Category: Notes On Painting

Steve Black, writing from Singapore, suggests that I consider painting leaves as a followup to criminal faces. “So different yet so similar.”

Lourdes, in my painting class tonight, asked our teacher what he thinks of preliminary sketches. Fred, in in true zen form, said “they can be good or bad. Good if they help you lay things out but bad if you work everything out.” Then, of course, you would be just copying your sketch and your painting would not be an adventure.

Philip Guston is quoted as saying, “I imagine wanting to paint as a cave man would. . . I should like to paint like a man who has never seen a painting.” Sort of like Sandra Bernhard in King of Comedy which played on the big screen last night at the Dryden Theater. Her character, Masha, wanted to be black.

I submitted the paintings shown above to a show in the Lucy Burne Gallery at the MAG. The upcoming show is called, “This is a Series” so it is right up my alley since I have stuck in a rut.

Last night I was thinking about how I would like to paint and I had this mental picture of a head that had so much volume in it that I wanted to kick it like soccer ball. Duane from Lowel has been pushing me to use a back lighting technique on my subjects to illuminate the edges and provide 3d relief against a dark background.I am ready for a breakthrough.

This mornings paper had an article about how Arthur Shawcross died of neglect while serving his life sentence. Sounds like someone found a way to trim the New York State budget. The article described Shawcross one of New York’s worst serial killer (I was trying to recall the best). And it reminded readers that noted crime author, Jack Olsen, wrote a book about him. Peggi reads true crime and thought that was a particularly good book.

I guess we share some sort of fascination with crime. I worked as a graphic artist for the Rochester Police, pulling mug shots for a memorable year, and I usually use that as my excuse. I’ve been painting mug shots from the paper on and off for many years now and I keep going through phases where I question why I paint these people. It doesn’t really help their plight and most people would rather not look at the paintings so what is the point? – That sort of questioning. I find these faces a lot more interesting than happy smily people, more interesting than good looking models, more interesting than poseurs although many of these people may be just that. It’s meaty material and there is probably no more to it than a preference for either C.S.I. or that Charlie Sheen show.

The last Crimestoppers page in our paper was in December and I just got around to scanning it. The photos are only thumbnail size in the paper and I discovered it helps to have a little bit bigger source so I print them out a larger size. Most of these people rather unattractive but every once and a while there is a looker like this 22 year old wanted for Grand Larceny.

I dropped off a “Crime Face” painting at RoCo, one of over two hundred and fifty entries to their annual Members Show. We stopped in the opening on Friday night and wandered about. It’s always fun to follow your eyes in such a crowded show, spotting friend’s art and brand new gems. I wasn’t crazy about the yellow dot voting thing. This show is open to all members and should be above the curator or pedestrian curator evaluation. What was percentage of blue sky that people voted for in that over the couch painting contest? Was that a pre-internet factoid? I liked Lee Hoag’s little tv in the round room. I can’t remember what it was saying.

We stopped by Abilene after the show to wish Danny and Al a happy birthday. It was good to see/hear “The Balloon Buffoon” behind the board again. I asked Richard Edic if he had a piece in the show and he said that he did. We missed that so we shall return. The show will look completely different without the crowds and the ticky tock music.

I lost my Guston book. The one with the big head on the cover. I checked under the bead and even under the covers. bought it over at the MAG’s gift shop and I’ve been reading (looking at it) at night. I know it will turn up but its been two days. I spent some time at the Ornette Coleman site, playing harmolodically on the home page.

I admit I waste a lot of time. Last night in painting class I just couldn’t seem to get going. I toyed with walking over to Starry Nites for a cup of coffee but never did. I had this small painting in front of me that I just kept picking at and I knew I wasn’t following Fred Lipp’s rules for procedure. “You always address the worst first.” I know this and here I was over developing one section without bringing another even onto the playing field. Fred checked up on me a number of times and finally couldn’t help himself. He said, “I keep waiting for you to get the the rest of the painting and I don’t see anything happening. You’re wasting your time.” I think I knew that. I was in a funk.

I had a short stack of paintings that did I had worked on at home and I showed them to Fred. I had addressed problems on them that he had called my attention to the week before. And sure enough, Fred now moved past those areas and found more more small problems. And so it goes. If I proceed by the rules things do get better. But it takes an effort.

I wiki’d “existentialism” because I was quite sure I was having an existential crisis. Kierkegaard maintained that the individual solely has the responsibilities of giving one’s own life meaning and living that life passionately and sincerely, in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom.

I painted all day yesterday and went around in circles. The world does not need another painting, I don’t need another painting but I want to do a painting that works. I would get a kick out of that.

Today, we stopped in at Deb Jones’ 40th Birthday Mexican Brunch and talked to Steve Grills about a funky little place out on 441 called Cary Lake. 1940’s style, combination party house and bar, f-u-N-k-y. He payed there with his band and loved it. Iggy Pop’s new album was on. It didn’t sound so adventurous. Iggy can do what ever he wants. I thought it was going to be wilder.

Then headed over get to MuCCC to play a set at a memorial event for Steve Letkauskas, a friend of Bob’s. Steve’s brother, Tom, said, “Time showed kindness and grace when it ushered Steve into the the warm embrace of eternity.”I bought my djembe and played that and we did some pretty cool dirges. Peggi took this photo after the event.

I met a group of kids at a Rochester shelter for the homeless and photographed them while we shared pizza. I did a series of paintings of the kids and was asked to display them at a charity auction last night at Monroe Golf Club. The paintings were still wet when I photographed them on our back porch yesterday. They were arranged on easels at the entrance to the party room last night and looked completely out of place in the country club setting.

We sampled wine from a local liquor store, ate olives from the party tray and listened to The Greg Clark Four play a set of original cocktail jazz. Peggi and I were the only ones who clapped at the end of their songs. I had my eye on an autographed Abby Wambach soccer ball that was in the silent auction and was happy to see it go out my range.

We packed up the paintings and headed over to the Memorial Art Gallery for the opening of “Paint Made Flesh“. Ran into Lorraine, Geri, John, Maureen and Susan from my painting class along with our teacher, Fred. The opening is not the time to see the paintings but a perfect time to celebrate them. This was a pretty good turnout for what is apparently a tough show for a lot of people. Who would have guessed that this morning’s paper would use “Disturbing”, “Harrowing” and “Anguish” in lead ins and headlines for their coverage of this show. It’s only paint for crying out loud. I plan to visit this show a few times in the next month.