a quickie

Settled into my new loft, that period of confusion has passed and the serious work of the studio has begun again. It is remarkable -- this power of place. I know it in my nerves, but with every move forget how deeply the tendrils of connection must grow to feel again at home and at one with my environment.

The move was in early March and the daily routine of the spring and summer, dog walks, hot spells, changes in light, events, watching the two flymen scale the Times' facade, the rhythm of a new neighborhood, have finally become my own.

I want to write here more often.

PAINTINGS ON VIEW

My work, two large oils and ten small gouaches, are on view now in the President's Office Gallery, Main Building, first floor,Pratt Institute, Brooklyn Campus. These are on view until next semester. If you are in the neighborhood, come look.

Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday, 10 - 4

Directions to campus

INTERNET CONNECTIONS: A NICE MENTION from THE MIAMI HERALD

It is a story of how the Internet works.

Late last week, Miami Herald journalist, Ellie Brecher, commented on my blog and the collaborative site that artist Roz Leibowitz and I created almost a year ago.

Our humor project surprised both of us. We think that these two voices just insisted on coming into the world. It is based on the observations of two Tribeca Nannies, not because we are interested in nannies, but because that's what they told us they are and we listened. It was hatched from the air, as naturally as a drawing happens.

To back up, I had found Brecher's original article during a Google Search for my painting images. I hadn't looked at that photograph in almost five years. It had run on The Herald's front page shortly after 9/11. I posted a comment on Ellie's blog and invited her to look at the blogs. This is the way of the Internet.

Small Mysteries, 1997, a boxed set of 20 oils on gessoed rag, 11" x 7 1/2"

Another aspect of the blog is that I can show you works previously unseen.

Here is Small Mysteries from 1997. I am posting it on the Writing Page because I think of it as a book waiting for words. It is a boxed set of paper paintings which invite the viewer to page through, change the visual events as he chooses, and reshape the narrative if he wants. The images are in random order. Every now and then I’m tempted to frame them all, but I resist. I like that the box holds the story.

Fifties Frenzy: Dealers are scrambling to find aging artists, or their desperate widows, with works that have a 1950s date. Right now this is the area where quality is immaterial if the date if right. The period is viewed as historically significant and yet it is distant enough that it is regarded as a safe investment. Some of the most tired images, fourth even fifth-rate when they were painted, are now installed on gallery walls. The noise of Chelsea scares some and they retreat into the reservoir of poor quality art of the post-war period. There is no doubt that some artists may be seduced to redate their stores of works and that dealers are scouring to harvest as many of these works as possible. One was sighted in a local West Side thrift store going through the paintings and checking the dates. It's all gravy. I predict that the period of bad historical art will balloon as this phenomenon moves into the Sixties in a few years. Get ready for the deluge of psychedelic junk. What's fun is to see the way that the machinery of packaging alters for the marketing goal. And, there are always people to cover it with what Fitzgerald called "a blanket of prose." It reminds us that the number of serious and studious collectors who have an eye and are immune to the packaging apparatus probably remains constant. These are the rare ones who really look and are less interested in the buying experience, than connecting with the implicit vision of the artist. They are a rarity and are the ones whom an artist treasures. They complete the cycle of the work. Highly recommended: Orson Welles, F is for Fake, a brilliant examination of the duplicity of the market and ideas of what is real. It was his last completed film. You can get if from Netflix along with a documentary on its making. Above Left: detail from a Manuscript, 2005-6, gouache with transfer on paper, 15" x 11" painted by me. I promise. See others at Redmond Paper.

detail from a painting, Melting into Air

This poem was written while I waited for the A Train at 59th Street. It was cold that day since the station was still in winter. Upstairs on the street, though, it was our first spring day. I saw a young woman down the platform dressed for warm weather.

In the studio I took my scribbled notes, printed out the lines and made a roughbook cutting and pasting and then painting and drawing. I like the simplicity of a roughbook. It has the urgency of the moment and hasn't become a highly crafted and therefore removed object.. It is direct and immediate from my hand to yours. And, there is only one.



She Threw Her Heart

She threw her heart on the tracks at 42nd Street
Waiting in the fluorescent Tunnel of Love
She apprehended her tenacious Antarctica;
and today, a Monday in March,
she stood bare-legged in her Bass Weejuns
recently resoled
and in the instant
before the crashing machinery
pummeled the graphite air
she let fly her khaki self
beneath
the crossroads of the world.


Here's the Roughbook made from this poem.