Liz Tuckwell Paintings

Sneak Peak...

2009-12-08T00:48:00.000-08:00

I am attaching a picture sample of one of the paintings I will be showing this weekend at our three day Holiday Sale. I am really looking forward to the weekend. I love it when the hallways are buzzing with guest artists hanging their work - there is always something so special about it. Like a great gathering! Then comes the audience: I love that the building fills with those who share such a great love for the arts! I love the variety of people who appear in our studio, and engage with us about our work. And I love it when they find pieces of art that were made just for them, and happily carry them home. I love that each studio in our building is like walking into an entirely different world. Well, I am clearly filled with a whole lotta love for these shows, and I hope you are too. I am keeping this post short and sweet, as I have a lot to prepare for this weekend and it is already 3:06 am. (of course) Below is a detail of one of my newest paintings, and yes, I love this painting.

I have a great deal of new work to share and I am really looking forward to sharing it with you. Please come, bring a guest, invite others and share in art, entertainment, wine, warmth and a whole lotta love.

Here are the details for this weekend:

Flat Iron Arts Building, Studio 352

1579 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago

Friday, December 11th from 6:00pm until 11:00pm
Saturday, December 12th from Noon until 10:00pm
and Sunday, December 13th from Noon until 6:00pm

See you this weekend! Love, Liz

Time Warps

2009-12-01T22:46:00.000-08:00

Currently listening to Os Mutatnes and the music is providing a lovely back drop to my evening. What a night. I mean that fully. I went to bed at sunrise and I literally awoke at sunset. I guess I got the day a bit backwards. But it was wonderful, I left the house shortly after waking up to find the most beautiful blue sky in the world. It still had traces of the sunset and what was even better is that it was hosting the most amazing full moon. It was just rising and sat in the eastern sky illuminating everything so sweetly! Ah.

When back home, I went into the hallway and found a couple wandering around the building looking for art. They were from Portugal and had heard about "wicker park". Chance had it that we were to meet and they were to fall in love with a set of three paintings I had created called "The Three Sisters", which they took with them. The night went on with a series of surprising visitors appearing in our studio. Well it is now 12:55 am, and I have just finished eating a delicious dinner, prepared by yours truly, and am getting ready to paint. Sometimes I really do have to move by my own beat. And that beat can lead to some really great chance experiences.

That has me wanting to write about what I have been thinking about lately. That something feels different in the air these days. I am not sure if it is my own feeling, or if others share it, but something is changing - and for the better! It feels as I enter into the last month of 2009 (can you believe it?) there is a need to remove all the excess baggage that really doesn't work anymore. Its like the final spin cycle of the year - a time when I really really have to think about what it is that I want to be, have or become and aim only for that. Over my couple of decades, I surely have picked up some extra stuff I surely don't need anymore, and these days have me asking myself "why wear this on myself if it no longer fits?" I feel a certain joy when I ask that question because it really means that I can and will begin to re-create myself consciously. It almost feels as if time is starting over for me and I really like it.

I am also thinking a lot about my direction within my own artwork. I have been moving in the direction of working on a larger scale. I want to grow within my artwork and I feel that it is not something that should be forced, but something that will emerge itself in tandem with the new direction I am pointing myself towards. I love change. Secretly it can be a bit terrifying to move into the unknown with only your dreams and desires as your compass, but would our dreams ever lead us down the wrong path. I guess it has to do with a certain confidence within. Funny little word I have also been thinking about lately. I took it apart and thought mmm con and fide...with faith..when I looked it up online, I found this "The origin of the word confidence is the Latin word confidere (to trust, to have faith in. Hence the original meaning of confidence is literally "to have trust or have faith". So, simply put to have self confidence is to have faith in yourself, to trust oneself. With that idea in mind, I move steadfastly in a new direction, and I look forward to seeing the art that will emerge when I get there.

**Congratulations to November and December's Winners! I hope you enjoy your beautiful little paintings! Subscribe to my blog and be entered to win a sweet painting of your own. xx

The care and feeding of an artist

2009-11-13T21:24:00.000-08:00

Listening to the new Basement Jaxx album, cooking a reminder dinner (as in i forgot to eat) while painting and blogging. I tend to whirlwind. But isn't life a wonderful whirlwind of activity sometimes. It can be so slow for a while and you think "mmm..where has all the action gone?" Only to find that within a short matter of time, it all speeds up again and you think "hey, where has all the time gone?!". I am on the former end of that stick right now, but it is a great gift. It's making me come up with all new ideas and inspirations. I am taking chances with paintings that I once felt timid to, I am re-thinking action plans, and drawing up new ones, and just being content with my home. (Update, I am now listening to the new Yacht album and checking it out...). I have a studio, its where I paint and live with my boyfriend, 20 plants, one fish, and a wonderful gallery of paintings. I love the care and feeding of all of us, paintings included. It is a friday night, and while the world of party and bar hoppers swirls outside my window, I am at home, warm and pleased.

I cleaned my fish tank today, the rocks, the filter on the bio wheel and scrubbed the algae off the sides - the poor fish was so stressed out to see this looming hand come in and out of his home, he excreted something that for a second I thought was his whole intestine! I know that is gross, but you have to understand that this is our second fish: the first one we got at the county fair in indiana with my boyfriend's little boy, Bacchus, and I really worked hard to keep that fish alive. When it died, i cried. I cried over a goldfish! After that incident, we went with Joe's little one to the Old Town Aquarium to buy a new fish, and we picked a beautiful gold fish, which Bacchus named painty, after looking around the room for a minute. So once again, I have taken on the extreme care of this fish, and it looks like the dust has settled on his stress levels tonight and I think he is happy again.

I write this because I have thought a bit about my blog recently, and I realized that I never really write on it, because I don't want to just talk about paintings, I want to talk about my life, my artist's life. And i wasn't sure if this blog was the place to do that. I realize though that it is. Why? Because everything that goes on in my life comes out in my artwork. My artwork is a reflection of all of the internal, all that I feel and think while processing the world I live in. As viewers of my work, I want to share that with you. So you can begin to know more about the work and the artist and the care that goes into it all.
Stay tuned.

Loyal Paintings

2009-09-23T23:29:00.000-07:00

Paintings are so patient. They just wait for you. Like loyal pets, they are. It has been a while since my last painting time, in a flurry of life like activities, I have not been painting as I so should have. Tonight, I re-did my studio, made it so so cozy and came back to a painting I haven't played with since forever ago. And there she was, just as I had left her, waiting for me to put new colors, new layers, new gestures of myself on to the canvas. Weeks of experience come out in slow patient brush strokes with no purpose only than to be content within themselves. Swirls of colors, layers of the painting are built as layers of myself are finally shed. Ah, sigh, deep breath and contentment, sometimes I wish we could all be painters.

Doorways

2009-06-17T13:58:00.000-07:00

Its been a while. The spiral of activity lately had me a: not painting and b: feeling low. I was tired and even though the best antidote for all that ailed would have been painting, i simply hadn't done it. My studio was in pieces as we cleaned it all (and hid most of it away) to host shows. Well, I got it all sorted out, re-organized and ready to paint. And then another distraction...mmm..how funny. Needless to say it wasn't until last night that i got my grit into it and began painting again! And it was awesome. Brilliant! I was totally on, totally in the painting feeling the focus, not painting with my mind, but painting with my heart. It felt great. Not only that, but once in that wonderful place ideas kept coming to me and inspirations. It was actually quite emotional and liberating and emotionally liberating.

I was working on a commission for a fantastic woman who runs an artists tele-summit seminar once a year, and i was combining elements of two paintings that she liked. I had begun working on this painting weeks ago and was not quite feeling it at that time. Something inside me knew that i had to gain more experiences in my own life before I was truly able to paint this painting. And I was right. I have gone through a roller coaster of feelings, activities, work, and mental ping pong. I had to and I had to come out of those experiences with a new self born before I was able to create this work of art. Each time I create art, whether for myself, or for someone in particular, I bring all of myself to the canvas. It's like each new painting is a door to a room. A new room of myself. Each of these doors has a code and the code unlocks the door and the door opens to a new path in my life waiting to be discovered. The sum of my experiences when I approach that door is my decoder and until I have the experience necessary to open that door, i will not be able to clearly decode its lock. This is a great thing. It is as if each painting asks me, what have you learned so far and it is an ability for me to digest what i have learned thus far, purge the items within myself i no longer need and leave them at the door and take into this new room only the elements of my life that are the most exciting and joyful. I wish this was totally the case, i am still quite human and i sometimes bring along items that no longer actually serve me, but can't quite get rid of yet. Nonetheless, the door to the new me is always available. With practice one day I know I will reach that one door that I open and only only only bring the most beautiful and good with me into that room. Until then I will happily continue finding new ways to decode my own locks. Here's to painting!

shows and shows and so

2009-06-07T21:32:00.000-07:00

after a marathon of shows and no rest, tonight i feel like this

and yet i say, the unlived life is not worth exploring.
sure wouldn't mind a vacation though. x

Good Morning!

2009-06-04T09:54:00.001-07:00

Good morning! I have 6 mins left to say that. It was a late night for me last night, but i had a list of goals and a lot of motivation. Wicked combo. We have a lot of shows right now and for me the trick is to continuously add creativity to the mix. When it becomes all business and busy work: setting up shows, moving and hanging paintings, organizing the studio, putting finishing touches on paintings, sending invitations and hosting or attending parties, I find sometimes that two weeks will have gone by and I haven't painted! I of course, start to implode and the once beautiful world, turns dark.

For me being creative is to be able to express myself. This is crucial. I take in so much. I almost inhale the energy around me, the people, the events the feelings. Moments have their blueprints and they tend to leave certain impressions on me and it is important for me to translate these out of my body. Basically, I will store emotions until I have a place to put them. I have this theory that the human body can house only a certain amount of experiences. When we reach our capacity nothing more can get in. That is why it is important to release old energy and experiences - to simply make room for new ones and to grow. For me, my ideal way to rid of these old experiences is to put them somewhere. That somewhere is my art. Which, for me, is so wonderful because sometimes an experience will occur and I am not even sure how it is being digested. When I paint out the emotional elements, i get to see it. i get to see what this event really meant to me. not just the way it appeared to be, but , but how i processed it. whether the experience is good or bad no longer matters, it is now healthy and transformed because it is out of me.

Anyway with all that being said, i have to remind myself of the importance of this. I can easily get caught up in the business side of the work and forget that familiar feeling of relief and satisfaction of creating, which brought me here in the first place. So last night..er um..5am this morning I had just finished adding pages and uploading my website and i looked over at this unfinished area of my canvas that was calling to me. My head was heavy and I could have crawled into bed, but i knew I had to finish that part. and i did. I knew that if I did, I would feel better. Feel. Better. Feel. Better. And i did. And then I realized I could have painted all morning...funny. Here is the section of the painting from this morning. Enjoy. x

2:22 perhaps?

2009-05-27T00:18:00.000-07:00

how long is it going to be before i get my arse painting tonight. well, 2:19 am sounds like a fine time to really really really start thinking about it. oh, even the things we love to do sometimes take motivation. x

An Everyday Portal

2009-05-18T21:05:00.000-07:00

Today, while joe ran errands, I waited for him outside of his various locations wanting to absorb as much sun as chicago could offer. At the first location I honestly stood there thinking, um ok, I am standing here now what? As if I needed some sort of activity to validate myself being standing there without purpose. Then I saw something. I saw a tiny garden, planted by the city. It was so simple, green leafy surroundings, red plants, yellow-green bushes, light green stalks with off white blooms still in their cocoons. One flower in all of this had bloomed. Fully. It was like the first solider surveying the area, making sure it was safe for the others to come out. And as I stood there, tiny details started appearing everywhere. The depth of the veins on the plants, the variations of the colors of the earth, the rainbow of greens, the sharp lines of the leaves, the soft wrinkles of that first bloom. I walk down this street all the time, how many times have i passed this garden of beauty and ignored its visual gifts. How often do I skim over the beauty which simple strolls have to offer? Often, I imagine. I actually had my sketchbook with me, which is quite rare, unfortunately, and i started to sketch this garden. The more I sketched, the more I saw. Honestly, it was so beautiful. I felt so blessed to have had to stop there. Suddenly I began to notice more things, the people who passed by (none really glancing at that garden, by the way), the sounds of their voices, the bells on the collars of dogs, the babies in the strollers, the cacophony of the traffic - all of a sudden everything became so vibrant. It was like a portal in a new universe, right there, and available to me every day. The more you see, the more you see. The more I saw the beauty of that corner, i started to see beauty and richness everywhere else we walked. Today was a gift. There is such a wealth to receive in the simple details of every moment. I hope to remember this more often, its' so easy to get caught up in the day to day walk in life, I can easily forget the beauty of each step.

prayers

2009-05-14T22:16:00.001-07:00

Some people go to church every single day. That is amazing to me. Their sinless souls cleansed each day by a whisper in a darkened confession booth. Their faith, their connection so tightly knit, in the mind of this devoted disciple, is there any doubt that surely heaven, or or some peace like it, awaits their departure from this mortal coil?

There is no confession booth waiting to cleanse me. My sin rests in my own hands. My church is my canvas. My prayers are my brush strokes, my chosen colors outline my confessions and my tears are the drips on heavily stained alters. I confess that I have not been to church in many days and the weight of it is so heavy that it alters all types of normal activity. I feel closeted, chaotic, unavailable even to my own self. So far removed do I feel, that I wonder if my church will even remember my name, hear my confessions or allow me to pray? So, in a humble moment of genuflection i pick up the brush i left drying for too many days, stand in front of my canvas and try to find the place on the path where I stopped praying. There is a silent verse waiting to be recited and, if i allow it, a voice, maybe some prayer from a distant part of me, will be heard. and answered.

My doppelganger has left the building

2008-12-21T22:44:00.000-08:00

My excuses, my doppelganger has left the building leaving me alone to paint in its stead. i write to you from the inside of the inside and as i found myself kneeling and bowing in front a my french press pressing to ease the pressure of the pm's release into am i am curious as to why i just wrote this as i danced between paint brush and pencil

"i write to you from inside a coup.
they can't fight forever.
neither can these words -
sudden warmth in winter.
a few war torn pebbles are all that remains of this memory and i find myself
a giggling.
ah, you think you're better than me.
well hopefully we'll remain to see what remains.
you are a sleeping memory"

it is only an ecstasy release. as is most of what i do. especially in these late hours in which i find myself so often. can i work more, possibly. possibly not. when am i not working. when am i not consumed by my art. when am i not so blessed. bleepin blessed. or blissed. who the hell cares.

i can't laugh anymore, my heart is full tonight. i am only yearning for yearning's sake. ok, i have to laugh because these words are ridiculously silly. can you ridicule yourself for being ridiculous...oh giggle giggle giggle glorious giggling. can anyone be so lucky as i am tonight to be so free to paint and be self employed by it. ah the madness of letting go! yahooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! how glorious! yahhooooo! what a leap to take. and in the middle of an economy downfall. why would i do such a thing? because i am ridiculously stubborn and i really got sick of not painting and being pissed off that anything took me away from doing what i enjoy most. in all my life actually. what the hell is the purpose of being on this planet if you can't succeed at being yourself. ha ha? ok, back to painting. and did i mention that this painting is at that point where i can either just let go and allow it to come forth or persistantly be stubborn and try to control it's birth. ha if you can find that answer, please do let me know. i know there is balance in there to be found somewhere. the balance between the letting go and the making of by cognition. mmm...is that really a thing to be found anyway. i await your response. most eagerly.
best wishes for a glorious holiday of lights.
kisses,
your friendly painter girl
lizzie

Oh Homey

2008-02-18T18:02:00.000-08:00

I went to the Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper exhibit today at the Art Institute (of Chicago). It has left me feeling a little motionless in my steps. Homer's work specifically made me stop and re-examine myself as an artist. I looked at his use of sky, earth, water and LIGHT and I had to ask myself, what the hell have I been doing? Or rather what am I doing right now? I am pleased with my new pallet and the new explorations of colors I have found in and out of myself, but when I look at this great artist's work I asked myself, how seriously am i taking my own work? His work really spoke to me. I felt like I can not continue painting blindly as I am doing now. When I say, blindly, I refer to the madness of my spontaneity within my abstract work. Sure, it is expressionism and I am raw honesty; purely expressing myself to myself, but what of the conversation I could potentially have with myself if I sat down and deliberately choose the words, the language and the visual textual intonations? I have said it before, I often feel I am limited by my own visual vocabulary, but after witnessing the masterpieces of Homer, I realize that i have lazily shirked off my own responsibility to learn more. It is my responsibility to myself as an artist to realize more of myself within my work and what potential expressions can be born if i take the time to learn and explore and learn and explore. Thank you Dear Mr. Homer.

The hide and seek of Me

2008-02-10T16:15:00.000-08:00

I have a new series I am working on. well truth be told, i have a new part of myself that is quietly beckoning for me to realize itself. she is red, she is orange, she is purple, she is yellow, she teases green, she is bold, she is soft, she is quietly loudly laughing behind the scenes playing hide and seek with my heart until i find her and set her free. bare with me.

E- Motion

2007-11-09T15:48:00.000-08:00

It is amazing. So much has happened over the past weeks. So much madness. And the first thing i put aside was the ability to get it all out. To emote on canvas. Why is it that when the darkness calls it calls so delftly that i listen to it and not to my own voice. There is a line which draws itself amongst those who wish to leave the dark. That line was etched tonight, begun this morning. And finally with moments before I am called to a job assigment I would rather banish, I threw myself onto my canvas and cried out the colors inside. I do not care if this painting is well received by anyone other than my ownself. This painting is the real reason I can survive, it lets me vomit all the bleakness into an abyss of new beginnings. There is still madness, but at least it is not bigger than me. thank god for painting. again and again.

naked

2007-10-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

naked

2007-10-09T22:36:00.000-07:00

my goal. to paint a simple painting. 2 colors. one flat one strong. simple. easy. it was exactly how i was feeling when i got called to it. 1 brush, 1 pallet knife. boom - you are done.
now.
18 brushes later. 4 crazy different knives and paint everywhere i can't even remember what the vision was in my head i started off with. all i know is now my studio table is a mess and i can't believe what frustration the most simple painting has caused me. although i have to admit i would only allow myself this sort of frustration because i am already so deeply in love with this painting. i love how one side is so flat and the other side has so much goin on in it. that is so indiciative. it is perfect. it is truly honest. it is truly naked. this painting is going to be called, "naked". i think i am going to force myself to finish this paintng. because as i have learned about myself so far. i could paint on one painting forever. literally for an eternity. so toinght i am pulling a force quit. its time for round one to end. big love to you. painting. and good night.

ah the pleasure of madness...

2007-10-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

or, please! just let me be mad! i was watching a movie on salvador dali tonight. As i glazed over one of the clips, my eyes met his and i felt the supreme joy of chaos and free madness being allowed to fly. i whished i had the time just to be that mad. it seems such a daunting task to maintain the madness and the freeness of it all when daily tasks and chores keep getting in the way.
website building
moving paintings
cooking dinner
washing the dishes in the communal washroom
laundry
shows
another job
mailing lists
meet and greet
selling
marketing
organizing.
where can i fit the madness in. oh and
painting. must not forget that one.
ok. back to painting.
paintingpaintingpainting
painting.
hell yeah.
thank god there is painting!

My new painting

2007-08-26T16:54:00.001-07:00

This is my latest painting. It is still a work in progress..due very soon, however..!

Painting Revised...

2007-08-26T16:51:00.000-07:00

I was asked to revise my painting. She wanted the painting hung upside down and a series of green added to it. Here is the before and after...

The Stuck Point

2007-08-25T14:37:00.000-07:00

i am frustrated. for a myriad of reasons. this painting is somehow beyond me yet, simultaneously, somehow within reach. this paradox is driving me nuts. right now nothing is working and mostly,i am not feeling it.

i started painting this afternoon. and the whole time i have been frustrated. nothing is working. the sun is blaring into my window blinding me and making me so hot i could die. the canvas is too big for my wall and i find myself negotiating with tiny spaces to reach certain areas of the painting and to even reach my paints! i realized the other night that i was actually painting the painting upside down. it feels better upside down, but it is a whole different feeling to be painting it in that direction. and while trying to move the painting the screw that was holding it fell out of the wall, the easel i borrowed from joe takes up too much space in my little studio area and basically this is all driving me nuts. if i am not feeling it i need to simply take a break from the damn thing and move on with my breathing space.

two nights ago i got the painting heavily started without stopping. i was totally feeling it, allowing myself to be lost in its possibilities and when it started to finally to form i found myself stuck. what do i do next. where do i go from here. i love it but it is not done..the flow of consciousness stopped and the thinking began. again this stuck point. what do i do with myself then. i find when i force myself to paint wile stuck i stop being in the focus of it. argh! so a great suggestion by j was to just play with the painting. move it around, sit in front of it for a while and begin to reform a relationship with it. i want to do this. and i am going to do this. my problem is the deadline for delivery of this painting is quickly approaching and with oil paints this is a tricky situation. it is due by next week to the person who asked me to paint it. ah! well i have to work tonight unfortunately but at least i have all of sunday to make a difference on this canvas. oh canvas what do you want to be! let me see you again! ah!

the cool thing is that we at the flat iron arts building have begun to have open studios all weekend long. every weekend. this is cool because a couple of random strangers wandered into the studio this afternoon and all felt a lot of love for this new painting. that was cool. (although it was not upside down at that point....ah!)

honestly, i have to remember if i am not feeling it to not force myself upon a painting. to take a step back from it and move on for a while. bringing new energy to myself can only mean bringing new life to the painting. well i guess that is what i am going to do.

Just a normal night

2007-08-16T20:20:00.000-07:00

its funny. to cook tonight i moved 2 paintings. we have begun cooking on my side of the studio because it runs on a different electric circuit then the rest of the house and we have learned the hard way that to not do so means blowing a fuse in this very old artists building. but the painting i had completed for commission needed to be "edited" um...and as joey began the pasta sauce just 3 meters away from my painting i realized i needed to move it and fast. so i moved it to another wall, took the painting from that wall and placed it over the the wall by the trash bin and the computer. so i am basically writing you from behind the painting of a great pair of pigeons as we have set up the cooking plate and the electric skillet right by my wall of paintings. ironically the most abstract of the paintings...the tempest, i have less concern of splatter for. i think because it would only be kind of cool to see what daily life could add to such a painting.

well, i really need to stretch this new canvas tonight for a new commission i need to have completed in 2 weeks, including the one week it will take at least for it to dry. god help me. this one is huge 3 by 5 feet. a lot of love will be involved in this process tonight, especially as it is already 10.15 pm and we have already had a wonderful evening at nicks tavern...if you know what i mean..
giggle...
love from the world of lizzie..

Rantings, Pantings and Paintings

2007-08-07T20:46:00.000-07:00

I deleted that previous post because I was entirely too frustrated to write. I wrote preachy stuff. It wasn't my place to do so. I was frustrated that the most of the crowd who attended our art show cared less about art then they did for the free wine we had, etc. I say now that I truly hope for those who genuinely care about the arts to start coming to our shows too.

Nonetheless, I am still here and still devilishly inspired. I want to share with you some images. (Yes! I finally found my camera - No, don't ask where it was!)

The image below is the "don't think just paint" painting i am working on.

This additional image is a before an after image. The before image is an example of me beginning to be free and then stopping within myself. The after image is the one where I simply decided to have fun. I blasted the music and went to town with colors and textures and madness and let me tell you it felt fantastic. I am not sure if you can feel the painting from looking at it online, but I fall more in love with this painting each day. I invite you to come look at it in person...

Les belles artes

2007-08-04T18:33:00.000-07:00

I have just deleted my entire posting and have decided to simply share how i feel today with this song. Enjoy.

In to the Mist

2007-07-31T23:48:00.001-07:00

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!

2007-07-31T02:20:00.000-07:00

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

2007-07-26T23:28:00.001-07:00

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!

2007-07-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

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.