Runing Away

I try to remember: what is the time of day - Its a late summers day about three in the after noon - out and about - Here in this effort - everything is wrong - believe me this for if I pressed on nothing would line up - I'd never without wringing my paint rag play the sweet game of millimeters - oh no no no. So with out so much as a kiss my shoe I stopped and proclaimed - It is very beautiful.

Osage Orange

With the addition of 4 donkeys - SiereveMaria, MaryAngelina, MaryDorian, and Joselito; I needed to arrange for a fence around my garden. My desire for something that would fit in with the nature I have and not obstruct my view led me to the old time osage orange fence posts that have been used in the midwest for the past hundred years. The wood is extremely hard and *if properly installed* will last for - well - a long long time - even though it has a weathered - rotted look - it is deceiving - impervious to decay, difficult to cut and to work with - now difficult to find - I with difficulty found someone who would install such a fence - Now such a person might have reasons for taking on a job no one else wanted - say they were - well - too fat to really work at a regular job or a free spirit with an old time idea of farm beauty -

The necessary tools would be a tamper, a posthole digger, a bail of rusted cattle wire,oasge orange posts,and wire.

Hanging Out

Here I am in the screen room of the bunk house - up on a ridge overlooking a meadow - a flood plain where often there are cows grazing - It is difficult to know exactly why I am so attracted to this motif - the contrast of the green meadow to the orange leaves? The trees down the hill the overgrown - undergrowth - the next ridge - grey and orange - the clothes line with underpinnings coldly drying.

Oak Trees

These trees - this light - the light moving - the great shadows of the branches - the moment so vivid I am sure it will never end - I am sure I will be able to get it *all at once* But I am anxious; I can only do so much in one day - the next day I start working at a different time - earlier - later - the trees go the way of the season and I follow -

I feed the donkeys hay in the same spot - temp them to stay longer with apples - sometime it works - The turnip patch - the shadow of the house - each small leaf following the light the circular boughs - charming.

The Camera - The Computer

The digital camera allows me to have immediate images of my work on a day to day - work in progress basis. Before I would wait till a film roll was finished and have several developed at once - Now I can look at the paintings progress - as I go along - Compare one day to another - study it- obsess about it - be charmed by loose casual touches- I worry - am I am ruining an honest effort ? Was it better before ?? Is it just a different painting not better or worse ? The inspiration that led me to the subject matter becomes - subjective - assuming that the more I work the closer it is to my *model* I think - should I start a new one and take it as far as possible -leave the first effort? - Before I would not be able to compare images till I was way farther along. I love the start !

Jacob Collins and the Hudson River School

The Catskill Mountain Foundation in an effort to inject culture into their little ski village have invited Jacob Collins a classical realist painter to use some of their buildings for a summer painting school. Mr Collins is attempting to revive the Hudson river painters ...of Cole ..... into modern day saviors of mans - connection to the natural world via landscape painting.

There is a wonderful review in The New Criterion (that once said abstract painting was the only paintings that speaks for the age)by James Panero who describes students painting from sun up till sun down, Making small sketches (that will be turned into large paintings - later - in their studios), Then cooking dinner and then enduring happily three hour lectures from paint vendors.

I am reminded of Homer sitting for hours on a rock -- or a Japanese Brush painter sitting for hours quietly observing his subject before describing it with a few strokes.

Kalopsia

Too much beauty. What is the purpose of beauty how do we know if something is beautiful? The wish to look again not as coercion but a longing in which ones whole being consents.

If I think something is beautiful then it is - If I say it - it is true -

Perception of Nature

These are the oak trees that dont lose their old leaves until they put out new ones - The atmosphere heavy with water - and defused light -

I wanted to remember the colors - reds and grey - I had to wait for everyday was different - I waited for the dead leaves to be luminous. In a week it was completely changed. Like trying to imagine a boy to a man or an earth to a sun.

My First Post

This is my first post.

I chose this image because it is one I have been looking at a lot lately as it is on the floor in the room where I sleep. This is the third painting I did of this beautiful girl. I thought it was a failure when I stopped work on it; and though I can see the things I could not *get* I now think it is very satisfying.

She was so beautiful. Her dark hair and pale skin the heavy shadow of her hair. impossible.

When she stopped posing I think we were both disappointed and exhausted.

There are many levels to a likeness; a surface resemblance could be as simple as a cartoon but to plumb the person -understand what in their expression - (an expression that moves with their thoughts) - makes them who they are.

The model and the artist have a dance - push - pull - playing off each others energy and trust because to push something forward means you could lose everything and really getting the person can be scary for both the model and the sitter. When it happens its as it comes out of chaos - to many steps to remember. So many back- forward - stumbles - moments of despair - Hubris and humility -