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

Sneak Peek

I am making some small pieces for a show in  August, at the San Pablo Art Gallery. I am going to be showing with two studios mates, Jhina Alvarado and Scott Inguito.  It is very exciting and I love their work.  

We are calling the show  "Machines, Muses and Memories."

Date of the exhibit:  August 11 through September 9, 2012

The reception is August 25, 1-3pm.  

I will post more details when it gets closer.  In the mean time, save the date, tell your friends!  

I am resisting calling this one "Angry Bird."  

These pieces are all dinky, either 8"x8" or 6"x6."

All are oil on canvas.

All are images I love and have used before.

So far I have Crows, Sparrows, Seagulls, some Pigeons (not shown) and  a stop  sign (not shown).  

Finished Painting

"Idle Progress" oil on canvas, 30"x30"

When You Pray, You Are Asking God To Change His Plans...

God doesn't change his plans.  

                      

                                 Jerry Jeff Walker

I myself, am really more of a Buddhist,  more prone to listening, than praying.

 (Praying, however,  can be very comforting.)

 I saw the outlaw,  Jerry Jeff Walker in concert Friday night.  He is an amazing musician that wrote, but didn't make famous, "Mister Bojangles."  I went to the concert with no expectations and was blown away.  In spite of the fact that Jerry's voice got very low and gravelly in the first hour, he went on to play another hour and a half.  Plus, he did four encores after his guitar/accordion player left to catch the red-eye back to Boston.   What a heart, what a virtuoso.  It was inspirational to see a master so passionate and in spite of frailty. 

On to painting...  Believe it or not, this painting is called, coincidentally, "No Plan."

"No Plan" 36"x36, "oil on canvas

detail

This what it looked like in the earlier stages. 

Phase One.  What a mess.  

Phase Two.  I am doing a little editing, and installing black holes.

Phase Three. I'm doing more editing. I am deciding how much detail to put in the Sparrow.  Sparrow is such a pretty name for such a plain bird.  

Phase Four.  It is getting a beautiful shimmery quality and lots of color  all ranging in the same value (same amount of lightness)  .  

Here is the final version again, just for continuity.  I added the second bird for balance, but I like the added tension it created as it is poised over the pointed line.  This bird has a lot less detail and has a sketched quality. 

Chuck, Philip and Me

The movie, "Gerhardt Richter-Painting" was so inspirational to me.  I couldn't wait to get to Amazon to buy his biography.  I wanted more Gerhardt!  More, dammit!  More!

I didn't get it....  It was "$100.  For a book... on Gerhardt Richter.  Ok, if I had disposable income, I would get it.  Yes, if I had money to burn,  I would definitely get Gerhardt's amazing biography... that or shoes, kidding... kinda. 

So instead I got the "Philip Guston Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations," for $25.53 and the "Chuck Close-Life," by Christopher Finch, for $25.13.  I started Philps's book first, (because I really love his work), and his words ... hurt... my...brain.

He says stuff like;

(On Rembrandt)

"...there's an ambiguity of paint being image and image being paint which is very mysterious."
 (This I got...  I think.)

Then he says,

"Painting permits, utlimately, the joys of the possible, but the narrow passage to this domain of the possible suppresses any illusion of mastery.
Only our surprise that the unforeseen was fated allows the aritrary to disappear.  The delights and the anguish of the paradoxes on this imagined plane resist the threat of painting's reducibility.
The poise, the isolation, of the image containing the memory of its past and promise of change is neither a possession nor is it frustrating, The forms, having known each other differently before, advance yet again, their gravity marked by their escape from inertia."

(and finally...)

"Painting is a clock that sees each end of the street as the edge of the world."

WTF

I am going to have to wait till I am smarter to read this book.  Thus, I turned to the Chuck Close biography and boy am I am glad I did.  This book, is so much more accessible.  Plus, Chuck and I have soooo much in common.  There are so many things but, here are just three examples:

1. He is an only child.  I am an only child. 
2. His father died when he was young.  My dad died when I was young.
3. His mom is named "Mildred", my mom is named "Mildred."

 SPOOKIE! 

 Chuck Close,  Big Self Portrait, 1967-68, Acrylic on canvas, 107-1/2x83-1/2 in. (You have to see this in person.  It is almost 9 feet tall.)

Philip Guston,  Painting, Smoking Eating, 1972, oil on canvas, 77 1/2 x 103 1/2 in.
STILL LOVE HIM