Certain paintings act as spirit guides – like animals I see
in the woods that feel more like arrows than just a sighting. Was that owl, beaver, or deer really just crossing my path? I really don’t know. But what I do believe is that
artists make particular pieces that are more than just a sighting. They are guides pointing toward the next
place to go.
I’ve been drawing a
lot in the last year and out came these are the three paintings. It’s
not many. I usually make at least triple
that in a year.
This slowness needed to happen.
The pace of my studio life churns consistently and daily. The pace of this year has been quiet on so
many levels. Not many people besides me
have actually been in my studio, but lately I’ve been asking people over. A different perspective makes me ask myself
different questions.
Speaking of questions, below is an interview I did with my
old friend Brian Pera for his blog on Evelyn Avenue way back last autumn. I’m putting it here because it’s where my
head was when I made these three paintings and it’s what I’m still thinking
about.
Actually, I could continue asking myself these as long as I
make art.
I’ve known Melissa Dunn for over
twenty years at this point, and every six months or so, when she invites me
over to her home studio – or I invite myself – I get a gut punch reminder of
what a good artist she is and how many things someone who’s really paying
attention can do with color. The last time I visited, over the summer, she took
me through her garden, an experience which was a little like walking through
one of her paintings. Afterwards, we went inside with some cuttings and she
arranged them in a vase, rearranged them, arranged some more. I wondered what
happens when the garden dies down in the fall, and where that specific energy
then goes. A few months ago, she posted a picture showing a work in progress
(above), hashtag “weirdestfuckingpaintingever”. Maybe it was the season?
Naturally I was curious…
1. What are you working
on now?
I'm working on a
painting for a group show that hopefully I'll finish up in this
week. There's a lack of resolution in it that I'm ambivalent
about. I love the problem solving at the end of a piece but I also
dread it because I don't want to rely on standby solutions.
It's in the problem solving where evolution happens and I'm really pushing
myself to get out of my comfort zone these days.
2. Color and the way
color touches other colors seems very important to your work. What are you
learning about color on this project?
I'm learning that
I paint in a brightly lit bubble of spotlights that is far from how
color looks in the real world. The bottom half of this canvas is
an olive green color that has a glowing effect under the spotlights of my
studio that I really like. When I turn those off and the
painting is limited to the illumination of just the ceiling light,
the yellows in the green that make it glow disappear and it that
area gets very dark. It's difficult for me to paint with room
level lighting but at some point in each painting I use less light so
I can apply the color in the real world instead of the extra-illuminated world
of my studio. This painting is really teaching me about how yellow looks
in different lighting conditions.
3. You've talked about
the instructiveness of gardening to your practice. Where is your garden at
right now and what kind of consciousness is that bringing into your studio and
this work?
Autumn just knocks me
over. I could never live in a place that didn't have all four
seasons. My internal clock would suffer and I would be a mess.
Starting at the end of August I notice the light changing. In September
so many plants have one last bloom before going dormant. Some blooms last
until November and are bright and gaudy among the dead plants around
them. I've been walking in the woods regularly lately and it's so showy
and on fire. All of this annual change is coming into the painting I'm
working on now because I feel like there's a last gasp of life in this
particular piece. Starting in January I'll be preparing about fifteen
canvas for a show a year from now and I'm already envisioning how I want to
move my work in a direction that let's evolution, life, death, regeneration all
have it's say. With that, nature is my teacher.
4. What did you see
today that you hadn't noticed yesterday in the piece?
A couple of days ago
I posted a snap of this painting on Instagram and basically called it
a weird fucking painting. My friend had two words of advice - get
weirder. That hit me over the head like a ton of bricks! I
wrote GET WEIRDER! on a piece of paper with black magic marker
and pinned it on my studio wall. I want to dig deep inside myself
and extract the strangest, freakiest, most subversive part of
my being and paint with that as my guide. I feel like I'm
playing it way to safe, and for what? The art market?
Ha! My clients? Ha! What I noticed today that I
hadn't noticed yesterday with this painting is that I need
to get weirder, get weirder, get weirder.
