Some New Semester 2 Work

All Natural - oil on birch panel, 20" x 30"

And a close up:

Alcyone - oil on birch panel, 18" x 18"

Close-up:

In my very recent visit with Emily, we both agreed that this was a successful venture into creating facture on the painting surface. It was highly experimental for me, but I was able to develop a decent technical facility with bigger, juicier marks of paint in a fairly short period. The use of panels rather than canvas was a big help, as the paint truly sits up on the primed birch, as opposed to sinking into the weave (and more absorbent commercial primers) of stretched canvas. I'm proud of the fact that when it came to using just pure layered wet-into-wet paint, I stuck with large (#12 and up) bristle brushes, and kept the blenders in a drawer. The only blending (purposely done) was the no-texture cloud background of All Natural.

Again, as far as discussing conceptual aspects, I have to leave that between Emily and me, and give full disclosure at my Group 3 residency in January. I am happy to tell that Emily felt these were very solid pieces as far as the direction I'm looking to go conceptually. Let's go out on a limb here and say that things are slowly coming together.

The Big Picture and Emily

So here's this new thing (a quickie photo from Emily's studio wall - the whites are blown out, but you get the idea):

It's tentatively titled "Sublimation". Oil on canvas, 60" x 48". Yep, that's pretty large for me. It was a bear to deal with, but I managed it. It did take a while to get used to paint application on this scale. I had intended to do more at this size, but it's just not realistic this semester. I need to experiment on a number of different levels to achieve my original design for the studio component. This takes care of the scale experiment, obviously. More will be forthcoming regarding the content here, but that will have to wait until the Group 3 residency in January.

I showed this to Emily yesterday during an excellent studio visit. We discussed this picture at length -- the pros and cons of it all (formal and conceptual). For all intents and purposes, this is done save a few minor adjustments. We then discussed my direction for the next works and we achieved a greater clarity in that regard; I'm excited about it. My concepts are solid, but the direction of the formal application is more experimental. Should be interesting, but at least I know it's do-able. The big scale thing is so daunting. I can do it, but large blocks of time are needed. With my teaching schedule as it is now, that's just impossible.

I got a few shots of Emily's studio. Below is her first donut drawing. This is seminal, as it spurred her alkyd/graphite work.

Here's the "lesser" wall space on the west side of Emily's studio. The panel painting is complete, while the oblong canvas is undergoing a bit of cropping adjustment. Two charcoal underdrawings are there on the floor, one of which she will probably efface and start over.

And here's a table full of donut setups. Some of these guys are months old. They don't get moldy, but they do compress and start to look strange. She likes that.

In all, a really edifying visit. It was enhanced by lunch afterwards over in Natick with her husband, the abstract painter Penn Young. They shared some great gallery-talk anecdotes and I fielded wine questions. I'm grateful for these fantastic experiences with these amazing people.

Mentor, 2nd semester

So, my new mentor is the painter Emily Eveleth. It just so happened that I was introduced to her during the Group 2 residency during one of the Artist Talks. It was very serendipitous, and was a definite plus to have been able to secure a mentor so early in the game this time around.

Emily is represented by Howard Yezerski in Boston and Danese in NYC. At this very moment, she has a wonderful retrospective of her "doughnut oeuvre" at the Smith College Museum of Art in Northampton, Mass. I think I kind of surprised her by showing up for the opening night, where she gave a fun talk in the main gallery, surrounded by her incredible work. I HIGHLY recommend seeing the work in person, as her paint quality is super-rich. Confronting these sugary giants is quite something to experience; she paints quite large most of the time. Bonus: SCMA has a terrific collection, which really surprised me with a number of gems.

Right now, I have a few concepts in varying stages, all of which I hope to execute on a large (60") scale. Emily is the perfect person with whom to talk about the technical ins-and-outs of working bigger. My first meeting with her is next week and I'm really looking forward to it!

In the meantime, I'll be publishing a Residency 2 summary in just a few days.