Monday, October 18, 2010

Drawings?








Yes, I've been moderately productive lately -- at just about everything except updating my blog.

Here's a few recent drawings. The first two are in the show at spotArt, the third is a study for a painting which I felt was fun enough to include in this post, and the last one was the mystery piece which was raffled off during the 'Indispensable elements' opening. Suffice to say, someone got quite a deal...

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

... Oops.

So, I suffered what can only be described as a catastrophic collapse of my art goals for the past week, which involved the following:

1. Finish 'Alpha Trinity' -- *FAIL*

2. Finish 'Omega Trinity' (2nd half of the diptych) -- *FAIL*

3. Finish the 24" x 60" seated nude from March/April -- *FAIL*

4. Finish the 2nd half of the Homer diptych -- *FAIL*

5. Frame 'Sunday 9:05' and 'Masonic Gifts' -- *FAIL*

6. Deliver *anything* to Echo Arts for the St. Paul Art Crawl -- *FAIL*


All of these tasks were started, and were the reason for a substantial amount of lost sleep over the past two weeks. #4 was the cause of a two-hour night of sleep the week before, #5 almost cost me my job at Tradewinds, #1 and #2 are a consequence of personal standards and those directly lead to failure #6. Everything was at partly a result of expecting to have seven full days to work before leaving for Montreal on 10/4, but being left with just three (Monday, Wednesday, Saturday). I tend to get asked to work at the least convenient times. In the future I may just request time off before any showing...

I know I'm being a bit rough on myself, but my self-acknowledged failure to achieve those previously established (and admittedly lofty) goals doesn't mean that I regret the choices I made that lead to those 'failures'. As much as I enjoy the reward of pushing myself as an artist, I enjoy good company far more.

My artistic challenge for the next five days is coming up with five absurd hairstyles to test-ride along the streets of Montreal (while not losing my passport in the process). I'm looking forward to returning home and spending a month without deadlines to finish the trinity (both halves, as it's now a full-on diptych rather than 'point and optional counter-point').


Friday, September 24, 2010

Studio update: 9/24

Title: (work in progress)
Size: 24" x 18"

Medium: Oil on canvas


So rather than finishing the self portrait and starting some other high-priority stuff, I've spent the last two solid work days in the studio painting drapery and some really cool podiums/lecterns that I picked up for free by the side of the nearby co-op dumpster. They had just cleaned out the old meeting hall upstairs; the dumpster itself was full of goodies from roughly 1915-1970, mostly documents pertaining to that particular chapter of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (some funky fraternal organization which I know nothing about).

This painting was started the previous day, using cardboard boxes and drapery. The figure is pretty rough presently, but adding the new (old) furniture helped a lot.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Alpha Trinity

Title: Alpha Trinity
Size: 36" x 24"
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Status: In progress

This piece was started on my 25th birthday, on the second day of work the objects were added. The use of those two objects directly references my painting 'David and Goliath' from February of this year. However, I soon realized that there was an uncanny resemblance to a much older painting which I had stood in front of in 2006 ... Masaccio's 'Holy Trinity', painted in 1426, in the Florentine church Santa Maria Novella.




Here's a detail of Masaccio's Trinity. I'll discuss the piece in a future blog post as I bring it towards completion (It will be included in the Spotober group show, Oct. 15th - Nov. 12th)

As a point of interest, Masaccio was 25 when he painted his 'Trinity'.