Category: Notions & Ruminations

  • Dateline: Mitchell, Oregon, Sept. 15, Day 10

    I am aweary this evening. But I tromped again today to the back of the outback and did another medium sized painting (18 x 24).  I also worked some more on yesterday’s painting from that same spot. So here is the photo of the space I concentrated on today: And here’s the 18 x 24″…

  • Wonky-Scapes, a truncated history

    I was prevented from hanging my upcoming exhibit Wednesday afternoon by construction issues, so I decided my spare time could be spent rummaging around in my brain, thinking about how I got to doing wonky plein air and studio city-scapes. The exhibit is Wonky PDX: City-Scapes by Yours Truly, showing at the Full Circle Gallery,…

  • Thomas Hart Benton: Vertical Composition, Energy Fields, and Space through Size

    Thomas Hart Benton  seems to hold one or more of the keys to my attempts to consciously understand my own painting processes. Thomas Hart Benton, Boomtown, 1927 –1928* As I noted here and here, I am concerned to find that sweet spot, the riparian zone of visual art, where space becomes place, but is not…

  • Petrified Forest Residency: A concluding remark or two, in Context

    I have been shilly-shallying about writing this conclusion for close to a month now. And it’s not because I don’t know what I want to say. I think it’s because I can summarize or I can expostulate, and while the first is almost too brief, the latter is too turgid. So here are some silly…

  • Petrified Forest Residency, Almost Finished: Oct. 16, 2010

    October 16, 2010: Last painting finished in the Petrified Forest. Yesterday we toured Holbrook, where we “did” Jim Gray’s Rock Shop, a serious classic of its kind, checked out the Museum Courthouse, walked through and photographed the Centennial Historic Register District, and got home by 1 PM. Oh and we had a Dairy Queen. Then…

  • Petrified Forest Residency, Day 14, Oct 9, 2010

    Blue Mesa Badlands, Petrified National Forest, 2010. Having survived the demos, I am taking the day off from painting. Which didn’t exactly mean sleeping in. We got up at our usual time, but this morning, instead of pulling myself up and pulling things together and pulling myself to the car to get to the painting…

  • Petrified Forest Residency: Travel, Sept 19

    Caldwell, Idaho: too tired, too rainy, too much road, too tacky the surrounds, to do any painting outside tonight. I did drag out my colored pencils and sketch pad and ended up doing a pseudo-watercolor (pseudo because it was sketched and then scratched in with watercolor pencils and brushed over). I wish this piece were…

  • “Finished” Done, Complete, Replete, the End: Nov 30, 2009

    I have declared the big linen panorama “finished.” Note the quotes. I almost never finish a work until it has sat and thought for a while. And until I have sat and looked for a while. However, we will hold an Open Studio next Saturday, pack up the Studio Sunday, pack up the house after…

  • Unoriented: Day 29, Nov. 29, 2009

    I told Jer this morning that I should be able to “finish” these canvases in another two days. Tonight I’m not so sure. But I’m not going to show any more photos of them until I’m fairly confident that I’ve done as much as I can see to do. The panorama set does have a…

  • Short Day with Evaluation: Day 24, Nov. 24, 2009

    I got up slowly and moved slowly and sipped my coffee slowly, and did desultory emails but finally, slowly, went off to the studio about 10:30 AM. I thought, since it was already too late to do anything serious, that I would try setting up the internet connection at the Red Barn. Jer and I…