Little Lifelines to Sanity

So I've been spending a lot of time figure painting during the "isolation", I have been painting 4 or 5 hours a day usually on a couple of different projects, but the figure stuff is just really engaging. So many problems to solve. The model is a young woman that the Pre-Raphaelites would have killed for. She has this amazing thick, curly hair that changes color in the light and runs anywhere from golden-yellow to auburn and her skin is almost almost luminescently pale. I know the photos are not doing the images justice, but I will reshoot them at a later date. The first couple were in natural light and it was like channeling John Singer Sargent. The second image when you see the painting in real life the body seems to glow, so I was really happy with that result. The last painting was the pose from Bronzino's Exposure of Luxury that we tried to recreate. and I think we managed fairly well. So we move ahead trying to stay alive. I went out to Colorado for a week to climb and hike and that really helped, so we just keep trying to stay ahead of the ax-man.

The Course of Empire

The painting below is the most recent in a series of works that takes architectural elements from buildings in a specific city and then deconstructs and superimposes them. The end result hopefully is that you could recognize the city. These two paintings from the series are also making use of Thomas Cole's Course of Empire idea. I've taken the elements and combined them with natural elements to suggest the collapse of civilization. The top painting is Tikal, Guatemala. The Classic Maya city is submerged in the jungle that currently surrounds it. The bottom painting is Rome under water. I'm liking the creation of these images. It is labor intensive, but I think they are pretty visually intriguing.

Birth of Venus Project

Right before the Corona virus thing I had begun working on a project where I was going to have a model pose for some iconic figure paintings from Art History. Knowing that most of these figural images were constructs, often not even utilizing live models and the end results were often physically impossible or anatomically improbable. The first one I wanted to do was the Birth of Venus by Botticelli, with its improbably long neck, dislocated left arm and sloping shoulders as well as it's engaged leg being far too far underneath her to keep her upright. So this is the result. I had hoped to make some corrections to the painting, but with everybody in quarantine, this is currently on hold. I do like the painting though and I did several other studies from the same model. I've included the ones that I like best.

In the Corona Era

So we are a month or two into this Corona thing and I am not going to comment on it as I am sick of every conversation being about this topic. I have time in my remote teaching schedule to catch up on some things, like updating the blog, filing paintings, transcribing and recording my sketchbooks digitally, etc...So this is the latest update on my Sisyphus project. The photo directly below is of last year's project. It climbs up the bluff about 60 feet, it was about the same distance along the base of the bluff. A couple of posts ago I recorded its destruction, but I wanted to add a postscript.

This photo was taken from the base of the structure after the bottom of the bluff was washed out. That stack of surviving stone is about 12 feet off the beach, balanced on the sheer wall of what remains of that section of the bluff.

Once the stack collapsed I began to salvage stone and tried to build a new wall to protect the base of the bluff. Got a pretty good section laid in and it washed away in the next big storm like it wasn't even there.

All of that stone tumbling down the bluff was also washed away, leaving only this little pile on the top of a ledge which was the highest point of the sculpture.

That would disappear with about twelve more feet of bluff leaving this bare wall of clay exposed. All told I would guess we lost about thirty feet of bluff. The base eaten away, the upper portion collapsing only to be washed away...rinse and repeat and there it all goes.

But I must say, this clay wall is really quite beautiful and it has already ended up in one painting and I'm sure it will be used again in the near future. A little consolation, I guess. If you are one of those fuckheads who still thinks climate change is some kind of conspiracy or something...please, please, please, don't reproduce. Let's just get those genes out of the pool now. I am writing this as snow falls out my window on May 8th. 100 year old trees were washed away by the dozens along the shoreline and lie up and down the beach, tossed by fifteen foot waves like they were matchsticks. Oh and by the way, Michelle, thanks for your comments. I started a new project for this year further down the beach. Hopefully it will still be up the next time you pass through.

Life Painting

Been doing some figure painting from models at the studio of one of my local artist friends. These are the third iteration of paintings done on the spot. Happy with them. Figure painting is a challenge and each new problem is a reason to keep painting. I hope to start pushing things into the creative realm in a couple of weeks. 

Sisyphus Revisited Again and Again

So the last fall ended with a sixty foot wall along the bluff and a sloping incline of stone running up the bluff surrounding an oak tree and stair-stepping its way up.

 The winter locked up the shoreline with ice-dunes and the destructive winter storms were checked by the dunes. In all of the years I have lived here I have never seen the dunes this high. Easily 20 feet mounds. This photograph was taken from the top of one of the dunes.

During the Spring I spent most of my energy just working upward. This photo was taken in April as I was making some serious progress upward . I kept going pretty steadily all summer. Significantly higher than this photo records.

 Fall 2019 storms began to wreak havoc on a regular basis. The sixty foot wall disappeared in sections and was regularly replaced only to be washed away again and again. I was just desperately trying to keep the oak.

 Finally, in an act of liquid malice the lake just absolutely pounded the shit out of the bluff and took that oak and about a half dozen larger trees along the shore and swept them away like so much chaff and left only the structure that stepped up the bluff.

 In one final act of destruction another storm sucked out a huge chunk of the bluff and everything came down. It is hard to imagine the force of these storms and what they are doing to the shoreline here.

 And then Sisyphus started again...I have yet to go down to see if the first storms of 2020 have swept this new start away, but what are new years for?

La Vie

The new year has started and I have survived another year of Trump. It is hard to lay low under all of that stupidity, malice and indecency. The passing of the solstice always gives me hope though. The days get longer, there is more light and I like to believe that metaphorically is going to be true of the future. 

I had surgery on my right hand in November and I have been rehabbing it aggressively since then. Dupuytren's Contracture, a genetic condition which in my case affected the tendon of my little finger. My first surgery, my first stitches, my first time under anesthesia...in general it was a pretty interesting experience. One of the surgeons took a photo of the hand while it was opened up, which I had him send to me. So here is my most recent self-portrait. My hands are the middle pair. Two students modeled for the top and mother's hands are on the bottom. She also has Dupuytren's, but never had the surgery. This was my last painting of 2019.