South Boston Arts Association Gallery & Work in Progress

Looks like the South Boston Arts Association Gallery, located at 369 West Broadway in South Boston, is going to include my painting "Steel Heart" in their upcoming show. The gallery is open from Thursday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm.

I dropped the painting off today. See above for a picture of the gallery.

In other news, see above for some new shots of my large work in progress taken over the past few days.

Plotting Moves and Mixing Paint

Just a couple shots from the studio this past week. I have been working on the larger painting (still untitled) and also plotting out a piece of fiction.

The Hawk Comes Home To Roost

Saw this hawk a while back on my fire escape, and looked up today and there she was again. The picture doesn't do her justice, she was HUGE.

Work in Progress

Above, see pics of the current work in progress over the past few days. I am working on a balance between a painterly and graphic style and am playing with different nuances of color (as well as different relationships between the colors). At this point, the painting seems to be most about how the colors relate, and how that balances against hard edges and blurred edges, as much as anything else.

I watched the Jasper Johns documentary "Ideas in Paint" a few days ago and was again influenced by how he uses color and lays it on. I am sure that has leaked into this piece in some way. Then again, I think for any artist working how, Johns is kind of always lurking there in the background, much like de Kooning was for him and others.

Christmas Present Influences

I was going through some of my Christmas presents the other day and came upon these three books I received... one on Gustave Courbet, Kenneth Koch's long poems... and Don Rickles' memoirs.

It wasn't intentional, but thought it was a good cross-section of my biggest influences. Yes, both Gustave Courbet AND Don Rickles. What a combination.

First Runs

A couple of pics of my first trip up skiing this year. After all the rain and balmy weather Killington was only half open, which was good because my legs were only about half-ready to ski, but it was good to finally get up skiing.

Above, find some pics of the trip. From a nice shot of Killington; to a painting in the house we stayed; my emotional response to Bart Simpson trapped inside a "Treasure Chest," Paul Bonaceto ripping up the slopes, or my photo-homage to my Norwegian heritage, it was a great trip.

I am off to stretch.

Bad Luck Charm

Have been meaning to post this picture for a few days now- taken at the Boston Celtics / Charlotte Bobcats game on January 9th. Nice seats but the Celtics got smoked.

I was prepping an entire blog entry on the music of basketball- the rhythm of dribbling as the intersection of creating art and athletics at the same time. I was finding references in the poetry of Sherman Alexie and his use of the traditional Native American drum combined with the contemporary in basketball, as with his book "First Indian on the Moon." But I am less inspired to wax philosophical on poetry and basketball since the photo is of a C's loss.

In other news: Kevin Garnett is incredible.

Are You Painting?

Are you painting? This is my most received question, statement, greeting lately. It seems as if I might say “want to get lunch,” and the answer is “are you painting?”

“Hey, what do you think of that baseball steroid scandal?”
“Are you painting?”

“Not much skiing in the East this year.”
“Are you painting?”

And so on. The simple answer is no, I haven’t been painting. I have been working on some large piece of fiction-slash-a pseudo screenplay, I’ve been listening to Allister and watching movies with a stopwatch, I’ve been doing snow dances for fresh pow-pow, and I’ve been trying to plan my next painting. The Gulu-Gulu Café show came down on Sunday and now I am officially shifting gears and prepping for the show at the Courthouse in Boston that runs from April through June.

The picture above is of my new painting in progress, Untitled as of now. The canvas is 48” x 72” (same size as Target / Target to put it in perspective for those who have seen it).

I have obviously spent a lot of time thinking about what direction to move toward next. This painting comes from an idea I had for a smaller piece about 6 months ago. There is also a lot more distortion of the images than I have been doing typically. I am excited about it and think this preliminary work on the canvas itself is interesting— I feel like it makes for a good next step after “Summer Clearance” and the collage pieces of last year.

Stay tuned for more to come.

Music Video: They Might Be Giants - The Mesopotamians

There really is not much better than TMBG, and this video is one of their best. Enjoy.