It Started With A Couple Of Cows

Number 1. It started with a couple of cows...

Number 2. Then I got a sip of random color.  

Number 3.   Then, I obviously got completely color drunk.  I don't like how the orange and yellow are competing with the cows!  And what is with the hills?  They are lined up like yummy piroshki.  

Number 4.  All the color is still there now tempered with complimentary colors.  However, the sky and water are too close in value.  It looks like day. 

Number 4.  Too much noise.

Last one?..   Perhaps…  The cows are again the interest point, and the spooky nightscape feel is back.    Yes, "nightscape" is a word, though spell check is whining terribly.   

I just drove back from L.A.  I spent hours on Highway 5 looking at the crazy shadows on the golden hills.  Those shadows do unexpected things.  They seem to defy logic.  So of course the loaves had to go.

Cigarettes: Hopefully A Future Relic From The Past

Modern Pop Show going up in April in Alameda at the Gary Francis Gallery.  

"Last One"

"Party of One"

"Vacation"

Reworking of "Couples Therapy"
Here it is in a desired "Philip Guston phase, which is probably more of a R. Crumb phase. 

fini

I almost posted the cows.  They are still not ready.  I am tweaking.  

Have a great weekend!  I am off to LA, with child, dog and husband to check on mom.  

Eyes As Big As Plates

I thought this was neat.

In a joint venture they call Eyes as Big as Plates, artists Riitta Ikonen and Karoline Hjorth take inspiration from Scandinavian mythology, dressing an expressive cast of senior citizens in costumes borrowed from nature. According to Ikonen, the project is "inspired by the romantics' belief that folklore is the clearest reflection of the soul of a people."

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I Fell Off The Face Of The Earth

We had a family crisis.  I got married in October.  (And no, that wasn't the crisis).   It was my mom, Mildred.  The day after the wedding she had a stroke.  It was lucky that even though she lives in Mar Vista she was at my house because of the wedding.  So she wasn't alone, thank Buddha!

The best news is that except for being a little more absent minded, Mildred is otherwise back to normal.   She isn't suppose to drive and for a hardcore Angeleno that is an almost impossible thing to accept.  However, Mom is an amazingly resilient woman.  I took her home to Mar Vista last month.  I spent a couple of weeks getting her set up with a care taker, named Edith, and a cute little rescue dog named Maggie!

Here's the dog formerly known as Bianca  ( Bianca was too hard for mom to remember).   

As for me,   I'm back in the studio!

There have been a lot of dramatic changes at the studio and in me.  Every spare inch of the place has been made into more studio space including the  "kitchen."  Long time tenants have moved out.  New people are in.    And the people that are still left from days of old don't recognize me.  I have been gone that long.  My hair is even long.  Makes me  feel a bit like I am Rip Van Winkle!


So, I took it a bit slow.   I reworked some old things last week, cigarettes for a show in Alameda.

This week it's been cows.  I love cows.  For some reason that was hard to admit.  I wonder how many other people love cows and can't admit it.

Pictures to follow.

A New Reason To Go To Alameda

There is a new reason to go to Alameda. Gary Comoglio has opened a brand new gallery. I have a couple of things in it, but I won't be at the opening... I'll be in Lanai, on my honeymoon.

Aloooha!

Long View Is In Progress

This was the sketch.  You can see that it is painted on top of an old painting. The only thing I am keeping from the old painting is the semi in the upper right hand corner.

I re-oriented it and started the drips.

I want more color.  I am started to add diagonal "line" divisions to create movement and space.

More dividing and MORE color.  The Ultramarine blue and the yellow on the right have just upped the ante.  They have made everything else look under painted.   

The bike area was looking FLAT.  I like the handle bars.  They look flat and at the same time like a cutout leading to another dimension...maybe The Twilight Zone.

Typical painting, every time I do something I have to re-paint everything else.  It is getting richer and richer and more and more detailed. 

Does anyone know what kind of bird that is?  I shot it at Taco Bell in Pacifica.  Maybe it is the rare and chubby Tacobellius.

Elmo and Me Watching TV

I was just watching that Paul Klee documentary with Elmo.  (I can't get anyone but Elmo to watch art documentaries with me.)   He said, (Paul not Elmo), that one shouldn't ever know how a painting is going to turn out.  Hear, hear!

The narrator said PK was an excellent draughtsmen.  He compared him to Durer.  

However, PK was most excited about painting.   When he visited Tunisia, he started freely working with water colors and experimenting with color.  

This experience made him exclaim that he was finally a Painter! 

I can relate.

Paul Klee

This is Elmo harassing a cat.

Still Painting

I had a very nice studio visit with Gary Comoglio  today.  He is opening a new gallery in Alameda.  He said some nice things about my work.  I think he said fearless.  

This is coming a long. Few more layers and dimensions.  Bike is a bit bikey.

Ring Throes

Back here in San Francisco, I started the week by losing my engagement ring! (Probably not a good omen)   I noticed it was missing when I got to the studio. 

So I walked home and back to the studio twice, looking under every car and tire.  I was on my bike so I imagined the bumpy road shaking it off my finger.  Crazy, I know... but I was out of my mind.

Thomas the plumber, came out and took apart the pipes, to no avail.  I was resigned that it was lost forever...

Then... yesterday, three days later, Makiko was in the shower.  When she noticed that the exfoliating glove made a funny new clinking sound.  She said she tested it a few times before looking inside and lo and behold, eureka, voila!!!  There it was! 

The terrible week got "better."  I got a couple of different people wanting to schedule studio visits.  I put "better" in quotation marks because gallery interactions cause me acute anxiety and give me the blues.  Don't know why, the art lovers can be perfectly nice and usually are.

Anyway, I don't know what will happen from that, but for now I feel...  LUCKY.

New Studio In Lanai

No, it isn't your monitor.  It isn't suppose to be red,  it really is magenta! 

This little two room building is behind our house. Originally it was a Philippine  bakery.  The left door is going to be Tom's drum room, the right one is my studio.

The insides are still under construction.

Drum Room.  It is very difficult to photograph a small windowless room.

Armen, our contractor extraordinare, has done a lot to keep the feel of the original buildings, yet give them a much needed face lift and modernization.

One of the many things that he came up with was taking out the old window from the DR and put it in the kitchen. The DR walls were doubled to make them more sound proof.  (Lanai plantation houses are single wall construction, which means they are 3/4" thick.)

Then he built a new matching window for my studio.  We will get more light in the kitchen and in my studio.  And.. all the windows will look like they have been there for 76 years.

Arty photo of studio.

Studio view from the inside.

There is going to be a washer and dryer in here too.  Though the words "oil paint" and "laundry" in the same paragraph make me stutter.

Oh, well... somethings can't be helped.  Just keep looking up...

...at the beauty all around and think... happy thoughts...