If You Steal, you should be aware of this!

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/06/21/nyregion/1247467968381/if-you-steal-pose-and-then-pay-up.html#

a friend sent me this link in response to my wip 'those that steal'.  public shaming.   a minister i know gave a sermon a while back that perhaps a pillory and public shaming is where we can regain some of our power and encourage others to the best in themselves. 

i don't know.

i'll just paint.  and if someone thinks they see themselves in the painting, well, sobeit.

amen,
deb.

the wip: ones that steal

This is what got started on the white angst last night (in between sorting my business papers for my accountant).  My first impulse was to make another landscape attempt, but these chicks kept imposing their images on me.  I have worked in retail off and on for years.  I have had artwork stolen from a cooperative store, caught tweens stealing soaps, caught/suspected chicks of stealing tank tops and camisoles, found evidence that jewelry walked out on someone's wrist, and when i was a child and early teen i stole a pack of chewing gum (guilt made me return it with a confession to Mr. Chatter) and an eyeliner (my friends forced me to return it to woolworth's, although they kept their loot).  another friend was a chronic klepto for a few of her teen years.  so, these standing chicks are the whole lot, including me.  at first there was a lot of anger directed at these women, until i remembered my own experience.  i trust i might develop some compassion as this painting develops and my disappointment in some of these once well liked customers will stay on the canvas and get out from under my skin.

38x42" oil on canvas.

best,

deb.

when we lived on the river

when we lived on the river
Originally uploaded by debclarke art

10x10" m/m construction

it is still tacky, i could add more leaf. this tack is from oil put on it in 2006. some works take a long time to dry.

put this in the wip pile.

100 square inches of the studio floor

10 square inches of the studio floor
Originally uploaded by debclarke art

painting of the studio floor. 10x10" m/m
copyright clarke 2006
gloucester ma

screen 1 and 2

screen 1 and 2
Originally uploaded by debclarke art

after the 200+/- of 2003/05 the reconstructions began. these are screened constructions. these works give me peace.

2, 8x8" m/m constructions with screen

copyright clarke 2006

out of storage

this box was full of 10x10's and 12x12's destined for the attic.  last night i kept hearing nails being tapped into the upstairs walls.  david was hanging my work!  these small paintings are from a 2 year series documenting the years 2003-2005.  these were the transitional years of loss and rebuilding, which included 2 moves within one year.   during the packing up, selling, moving i continued to paint everyday.  and by the end of the 2 years, i had turned on the work of my grief by distressing the work with handwashing, ironing, sanding, cutting, tearing, re-stretching, trying to erase what had happened.  and i discovered one can never completely erase a painting.  all i did was to change the work to a new state, sort of the bare essentials of materials.  a document of where i had been.

what drove this?  i remembered the chapel in the friari in venice.  a pre-gothic fresco, exposed after several hundred years protected behind an ornamental ceiling, disappeared within months of its exposure to 20th century weather/pollutants.  crystalline, salty brilliance glistened from that dome when i was there.  there was absolutely no trace of the fresco documented in the photos along the walls, and yet, a whitely brilliant energy emanated from the blank frescoed ceiling above.  this was the most profoundly spiritual work that i saw in all of venice.  this is the memory that still holds.  my attempt to recreate this experience in my art is on these 200+/- panels.   they look good on the walls.  here is a red one that i tried to 'cover up'. 

following is another red erasure.  this one was gold leaf and egg tempera with oil.  now, it's pigment, ground, support.  david hung this one under the skylight and right next to the toilet.

the following is now installed next to the shower.  it will be interesting to see how these works hold up to the 21st century environment of gloucester harbor, as they are, they appear to be exactly as they were the day i stopped working on them. 

Herb and Dorothy Trailer

Watched this documentary on PBS last night and decided that if they could fit over 4000 pieces of original art in their New York City apartment, I have plenty of room in mine for my extensive collection.  I have never met collectors like the Vogels.  The Vogels really got to know the artists, the artists' process, and really supported the artists at critical times in their career. 

There are a few collectors of my work that have more than one of my works, but there are no collectors as intimately familiar with my work as the Vogels.  My paintings have sold one at a time, with very few repeats.  Why?  because most of my sales have been commissioned for the space over the couch, the sideboard, the bed.  The biggest impact this video had on me is that it gave me great courage to continue and helped me to see some of my 'hidden work' as valiid.  So, I won't throw it out.  I will look at my art hiccups, see the value and remember that there is more to painting and making art than making pretty pictures. 

I kept thinking about the following stage of a current painting and now wish that I had stayed with this longer.  It has the grit with a sort of punch to my gut that leaves a retinal memory and a hint that 'onward' is 'this way'

38x42" freshly stretched and primed

100_3330
Originally uploaded by debclarke art

and i will start. in a bit. i pick up the pen, the brush. i start and stop before the canvas. i should make a 1:2:3 medium. i start to do so. then i grab the marker to start. then i stop. rain. put the canvas inside. i'm drawing on stonehenge with gesso and chalk. i will start soon.

Painting in the Rain

This is yesterday's working conditions.  Today is another story.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday's work-in-progress

before

and after

i've been working in the fog a mist.  media:  oil and chalk, size 16x20".

this is the same painting that is in the lower left of this blog's header.  the paint wasn't drying, so i scraped it, rubbed it down with turp and started again, and started again, and started again and will continue tomorrow.

Bonnard: The Almond Tree in Flower

Bonnard claimed his paintings were never finished.  This painting of the almond tree was last worked upon a week before his death.  I chose this painting from the end of his life because it carries all of the hallmarks of his journey, the colors painted from drawings, sometimes photographs withcolor notes, and his instruction that there should be nothing in the center of a painting.  He preferred the periphery, out of the corner of the eye.  he may have wanted nothing in the center of his paintings, and yet, as a mandala one's eye tends to move from the outer to the inner sanctum and then fully enlightened one makes the journey out of the mandala to the outer boundaries.  He never pre-determined the size of his work, and enjoyed painting on the linen/canvas stretched on the wall, cutting the painting to the appropriate size once he knew the confines of his picture plane.

I look at his work because he also freed his paintings from the limitiations of light by illuminating his paintings through his color preferences and bold shapes.  if you scan a quick inventory of his work, you will always note where his eye/hand moved through the center of his picture plane. 

and somewhere i have a stockpile of small 3x5" spiral bound drawing books, full of contour shape drawings filled in with color notes:  burnt sienna, yellow ochre, blue violet, thalo green light, etc.  I think it would be well worth my while to resurrect those drawings and put my color notes to the test of canvas.

best, deb.

Paul Cezanne

Paul Cezanne

"Road before the Mountains, Sainte-Victoire"

The Hermitage, St. Petersburg

Just made the decision to keep my financial life simple and not take on the added weight of paying for a studio.  Perhaps later in the year.  For now, the outdoors will be my studio and I will be companioned by my trusted guides:  Cezanne, Degas, Pisarro, Van Gogh, Diebenkorn, Thiebaud, Hawthorne, Hockney, Nell Blaine, Jankowski, Kline, Balthus, Bonnard and Joan Mitchell.  what?  no Monet?  no Monet:  his color is too sweet, his surfaces dense and no speed of the brush.  

Monday May 31, 2010

Yesterday's efforts with some understanding.

The view toward the State Fish Pier with Canadian woodsmoke.

this is the source for the 30x30 oil that I started yesterday. 

I'm very interested in the dot I placed in the center of the painting

 and the way the space pops and bends.

Memorial Day 2010

An Act to Draw

called eb instead

thought to draw, tear the paper first
thought to get paper
walked barefoot through wet grass
to a garden bed
the false marshmallow has spread here
move the nimbres brothers there
to this right
thought to draw
to get the paper
to tear
to draw
open the jumbo sharbie
industrial strength chisel point
note to self: get a case of sharpies
fumes
think to draw
outside
tear paper first
camera?
camera?
do i need my camera

delayed thought to draw
to draw
to tear paper with wet feet

thought to draw
find masonite support
get paper
tear paper

thought to draw

just f*!ng tear the paper and draw.

ok:

note to self: draw.

My feejit Geoblogosphere Rankings right now!

You Rank #91 in:	Walla Walla, United States
You Rank #110 in:	Gloucester, United States
You Rank #121 in:	Greenville, United States
You Rank #123 in:	Boston, United States
You Rank #126 in:	Lynn, United States
You Rank #263 in:	New Bedford, United States
You Rank #420 in:	Pine Plains, United States
You Rank #575 in:	Zaragoza, Spain
You Rank #672 in:	Pālghāt, India

every weather hiccup

drawing the cove, with fog

drawing the cove with fog on canvas

this morning drawing the cove, clear and dry, for now.

Artist John Kelly

A friend and reader of this nest John Kelly joined us at Cripple Cove for an early morning painting class a few weeks ago.  John juggles a lot of responsibilities and joys: he  runs a business, is raising a young family, an avid gardener and artist.  He recently sent me some pics of his oil studies.  his current interests are eggs near water and domestic commentary (my interpretation).  I've always admired his drawing/painting skills and am pleased to see he continues look at the world with a brush in his hand.

best,

deb

the wip (work-in-progress): self criticism/self doubt

it is still on the easel, right outside our front door, on the deck.  the oil paints, brushes, still in place.  it is setting up.  it won't leave me alone, sitting one step beyond my comfort zone.  potential, possibilities.  i think of my artist friend howard kline in Cambria Califonia building and painting/drawing lobster boats endlessly, joyfully, exhuberantly!  hello howard!  these boats don't come easy. 

i'm interested in the underlying structure of this painting.  perhaps that is why i decided to leave it until today.  this morning david said 'don't throw it away.  leave it.'  so, i look again.  i see a small square 'painting-within-a-painting' in the upper left hand corner that has some possibility.  when i see the whole painting based on this design, i think of jaser johns' flag series with a question:  can the rest of the picture plane be organized into 'strips' of the landscape, with an underlying reference to a flag.  the answer is yes.  ok, other options:

scrape the acid green, get further or closer away from the boats.

or i can try to 'kill the painting'.  paintings do not die easily, and i have already made that one step into beyond known boundaries.  pink.  that is what i keep feeling needs to happen.  how to do it without making the painting 'sweet', and how to make the work unto itself and whole.

for now, i will draw.

best,

deb


ps:  i have had many responses with preferences for the varied states of this painting.  the dry state getting a nod twice for like, one for not.  three yes on the way it is.  and i just started to scrape it.  i worry about the panel being poorly constructed.  i have already gouged into the masonite support.

moving on

for a brief moment i thought to throw this painting away. and i begin the sharpie series. documentation of drawings to appear on a new tab "Sharpie Drawings"