random abstract 1 12 1/2 x 8” gouache & watercolor on paper
3:10 PM: so what have i been up to since i adjusted the photos of early paintings you see below? i felt in the watercolor mode, so i started 3 of them, going from one to the other so as to switch it up. each of them had strong passages, so i cut them, along with one i did a few days ago into squares, face down on the cutting mat so as not to let the images influence where i made my cuts. the pieces are more or less square, which is a significant aspect of what i was up to. leaving the pieces face down and shuffling them like a deck of cards, i put some sticky tape on the back of each piece i chose and then flipped each piece over and stuck it somewhere in the evolving composition. some of course were blank, or almost so. i used my intuition as to where each piece would go, rather than making my decision by evaluating the entire evolving composition.
the result is posted on the LEFT.
Dr. Anthony F. Gregorc, is the creator of the Mind Styles™ Model of learning types, and according to that model i am somewhere between abstract random and concrete random. this may, in part explain what i just did, and why i did it. i find predictability, especially in art, deadening.
11:45 AM: this morning i checked out a small memory card containing digitized slides of past paintings. i had adjusted them when they were first digitized and hadn’t looked at them since. with the new desktop and the latest photoshop updates, i was able to make better adjustments.
the first 4 were painted in my athens studio overlooking the tower of the winds, in the plaka neighborhood, 1973-78. the view from my studio window can be seen in the painting on the 2nd row, right. on the top left, an almost completed (my easel, for example, hasn’t yet been painted in) painting that includes some of my favorite construction worker models. kyriakos, in the center, was a street cleaner who would come and pose for me. the others were workers from a nearby construction site. this painting was purchased from a 1974 exhibition i had at ora gallery, which no longer exists, near constitution square in athens. the woman who purchased it is no longer alive, and i can’t track down where it is. that’s a real shame, since it’s the final painting in a series i made over years.
according to Dr. Gregorc’s Mind-Styles™ model, i would fall into either the abstract random or concrete random mind style. it’s neither here nor there, but it could be an interesting way of understanding what i just did, and why i did it. i don’t like predictability. i think it’s deadly, especially but not only in art.
eight workmen with the artist painted in my athens studio in the plaka neighborhood, ca. 1975, oil on linen
in the 3rd row are 2 paintings done in andros, where my then wife, mother-in-law & son dimitri spent our summers. 3rd row left: the village of menites, a few kilometers from the capital, chora. and 3rd row right: a painting title calling home. this was the only long distance phone booth on the island, in front of the newspaper shop in the main square, kairis square, owned and run by my dear friend andonis polemis, a quirky, very funny, very intelligent guy, full of life. he published the only newspaper on the island at the time, which he printed on his hand operated press.
on the 4th row left: a painting in egg tempera on board inspired by a photo i took of myself and the deck of david hockney while i was house sitting for him in his hollywood hills home. he purchased it, and it’s now part of his collection. and bottom right: a painting also in egg tempera on board, of a reclining figure at the municipal building in northampton, mass. i know northampton well, as it is just 14 miles from huntington and norwich lake, where i went to camp from the age of 5 until i was 16., when i was no longer a camper and became the driver, going to and from northampton to pick up mail and groceries in the (camp) birchwoods station wagon. for more details, visit my story page in the drop down menu, above, or, go to this link: https://www.philiptarlow.com/chatty-bio
bottom row: one of a series of paintings of nyc architecture i made in the early ‘80’s, when i was living and painting in nyc, on central park west, and showing at fischbach gallery, located at the time on 59th street.
