Work in Progress - Plus de Kooning, Gorky & Sam Walker

So, the canvas isn't completely blank anymore. I enlarged the composition on the 24" x 30" canvas and set it down on the using charcoal. For the last 15 or so paintings, I have approached the first step of transferring an image to canvas this way (using charcoal)- it is something de Kooning did (although he used oil paints), and who better to imitate?

Above, see the preliminary work on the first piece. I will begin doing paper cut-outs of the shapes and making photocopies on the other design elements later tonight and tomorrow. I am still a bit up in the air about what to use for this smaller one. I hate to repeat myself on the imagery, but there are some elements that I would like to explore a bit more. Which is obviously what a series is for. So, we will see.

The first time I truly began mixing the charcoal with the paint was on a painting of about a year ago titled "Andre and the Butterfly" (see above). The inspiration for "Andre" came from the Matthew Spender book, "From A High Place: A Life of Arshile Gorky."

The passage that inspired the painting is from page 279 and is as follows:

“Willem de Kooning, who lived outside the frontier of the surrealists, referred to Breton sardonically as ‘Mr. God.’ He once caught sight of Breton in the street and followed him for a while. Suddenly a series of agonized spasms came over the great man. Just imagine, de Kooning said, making it into a funny story— Andre Breton, fighting off a butterfly.”

As a side note, Gorky has been an inspiration to me and my work for years. Through a drawing course led by Sam Walker at UMASS/Boston, and later through independent studies with Sam, he introduced me to the blend of abstraction and organic forms that dominate Gorky's work. I worked on a number of watercolors that imitated this technique, and it has an established a certain type of foundation for looking that is present in my art.

Sam Walker helped immensely in my development as an artist. He passed away in 1999, and his family and friends have established a scholarship in his name at Umass/Boston.

He was a wonderful guy, and was very good to me.

Back to "Andre and the Butterfly"- it is 24" x 48" and oil on canvas. Fun to me that it uses a de Kooning technique, is inspired by a de Kooning story, and comes from a biography on Gorky. I find that in my transition times, when I am not working on a series, it is always good to go back to the masters and get some inspiration from them.

But for now, I am excited about this new series, and need to get back to work.