2:23 pm: FOOLING AROUND
i finally acquired a purpose today. mikela needs some images for our actionlab site: the chapter on observe and the one on empathy. she requested that i shoot some photos for that purpose. BELOW: some of the images that came out of that request. in the white frame are a couple of drawings i made in conjunction with this assignment. the frame is something we picked up at IKEA last monday, which i'll use to frame abstract works on paper for space gallery in denver, where we'll be attending an opening july 30th and i'll be bringing them a selection of works on paper. sometimes out of ennui comes creative energy. (scroll down & read my 11:24 am post)
now that i found a way to jump start my process, i'm having visions of breaking up the picture plane of future parade paintings in this series.
2 questions: can i do it? and, more important, will it present a cohesive whole in my november houston show?
11:24 am: today marks the 6th day i haven't painted, while waiting for my hand to heal from surgery. sometimes, like right now, i literally don't know what to do with myself. if i can't paint, then who am i? what do i do? part of the value i'm finding lies in these questions.
i drove into town this morning because saturday is egg day. judy drives up at exactly 10 am with dozens of freshly laid eggs, and i buy a few dozen. usually, i'm in a big rush to get back to my studio to continue whatever painting i'm working on. not today. i brought my ipod with me and put it on "shuffle." judy was uncharacteristically late by about 4 minutes. i listened to the random selections engendered by the shuffle function. whilst listening to a piano piece, i wished i had learned to play the piano. while listening to the late great greek rembetika singer sotiria bellou, i remembered fifteen years of life in greece and wondered, as i sometimes do, why? was it pure chance that led me to marry, have a son, develop deep relationships, learn the nuances of modern spoken greek, fully immerse myself in a foreign culture and have a career as an artist in that now struggling country?
across from me, on my easel, sits a 3/4 completed painting: parade 47. a sidewalk artist in denver is creating a reproduction of a painting, possibly a rubens. the next portion i'll be painting, when i can resume, is an area of the colored chalk reproduction featuring a naked breast with crimson nipple, popping out like a ripe grape with tightly stretched skin. in the lower right corner sits the artist's bag, with a beautiful intricate pattern i can't wait to paint.
BELOW: a few shots i took this past wednesday. they are of kids in the robot class, which was very popular and one of the first to enroll. the teacher, a friend named george, who is a professor at adams state university in alamosa, was really great with the kids, who are all, as is obvious deeply engaged in learning how to build a robot. the classes will take place every wednesday though august 5th, followed by a day when all the classes will present what they accomplished over the month-long summer camp. this was our first year, and we learned a lot about how to market some of the less popular classes like improv, and in general how to improve the experience next summer.
and now, on with whatever it is i'll be doing today.
