Abandoning Process

This summer has been a blur.  (My favorite kind of painting, blurry.)  I feel like I have been in a frantic state for  a while, always in a frig-in' rush.  I forget that I am not living by the bell anymore, but old habits die hard.  All I can think is, I need to get to the studio and this mind set has seeped into my paintings.  This summer I started 3 30"x24" paintings, that I have not finished.  Now, not everything gets resolved, but for me this is a high number in one series. 

I started them with abandon, not a lot of conscious thought.  I have been consumed with experimentation, process and am getting no where.   

"Stretch One", 30"x24"
  It doesn't look like this anymore and I changed it a lot and I am not sure it's a good thing.  I am ignoring the pain. I can't even post what it looks like now.  Maybe someday...

"Stretch Two"
This one is more resolved for me.

"Stretch Three" 30"x24"
They all kinda looked like this in the beginning.  The Drippy White Series.

This was "Stretch Three" now it's is called "Employed Cruising." 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, you get the idea.

I want to abandon these for now.   This is unusual for me, because I usually will grind a painting into the ground before letting go.  I feel free writing this.  Tra, la, la!

What I am doing now...
So, on the side, not really thinking too much about it, I started preparing some small canvases.  It started out as a meditative process.  Also, it was something I could control when what I was painting was so out of control.  I took an unusually long time sanding and gesso-ing surfaces, trying to obliterate the weave of the canvas. 

Things are going to get surreal.  I have had these funny little images popping up in my head. Which is an old way of working for me, instead of waiting to see what happens on the canvas,  I picture it first.  I am working slower, with less process and experimentation. 

New Format And Going In All Directions

Drippy sketch

 I got all these new canvases that are longish rectangles.  It is quite a change from the squares I've been working with for the past year.  I started three of these puppies a couple of months ago. ( I work on about 4 paintings at a time.  If the planets are aligned, I am in the studio 4-6 hours a week, 5-6 days a week.) I prioritized the small pieces for the San Pablo show, with Jhina and Scott, so these long paintings are a long time coming.  I think I was figuring out the format and how to compose it.  I started out vertical, but ended up turning the whole thing on it's side!  

30"x24"  oil on canvas.  I started out going very white.

Now you see him... 

Now you don't.

24"x30"  Ta Da!  New title, "Eaten By A Crow"

Lanai City, Hawaii

 Lanai City reminds me of that mythical place portrayed in "Northern Exposure".  It is full of old timers, eccentrics, and wide eyed transplants.  For example, we had dinner with Mormon missionaries at my cousin Michael's mom's house.  (I have a lot of Mormon cousins) They had been visiting various Lanai residents and had a picture of one family's living room that contained a makeshift pen with a baby deer in it (I really wanted a copy of that picture, but alas... ) Of course the deer could jump out and did, anytime it wanted to, but like a good pet deer, it always jumped back in.  Another time we saw a guy walking an exotic dwarf goat, that was not Nigerian, the goat that is, not the guy.  I know this because I am into Nigerian Dwarf goats. 

Some folks have been rescuing, and raising baby deer that have been orphaned, due to the drought.  (I guess these guys got too big for the living room)

My mom Mildred is from Lanai and we still have lot's of family there.  Tom, Makiko and I just got back last night.   I saw my friend Susan Hunter, who makes amazing jewelry, that she sells at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manele Bay and the Koele Lodge in Lanai.  I also met the artist, Mike Carrol.  He is a painter that relocated from Chicago and opened a gallery, http://www.mikecarrollgallery.com,  in Lanai City.

Makiko by the Banyan Tree outside our hotel room window

Makiko won the "Crystal Pineapple" for archery at Koele. 

Polihua Beach

The streets of Lanai City, speed limit 20 mph.

San Pablo Gallery HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE!

Scott, Jhina and I are having a show together, at an out of the way gallery in San Pablo.  Scott and I paint on canvas and Jhina paints on wood panels and uses en caustic wax over her painting.  We are calling the show "Machines, Muses, & Memories to encompass our different subject matter.  Jhina uses old photographs in her paintings, so there are the memories.  Scott does El Caminos, the machines of the group, and at the time of naming the show, I was painting my dog Elmo, (my muse), views of Highway 5, (hence vehicles) and various collages, made up of glimpses of San Francisco, (kinda memorish). 
Then I found out I needed to make smaller pieces for this gallery space, so that threw me a bit and I started doing birds, bunnies and a stop sign.  Scott and Jhina are consistent to the theme,  my stuff is a bit of a stretch. 

This is the lettering on the wall for the show.

MACHINES, MUSES, & MEMORIES
Jhina Alvarado, Scott Inguito, and Lani Tanaka
August 11-September 9
Reception August 25 11-2
San Pablo Gallery
13831 San Pablo Ave, Maple Hall, Bldg 4 San Pablo, CA

Come on out for the wine and cheese, then hit the Lytton Casino down the street after the reception.

Fatty

"Fatty"

This guy, I don't know why I assume it is a "guy," was the Steve Jobs of seagulls at J.V. Fitzgerald Marine Reservation, in Moss Landing.  

This seagull reminded me of Steve Jobs.  There were a number of similarities.  First of all he was so willing to risk all for what he wanted, which was our eggy lunch.  This proves him not only driven, but also a terrible cannibal just like Steve.  Okey, Steve wasn't literally a cannibal, but he admitted he was all for it, figuratively... speaking. 

Also, like Steve, Fatty was vocal, emotional, crazy and he had a "reality distortion field."  He believed that he could eat out of our hands and we wouldn't reach out our other hand, and wring his scrawny neck.  Most of all, he made us believe this too and well... he was right.  This made him the most successful seagull, ever.

Makiko loves to sit in a tree.

These ladies, (I'm giving females equal time), are out here all the time.

Makiko's Bunny Love

This is a mash up painting of Makiko and 45th Avenue.  Both subjects were battling it out and Makiko finally won, of course.  

Beginning Sketch

PHASE 2

PHASE 3 Little bit of rain.

PHASE 4 A lot more rain.

FINAL PHASE "Makiko Land" 30"x30" oil on canvas. 

I muted out 45th Avenue and worked on rendering Makiko.

More Birds For The San Pablo Show

"On Stop" 6"x6" oil on canvas

I am working on more paintings of demonized birds and a stop sign, to go into my up coming show with Jhina Alvarado and Scott Inguito at the San Pablo Gallery.  We are calling it "Machines, Muses and Memories." When we came up with this theme, Jhina was, and still is, painting her "Forgotten Memories" series, so that is still right in theme.  Scott was painting El Caminos, perfect car images,  and I WAS painting vehicles; semis, motorcycles, bikes and my muse dog Elmo.

I have veered a bit out of theme,  doing birds and a stop sign... whoops.  I am working on some larger bikey images with seagulls that I have to finish for the show.  Hopefully it will all tie together, somehow.  In an case these little pieces are a bit of a stretch.

For now, the stop sign implies vehicles and the perhaps the birds incite memories and the fear of poop on cars, more vehicular references....  Ok, I am grasping.  

"Winged" 6"x6" oil on canvas

"Flirt" 6"x6" oil on canvas

"On Break" 6"x6" oil on canvas

San Pablo Gallery

13831 San Pablo Ave, Maple Hall, Bldg 4 San Pablo, CA
August 11-September 9

Check it out and bring your friends.

I have a piece accepted into the Art For Aids Auction.  Hope someone bids on it.  It is the first in the abstract collage series, that "Derailleur" was from. 

"Orange Bike" 16"x24" oil on panel

Art Is Alive-Sale On Mars

I got a call yesterday, that someone, (a very discerning person I predict), wanted to buy my painting "Derailleur" 24"x24" oil on canvas.  It is one of four from one of my most challenging, for me, series.  I will miss it.  It is bittersweet.  It has gone.  WAH!!!

I will take it as a sign that I need to get back to this series.  It sorta sets my heart on fire. 

Summer Madness

A piece that my High School friend Steve Craig, (steve makes noise) gave me over 30 years ago.  I thought it was such a weird item that I dragged it around with me all over Long Beach and San Francisco.  Somehow it wound up in Mildred's garage.

Partners in Crime

This has been a turbulent summer, so far.  After two years of longing, my daughter Makiko got her wish to stay with my mom, Mildred, in LA, all by herself... without me.   I knew what Makiko and my mom were up to.  I envisioned a lot of illicit behavior, like watching "Mama Mia four times in a row, till 2 in the morning and unbridled Dim Sum eating.  However, when the day arrived for me to go back to San Francisco and leave them alone, there was palpable feeling of anxiety for both Makiko and me.  However, Makiko was determined, declaring that this was something she just had to do. As a result, and in spite of many tearful late night calls last week, she still managed to have a wonderful time with her plethora of second and third cousins.  I, on the other hand, am a wreck. I think it has actually taken a few years off my life, which is just parenting as usual.  

Makiko at Obon in Venice

Tom and Elmo in Venice Beach

Summer is far from over.  We still have an 11th birthday party to plan at that new Mission Bowling Club, 3176 17th St @ S. Van Ness, SF.

Then I hope to get out of town for a week.

Putting Up Art At ON MARS

Yesterday my wonderful friend Liza Brown and I filled up the hair salon on Fillmore, called On Mars, with my paintings.  I lucked out that Liza was available.  At first Tom my boyfriend was going to help me, which would have been a disaster since he is a little, just a little... afraid of heights.

Pretty Liza hanging paintings on high!  I like the red walls.

Panel arrangement over the shampoo bowl.  (Should have brought my tripod)

Other wall

"There is nothing ugly in art, except that which is without character.  Only the false or artificial is ugly in art."    -RODIN