Mania

There's a lot of stuff going on in the studio right now. Everything from birch bark to collaborative work to oil paintings. The past month or so has allowed a generous liberation of previously tied down energy. This past week especially has been very fruitful.

It is good!

It is good except for this annoying blood blister that I gave myself while clumsily assembling stretcher bars:

UGH

Nice place to go swimming :)

I wonder if there's a jelly fish hiding down there...

Oooommmm

Lavender of course

Phil on top, me on the bottom

Phil vs. Me

Drawing of me done by Phil

Myself 3 times

Crazy hair inspired by Phil's initial drawing

Birch bark from Walden Pond finding it's new tentative home

Walden birch bark painting in process

Some oils in process

Oil in process

Dark cathartic ugly schizoid self portrait

Trevor

I cheated and looked at a picture to correct the shape of the eyes. The rest was done from memory.

Sometimes it is easier to see things when they are not right in front of you.

Territory Flashback!

The first entry in this blog includes a giant yellow ocre unfinished portrait of Hillary Clinton in the pose of St. Theresa in Ecstasy in an unusual studio in Paris and my explanation for abandoning ship. I saw one of the girls who worked in that studio with me and we listened to "G" (aka Goldfrapp's album Supernature) and I drew "the Hillary" from memory. After slaving away at her hyper-realistic pores for 9 months I remembered her quite well. During the drawing I became visibly upset. Then I drew the garden there from memory. I still feel a bit "traumatized" (as Sergio the master of the infamous Territory would often say).

Only a psychoanalyst could explain this...

I guess my way of expressing that I am sad that Trevor is leaving for a few weeks is by painting him in his kitchen while it is on fire.........hmmmmmmmmm

Update and details:

August Poetry

8/20/10

Your beauty is so great.

I want only to paint

and embrace you.

I am lost wondering

how to honestly face, truly,

and forward into your gaze,

simply and naturally,

free of hesitation,

free of wandering,

and questioning what's under me.

8/24/10

Free me, blue room,

filled with the blinking ghosts

of family heir looms,

crowding the dead empty space.

It is the great day

of phone calls and cake,

of feeling not enough,

of wanting more

yet receiving nothing necessary,

of lacking and looked forward to.

Oh, blue room,

ring the bells

of true freedom.

Open the casket for me.

These walls are simply here.

The torch is simply burning

and it is my hand that is holding.