In to the Mist

My mind is totally buzzing! I swore myself to sleeping early but the call of the paints i could not resist. What started as, "paint for one hour", has become the evening..and the evening has become the morning, yet again. I can't help but feel fresh and clean as I put my painting on the wall and begin to unwind with it.  She was an entirely free painting. My mantra: don't think just paint don't think just paint became the equivalent of emotional gold and i feel fantastic. Freedom of movement of colors, textures and new pallets! Tonight while I was painting, i really began to feel the power of consistency. I have had only one day this week when I have not painted. Ok, maybe two. But no more. It is entirely too easy to get distracted from the things you value most by the maddening world of things to do that must be done. They say there is not enough time in the day, i say there is..if your day can become night and your night becomes day again. Sleep when you are dead. Live while you are alive. It feels so fantastic to just paint!

Series Complete!

Et Voila! I have completed the series. After many brushstrokes, late nights, early mornings and a lot of coffee, I have decided that these paintings are now complete. The painting in the middle is actually the painting that I have previously referenced as "the third painting". The two on the outsides are the paintings I went back and forth pushing and pulling until I decided it was time to let go.

The Push and Pullshit

Joe has introduced me to Hans Hoffman's Push and Pull Theory in Abstract Expressionism. Although I have been painting for nearly ten years, I am a self-taught artist who has only recently become surrounded by other artists. Needless to say my hunger for knowledge is great. After looking at one of my latest paintings in this series, Sikora takes me to the computer to learn of the Push Pull theory; "that color and form could create spatial depth and movement within a picture plane in much the same manner as traditional, linear perspective" or, as I interpret it, how one's eye must be drawn in and out and around the canvas. It inspires me and makes me realize what I have begun to do: to constrain myself within my own freedom of expression.  Within these self constraints my painting lost its ability to push and pull the viewer around the canvas;  for within constraint, there is no honesty -  no genuine story to be realized.

I am still working feverishly on this series. Ironically, I seem to be getting the most response from people from the third painting. The one I haven't considered selling; the one I stopped all thinking whilst creating. I think you can feel it. Being an abstract expressionist i find it odd that i would dare try to constrict myself while painting. But for me, at times, I begin a painting with total freedom and later feel the need to "sew it up" with constraints. Some sort of idea that my viewers will need logic within the disorder. Fuck that.  I am learning again the careful dedication of free-creation.                 b.

Its 2am. I am going back to painting. Freely.

STOP YOU ARE OVER WORKING YOUR PAINTING!

I wish canvases came with an alarm button that said, " STOP YOU ARE OVER WORKING YOUR PAINTING!" because right now, I can't even see this painting anymore and I think I am going mad. I have been working on a series of three paintings entitled, "Waterfall Revisited".  I was commissioned to create a painting for a wonderful lady based on my business card which carries an image I created a long time ago called, you guessed it, "Waterfall". The original image is only 8"x10" and it lives in Holland with its now owner. This time I have been challenged to re-create it on a much larger scale and it is now 3' x 4'.  Originally, I was only going to do one image and after stretching the canvas and beginning the painting, my partner, and fellow painter, Joseph Sikora, suggested that I do not only one, but three. I would not be putting so much pressure on myself for the one perfect painting, but could be more flexible and give the commissioner the best one of three. The deadline for completion is knocking on my door and I am going back and forth between two of the three paintings thinking "Oh this one is the best...no, wait - this one is...no wait...Ah!" Ok, I do have to laugh at this point and take a serious break from painting. Food seems a great option right now because so far my morning has been engulfed in turpentine, liquin, coffee and cigarettes.  I will attempt to upload these images as soon as I find my camera, which has somehow disappeared into the abyss that is our shared studio. At the moment, I think it is best I go find something to eat.