Russian Icons from the show at Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester NY
We finally made it over to the Russian Icon show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY. We intended to go with Peggi’s mom but she hasn’t been getting around very well. Yesterday was the last day of the show and I was glad to see that it was really crowded.
I loved this piece, entitled “Archangel Deisis with Christ Emmanuel”, from about 1650-1700. It looks downright contemporary or at least from this century’s “seventies”. The youthful Christ in the center looks cocky and mischievous, his head full of big ideas. And the former top dogs, Archangels Michael and Gabriel, respectfully give it up with a dose of healthy suspicion.
We don’t have cable tv but my mother-in-law does and she likes Fox News. So it is pretty jarring walking in on programming like this. Sometimes I forget that the world has gone over the top.
We previewed the dinner menu on the flyer by the tv and I set my sites on the “Chicken Parm”. We headed down the halls to the dining room and walked slowly by the residents art that hangs outside the dining room. Peggi’s mom sked what I thought of this painting of asparagus by E. T. Zogby and I said, “I love it”. Peggi’s mom laughed and said , “I figured you would like this”.
Asparagus painting by E. T. Zogby
Peggi’s mom likes art and used to volunteer at the Detroit Institute of the Arts but she is always mystified by modern art and used to try to get me to explain why I like it. The best I could do was say, “It’s fun to look at”. She wrestled with the whole concept whenever we went to an art gallery and usually left frustrated. So I thought it was pretty cute that she knew I would like this painting and she didn’t seem bothered by it anymore. I feel like we are getting somewhere.
Suzanne, the dining room manager, stopped by to say hi and we started chatting. We said something about playing and she flashed on our old band, the Scorgie’s days, and realized why she always thought we looked so familiar. She was friends with Andrea Kohler and eventually married Jeff, the bass player in the Cliches. We always thought she looked pretty familiar too. It’s nice to know I have a connection to get my art work on the walls when I move out here in my senior years.
I have been too busy over the holidays to paint or even check in here. Been hanging with our nephew mostly. Peggi and I found an iPod Touch under the tree and our nephew, coincidentally, just posted his recommended apps for the new device on his site. His laptop is crazy glued to his fingers and he hunches over it, hiding his activities under a mop of hair.
It took us three NetFlix sessions to watch a sixty minute documentary called,”Directors: Robert Altman”. Altman reminded us of Martin’s dad, Kenneth Edic. Altman described how he wanted his movies to be adventures. And it was important to him that the actors that he chose be open to an adventure as well. This is what my painting teacher (Fred Lipp) says all the time. “Painting is an adventure. It’s not the execution of a plan.”
“Paul Dodd, made from Paul Dodd paintings” digital print by Steve Piotrowski
“Paul Dodd, Made from Paul Dodd Paintings” digital print by Steve Piotrowski on display at High Falls Gallery in Rochester – click photo for full picture
I first heard about this piece from John Gilmore. And then Steve emailed me that the piece was in a show at the High Falls Gallery. So Peggi and I headed over there this afternoon to check it out. Sally Wood Winslow (Janet Reno’s cousin) runs the gallery and she is so much fun to chat with that it took us about a half hour to get up the stairs to where the art is.
It is a portrait show and Steve, who also has a sensational oil painting of the falls on permanent display here, did this piece in Photoshop. He grabbed a photo of me off the web and digitally repainted my big pixels with other paintings of mine that he found online. You kind of have to squint or get away from it to make sense of the big picture. We were kind of knocked out by all this.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here. The temperature was somewhere in the low thirties so it was perfect packing and we rolled these two dudes up.
I tried to help my dad by buying a harddrive so he good do a proper backup of his system but the Western Digital drive I bought at Buy.com was defective so I spent a good part of the day getting an RMA number, repacking the thing and running it out to the UPS Store to return it. I took advantage of the trip to buy some new canvases at the Art Store in South Town Plaza. I bought six 20″ by 24″ canvases that were 50 per cent off. I was thinking of doing something other than crime guys but there was an enticing “CrimeStoppers” page in the paper this morning.
It will be a relief to play as Margaret Explosion tonight. The gig we did as Personal Effects required rehearsal time, stamia and earplugs. The night before Thanksgiving is usually a good night at the the Little. A woman from my high school class came to see the band when she was in town for our reunion and she asked if her husband could sit in with us on piano when they came back for Thanksgiving so we’ll see what happens.
Last night was my last painting class for the year. Lorraine Bohonos had some beautiful paintings near completion and Geri McCorrmick is breaking out of her concentric mandalas and Maureen Outlaw worked on the end stages of three fantasy scenes. I worked on a crime guy’s honkin’ neck all night. I still seem to spend a lot of time fumbling around trying to find a solution to a problem that I created. These kind of activities test my patience even though I know it is the process that I must learn to enjoy.
Margaret Explosion is a relief because it is all about the moment where Personal Effects was mostly about getting it right for the delivery.
“Local Crime Face 01” oil on canvas by Paul Dodd 2008
I finally finished this guy’s nostrils. He’s another face from the Crimestoppers page in the Democrat & Chronicle. The painting happened really fast. I was just laying it in and it seemed like it was done so I stopped. But I knew the nostrils weren’t right so I repainted them and repainted them again. Then I set the painting aside for a few weeks. I took a fresh look and was not buying them.
I changed the color, I loosened up the edges, I made them less flat and they still weren’t right. Peggi had me tip my head back and she drew the shapes of my nostrils on a piece of junk mail. I changed the shape of these and the painting looked pretty good. Thank you Peggi. I dropped the painting off at RoCo for their Member’s Show. It opens on the first Friday of December.
I sorted my Scorgie’s Reunion photos while talking to Duane on the phone from Brooklyn. I put a about twenty five of them on the Scorgie’s site.
Detail from Paul Dodd Crime Face painting from 2008
It was a good day to cut out of work and go on an art supply run. I needed white oil paint but not just any white paint. I’m in the habit of leaving a lot of white space on my finished canvases. I’ve gotten used to people asking if my paintings are done. Is there some rule that you have to cover all the white Gesso on the store bought canvas? Many times I paint out portions of my paintings with white and then find that the white oil paint yellows over time so the white oil on white Gesso looks more like yellowed white on white Gesso. White oil paint yellows in the dark and then gets bleached out by the light. It really goes to town if the painting gets put a way for a while. I can usually bring it back to white on white with a few weeks of daylight exposure but some paintings are really stubborn.I would love to know what causes this. Is it the pigment or the medium?
I switched from Gamblin to M.Graham and now the M.Graham has yellowed on me. I went out to buy something different but came home with three more big tubes of M.Graham. I found that M. Graham makes two kinds of Titanium White. I was using the one with Sunflower Oil and Alkyd Resin as a vehicle and now I’m going to try the one with walnut oil.
Peggi just finished “Goya” by Robert Hughes. I started it a while ago but never finished it. I got lost gazing at the pictures. I might go back to it later on tonight.
But sadly they are no longer either one. Donuts Delite went out of business years ago and the pink Art Deco building on Culver Road is still still up for sale. My family used to head down there after church and Peggi and I used to stop in there all the time for a fried cake and the best cup of coffee in town. I stopped by yesterday for sentimental reasons and walked around the building. The place has possibilities for dreamers.
I think I overheard Fred Lipp right last night in painting class. I think I heard him say, “How can I make this job easier – for myself?”. If I didn’t catch this completely out of context, I’d say he was explaining how he came up with his teaching methods. His methods are directional and purposeful and efficient and clear. They can take a long time to digest and put into practice mostly because there is so much unlearning to dispense with. His rules are concise. “Get to the subject. Address the worst first. Trust your eye.” These are so powerful that it makes perfect sense that they would also be the right tools to make his job (teaching people how to see) easier.
Fred continued moving across the room and stopped next door at the table where my father was working on his watercolor of the UofR regatta. My father was saying something about what he planned on doing in this painting. Fred was saying, “Painting is a visual adventure, a delight for the eyes. You have to learn to trust your eye. If your eye questions something, pay attention to it and address it”.
Another beautiful day in Western New York and I spent most of it in the basement, painting. Time flies down there. Sometimes my paintings go fast like one in a day but my average must be somewhere near one every ten days or so because I just counted my recent stack and I have done about 40 in the last year or so, all 18” by 24″ assuming the width comes before the height. I should know these things.
I did one yesterday that crashed on me. I should say “I crashed it”. It was nice, loose, expressive, colorful and fun but the chin looked awkward. I tried carving out the chin and in the process of trying to fix it I killed it. Not just the chin, the whole thing. I spun out of control, chasing bad spots that formerly looked fine until I managed to take the life out of the whole painting. Why would someone do that to their own painting? I set it aside and started another one today and I’m trying to drive carefully this time.
I got a glimpse of the continuum from painting with a bad photo as a source through still lifes and en plein air all the way to Philip Guston painting paintings about his duel with painting .
Anne Havens has a show of new work at #354 in the Hungerford Building on Main Street. We got to the opening at the tail end last night and I really wanted to see the show before getting bogged down in conversation so I walked briskly to the back room and studied “Grace” as it wiggled to the evening’s vibe. Anne is one of my favorite artists and this show is sensational, as in exciting for all the senses. There is movement, lights, reflections and sound in the work.
Back out in the main room I poured a glass of red wine and grabbed a fig while talking to Anne. I fumbled the fig and then dropped the wine on the floor. Anne gave me a rag to mop up the mess. Anne’s husband, Stuart Davis, tried to make me feel better by telling me how he gestured with his arm at another opening and knocked a sculpture on the floor. And then today I read how Steve Winn, the Los Vegas casino czar, was showing Picasso’s “The Dream” to a prospective buyer for $139 million when he accidentally slammed his elbow though the painting. So now I feel a little better.
I picked up a cup of coffee at Starry Nites on the way to painting class and I thought I would really make some progress but I must have been in some sort of funk because I barely accomplished anything. I spent most of the night trying different colors in this guy’s nostrils if you can believe that. The guy has a huge neck and he is looking up so there is a lot of description in those features.
I started the painting over the weekend and it developed quickly. It beginnings were so graphic and strong that it was almost done and yet I was just getting started. So if it was almost done, why did it take me all night to advance it? It is at a stage where every move has to be right on. I’ll take a photo of him and post it here when I get it right.
Maureen Outlaw announced that she was going down to the Anchor Inn to celebrate her birthday after painting class so when Peggi picked me up we headed down to the lake to meet her. She was sitting at the bar working on her second LaBatt’s Blue and a plate of chicken wings when we showed up. It was just the third day for the bartender, Amanda, who moved here from Indiana, but it seemed like a pretty comfortable scene.
It was kind of dark and dreary today but that did not get us down. In fact the woods looked more dramatic than usual when we took our walk so we embraced it.
Paul Dodd painting entitled “Model from Crime Page” 2008
Our painting teacher, Fred Lipp, is really much more than a painting teacher. And I don’t say that because he is also an extraordinary artist. He is a fly fisherman too but I have no idea what his skills are in this area. He is more than a painting teacher because his methods for teaching painting can also be applied to living your life. Last night in class I heard Fred give advice to a woman who was painting near me. He said, “Paint it as a whole, from start to finish”.
Say you are heading out for a drive. You might have a destination and you might even use a map. But if you really want to enjoy the ride you may decide to take a detour or a side trip or forget about your destination altogether.
“What we’ve heard is so disturbing It takes time to settle in Our destination doesn’t matter This is it… life hereafter” – Personal Effects, “This Is It” LP, 1984
I’m trying to connect the dots here. I devoured an article on Elizabeth Peyton’s “Live Forever” show in Friday’s New York Times and then started a new crime face painting on Monday. I sketched a guy that sort of looked like a woman and in fact I switched the situation in my mind and thought I was sketching a woman that looked like a man. The people in class thought he was a man and Maureen Outlaw told said he looked like me. When Peggi saw the painting she said, “I like him”. I said, actually it’s a woman and I reached for the Crimestoppers page that I used for my source. His name turned out to be “Jeffery”. I had played up the lips like Elizabeth Peyton did in her portrait of Kurt Cobain and the clothing was loosely painted like her portrait of Piotr Uklanski. My crime guy was thin and more youthful than the source. He looked like a rock star.
We watched the “Life and Times of Frida Kahlo the other night and I was knocked out by how beautiful and exotic Frida Kahlo was. This documentary was so much richer and more interesting than the Frida movie. Frida Kahlo was her artwork. She lived her artwork and painted the whole from start to finish. I have no idea what Elizabeth Peyton is like but I love her work.
While I was applying paint to my sketch of this crime guy and developing his attitude, it suddenly became clear that each move was not helping so I stopped. I was painting the whole from start to finish and this was the finish but I didn’t recognize it at first. The finish could come at any time regardless of my plans. I should live my life this way and then painting would be a breeze.
Brian Peterson sends out a photo a day (almost) to those on his mailing list. I love this one. I’ve cropped it here but you can click on it and see the whole thing. It’s really beautiful.
Speaking of beautiful. I have have fallen in love with another painter’s work. Her name is Mary Heilmann and I had never heard of her until the article in this Sunday’s paper. Peggi read it aloud to me while I was driving back from the mountains and I couldn’t wait toget home to just look at the pictures for a while. There is a slide show that goes along with the article. Now I’m looking for a slot to drive down to New York to see her show at the New Museum.
I brought this painting into class tonight for a show that our class is having in the gallery down at the Workshop but while in class I addressed some problems on a different painting and then decided to leave that one there for the show. My father takes this painting class with me and his neighbor teaches a watercolor class at the Workshop. This neighbor/teacher was telling my father that he does a demonstration in every class and the people love it. My father said he told the neighbor that Fred has never done a demonstration in class the the whole time he has been there. He is just not that kind of teacher.
But Fred may have overheard this conversation because one of the first things he did tonight was say, “May I have attention for a few minutes?”. He went on to say, I see a lot of you are working from a photograph and I just wanted to say that there is a misconception out there about photography. People feel that photos don’t lie and of course they do. Photos haven’t been sorted out unless they were taken by a really good photographer, someone who made decisions about what to leave in and what to take out. And if it is a really good photo that you are working from, all the decisions have already been made for you. It is already done. And why would you want to repeat what you already know? You need to get at the reason you were attracted to the photo in the first place.
To do a good painting you need to be stimulated. You need to solve problems. You need to try things to see what works and what doesn’t. The fun part is the hard part. It is a bit masochistic. This is pretty much what Fred said and it was a pretty dramatic demonstration.
I, on the other hand, am attracted to and work from really bad photos, mugshots from the newspaper as of late, but this applies directly to my process. I am just starting to learn that just because some dude has a neck or two ears or two same size eyes or whatever, I don’t have to paint everything that is in the photo the way it is in the photo. I used to try to reproduce the bad photo and I found this hard and frustrating. Making decisions on what to paint and what not to is not any easier but it is less like beating your head against a wall.
There was a new guy in our painting class last night doing these abstract, big bang sort of paintings. He is also a fly fisherman so he and our painting teacher, Fred Lipp, spent a good deal of time talking abut locations and lures. I was thinking they ought to come over and catch a few of the flys in our house. We had the doors open round here while we gave them two coats of fresh paint and collected a few. I had one wake me up by insisting on landing on my nose.
Fred was relentless last night as well he should be. “What is this?”, he exclaims as he reaches for his grey paper to cover the offending “neck” in my case. “It looks like a tree stump”. My father, who is set up right next to me, gets as merciless an assault. In his case Fred covered half the painting and told him, “There’s your painting”. He was left with a beautiful Maine lighthouse. My father said, “Hey. I pay for this class”. You get what you pay for and we have it no other way.
Fred has a beautiful watercolor on display in the faculty show at the workshop right now. It’s called “Moving On Out…” Why wasn’t he chosen for the upstate biennial that’s currently on display in the MAG? There is no good answer.
We finished a new sheet music cover today for Tony Stortini. This piece is called “Deep Feelings”. Jack Handy comes imediately to mind. How many design firms are still doing sheet music covers these days? Tony is on a creative roll. We already did art for “Hearts of Gold” which he wrote for his daughter and “Tippy Tap Joe” which was dedicatedf to his brother, Nunzio. Peggi stuck Nunzio’s head on tap dancer that she found online.
It is not just a coincidence that we finished painting our house yesterday and that painting class starts up again today (see class listing below). My painting arm is in good shape, my mind is well rested and I am ready to apply myself to this most engaging discipline.
Don’t let the “Advanced” part of the description scare you. Sign up if you if you’d like to be a better painter. Fred Lipp is the best.
ADVANCED PAINTING – Creative Workshop – Memorial Art Gallery Ten Tuesdays, 6:30–9:30 pm, September 23–November 25 [taught by Fred Lipp] This studio is a place of camaraderie, concentration and honesty mentored by highly respected painter and teacher Fred Lipp. Your work will be carefully seen, reviewed, and nudged along, as you’re challenged to consider what you’re creating, why and (most importantly) how the painting works and can work better. Painters work in a variety of styles, manners and media. Register early as this class fills quickly.
What a coincidence! Peggi’s sister comes in to town to relieve Peggi of parental duties and we painted the last of the trim on our house and in today’s paper an article about the Giorgio Morandi show that just opened at the Metropolitan. He is one of my favorite painters. I painted a portrait of him a few years ago.
We have a little more house painting to do tomorrow and then we’ll put away the ladders, the scrapers, the putty knives, the caulk guns the paint cans. And then we might just drive down to NYC for this show.
If I lived anywhere near LA I would be at the Museum of Contemporary for the Marlene Dumas retrospective before it closes on September 22. I can hardly wait for the show to open in New York in December. I haven’t had time to paint on canvas in the last few months. All of my painting has been “en plen air”, on the house. But I have been thinking about painting and I am excited about getting back to it.
Marlene Dumas is great food for though. This quote is from a book of Marlene Dumas watercolors called “Wet Dreams”.
“For me watercolors used to be associated with failed artists (e.g. Hitler), retired politicians (e.g. Churchill) and Sunday painters. It was the most uncritical, non aggressive asexual thing to do. Then it’s image changed. Now everyone is doing it. Falling for this seductive, addictive medium, it’s hard to stop. Every little blob begs to be loved. It’s easy to drown in its sweet perfumes. So I try to raise the stakes. Increase resistance.
Unlike most painters, my watercolors, these days, are bigger than my paintings. A big mistake is better than a small one.”
