Mar 27, 2008

A Determined Crow


Here is the third painting from the Science of Sleep poem. I find I want to do many more paintings from this poem which is much longer than the last stanza. There are a lot of compelling issues in the poem like being a single person in the midst of couples and being an artist in a culture that often separates creatives into the same sideline with crazy people.
Break has been glorious, I have my studio finally set up and well lit and i have a new board framed and gessoed. I also had time to make some paper, it was fun to revisit paper after being so focused on painting.

Mar 21, 2008

Unassuming Velvet

























I am now officially on spring break and I am beside myself with joy. My roommate moved out and I have been setting up an office/painting studio in her old room. It makes me feel professional but once school starts up again I will have little time to work in it so its hard to justify the extra rent. For now I will just enjoy it!
This is the second painting I did from the poem, "Science of Sleep; Epilogue." The painted words are the last stanza of the poem. They are not all legible but I was hoping that a few key words showing through might inspire someone to look for the text in its original form. The last stanza:
Outside the concrete buoyed my feet
and sunlight cast me into atoms
across the green-canopied street.
A determined crow sailed like knowledge
through the cool chute
and I stretched swiftly with him;
gleaming black knowledge
in my fluttering green shoulder,
pail skin sailing down the street.
The other crows mill about the corner yard
in their unassuming velvet.
Each one weighs the same as my heart
and minds his own business.

Mar 15, 2008

Corner Yard























This is the first in a series of paintings I'm working on from a poem. I wanted to paint somewhat like Gauguin, whose colors and textures are profoundly beautiful to me. What I found was that this one genre of cheesy, impressionist paintings made in the contemporary era are probably made by people who were trying to imitate Gauguin. I decided to relinquish the effort. I would like to do a copy of a Gauguin painting some time to see if I can't absorb something from his color choices and integrate it into my own style. I wanted the crows to be the focal point of this piece and to give the viewer a sense of being in a tunnel of trees. I don't think I captured that but I do like the painting anyways.

Mar 3, 2008

Songs That Disappear in the Light 2.

























I know, I'm a total slacker when it comes to blogging. But I got my applications in for art schools, issue 2 of Recto Verso is finally out, my coworker is back from vacation so I can return to my normal schedule and I have two new paintings close to done. This is a painting from last quarter that I haven't finished yet. The fun thing about this was changing it from a person to a bird and from a blue sky to an orange sky. Painting is more fun when the painting demands its own direction. Well, its the end of the quarter and I have a million papers to write...