Sigh of relief...

My job as keeper of the furniture is coming to a close. Oh, not immediately, and not all at once, but we're phasing out that the division of guilt and burden. For a reasonable fee, and less bullshit then therapy, I got a bonus track from an appraisal expert who summed up our session by telling me that I needed to get on with my life, let go of the furniture, and make room for my studio. I know this. Other people have said as much, but having a non-partisan professional evaluate the sitch made it seem manageable. I have a plan. I am on a mission. I have research to do, but all is good. I will be implementing a stricter schedule and a manageable division of labor: 1 part day job as a purveyor of antiques and old books studio to 2 parts artist specializing in kick-ass paintings. And pretty soon, voila, the division of guilt and burden will be gone.

editor's note: I made need to tweak that ratio in order to GTD in a timely manner. 

Better than drugs, revised

Drawing a thing with a name was calming last night. Today I added some washes. I'm off the laptop for the next 24 hours. I am going to paint things with names today. I had a really hard week on the day job/domestic abode front and I need to focus in the studio. 

I had forgotten about quite a bit of stuff, part 2.

Holy crap. 100° in the studio yesterday. Here's how I knew it was too hot:
1. Sweat dripping off my face while in a stationary position.
2. I took a sip of espresso. It was the last sip. But here's the catch. It was yesterday's espresso, or possibly the day before's. I only realized this because it tasted a bit harsh. The cup itself and the liquid were hot, but I remembered that my current cup was on  the palette table.

I came inside to work on sorting through stuff.

I spent a few hours in circa 1984 1894. I came across a scrapbook from my great grandmother's. Most everything was dated between 1984 1894 and the first decade or so of 1900.  It was carefully preserved with tissue wrapped around it and folded inside a paper bag. It was made out of an old textbook. Inside, glued to the pages were poems and scripture, clippings, photographs, births announcements, death announcements, more poems, letters, some locks of hair, dried flowers, some drawings pasted on the pages, and the color, red-orange. I composed myself and kept plowing through. It was a beautiful find. This goes in the keeper pile.

Sometimes, I feel like the only teller at the Bank of Memories.

I had forgotten about these paintings, part 1.

I'm spending lot of time working in the house this summer going through things STILL. I am getting stuff done, but it's hard. Yesterday, I got a grip on the table linens. I'm also trying to clean up my digital files and came across these. These are all really tiny paintings.  

Peephole, 2010

Someone bought this for their wife as an anniversary present.  

Trefoil, 2010

(MIA)

Wig, 2010

The Intellectual, 2010

I may have deemed the paintings from this group too whimsical. The curlicue brushstrokes were summoned from a sudden Joan Mitchell craving I had when I first moved here in 2010. I'm still reading her bio. I'm slow. 

I think all this work is under the chop saw covered in sawdust. I'll go check now.... 

...Yes. They were all under the chop saw table covered in sawdust. It's good to be inspired by older work. I remember almost throwing them out. I'm going to paint today. 

The Night.

I've been working on my website for 1000 days so far.

No, but I haven't left the computer for several days now.

The nights have been gorgeous here and last night I swore I would paint the night this evening. I took the dog for a walk and it was late and since I've been at the computer all day I was going to bail because I didn't feel like dragging my supplies outside at 9:30 pm and setting up shop. I'm still in my running clothes from this morning. Yes, I worked at the computer all day wearing my sweaty running clothes. So in order not to bail on my commitment to paint the night, I stood outside and attempted to memorize the evening. Then I opened the garage door for reference and pushed some paint around for maybe 10 minutes. (Maybe longer, but my point is that I picked up the paintbrush. A better point of course might have been that I picked up the paintbrush and finished a painting in one session, but that was not in the cards tonight.)

This is the beginning of a night painting.

Two years ago this charmer left my life but not my heart. 

❤ ❤ ❤

I love when I am rewarded for hard work.

THIS...

...and getting paid for the sale of a painting pretty much capped off my day. And although sea salt caramel gelato may sound tasty, make no mistake- it's to die for.

My new website is up and running, hence the gelato reward. It's not complete- I still need to upload some paintings from the archives, and some basic stats, but I'm really happy with icompendium for designing a clean and simple website platform for artists. Intuitive, fast, easy, and elegant. I'm breaking it down into years, except the pools and flowers paintings get their own heading, as will self-portraits, I don't want to make a distinction between abstract and representational/figurative because that line gets too blurry and is moot. I could edit out some images. Maybe leave some of the really tiny works off? As I go further back in time, I'll keep it lean, though the website offers some really useful features for inventory. I still don't have scans of early, early slides, so at this point it's not functioning as an archive. Thoughts?

I ran today. Yeah, right. I copped out just under 3 miles, and it wasn't even close to noon. Tomorrow.

Addendum: Today's trail run was less than stellar. It's really just too hot. 

I am a reptile and I live in a cave.

It's 102° outside and I haven't turned on the ac on since last night. I experimented last summer with "charging" the house. Meaning, I put the ac on for about 2 hours before bed. The secret is getting the house down to 73° at the beginning of the summer and then never opening the windows or the shades for the remainder of the summer.
I don't think the thermostat is spot on, but it tells me it's around 72 -75 degrees. I watched a vid about installing a programable thermostat. It looks easy enough except for the part where I'm to crawl in my basement and turn off the switch at the boiler plate. I need to do a meet and greet with my basement one day. I have been in it once with a chaperone. It's right up there with putting a sump pump in the bottom of the pool to drain water. Somehow dangling an electrical device in a body of water seems oh I dunno, wrong, but it's also on the list of home maintenance this summer.

I'm building a new website right now. It's going slow since I lost a bunch of software capabilities (Photoshop and Aperture for starters) when I upgraded to Lion. All I needed was the skew and resize feature, but for $79 the panty-waist version of Photoshop does not do this. For a mere $700 I can have the skew function which helps when I missed out on squaring up the art in the camera in real life. I'm holding out. Technology is holding me back right now.

My recent run of shows is winding down. The solo show at the Customs House Museum received a nice review.

 I have a couple of studio visits coming up. Summer is going by fast.

I'm into trail running a couple of days a week. 5 miles today. Woot. Followed by Gatorade and a pecan pie tart. Double woot.

The guys at the hardware store were really excited to get this back into working order:

Turbo, baby. I could probably chop vegetables with those blades. 

Last call:
Via SUGAR and Shine NYC Art: Last weekend for Lineup round 4, the final round From the Gut, with Heart. The last exhibition for season 3. July will bring SUGAR's first film, yep contrary to popular belief. A documentary by artist Bill Page on artist Larry Poons with a Q & A hosted by a surprise guest (yes, you guessed it, not lined up yet). August holds a performance artwork by Genevieve White so stay tuned in and spread the good words...SUGAR is forever THE best, most original, thoughtful art space that ever landed in Bushwick! "The alternative to the alternative".

Closing party:
Hot Paint closing reception at WEEKEND, July 1st, 4-6 pm. Cocktails and camaraderie. Speaking of which...

Guilty pleasure: 

Art+Auction's 50 Next Most Collectible Artists
Several LA-based artists on this list including Allison Miller who is concurrently in the Hammer Biennial and the Hot Paint show at Weekend.

Investment tip:
Blueberries. I bought, I froze, I conquered.

Cue Dream Sequence

Animated Pies:
Animated pies or pyes were the most popular banquet entertainment. The nursery rhyme "Sing a Song of Sixpence . . . four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie," refers to such a pie. According to the rhyme, "When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing. Wasn't that a dainty dish to set before the King." In all likelihood, those birds not only sang, but flew briskly out at the assembled guests. Rabbits, frogs, turtles, other small animals, and even small people (dwarfs) were also set into pies, either alone or with birds, to be released when the crust was cut. The dwarf would emerge and walk down the length of the table, reciting poetry, sketching the guests, or doing tricks. copyright 2004 by Linda Stradley - United States Copyright TX 5-900-517- All rights reserved. Web site What's Cooking America.

I repeat, "The   dwarf   would   emerge   and   walk   down   the   length   of   the   table,   reciting   poetry,   sketching   the   guests,   or   doing   tricks."  

And in the studio today, I worked more on this one, but I've already been messing with the water since I took this. Usual caveat. iPhone. work in progress etc.  

I wake up at 6 am.

I'm one of those people that guesses the time before I look at the clock to see how accurate I am. I was on the money today at 5:58.

The summer studio is coming along. I put a double layer of the anti-fatigue mat in front of my easel yesterday after working a day without it. If you don't think an anti-fatigue mat is a big deal, try this:
Stand and pace around on a concrete floor working on paintings for 6+ hours.
Have a restless night of sleep due to a slight resentment.
Go running the next afternoon to prove you will run, even when you are tired.

My legs felt like splintered toothpicks. I was certain chunks of brittle bone were fracturing into a million shards every time my foot smashed into the pavement. The anti-fatigue mats went down yesterday and today's run was fine.

I should start documenting how many days I am not looking for a day job. i.e., Day 2, I did not look for a day job. Instead I went into the studio and continued work on a painting that in a decent economy with the right audience, will net me honest wages for a week's pay. 

This is how I justify pushing paint around instead of looking for a day job. With any luck, I'll be typing that using my last breath 45 years from now, proving that a) I will have this anxiety all my life, and b) that I have pegged 2057 as my personal end date, give or take a few years.

This will be the last weekend for the show at John Davis Gallery. It's been a successful show for me. Some work sold and my work was introduced to a new audience. I couldn't be happier, especially since the last two years have seen a substantial shift in both scale and direction of the work. A critical review would have been icing on the cake, but I won't get greedy.

I've made some calls. Big changes coming down the pipe this summer. All personal. nothing career-related. The important thing is action.

I'm excited about my natural air purification system: two Peace Lilies and a Gerber Daisy. I had a Peace Lilly that desperately needed thinning. I was able to get two transplants. Is houseplant ownership a sign of being an introverted misanthropic artist? Because for the record, any time I receive an outdoor plant, it dies. The indoor plants frigging love me. 

"Turpentine," 2012, oil on canvas, 20 x 16 in. 

★ STILL in progress, though I think I'm ready to wrap it up soon. I need to get a better shot. 

I think someone should confiscate the small brushes from me. They are wrecking havoc with the vision I have of myself as a loose painter. I think I mentioned I tried to be loose lately, but it felt ordinary. I don't know what happened. I'm certain I was a less virtuous painter when I was younger.. Yes, here we go, I posted this last year, but here we have proof:

 "Mutant Springtime," roughly 1989-1990. [Destroyed.]

I'm guessing it's about about 57 x 49, or possibly 60 x 48 inches. Something in that neighborhood. Back then, I didn't realize people made standard stretcher bars sizes for canvases so I just bought wood, mitered the ends and made stretchers. I should buy a little slide scanner. I winnowed away a TON of old slides before I moved, and hopefully kept one of each work. That's a project in and of itself-archiving. I'm actually a bit amazed that I can see a family resemblance between these 2 paintings. I think it's the off-kilterness, combined with the palette. Crazy, right? I imagine myself to be all over the place, and yet... the brush tells all does it not?

I love my life.