It is tiring and somewhat mind-numbing.  If you’re a bit shy (I really am shy!) it can be a challenge to have all that focus on one’s self.  I probably had chats with over 50 individuals last night – old friends, new acquaintances, and a lot in between.  I  take all the well-wishes and kind words in, the way some mammals store fat for the long winter – to hold me over until the next show which  could be years off.

I’m so appreciative of the support, and all the people who spent time looking at my work. 

It was also great getting to meet many artists who submitted work to the group show.  Helen Gutfreund wrote an appreciative blog post about the opening.  Also discovered that fellow painter Jerry Teters is also a fellow jazz drummer.  I’m hoping to still meet some of the other artists – quite a community we live in.

I envy my artist friends who’ve been able to live closer to the poverty line – more modestly.  AND stick with the art.  When I was NOT in business, I kept getting futher and further into debt.  Being in business helped alleviate that.  But hopefully, I’ve learned to be more careful about finances – and will spend more time in the studio.  Thats the game plan, at least.

Another side note: I learned things running a company that I never would have doing art alone.  I feel like its made me a better, more rounded individual.  So, no regrets.

I haven’t typically worked in terms of “projects”. In the past, I just painted, and if I had the good fortune to be invited to show, I would just reach into the painting racks, and take out the latest work. The past ten years haven’t been a good time for me as regards to studio time, but after hearing Gregory Amenoff talk about his own propensity towards “projects”, I thought, “why not”. And thus this project was born.
The four paintings in this show were all made from pairs of canvases bolted together. The paintings were made as unified pieces, but the underlying supports are bifurcated.

The theme of this show and the juried show is “abstraction”. I have my share of hang-ups about that term. After all, aren’t these paintings “real”. Aren’t those paintings of people, vases of flowers, and landscapes, all very, very abstract?

Samuel Johnson meant the word as a sort of summarizing , “a smaller quantity containing the virtue or power of a greater”. Fair enough. You have to admit; there really is a difference between an abstraction, and a realist painting… you can see it quite clearly. Where’s the picturing? I would argue that its all there… just that those artists who practice “abstraction” hide their pictures – take more liberties with how the scene changes. Or they are focussed on relationships between things. Its can be like in a dream where one moment you’re driving your car, and the next moment you’re back in your first grade cafeteria without clothes on. Reality shifts. Perhaps there is an element of obsfucation – if we came out and showed you what we were really thinking you’d all be apalled and have us put away. Or perhaps there is a play of associations, like those found in really great poetry – and those associations drift in and out. Or perhaps I really do like the way that blue brushstroke sits next to that purple brushstroke, and my, aren’t they great friends?

At the end of the day, I still feel that too much is made of the distinctions. All of us painters make paintings – and whatever the approach, paintings are objects that often require being lived with – or seen many times – before they reveal themselves fully. Each painting is created from quantities of colored matter, usually tranferred to the painting with a stick with some hair on it – and that usually being held by a human appendage (I’m leaving out all the painters who throw, spray, hold brushes in their mouths, and elephant painters). And that aspect of markmaking generated by a human body is near universal to all paintings. Each painting speaks to that bodily experience.

 He has a show upcoming in the city… if you’re around, catch it….

Saturday December 20th – 9pm (no cover)

The Living Room

154 Ludlow Street (btwn Stanton & Rivington) New York, NY 10002

212-533-7235

http://livingroomny.com/

 

 

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