What's in a name?

It takes as long to name a painting, for me,  as it does to paint the thing and I don't have nearly as much fun doing it. What I want to express is pre-verbal. All my senses are involved in understanding the world around me and it's harder to put words to a gut level comprehension.

What if, as we move through spacetime, we cause ripples the way a heavy body bends spacetime. As I paint, I move around and time passes, and what I've done and thought before this moment affects this moment now. That's a lot of freight and maybe we can feel the displacement. Now, how do I get a title out of that muck?

I'm using a physics term in another discipline because time is thought of as universal and constant but when I'm painting my life experiences are part of the process creating a little wrap around my easel.

I'm not going to title this new painting right away, until I think of something pertinent. So for Art Walk this Friday I'll leave it untitled. Wouldn't it be neat if someone read this blog and came into the show to make some suggestions or start a discussion about these issues? Yes it would.

I am not the building's information booth.

The art I've been doing lately in one pic.

I did not think that I'd get much art done today as I have been feeling very 'ify' lately...if I can continue to produce interesting art, if I'm happy to be here, if I exist... But look what I did! Last week, I painted cheesy horse paintings like a 12 year old while I was at home just fiddling around. I was heartened to see that I was able to handle the paint and the values such that I produced a modeled figure, though.

The last two days, came into the studio/gallery and tried to paint a large painting of a horse and got so bogged down in proportions that I grew frustrated again. Today, I turned that icky painting around and found an icky drawing. I was just in the mood to fool around with that and so produced the thing you see on the easel. I'm not thrilled with it but don't hate it either. Its just another step down the path shrouded in mystery toward the goal that's obscured by mysterious shrouds.

FINALLY I took the cradled boards that I got from Dakota Art and immediately felt intimidated by their more serious nature than the paper that I have been working on recently. I have no problem pushing flimsy paper around. What the hell, I put some marks on the boards and found that they weren't at all slick as I had thought they'd be. I feel like the more solid feel of the boards encouraged my confident handling of the shapes. I will put a photo of one of them up in my next blog. I want their insouciance all to myself for a while.

I stopped into Allied Arts of Whatcom County to check out their 2001 Juried Artist Series and saw Yvette Neumann's ( www.particularsstudio.com ) and Enid Wilson's ( www.enidwilsonstudio.com ) paintings. I was very inspired by their beautiful treatment of shapes and colors. It's very exciting to have such artist's of high caliber living and working in this area.

New Gallery.

I have opened a gallery in the Bay Street Village building near the Blue Horse Gallery in Bellingham, Washington. This is my first week open. It's not as if I had a lot of things to do, move a few things in, get licenses and talk to new people but I'm wiped out. It's the talking that did me in I think.

No sales, but then I didn't really expect any. A few people took interest in my paintings, at least. That was encouraging. I think my market is in more urban areas so I'm looking at this venture is a warm up for when I move out into the big world. I did manage to do a little painting yesterday and to attend a couple of model sessions this week and that's keeping me from feeling as if I've completely gone off the rails.

Pacific NW Abstract Show

Tomorrow, I drive to Anacortes to attend a drawing session afterwhich, I drive to Stanwood to deliver this painting to the Gallery by the Bay's Pacific NW Abstract Show. I will be showing with many other local artists. I feel lucky to be able to participate.

Now that the holidays are over, I am looking forward to taking up my regular schedule of drawing and am ready to move on to painting. I have also signed up for a Gage portrait painting class. We'll see if I'm able to absorb anything useful there.

Relief Maps

April 2, I will be having an opening for my Relief Maps exhibition of large abstracts. These paintings explore the terrain of life to find out where the artist has been and perhaps to chart a future course. Its my first solo show and I'm excited and nervous. I hope I have covered every contingency. Guess I need a map!