More from the Backyard

These were made the year the starlings invaded our backyard and snapped the heads off all the tulips before they even bloomed. Not sure when that was, but the cats have since solved the problem.

Backyard

These are from the backyard, in varying degrees of abstraction. The middle one has to do with my plum tree (which I have drawn countless times and am now inspired to hunt down amongst all the scribbling). The tree is quite beautiful and in nearly twenty years has given me exactly one plum.

Flower Pictures

Not my usual flower pictures, but just some scribbly forms from the backyard. Which reminds me, I have weeding to do this morning. 

Tuesday morning

Summer is a-cumen in...

Counting the days now before I close up shop here in the city for another summer's work. This year feels different to me. It feels like an end of something. I'm going back to my usual place; the cats will come with me and T. will stay down here to hold the fort (so to speak). What feels different is that the paintings I'm making are for no one but myself. It's a change from the past several years when I knew there was a gallery interested in what I was doing, whether they were able to sell them or not. But, I'm on my own this time and the heady feeling of exploration is often countered by abject fear. Recent perusals of the artworld, both on-line and on foot have me convinced that the jig is up. There is most definitely a resurgence of painting, but what kind of painting? Mostly bad. I am resisting the temptation to name names here because it feels mean-spirited, but suffice it to say that I think maybe painting has died yet again. We'll see what I can manage to bring back in the fall before leveling criticism at any of my own tribe. But I'm worried.

Four more from the sketchbook

Contrast & Compare

A sketchbook page from late '90s, not even sure it was supposed to be a head, but it reminded me of this by Alexei Jawlensky:

 

as well as this by Constantin Brancusi:

At Random

Back to Normal—But not for Long

Various dusts have settled, and I've been in the studio working on a new series. This time, it's NOT flowers! A whole new direction which has been simmering for several years. But I'm not posting sneak previews, this time, because I'm not sure yet where (or how) it's going. In two weeks, I'll be outta here and off to my summer studio with no internet, email, TV. Just me and my garden and the work (and a cellphone). Meanwhile, I'm still combing through old sketchbooks for signs of life. These were done in the summer of 1969 when I was a highschool dropout living in a garage in northern Vermont, having escaped the asphyxiating chaos of my family home. Ancient history. More later.