Battles

Embattled Boy
2020.  Acrylic on canvas, 10 x 8 in.

I’ve been away for a couple weeks.  Just got back in the studio briefly today, mostly just tidying up and trying to remember where I was at.

Not sure why I decided to post this image, painted earlier this year.  It’s on a textured canvas, and I used sponge, roller, and brush.  I worked pretty hard on it, actually.  Some paintings start to take on a personality for you early in the process, and even if you try to ignore it it keeps insisting.  Each layer could have obliterated its character, yet I found myself continually trying to bring it back forward.  And you have no idea if any of that character will be apparent to the viewer.  But you feel compelled to let it realize itself anyway.

Some people in my life are having a hard time right now.  A very hard time.  It’s necessary to fight for them, or to encourage them to fight for themselves and hope that they can.  A happy outcome is not at all certain.  I may have that hard a time myself someday and I hope then someone will fight for me, or that I will be able – and willing – to fight that hard for myself.

New Work

New work:

Acrylic on canvas, 20 x 10 in.  I’ve done several in this vein now.  They all start with a big calligraphic gesture in black on white.  This one stopped there:

I’m thinking of them as “bell poems”.  But we’ll see.  Stay tuned.

Filling with Space

More fooling around with the granite sketch.  Studio shot of work in progress, acrylic and ink on canvas:

Completely different approach than the last posted, but it is in line with an enduring stylistic interest of mine that comes up every so often and never really goes away.  Witness this pastel from all the way back in 1999:

Pinto Mountains from Wonder Valley
1999.  Pastel and charcoal on sandpaper, 14 x 10-1/8 in.

This is a view from my property, right after I acquired my studio.  I was just beginning to try out ways to encompass the enormity of what I was seeing – the enormity, the simplicity, the complexity.  And how it’s all happening at once, in one vast pulsating organism filled with space.  Still working on it.