Granite and the National Park Art Expo

snapshot of Granite VIII in new frame

When I dropped off my painting at the 29 Palms Art Gallery yesterday, more entries were arriving by the moment to join those already leaning against the wall.  They’ll be hung before next Thursday, when the 9th Annual Joshua Tree National Park Juried Art Exhibition officially opens.  I must say, I was impressed by the other entries (now viewable on-line at the JTNPArts website).  Some really inspired works this year, from all over California and the nation.  I am honored to be showing among them. 

You can see in the snapshot above what my entry looks like in its frame.  I happened to already have this frame in the studio, and I thought that it went well with the painting.  Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while may recognize this piece from the Granite series I was working on last year.  I set it aside as I thought it might be a good fit for the JTNP show, and I was really pleased when it was accepted.    

But now my attention is back on P-A-I-N-T-I-N-G.  Finally!  Open Studio Art Tours was a major interruption in my work process, and I can’t wait to get back to it.  (I’m not nearly as nice a person when I can’t work, let me tell you!)  Yesterday I finished turning the studio back into a studio, instead of a gallery, and life feels normal again.  So look for more new work soon!  🙂 

The Stuff That Outlasts Us

Granite X
2020.  Acrylic and ink on canvas. 11 x 14 in.

Brayer and brush plus ink pen.  Same sketch.  Probably as far as I’ll go in this particular direction with the Granite series.

Posted today because of need to remember all the stuff that outlasts us.

Negative Shapes

Granite I
2020.  Acrylic on canvas, 14 x 11 in.

The work informs the work.  I started the “Granite” series this spring not long after concluding “Plague Faces”.  The crossover in technique is easy to see:

Plague Faces No. 17
2020.  Acrylic on canvas, 12 x 16 in.

I start by creating a complex surface (in both these examples largely with rollers), then use a single color to paint away everything that’s not the shape I’m foregrounding.  “Negative shape” painting, a common technique.  It can bring the work to a magical conclusion, but you have to have faith that it’s going to come together because in the meantime it doesn’t look like much.  I liked “No. 17” a lot, and found a way very soon to go there again in “Granite I”, a totally different subject.

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.

 

More Granite

Granite VIII
July 2020.  Acrylic and ink on canvas, 11 x 14 in.

Still interested in the shape of the granite boulders, but not so much in their texture here. Where I’m really (always) heading is toward simultaneity.  The interpenetrability of the substance and the ether.

This started with a quick contour sketch up near Stirrup Tank in Joshua Tree National Park.  The umber and ochre are applied with a brayer for randomness.

I’m continuing to work with the same sketch, using different approaches.  More to come.

Granite

Granite II
June 2020.  Acrylic on canvas, 12 x 12 in.

I’m inching towards a subject that’s been calling me for a long time:  the stone of the Mojave Desert.  Yes, those boulders of the luscious shape and provocative surface.  So far it’s just those elements alone:  the shape and the surface.  I’m not interested in the form.  So I’ve been playing around a little bit.  Got a long way to go.

Granite V
June 2020.  Acrylic on canvas, 11 x 14 in.