It's Next Weekend!

Open Studios In The Mission

November 6, 7, & 8

Friday night 5-9 pm

Saturday and Sunday 11 am -6 pm

I will be in the crowded hallway-like studio at the "Stable" #317.

Open Studios In The Mission

Open Studios In The Mission

November 6, 7, & 8

Friday night 5-9 pm

Saturday and Sunday 11 am -6 pm

Dog Dreams

Please come by and say "hello".  I will be skulking around the hallway, as usual.

Blew Up An Old Painting

This is a much larger version of one of my favorite paintings of Makiko and Elmo.  The original is about 12"x9" and this one is 5'x3'.  Painting on these larger canvases has helped me finally loosen up.  It is very exciting and liberating.  

This one is called... "untitled1".  

I've started a file of temporarily untitled works.  I will eventually name them... I hope.  But, I don't want to rush it, or settle.  I am open, however, to suggestions.

My studio mates, Ytalena and Fuzz helped me figure out that this painting needed something in the upper right quadrant, some kind of Fibonacci thing.   First I tried just adding detail to the view outside the sliding glass doors.  Then I just went for it and added the anchor.

I added an orchid, not an anchor.  (This is the second to last version.  The rest are in order.)

This is an early shot.  I was really flinging the paint.

Here is Elmo as a cat.

Makiko has a different hair-do and Elmo with a different head.

Second to last one again

Hmm, here is the final.  I took it with my phone not my tripod and SLR.   There is a big difference!

Remember When It Rained On Valencia Street?

Break Through

I had a break through last week.  It came in the form of this family picture.  I like the composition, but mostly it is the looseness of the paint quality.  I felt free and this painting came out whole.   

Boom!    

Living Room

The little Bonnard and Vuillard exercises did the trick.  I get so hung up of surfaces that I end up tightening everything up till they squeek!  (Which has a certain satisfaction in a obsessive way.)  I am going to tweak the background a little bit.  But mostly it is done.

My dog Elmo was my first subject when I resumed painting after a 10 year hiatus.  He is one of the most magical beings.  

Back In Collage

It's not really a collage.  It just reminds me of one.  It is my bike at the corner of 23rd and Folsom Street.  I am getting into this large format, 3'x5'.  

"Folsom Street"

Last Days Of Summer In Lanai

Small panoramic pic of Manele Bay

Welcoming committee at the Sanctuary

Handsome Devil

Cat Entertainment Crew

Home Life

This is another big one.  

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In The Kitchen

Sleeping During The Day

I posted this one before, when I thought it was finished.   Here it is, finished again.  

Summer Fun

I have been messing around all summer, locked in town.  Sometimes imagining I am in the Pompidou copying a couple of my favorite masters.  

Bonnard

Vuillard

This one is from a photo

Sleeping During The Day

This is a big one.  In a fit of insanity I bought five, three feet by five feet canvases.   It is big for me.  I have not painted this big in years.  It is very exciting.  

I admit I don't think I am finished.  Hopefully, I won't try to wreck it again.

I like the interesting tension created by such an intimate scene, painted a non-intimate size.

The little yellow painting in the painting is a depiction of my only surviving acrylic.  I did it at the Millay Colony in upstate New York.  The Millay colony is a wonderful place where they take you in.  They give you a room, and a studio, and they feed you!  I was there in June years ago with a painter that was getting her MFA from Yale, a playwright from Brown, a poet that had gotten the NEA that year, and a playwright that had been a soap opera star in New York and had won a Fulbright.  However, not for being in a being in a soap opera star. They were all East Coasters.  I was the waitress from Long Beach.  One of them finally admitted to  me, in surprise, that I was the only Californian she had met that had read a book!  A couple of them were such snobs for sure.  However, I had a great time there.  It was incredible to have no distractions or obligations to do anything for a month.  Plus, there was this cute baby deer someone had released onto the grounds.  He and I would go for walks before lunch.   And I did manage to paint a bit.  I experimented with acrylic and made that little yellow painting of "Picasso's Dogs".  

This was the first day.  It is nice and raw.  I probably should have stopped here. 

This was the day I tried to destroy it.  I always have to do that.  I have to push it to the edge and over.

It's Spring And That Means… OPEN STUDIOS!

I will be at 1890 Bryant, studio #317 this weekend.   Frankly, the whole place will be crawling with artists, other creative types and art lovers.

Friday night is the preview, 6-9.  If you cannot make that there is always Saturday and Sunday 12-6.

Come on by for a look, a snack, and a chat!  

Couple of new paintings...

Freed Cages

Long Learning

Hope you can find me.

Mind Full Of Cages

My interpretation… weird shadow on the wall,  submerged leaf, some sort of meeting under water

Meeting

This one has such brilliant color.  Reminds me of joy or acid.  Drips like lightening.

"Mind" or "Cement Cloud"

 Though, this one is not yet finished I thought I should document it.  It is at a critical point where I could mess it up and it will be gone. 

"Muse"

Back From Lanai

We are back from Lanai.  It was such a short trip.  However, I did manage to get four full days of painting.  Two of the paintings I started on our last trip are still unfinished.  They are both part of the collage series.    All of the other ones I started have been absorbed into my new series about cages.  I am going to still try to finish the collages. However, I left them in Lanai and by the time I get back to Lanai to work on them again, I, myself may be in a different place in my painting.  So, who knows if they will go anywhere.  I pictured one anyway, way down below.

Here are a couple of little ones that I stuck in my suit case.  I started them this trip in Lanai and finished them in S.F.  No titles yet.

Cages 1 (Ha!  I cannot decide if this one has a fruit stripe tongue in it or a surfboard.)

I find these paintings weird yet fun.  I have never worked so intuitively or spontaneously.

Cages 2

Our friends, Marybeth and Luis spent the day with us.  We took them to Polihua.  Tom's favorite spot.  They took our picture. 

Me and Tom in the Garden Of The Gods. 

Heres our street

 My beloved studio.  

My studio is getting more stuff!

One of the unfinished collages.

It Is Getting Surreal

Some new stuff

Alcatraz With Angelo