 inches by someone who didn't quite understand that I didn't want a blunt cut that gives me a frizzy triangle look. My $30 haircuts have finally played themselves out. I'm fashion conscious enough to know that I look like I fit in now. My cosmopolitan locks are gone. What's next? Spanx? Jeggings?

Dream time.

So in my dream last night my ex and I are arguing over where to hide a gun. We were being held captive by some thugs a' la Breaking Bad or Reservoir Dogs and it was us vs. them. We kept moving the gun from one hiding place to another under a tablecloth with each of us thinking we had the better hiding place. One of the thugs found the gun, because, of course, my ex had last moved it from where I had stashed it. At this point, I thought for a moment and then grabbed the jackknife hidden in my boot and started fending off the bad guys. My ex fainted at the sight of all the blood and I tried to imagine we were in a sitcom while I tried to drag us off to safety.

I doubt this will become a painting and I'm not sure I'm ready to interpret it.

Book club report #2: "The appleyness of the apple"

"There are two ways of going beyond figuration (that is, beyond both the illustrative and the figurative): either toward abstract form or toward the figure. Cezanne gave a simple name  to this way of the figure: sensation. The figure is a sensible form related to a sensation; it acts immediately upon the nervous system, which is of the flesh, whereas abstract form is addressed to the head and acts through the intermediary of the brain which is closer to the bone."
Deleuze, Gilles. Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2004. 31-32. Print.
I'd like to think that I'm being productive by reading about paint, but I had to take my car in early this morning for a service appointment so I made do with their shuttle service and arrived on campus considerably earlier than I needed to arrive. I packed my watercolors and my sketchbook. I am in the library. I can update my resume, draft a teaching philosophy and apply for a FT job, or further self-educate myself by reading about painting and doing some sketches. So far I have chosen the latter. I read the latest copy of Modern Painters then switched over and continued reading The Logic of Sensation. I'm tired and I want to paint. The shuttle will pick me up this afternoon and then hopefully I (am apparently so tired that I couldn't finish this sentence). I watched the debate last night and cursed at the bullyman on the monitor within 5 minutes. I cut some wood panels for some smaller works. I want to be in the studio painting on the larger work. I said that already, yes. I planted some pansies over the weekend. I tried to rake the earth and get rid of weeds before I put a weed cover down. I have a tree preciously canted as the result of a recent windstorm.
The appleyness of everything.



I gently used the skeleton in the closet as a coat rack while I ate lunch today.

Book club report #1

I'm currently reading The Logic of Sensation, Deleuze's book on Francis Bacon that highlights the act of painting and the notion of sensation. It was a random selection while browsing the stacks at the library. I'm not really in a book club. I doubt I could find 5 people who would read this with me.

Speaking of Carl Jung, here's what I like about synchronicity: I'm on Chapter 2 of TLoS, and there's mention of El Greco's "The Burial of the Count of Orgaz." I'm sitting in the den by a bookshelf still partially filled with books from my mother's collection. I glance over and see a small paperback published by the National Gallery of Art. It is called, "Spanish Painting." I open it and see EL Greco's "Saint Ildefonso,"which reminds me of Bacon's screaming pope painting that was done after Valasquez's pope painting.



EL Greco


Valasquez


Bacon

Early on my mom was a Spanish professor and had a deep interest in Spanish literature and art. While sorting through the house, I've come across these little gems (small press books on art and artists) and it always makes me grateful that for every plastic pan or ball of string saved, there was also an appreciation of art.

Back to Deleuze...

Bill Killebrew at The Parthenon

You know that feeling where you want to keep looking at a piece of art and someone has thoughtfully put a bench in front of a painting so that you could do that until they closed the doors behind you? If not, check out Killebrew's current show at The Parthenon.











Link:

The rock eater

Dog stealing a rock from the fireplace.


Dog hiding under kitchen table guarding sacred fireplace rock in his mouth.

I don't get it.

Lucky Number Seven. Process has a Birthday.

Thanks for reading, writing and sharing.
Paint on.

Your truly,

The editorial staff at Process

Yellow Jack

I have strep. 101.3 and no that's not a radio station. I've been hallucinating to NPR for 2 days and feel so bad that I can't remember what normal feels like.
I'm trying to make sketches of quarantined ships when I'm lucid.