I am distinctly literal-minded — I really do have to see things to believe them, a tendency — or defect — that has left me disinclined to the theoretical and abstract. I prefer both philosophy and art with an empirical basis.
In my geology class at college — the next-to-last science class I ever took, sadly [...]
Archive for March, 2009
Doubting Thomas
Posted in Thinking Things Through, Work in Progress, tagged "Lead Balloon", working material on March 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Jack & the Beanstalk
Posted in Work in Progress, tagged "Jack", plants, problems, working from life on March 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I finally started work in earnest on this diptych that I began last fall. I had been waiting till I found and moved into a new studio, because I didn’t want to get all set up and then have to move, which would’ve been disruptive. However, I’ve nonetheless been stymied by an unexpected consequence [...]
A Winged Penis?
Posted in Work in Progress, tagged "Mote" on March 24, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Mainly, I’ve just been wrestling with resolving the lower right-hand side of the headspace, and it’s been kind of killing me. Should the penis really have leaves coming out of it, as though it were winged? Was it better when it was flipped around the other way? And what about the red nose — is [...]
Working Methods
Posted in Thinking Things Through, tagged process, working from life on March 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Until recently, I have considered the one of the most important aspects of my work to be the contrast between the smoothly rendered body parts and the more expressionistic passages, what a friend described as “your combination of brushless articulation and gestural painting.” But the more I compare my experience painting in these different ways [...]
Indeed
Posted in Life, In & Out of the Studio, tagged psychology on March 4, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
It is very bizarre — I sometimes have a superiority complex and an inferiority complex at the same time.
— Opera diva Natalie Dessay, profiled in the March 2nd issue of The New Yorker
Contingency Plan
Posted in Thinking Things Through, tagged working from life on March 3, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
As of recently, I have found working from life to be vital and nourishing in a way I have not previously experienced in my studio practice. Standing there, looking at a plant and making marks in response to it, I am just so . . . happy . . . that it occurred to me [...]
