Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

This painting grew out of my Guston readings. Like Guston, I wanted to paint an object that is part of my everyday world. I saw this as a celebration of a thing that is well crafted and built to last. The design for a basic shoe has not changed for a long, long time. I was also striving for immediacy in getting the image down, using a projected image to get the placement just right. A funny thing happened as I worked on the piece. It became less about the shoe, or I should say less a celebration of this functional object. As in life, the shoe is begins to get lost in its surroundings. The large color fields, consisting of dozens of layers of paint, quickly draw a viewer's interest away from the shoe. I believe this painting will be a pivotal one. The push-pull between the mundane and sublime has opened up avenues of explorations.

For Guston (Books)

Last Spring, I spent a few weeks with my right arm in a sling then about 6 weeks of physical therapy. During this period, I spent a lot of time reading, especially the writings and statements of Philip Guston and his friend Morton Feldman. It was fascinating to note that Guston's views never changed much, even when he made the "shocking" break from abstraction to figuration. I was drawn to his use of a limited amount of everyday objects and their placement on the canvas. Watching film of Guston at work also inspired me to be more direct in my painting, getting it down quickly. Guston was described as the best read high school drop out ever. I decided to paint a stack of books since this was an image Guston painted over and over again, plus it is a nice play on my last name. Well, the direct thing didn't work out though this was record time for me at around one month to produce. I had already begun work on a couple of other paintings but I realized that I was being drawn to the background as much as to the pile of books. This was more obvious in the next couple of paintings where there is only a single object depicted. I am intrigued by having this celebration of everyday battle and perhaps lose to the empty background. This is more pronounced in the work that follows.

Getting It Back

Wow, I haven't posted since April. In this time I have been doing what jazz musicians would call "woodshedding." I've been reading a ton, looking at a lot of art. I've gone through about 5 weeks of physical therapy on my right arm after a few weeks in a sling. Things are much, much better but there are still issues. I try to keep my whining to a minimum since others, say, Chuck Close, have worked through far worse.

I really immersed myself in the world of Philip Guston and it is really showing in the work. Part of that world includes the work of the composer Morton Feldman. From Guston, I take the idea of working with the everyday to create enigmatic works. One thing I could not emulate is the immediacy of his work. He would paint and scrape and paint and scrape until the work would tell him that it was done. I started trying to free myself up in that manner but it just did not work for me. I laugh because I am making work that is directly in line with his but his own words would suggest that he would not like what I do.

Guston was particularly interested with placement of objects on the picture plane. This is a big concern for me and is deeply informed by the minimal works of Feldman, where very spare compositions are constructed with only a few carefully placed notes/sounds.

I've completed a painting and a drawing of books that take a cue from Guston. Books are a huge part of my life and use of them as subject matter is not intended to be a play on my last name. I own tons of books, read as much as possible, I worked in a book store in college and my wife worked in libraries for more than 15 years. I've also been working on shoes, particularly a pair of Doc Martens I wore when I worked in a retail store, on my feet for 50-60 hours a week. They were beautiful shoes that did not let me down. Guston obviously painted many shoes and I don't think our reasons are that far off in exploring this subject.