Genesis

Here are two versions of the same painting I just finished. In the lower photo the painting is lit with a warm light.

The title is Genesis.

28"x 39 1/4"

I am very happy it is finally finished. I think it turned out well. I really don't remember why I started doing waves. I have always loved the ocean. It can express many emotions and it certainly is the true essence of creation and destruction, a concept that permeates a lot of my paintings. Maybe there is a rhythm to the waves that connects it to our own rhythm. The crashing waves on the shore like a heartbeat. The push and pull of the water like making love. It is about balance. It is about adaptation. It is about equilibrium. The ocean reaches for us and we reach for it. When we get close enough, it literally pulls us in. Maybe that is why I paint waves.

Dog days of August for me.

I am near the end. It can be the easiest or the hardest part of the process. I can be either excited to finally see the culmination of all my hard work or simply sick to death of looking at the same painting for such an extended period of time. Too close to call at this point. I have about 3-4 more days left. I am on day 17 and that is consecutive days with some serious long hours. It has taken me alot less time to do this than I thought. My last piece this big took 6 weeks, but I think the result was worth it.
I don't know much about the working habits of others. I certainly can tell some things just by looking at a painting, but I wonder to what extent other artists put in effort. My temperament is much better when I put in only 5-6 days. I am simply ready to move on to something else by that time. An artist that I know, Skip Steinworth, has told me after a few weeks he is "just settling in". By then I am ready to leave the table and cash in my chips.
I think this is turning out to be a nice piece. My tentative title is Genesis. I like the implications of what that could mean and what this image could be.
I will put the finished painting up on this blog this weekend. It is going to Arcadia Gallery in NY. The gallery is part of the LA Art Show in January and I hope to make a big, uh, splash, with it.. . . . . . . . .

Ideas

My wife listens to books on tape and she recently rented at the Library a lecture series by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto who is a Professorial Fellow in History and Geography at Queen Mary, University of London, and a member of the Faculty of Modern History at Oxford University. It is called "Ideas That Shaped Mankind, A Concise History of Human Thought". She played just a few short passages with me and it led us into a discussion of ideas, human history, and the motivations and curiosities of people. It brought up an interesting question. Preservation of Life. We all have it in common. All living things possess the need to stay alive. Why? Even the simpler organisms on the earth will do whatever they can to maintain their own life. Do humans fear death because it is unknown? Do animals fear death? Is it a concept that they even understand? Do we simply seek to avoid pain? Did we invent God to justify the long expanse of death? Why the need to preserve one's own life at almost any cost. Where does this come from? Is it in the DNA of all living creatures?

Mediterraneo

Here's a photo journal of Matthew's most recent painting, Mediterraneo.
The work is 50"x66"
I took the pictures from my cell phone so the image quality is not the best, but the painting is great. This and other paintings will be in his studio during the McRae open house.

New Work

Here is my new painting. We went on a trip a summer ago to Lake George, NY. It was motivated by the many artists who painted in the region during the 1800's. I wanted to be inspired by what inspired F. Church and so many others. Lake George itself was actually disappointing because it so much now caters to the tourists, but within the area you can still find beautiful places. This creek was actually in Maryland. We got off the road, as I like to do, and went looking for something to discover. It was late in the evening and it had rained hard as we went down a small road near this creek, crossing it several times before I stopped in a heavily wooded area and got out. I literally walked out into the creek. Fog was forming on the water as the sun sunk lower in the sky. It was perfect light. I would have loved to have painted right there, but I just made some notes and took a few photos. This small painting, 2 5/8"x 6" is the result.

Niagara

We went to Niagara Falls last year and I have managed to make several paintings from the trip. This piece is one of several that I will take to St. Louis next week. It is very small and I finished it this morning. 1 3/4"x 1 7/8". I have plans to make a very large version of this at some point. Maybe 50"x 50". I would love to return to much larger, much looser work. It seems to be more to my character and I feel more comfortable with the working methods of larger paintings. However, a small piece like this can be very effective when I paint such a large view in such a small space. It forces the viewer to look very close and when they do they see a huge world. I like that dynamic. It's not overwhelming like a large piece, but more intimate.

For Mike. . . . . .

This is my easel. If you look just below the center there is a small painting. I finished this little piece yesterday and plan on taking it to a show I have in St. Louis in two weeks. It's 1 1/2"x 1 1/2". Ridiculously small and at my advancing age(I am not old, but no longer a young man), very difficult to see and work on such a scale. It's a painting of a sunrise through some fog, early in the morning near Ocala.

An artist's friend lost her husband yesterday. He was a good man. Death plays no favorites. We are all in the same line that ends the same way, we just don't know when. We seem invincible when we are young, but time marches forward, distracted by nothing, pursuing it's only goal, continuum. It's a cliche' to say live every moment to it's fullest, but it doesn't make it any less profound. Rest in Peace Mike Bitner. May every moment now be more beautiful than a sunrise near Ocala.