some things done

Charcoal on paper, 9 x 5 1/2".

charcoal on paper, 4 1/2 x 5 1/2".

Small charcoal drawing, about 9 x 5 1/2".

Second state of self portrait litho, I left it where it is. About 11x17 inches

Third state of that litho that I've been working on a few months. I want to have the fifth done before Boston Printmakers. Approx 19"x19". I think that after printing with the black ink, I'm going to take care of the grays with a graphite transparency as a second layer. There are already mid-tones in the first print with just the black ink but I think that a second layer, especially with a graphite transparency, will add some interesting complexity.

New Studio

So I got a new space and it's about twice the size of my old studio. I never work in the studios at 301 for several reasons.

1. That's not a studio, it's a cubicle. If I wanted to work in a cubicle, I wouldn't have chosen art in the first place.

2. I can't smoke in the 301. Fill in the blanks where you may.

3. I'm too cheap to cough up the $30 for a key and I'm a nocturnal creature.

4. Although being awake during the daylight hours is normally an indicator of rabies, I like working with sunlight. The florescent lighting coupled with the overhead fans creates this weird flicker that makes me feel like I'm in prison.

5. ------

6. The walls are moulded and shitty and it reflects so on my drawings.

7. S1. If I have to hear one more Belle and Sebastian or Lady GaGa song, I am going to vomit all over someone.

8. You get the picture.

We are creating habits now. I never want to be separated from my work, have my studio be something that I can 'take a break from', always have work on the brain. My studio becomes a bedroom at the end of the night when I take my mattress from the hallway and put it down to sleep. With this sort of set up, my work is the last thing I see when I close my eyes and the first thing I see when I wake up. I love that.

I also collect, rescue, and trade work with other people, and have a working system for a set up.

What I have left to do in the studio (I want to be done hopefully by the end of today or tomorrow) is finish skimming the working walls until they are baby-bottom smooth, prime, then paint. Oh, and get a door. The two working walls are HUGE, approx. 10 feet wide and 8 feet tall. I'll put up the photos when everything is done, it really is a sweet set up.

Kind of the top ten. Kind of.

Okay, so imagine if you could have ten works of art and it doesn't matter what medium or era. Make sure it's what you want because it's all coming in the mail later this afternoon. Here is a loose list of mine, or at least a surrogate if I couldn't find it on the interwebs.

One of Robert Park-Harrison's photographs from the series, "The Architect's Brother". Gelatin Silver Print.

I couldn't find the actual painting, "Re-entry" by Steve Dibenedetto, but this is an example of one of his paintings.

Max Ernst's "Europe After The Rain"

One of Nathan Oliveria's Composite Heads.

Marlene Dumas's Dead Woman

Edvard Munch's Madonna. The Lithograph is way better than the painting; I always thought he was a much stronger printmaker than a painter.

Artemisia Gentileschi's Judith Slaying Holofernes.

Giacometti's Dog

Max Ernst, Napoleon Lost in the Wilderness

I couldn't find one of Baskin's Dead Man sculptures, if I could, it would be here.

ta da.

R.I.P. but no pun intended

This was going to be a double portrait of my youngest sister and myself, but it met an untimely fate. You know how when there is a little nick in a canvas and just the right pull at the wrong moment can rip it apart? Paper more or less works in the same way. It was a fairly big drawing, three by four feet. Normally, gesso-ing the back of the paper makes it more resistant to tearing, but there was ONE. SMALL. vulnerable spot on the back of the paper (top and center where the two figures are divided) that was not covered in gesso. Laziness on my part? In a rush to start drawing? A friend was helping me put it up on my wall so I could get back to work on it. He, not really knowing how to handle paper (is that possible?), put unnecessary macho force while bracing it against the wall with pressure that was southbound.

damnit

damnit

damnit

That painting never stood a chance, it split

right

down

the

middle.

Perfectly down the middle, Rebecca and I were split apart, it couldn't have been more (vomit) poetic than if it had been in some Lifetime movie. I mean, the tear didn't touch either of the figures, perfectly demolished.

When something like that happens, you think you'll let out a cry or react, I couldn't. Like, when you get some really bad injury, the kind that makes you have to go to the ER, right between the moment it happens and when the pain kicks in there's this split second of "That didn't just happen". All I could do was just stand there silently dumbfounded.

The source materials are still around, this painting is long gone, I had no desire to save it. kidding myself like that would have just added insult to injury. This painting is going to happen again, damnit!

ugh, damnit

Lithography is for the Suicidal. I blame Death Metal. And Tim Harney.

First state, the second and third states are too blown out, too much acid eating the stone, I have to stop cooking those slabs of limestone. It's a vicious cycle of burning, eating, then rising them from the dead. Counter etch is my friend.

This is the stone of the second state of the self-portrait lithograph. The photo is backwards, accident, but perfect since that's how the print would be facing anyway. I kind of got onto this Nathan Oliveria kick. Less Nuance and less 'noise'. It's not the final state, but I like it enough to put it through the press once I have the paper.

This is the first state of a lithograph self-portrait. I printed it on just newsprint because I would never waste paper on this state. It's nuanced and noisy and an overall bad drawing. I burned the hell out of this stone so it's like a chemical abortion excuse for a print. Give me a minute.

drawings and works in progress

Tiny. This one is approx. 6 inches by 9. I think I'm done with this one, working so small drives me insane.
This one is about mmmm....ten inches high and maybe twenty inches wide. Charcoal on paper, I'm thinking about making it pastel. Dead relatives are the best relatives.

3ft high, four feet wide. pastel painting, there is some oil, double portrait of youngest sister and myself.

last time we spoke

"Why do my knuckles hurt so bad?"

"How long have you been digging around that thing?"

"Shit, I can't remember...it's been here, then moved, hated, mistrusted, and at least half a dozen other colors."

"Cadmium red light is, like, your favorite color or something?"

"My favorite color is one that is supposed to be where it is, but yeah, cadmium red light is a great color...when it becomes so. I have no idea what I am doing, man."

"You're bleeding,"

"No, no, no, that's just the cadmium red."

"Then why is it getting all goopy on the paper and running down your fingers?"

"Shit."

By the way

new(er) collages

These may be what collages are not supposed to be, but too bad, world.

Most of the paper that I used for these were either scraps of old lithographs, wallpaper that Tim didn't want, and the black paper came from leftover oil paint that I brushed over dirty rag that wasn't up to par for printing.

Drawings and the Room of Doom

Collages

At The Pit of my Stomach

I said I'd never do this