Last Thoughts and New Project

I realized that last spring I did a landscape which also had a figure in it but the figure was very ambiguous and hardly recognizable. Here is a detail seen below:

Anyway for my next project there will not be a figure but there will be some architecture. I have decided to do a diptych of the two houses of solitude. However, due to my lack of free time and the fact that my last large painting took so long to finish I won't be doing too many preliminary studies. It will hopefully be a looser and quicker, more expressive painting and the two houses I hope will be fairly painterly and ambiguous.

What is to come...

I did one last portrait of myself with long hair before cutting it off. It turned out unintentionally very dark and strange as usual....

I would like to do more portraits but alas I lack a muse and have only myself to paint!

I was not sure what to do with two large pieces of sheet rock until just now. I wasn't even sure what my new project would be since I have many different ideas. But now I know... Update in a few days!

Fini

Poem 5/12/10

In autumn I walked
down this street
like it was a cloud
light on my feet
an ecstatic dream.
Now I glide
with peace and ease.
The sidewalk shimmers
its faded gleam
no longer blinds me
binds me inside.
I can see the houses
their fences and the trees.
I'm not a breath.
I can breathe.
Everything is green.

Where Solitude Stands

I had two important dreams involving Walden Pond. The first one occurred over a year ago when I was living in Paris and the second one just a couple of weeks ago. They had a strange connection other than Walden so I took it as a sign that I should spend some time there and paint.

The second and most recent dream which I had was extremely vivid. The entire dream took place at Walden on the side near the railroad tracks. The beach was closed but the whole pond path was crowded with people swimming along the edge of the pond. At a certain point I looked out at the water and tried to see it as Thoreau must have seen it and for a brief second I was able to do so. The water was shimmering and reflecting an orange light coming from the sky. It was beautiful. Then I looked up to see giant stadium lights shining down on the pond and to my horror realized that it wasn't even day time and everything was artificial.

In the first dream an important life ideal was highlighted. It is the idea of "being alone together" that is to say that two people would each be alone but....together. Side by side in their solitude. In this dream there was a specific suggestion to live in two houses in a field across the street from each other. I have only ever recreated this image three times as seen below but I have wanted to make a great painting of it ever since I had the dream.

Just after having this dream I read for the first time Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" and found a passage that pin-pointed the idea in my dream:

"the love that consists in this, that two solitudes protect and border and salute each other."

Ghost of Derain

My grandmother owns a beautiful portrait of a young lady painted by André Derain. I made a copy of it in acrylics several years ago. When I was visiting my parents I saw it sitting in a beautiful light, cast in shadows by the curtains and could not help but share!

Making progress

Things are getting better. I still can't find the patience to paint that foot but I knew that would be a problem from the beginning. Feet are tricky. The symbolism of the painting has changed a lot. I wish that I could provide a better image but this will have to do for now.

creepin...

Just a lonely tree in Somerville.
cathartic gesso dripping in action...

Poem 4/31/10

Sullen and sunk

in a deeply dug hole

you were defeated.

Betrayed by the kind

you most needed.
Weary and grey

"From this path I won't stray"

but in protecting your feet

you conceded.

Thirsty and poor

you head off for the shore

then feeling your hunger

you feed it.

Tired and warm

you built up a home

but in remembering before

you retreated.

The path doesn't change

it is lonesome and strange

it will take you only where

you lead it.