12:51 PM: the fgure on the lower right now sports a pink top, while the face and plaid shirt of the upper figure have been tweaked.
it’s likely that this is the final stage of the painting. three stages leading up to today are shown below. today’s modifications, especially the pink shirt, have brought the painting to life.
3/11/25 ano kato, 20x18” oil on linen
BELOW: 3 stages in the evolution of 3/11/25 ano kato
3/11/25 ano kato, 20×18” oil on linen, as she looked following today’s transformation
12:47 PM: once again, i scraped and whited over it and commenced a new composition, inspired this time by photos i shot 3-4 years ago at the opening of an exhibition in denver. this particular gallery has an upstairs space, and from there i was able to shoot the photo i used today.
as usually occurs, the underlying layers; the scraping revealing a bit of those previous layers all contribute to an unpredictability and richness, allowing the viewer to enter the dance. the architectural rendering of space, which we can find in the original day 1 version (go to my 3/11 post) has now gained in subtlety and mystery.
1:58 PM: i scraped & painted over 3/11/25 ano kato, 20x18”,
3/11/25 ano kato, 20x18” oil on linen
this 1965 watercolor was created in my athens studio, overlooking the tower of the winds, just beneath the acropolis. when i looked down outside my window, i was kyrios yannis sitting in his chair. he parked peoples cars, including mine, on that tricky stretch of the narrow road. i made a series of paintings in watercolor and oil, which ar ein private collections. this is the only one i have. but it clearly reveals that my passion for views from above goes back 60 years!
1:46 PM: i took 3/11/25 ano kato, to the next level today, being careful to work lightly and leave a lot of white space. two more figures have appeared, both viewed from above, drawn from the collection of photos i’ve shot over decades. i’m just in love with views from above.
you could call this a progression from my original ano kato series of paintings, in that i’ve let go of the need to focus on one view from above, allowing a numbver of those views to mingle in a largely invented space; in this case an architectural space. it’s a tad diebenkorn-esque, one might observe. his ocean park series is a breath away. i’m referring to his sense of space, which is of course “abstract.” i’ve come to take issue with the whole notion of “abstract” versus “realist” art. but that’s another direction. what i’m trying to say is that the two distinct phases of my evolution as a painter are joining, in a phase one could call post-ano kato.
ano kato in greek means topsy turvy, a phrase i found useful when referring to my passion for views from above. over the years, i’ve shot hundreds of photos, mainly in architectural settings of such views. the ones that turned me on became paintings. so i say diebenkorn-esque because he has allowed me to find a way to make paintings that are figurative, because they contain figures, and which are now part of an imagined space, joining one another in imagined relationships without however interacting with one another.
3/11/25 ano kato, 20x18”, oil on linen, on day two
an example of a 2014 ano kato painting, 16×16”
skouloudis’ shop, 1979, andros, egg tempera on board. 16x10”
so in this 1979 painting of skoulidis standing in front of his shop on the island of andros, we see the figure anchored in a traditional space. for me, at that time, it was exciting to paint the strong emotions i felt; the fact that he was, as you can tell from the black ribbon on his lapel, in mourning. we frequented his shop and he was a player in the story of my journey to greece and the 15 years i spent there.
the broom; the stack of skip containers, were all part of the story. my story…our story.
what i’m up to in this post-ano kato period is very different and exactly the same. while i feel a deep connection to the figures i’m painting, i don’t know them or anything about them, nor do they know me.
they are and will remain a mystery. chance has brought them together in paint on canvas and they inhabit an imagined space, forever on the edge of bumping into one another.
3/11/25 ano kato, 20x18”, oil on linen, on day one.
3:31 PM: this afternoon i cut a piece of canvas for an 20x18” painting titled 3/11/25 ano kato. i’m revisiting ano kato with a fresh evergy, and we’ll see how it evolves.
9/17/14 ano kato, 16x16” oil on linen
12:22 PM: i made some changes to the paintings hanging on my studio walls this morning. one of the newly hung paintings is 9/17/14 ano kato, a 16x16” oil paintied during the heart of my work on the ano kato series.
feeling worldly, 34x38” oil & collage on portrait linen, as she looked following today’s tweaks
3:31 PM: i felt feeling worldly needed some livening up, so i added some lighter blues and accentuated the tree branches, and it worked.
before and after today”s tweaks
luck and magic, 32x38” oil on portrait linen as she looked at the end of my painting day today.
4:25 PM: a new figure enters the picture…see ya tomorrow!
luck and magic, 32x38” oil on portrait linen, as she looked moments ago
3:10 PM: i took luck and magic to her next stage of development and may stop here for the day…
luck and magic, 32x38” oil on portrait linen, as she looked at 1pm
1:58 PM: luck and magic has become a horizontal. i scraped it while it was still somewhat wet this morning, turned it sideways so that it’s now 32x38” and began painting into it. i’ll be continuing for another hour or two and will post updates.
these are two self portrait on paper created in 2020 which i discovered while sorting through works on paper for my exhibition this summer on the island of andros, greece.
luck and magic, 38x32” oil on portrait linen, as she looked at the end of day 1
3PM: having completed feeling worldly yesterday, i started a new painting titled luck and magic, 38x32”. i like painitng on this portrait linen, especially when it’s unstretched and tacked to the wall. i’ve stopped deliniating the 38x32” bounds in pencil, as i’ve always done; i like the feeling of an unbounded surface and i know from experience where the borders are. if a fraction of an inch gets cut out when it’s stretched, so what?
this super fine portrait linen, as i’ve said before, takes the paint like magic, thus playing a significant role. i’ll continue work on this one tomorrow, and i’ve tacked a second canvas with the same dimensions right next to it, so i can go back & forth if i’m feeling stuck.
working in watercolor on small pieces for my exhibition in greece this summer kind of loosened me up, which i think shows in this forst day of work on luck and magic.
feeling worldly, 32x38” oil & collage on portrait linen, as she looked at the end of my painting day today
2:38 PM: today i painted over feeling worldly and created a creekscape, inspired by the numerous printouts of photos i’ve taken over time. so i know each rock as thought it were an old friend, which it is! my energy ran out about half hour ago, so i’m stopping for the day, and i’ll see how i feel about it tomorrow.
feeling worldly, 32x38” oil & collage on portrait linen, as she looked following a rework still in progress
2:02 PM: i’ve been gazing on and off at feeling worldly on my studio wall since i completed it, on february 19. it wasn’t working for me and, as mikela commented a few days ago, it had no center and your eye kept wandering aimlessly.
so i decided today, after whiting over yesterday’s mamiko and erasing it from my blog post, to go back into it. so here’s where it’s at at 2:08pm, with ever darkening skies and high winds.
BELOW: before & after today’s rework
