2:12 PM: today i’m dividing my time between 3 paintings. the first is 7/10/2021 creek oil, which I worked/played on yesterday.
red and blue bands of color have appeared top & bottom, and an area of bubbly blue creek water appears on the right. a collaged piece further invades the predictability of the figure of the little girl in the red cap holding her toy.
7/10/2021 creek oil at 2:30pm
7/25/2021 ano kato. 16x20.
2:44 PM: the second painting I modified is 7/25/2021 ano kato. a few more touches of color have appeared on one of the 4 figures seen from above, as well as a small pool of bubbly blue creek water at the feet of the figure in green.
although it was quite a few years back, I have a distinct memory of leaning over the railing at MOMA, one floor above, and photographing these visitors to the museum strolling about. it took all this time for what I saw to distill into the poetry of what we see here.
3:31 PM: and finally, I made one significant modification to 6/10/2021 creek oil. there was something bothering me about that black sweater that the striding guy has over his shoulders. too much uninterrupted black…it needed something that would connect it to the collaged pieces of ink drawings scattered through the rest of the painting. I think what I did works but i’m still pondering what’s really going on in this painting. the right portion, now that it’s become a horizontal, has an almost gorky-esque quality, and i’m increasingly feeling that the striding figure on the left may be out of place in this environment, and that the rest of the composition wants to gobble him up! on the other hand, he’s like an anchor for all that’s going on to his right, and makes this painting more of a human drama than simply a cool abstraction. stay tuned, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.
6/10/2021 creek oil after a modification I made this morning to the sweater thrown over the guy’s shoulders.