Ephemera
Studio Notes
You struggle, you fight with the paintings. They're not cooperating. Then suddenly...yeah. That's it. That's where they were going. But you have to go through that difficult section to get there. The difficult section is in fact vital to the painting, part of its DNA, without it it couldn't survive. You can't go around it, or wait for it to pass. You have to keep pushing. Eventually every painting breaks open.
Studio Notes
The Browns are growing into something delicious, like caramelized onions or crème brûlée. We stopped quarreling, stopped pretending there wasn't a mutual attraction. I'm digging this color palette, the tones, natural, warm. Without really trying I arrive at old leather, smoked tobacco, black coffee. These are also the colors of Kyoto, the machiya houses. I suppose that is no coincidence.
Studio Notes
It feels like the 19th Century in my second floor atelier, trying to work and stay warm as autumn begins its move into winter. Japanese houses are designed to stay cool in the summer, not warm in the winter.
Studio Notes
A series never works for me because every painting after the first is more and more contrived. The first painting is successful because it arrives naturally, spontaneously. Every subsequent painting in a series is aping that first one in some way. They are different, certainly, but I feel they are somehow less sincere. Even if they appear more evolved or sophisticated, they lack the impulse and the guts of the original.
Studio Notes
Daylight vs. fluorescent light. I'm working in both and it is sort of messing with me. Paintings appear finished when I see them in fluorescent light; then the next morning in natural light I see how they need more work. Or vice versa. I have painted pretty much my whole life indoors beneath incandescent or fluorescnt bulbs. My studios tend not to have windows. The second floor of my little house in Uji-City, which I turned into my atelier, has wonderful natural light in the morning and afternoon. There are windows on all four walls. It is a great space, but it is so strange to see the paintings change with the lighting.
Studio Notes
I won't say I was bored with the blue/gray palette. I love the whole spectrum of these colors. But I felt the paintings were about to become redundant. I squeezed 9 pieces from these tubes. Burnt umber, burnt sienna + black and white is the new series. I don't think I've really used these colors exclusively since university 20 years ago. I don't know them. So far we are not really getting along. It is not exactly hostile, but defintiely not chummy. We'll see if we become friends.
Studio Notes
I may be overthinking the current pieces. Those early successes were so random. I'm not sure how I arrived there. Now I think I'm trying to replicate. And, as often is the case, the current batch are refusing to go to that same destination. I'm forcing them and they are resisting. I don't blame them, really. Let's go somewhere new. When I'm trying too hard I feel it all through my body. Tension grows. Remember Sabro Hasegawa: paintings are formed as naturally as rocks or grass.
Studio Notes
Shit. Am I painting landscapes? Knife flourishes, burnisher smears. Plus the usual rip/tear. Who do these belong to?
Studio Notes
Suddenly the three new pieces leapt up and moved beyond the previous three. Were those first paintings warm-ups? The New Three are good in a less obvious way, collage almost obliterated. They have a strange 60s feeling to them. Painterly. I've never been one for "periods", but I'm digging this color palette, shades of blue and gray. Quiet.
Studio Notes
I want to simplify. I've reduced my color palette to black, white and blue. Try for more negative space, less all-over painting. These first three panels...sometimes they look done, sometimes I feel they need something more. I could be pushing them. Let them breathe. Let the materials do what they will do. Give them time. Be patient. Make it a dialogue, not a lecture.
Studio Notes
Back in it. I'm rather amazed. I expected weeks or even months of crap, staring down, frustration. Perhaps it is the focus. There are no distractions here. I'm alone in a foreign land. I don't speak the language. I have only to paint. This could be an extremely productive period.
New materials; some of the old techniques. Feeling my way around. It may be good; it may be bad. It's too early to tell. But it seems to be working.
Studio Notes
Getting started. That's the hardest part, really, after so many months of inactivity. I've bought some lightweight Japanese wood panels and "modeling paste". (?!) I've got a great little space with incredible natural light. But there is stress. I feel it across my back. The confidence and swagger of Red Hook is missing. I've got to be patient, relax, and keep at it. Daily. At the same time, one mustn't force things.
The Apartment After 15 Years
Inspired by the 1955 Charles and Ray Eames short film "House After Five Years of Living", this 16 minute film is a detailed documentation of the Brooklyn Heights apartment where artist Robert Wallace lived for 15 years.
Checklist
1. We’re looking for you
2. Note: don’t do this
3. Who’s calling the shots?
4. 3 o’clock drinkers
5. Coming into their own
6. A blues armada
7. Two martinis, two beers and a bourbon
8. Writer
9. Looking for the exit
10. Stabilization treatment
11. Thumb twiddling
12. Open call
12a. certain restrictions apply
13. I’m going to ________________.
14. Reclaim your identity
15. Don’t hold your breath
16. Cheques and balances
17. Post-studio art
18. One for the road
19. People that are happy
20. Celebrating another defeat
21. “I’m right on the edge”
22. Listening to the B-side first
23. Dreams burn down
24. Make up a story
25. The criminal fringe
26. Without headphones, curious
27. Mending spider webs
28. That we were winning
29. Digital mayhem
30. No champagne or apples
31. There’s still hope
32. She stormed out
33. Degrees
Checklist
1. Ditchdigger
2. Beautiful and misunderstood
3. It felt like a funeral
4. Becoming irrelevant
5. The color of old plywood
6. “lines thicken”
7. Borrowed time
8. It’s-gonna-be-all-right music
9. the prescribed 7,848 feet
10. Matisse’s blue
11. Proof of a good time had
12. The first one is always free
13. My fatal flaw
14. Der Blaue Reiter
15. A letter of introduction
16. December letters
17. The leaky roof
18. We’re counting on you
19. Make them accomplices
20. The old days
21. Bruised stone
22. I don’t fucking care
23. Fucking things up
24. Hors-champ
25. Tore the playhouse down
26. Atmospheric pressure
27. A cast of thousands
28. What’s going on here?
29. Four and twenty blackbirds
30. Spending on the future
31. Civilized
32. Her shoulder blades
33. Degrees
Checklist
1. Starting over (again)
2. Like blood coagulating in a wound
3. The middle of nowhere
4. Beautiful nonsense
5. He was asking for it
6. World without end
7. In too deep
8. When the money is gone
9. I don’t believe in reprise
10. Diaphanous dreams
11. Whiskey drinking songs
12. One of these days
13. Just squeaking by
14. A crushing fatigue
15. “A global event to encourage spending”
16. The rumble seat
17. So drunk, so often
18. Who knows
19. The camaraderie of fools and dreamers
20. Good evening, sir
21. gin = swagger
22. Lurching towards order
23. “tilt toward the edge”
24. I know I’m right
25. Like water rushing to the lowest point
26. I must be doing something wrong
27. American born, 1969
28. Two midnights in a jug
29. A bat out of hell
30. (order) collapsing
31. What is the point?
32. Just like in the song
33. Degrees
