Don’t know what the gray shapes were meant to be. Maybe breath, to reanimate him.

the dog that ate the milagros

I was so happy to be included in this show and wish that I could see all the paintings. Chris Buzelli documented his beautiful work as well as some of the other dog paintings. I particularly like the fella in the ochre turtleneck.

This is the 11th year that the gallery has organized an exhibit of work to coincide with the Westminster Dog Show. The gallery and frame shop is located in the East Village at 328 E. 9th St. NY, 10003. The show opens February 11th and runs thru March 15th.

http://www.mascotstudio.com

This painting “the dog that ate the milagros”, a theme I revisited from a larger black and white image I did a couple years ago.

I’m starting on two more images now. The working title for the group is ‘monsters’, all having in some way to do with self perception, fear, power and clothing.

digging

stuck

ink on paper, 29″ x 23″

pearl, 40″ x 60″ monoprint on panel, June 2009

This painting was created for the Ironton group show that opens July 3rd. The exhibit is titled ‘decade’ to reflect the 10th anniversary of the gallery and studios. I had given the 13 Ironton artists the title and encouraged them to consider using it as a starting point for the work. Goofy, I know, but I thought it might make for a way to have some cohesion. Group shows can be schizophrenic, especially here where our strength as a diverse community can be our undoing in a gallery situation- with woodworkers next to painters next to metal guys next to stone sculptors, etc.

My starting place was ‘diamond’, the traditional gift of tenth anniversaries. A monk I’ve heard teach several times, Ven. Jian Hu, describes the idea of emptiness with the example of a diamond being tossed into a forest. With the large stone resting there among the sticks and stones, a bird lands and pays the cut stone no attention choosing instead a twig, illustrating that this object has only the value we have given it, it has no intrinsic value. I think about this idea often and love the concrete image for something so difficult to understand.

To begin I cut and printed 40 woodblock-type plates using polyprint (considerably easier to cut) to construct a Lichtenberg Figure like pattern. This represented the diamond to me. The panel is 40″ x 60″ made up of plates measuring 8″ x 10″ each printed sequentially. The all-over pattern printed in black was ultimately disappointing, too much like wallpaper and too dense. I reprinted all of the 40 plates in a muddy green/blue and that was worse; it looked like a Jimmy Buffet inspired underwater mess. Hours and weeks into the painting I couldn’t make it work and was at a dead end.

Watching a performance of Laurie Anderson helped me resolve this painting. During the evening, sitting in the dark listening to stories and music and mood I was familiar with, I wasn’t consciously trying to problem solve but by the end of the night I knew how to proceed with the painting. Though there were passages that were interesting I knew I couldn’t paint around what was working so the following Monday I ‘washed’ the water based printing ink off the whole panel. What was left was a lovely ghost image of the original black print. The bird was able to find it’s way into the painting, from the original idea of the bird in the forest with the diamond. The diamond becomes a pearl and the coral-like shapes I had cut intending a forest now were able to make some sense. The passage from Shakespeare’s Ariel song that Laurie Anderson puts to to beautiful use in ‘Blue Lagoon’ proved to be the key to the painting:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

mundane fact: This represents the first time that I have used a color other than black for the line. yikes.

Another worthy auction; this time the parameters imposed were the size, no larger than 7″ x 7″.
I visited the museum last week with a friend and stopped in front of two modest Gustave Baumann prints. I thought about those two images as I started to work. His work is lovely and expertly made; the influence of his work here was only the permission to do a simple portrait of a wallflower plant I had recently planted. The image is a bit of a wallflower itself but I like the simplicity of the single object in the frame. Lastly it will get a coat of encaustic to give it a nice object quality.

Denver Art Museum, Dam Contemporaries

Every spring the Alzheimer’s Association hosts Memories in the Making, a well organized event to raise awareness and money for the cause. One aspect of the evening is a silent auction of paintings on palettes created by local artists. I’ve noticed a trend in fundraising to give the artist something to paint on; a box, a bird house or in this, case, a palette. It seems like a good idea rather than asking for a framed piece of existing art (which can become costly if you contribute to a couple fundraisers a year). Sometimes, though, it’s hard to not create something that looks sort of crafty given the surfaces.

The really nice part of the event is the art on display ( and for sale) by those with different levels of dementia that have taken advantage of the art programs that are offered through the organization. The work is by far more interesting and beautiful than what us ‘professionals’ offer up. A woman who volunteers with the group related a story from the event a couple years ago; she was chatting with a man who was standing in front of a painting of a boat. He was admiring the technique that the artist had used to capture the qualities of the subject and also remarked that he once owned a boat like that. She knew, though he was unaware, that he was the artist.

It’s a great organization and event, impossible to sit through without being moved to tears, and I’m happy to contribute this year.

If you have any trouble with my site please don’t hesitate to send me a note. The advantage of the system for me is that it’s as easy to change content as using a blogging program. And I can add new work as soon as it’s done or published!

from Hugh:
“basically, it’s a content management system that focuses on providing a simple interface for the presentation of multimedia artwork.”