Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - wanting Friday

Monday - no, Tuesday. But posted on Wednesday.

Perfect start of the work week.

I took number of fast snapshots and couple are good. My oldest son is developing an eye - he saw the photo of the dogwood and van and said, "That is good.". There was a pause and he then said, "You take photographs that look like paintings."

Worked and "completed" third painting of the three sisters. Funny, not funny really, but each pic has had a lighter touch. Needed to do because keeping first two.

Need two get more good paints at Pearl - reds and greens and metallic. All expensive. Will start working on 11 by 14's. 8 by 10 are too small.

Doing (painting) same image three times was good exercise. Learned a bit of what worked and did not. For example, in third painting I left white areas untouched. Dress rehearsals and each pic different enough so that I am not just going through the motions.

Reading on train, walking to work, need to go back to MOMA. Listening to Yo La Tengo. Interesting.

Crabgrass, clover

I do not use herbicides on the lawn. Lawns for the most part belong in England where the climate is ideal for lush grass.

Hosta

Except for the pansies all these pics I posted today are of my front and backyard. The pansies were three blocks away. Maybe took forty pictures at home this spring. Usually rush out with five minutes or less. I try to get good light, but that is hard to time.

I reversed this image to make a better composition. Looking down from the deck, Memorial Today.

I collect hosta and in general enjoy shade gardening. Each year my admiration of foliage increases. Lately my admiration is of evergreens. At first I was lured by perennials - glorious flowers that last a few weeks if lucky. But evergreen foliage is there year round.

Shamlessly Cropped

Flower fall.

Daffodil leaves and azalea.

Snapshots

Pansies I described a few days back...



Our dogwood.

Springtime Suburbia (Sienna)

quote of the day ("...that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too.")

Given this quote to read -

W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951. There the text apparently goes:

'But when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money--booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!'

Tale of two paintings

Same image - computer manipulated photo of three sisters when younger. Eight and by ten size prints on C photo paper. The first one I started on I used a light touch and then I went past margins with the paint (tactical error) and so to save it the pic got heavy and then heavier . Meaning more paint and less of original image. A vicious cycle not unlike lust. Sometimes whatever you do just drags you down deeper.

So the first pic was heavy and I did a lighter one and stayed light and within the frame and then somehow I pulled it out and the pic is so magical I cannot give it away. It is a sort of template. Balance between transformed pic and the paint. Magical.

So for two days I have been trying to save heavier pic and everything I did made it worse, then better, then worse. Like a bad roller coaster ride. I know sometimes it get really bad and then you pull it out - like delivering a baby.

So I am working and my wife says - that is horrible, throw it out and I am like thinking - thanks for the vote of confidence. So she makes me work harder not to destroy but to remove or blunt many elements and suddenly it pops out....slow motion like a car crash (all senses alive) nicely. So quick yest so slow.

The high point of my day. I look at it and melt. It is good, which makes me want to laugh (not because funny, but because I am charmed).

It is this feeling as much as anything that makes me crave to create. All day I did mundane things like clip hedges,m take trash to the dump but what I was going to do to the pic was always on my mind....

But I like the second one with a light touch even better. The one I would keep.

For You

I read a review of Springsteen in Rolling Stone and bought his first album when it came out. Paid less than four dollars for it. Long ago, I told my friends, two bands will make it big - Springsteen and Camel. Oh well - Camel. I have a number of versions of "For You" - starting with the first album but mostly bootleg versions off concerts.

It is a lovely song that always touches me. I lived and die by love songs. It is my Achilles heel and tendon, my everything.

FOR YOU

Princess cards she sends me with her regards
Whoa, barroom eyes shine vacancy, to see her you gotta look hard
Wounded deep in battle, I stand stuffed like some soldier undaunted
To her Cheshire smile, I'll stand on file, she's all I ever wanted
Oh, but you let your blue walls get in the way of these facts
Honey, get your carpetbaggers off my back
You wouldn't even give me time to cover my tracks
You said "Here's your mirror and your ball and jacks"
But they're not what I came for, and I'm sure you see that too

I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but your life was one long emergency
And your cloud line urges me, oh and my electric surges free

Whoa, crawl into my ambulance, your pulse is getting weak
Oh, reveal yourself all now to me girl while you've got the strength to speak
Cause they're waiting for you at Bellevue with their oxygen masks
But I could give it all to you now if only you could ask
Whoa, and don't call for your surgeon, even he says it's too late
It's not your lungs this time, it's your heart that holds your fate
Don't give me my money, honey, I don't want it back
You and your pony face and your union jack
Well take your local joker and teach him how to act
I swear I was never that way even when I really cracked
Didn't you think I knew that you were born with the power of a locomotive
Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?
And your Chelsea suicide with no apparent motive
You could laugh and cry in a single sound
Alright

And your strength is devastating in the face of all these odds
Remember how I kept you waiting when it was my turn to be the god

You were not quite half so proud when I found you broken on the beach
Remember how I poured salt on your tongue and hung just out of reach
And the band they played the homecoming theme as I caressed your cheek
Yeah, that ragged, jagged melody she still clings to me like a leach
But that medal you wore on your chest always got in the way
Like a little girl with a trophy so soft to buy her way
We were both hitchhikers but you had your ear tuned to the roar
Of some metal-tempered engine on an alien, distant shore
So you, left to find a better reason than the one we were living for
And it's not that nursery mouth I came back for
It's not the way you're stretched out on the floor
Cause I've broken all your windows and I've rammed through all your doors
And who am I to ask you to lick my sores? And you should know that's true

I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but your life was one long emergency
And your cloud line urges me, oh and my electric surges free
Oooh
Ooh ooh

Spelling lesson

Long Island railroad had switch problems and getting home was frustratingly slow this Friday evening. Wish I had not forgotten my new book or bought 250 ml of a Cabernet. Listened to the New Pornographers on my iPod and they did not blow me away, old pornography apparently was (is?) more original and inspired.

Train finally moved and rolled. Friday was a hot day - first of the year, really. I so wanted it to be warm and now it is here. Smells like the beach and summer fashion is in full swing out there. I enjoy all the seasons, but tolerate winter the most. Spring and summer. Baseball and all things beautiful.

Worked late Thursday night on painting of the three sisters. Lot of image painted over. Looked promising. Finished it tonight and got up in the middle of the night to varnish it. Looks quite dashing. Hard to give it up.

Some paintings you do and do not mind when they are gone - like those done specifically for a gallery show. Others have a bit of our heart beat in them, or your tears, or your laughter, or your sleepy mind (as I feel at 4 AM as I write this).

My fingers are a bit sticky - the clear varnish does that to them. Yet, I enjoy the chemical smell and how my hands are slightly gummed by the varnishing process. Varnishing is like delivering the baby. Or like when a baby turns two months old and suddenly it smiles.

Once a pic is varnished colors pop out and it is like being young and in love.

Three day weekend. Looking forward to it. Manic male mockingbird is singing in triplets outside. Endless and rabid.

How do you spell insomnia?

Photo Opportunities

If what I am doing are base collages, I need close up lens to photograph elements.

The wedding collages and painting are striking and honestly the photos provided were just excellent snapshots.

What I work with does not need to be perfect photos - they need to have material I can manipulate.

This morning walking to train I saw the most splendid bright pansies in a storefront pot - dark purple pansies mixed other pansies with pale warm white washed flowers with delicate precise purplish veins. Beautiful in early morning light. Morning light is by far my favorite.

Those pansies were moment's visual delight. Might well be the visual highlight of my day.



My pansies were better than these - much better. Inferior eye candy.

Collages, losses and a song

I have been examining the collages I have made via MS Pant et al. Collage - this is the best description - and I believe my work is valid. Every layperson I have shown them to has made positive comments, other than those few that do not like "modern art."

I need to take the C prints I have made and paint on them - create a portfolio and then shop a minimum of eight to galleries. Size will be 11 by 14, maybe a few smaller.

Finally see the "altered forest" for the trees.

The idea that the images all have to be of one model might seemed necessary until today. Have to develop alternative strategies. Still needs to be tied in - you need a gimmick (bad word). Theme, let's call it.

I wish I were paid to think.

Read an interview by Croatian born actress forced to leave home and career due to civil war. She holds a Buddhist view that "life is a series of losses." Funny, but just when I wrote quote regarding life and losses, a song started on my iPod with snappy refrain that "you can close your eyes and never be alone."

Life is a series of iPod songs, sometimes.

Take advantage of opportunities and accept and appreciate gifts and wonders before they are lost.

Rubens, Sandwiched

The power of the written word.

Commuting

I am constantly looking to locate and decipher hidden beauty - at trees moving in the breeze, at patterns of light and shade, at random colors splattered on a wall or the decaying patterns caused by rust or the element... and of course I gaze at women.

I was on the train last night and there is a reasonably well dressed woman, maybe twenty six, across from me who just bought a new medium sized pocket book. She removed the plastic on the handles and placed her old bag in the shopping bag. It was so innocent and charming to see her examine the bag and the strap and the tag and to see her touch and pat the white leather lightly as if she did not believe she held it, owned it. Like a twelve year old boy with his first BB gun. Then she reached down and re-tied this little brown bow made of ribbon on the side of her pump.

She is somewhat adorable and as I write this I swear I am not trying to patronize her. Instead I witnessed a rare good dash of materialism coupled with innocent fastidiousness - quite refreshing on a late boring commuter train where most people are jaded or tired or beaten.

Quite different from a woman I sometimes sit across from on the morning train. All the times I have sat there she has never made any eye contact. As if I were transparent or a ghost. Very odd. I am not trying to be her friend, but it is hard to sit for fifty minutes at a time and pretend someone is not inches away. Both of us wear iPods.

She is on the train before me and always selects a seat with people facing her. By the time I get on that facing her is one of the few seats left. All odd and not charming.

Cold. I dislike cold people most of the time. So, guess not much to write about.

Rubens, Scratched - No Good, Start Over

Quick study using Peter Paul Rubens painting off Internet - in the end this is plagiarism so will not do again, meaning use a painting. Very cheap. Leaving it here to remind me.

Postscript - problem is left too much of original intact - see image above where Rubens transformed 98.6 percent.

To have loved and lust or to have never lusted at all

Rented and saw movie this weekend - Norwegian love triangle, "Monster Thursday." Man is in love with married woman and affection rekindled by close association. At one point when appears clear that the infatuation is hopeless she tells him that he will recover. He responds that he cannot - that it is not like the flu. She then states in response that it is like the flu.

Is love like the flu? A virus, sometimes? I wish I knew. If love where like the flu so many people would love a yearly vaccine. And maybe some develop their fortunate or unfortunate resistance or immunity.

Or is it dependant on the carrier - maybe for some it is like the flu or they can shave it off like a beard or change hair color...whatever is convenient. There is this less than catchy song by Stephen Stills that proclaims "if you cannot be with the one you love, love the one you're with." I never bought the single or the album, nor the sentiment. I was always a romantic.

This actress is quite striking.



It is not better "to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all." It is far better to have lusted and won.

21 Years - Shaven Off

Around May 1986 I started to grow a beard - shaved it of this morning - well, a barber did it.

Look like a different person - very odd to look in the mirror.

Not sure what I expected, but I almost did it a few months ago, but lost my nerve.

Naked to the world and now I need to shave every morning....

Lyrics

Listening to CD, "Bleeker Street" and the cover of this song is performed with vocals eerily like the original. Suddenly the lyrics of the Tim Harding song jumped out, my having first heard them in high school when their breadth was unintelligible.

A Reason to Believe

If I listened long enough to you
I'd find a way to believe that it's all true
Knowing that you lied straight faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe

Someone like you makes it hard to live
Without somebody else
Someone like you makes it easy to give
Never thinking of myself

If I gave you time to change my mind
I'd find a way to leave the past behind
Knowing that you lied straight faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe

Someone like you makes it hard to live
Without somebody else
Someone like you makes it easy to give
Never thinking of myself

If I gave you time to change my mind
I'd find a way to leave the past behind
Knowing that you lied straight faced while I cried
Still I look to find a reason to believe
Still I look to find a reason to believe
Still I look to find a reason to believe

Rubensesque-ish, if that is a word

This one needs paint to complete. I like the cold eyes - steel blue - and the precise lips. Original images found on internet.

Cabernet

Merchant and Bad Musician Art

Blame John Lennon for creating market of muscian doodles that sell for too much. You do not see fine artists humming a tune and linking that dribble into their web site.

John Lennon's "Power to the People."

Natalie Merchant has a melancholy perspective that I can take in small doses in her studio work. It sort of feels like the music wants to lift you while her aloof emotionless voice brings you down.

My favorite of her CDs is "In Concert" where the audience gives her a spoonful of energy.I respect her music and her calm sensibilities.



I think Natalie would make an incredible neighbor. We need eighty million people like her to get rid of most of those red states. That is my guess for the day.Her drawings suck. There is link to them on an earlier post.

I do not like the Jerry Garcia art - OK, passable graphics on a tie. Ties are not high art. Many ties are damn ugly.

Peace. Dark Star.

Will (not) power

It is freezing this morning - not February freeing, but too cold for mid May. So I wore no jacket as if doing so would force the gods to warm the South Shore of Long Island despite the steady rain driven by a persistent wind.

I froze walking to the train station, my soul laid even barer by need to have one arm up with an umbrella.

You cannot will a change in nature and not even in human nature. My "deep" thoughts for the day.

Everyone knows how badly they feel when they are ill. There might be an hour when one is better that one revels in the joy of suddenly being whole again. Then we forget. I feel fine, but should be happier.

So I am on a train, warming up typing into a blackberry. Blog by way of email since one cannot directly make a post with this little demonic device. Sitting here staring at poster that states "Lose the 9-to-5 Find Your Montreal".

The poster has cobblestone street washed in the rain (rain again) and you see knee down the legs of a man and woman walking. Great legs on the woman. Photo is good ad - warm golden hue to the print and anyone looking at the image can dress up or dress down the ambiguous couple based on their own lifestyle preferences. Night on the town or going to a humble pleasant pub.

I had a friend who went on vacation to resorts where he and his wife had to dress up big time for meals. The guy did not like casual Fridays.

I do not think I will lose the 9-to-5 soon.

"Sexiness a must for today's lady singers" (from AP)

I crave beauty. It is a constant battle not to fall just for veneer. Visuals make and break us. Define us and sometimes are a carrot that we chase. A bunny, media robotic, being chased by greyhounds.

I do not watch American Idol, unless forced to by company. Probably would never buy a record from a participant, although I did like the Dreamgirls performance. But now, I am off topic, no again?

I only quote in full the article below because it will likely soon be pulled off the Internet. It is there because of a silly Idol spin. Idol must pay Yahoo for posting Idol stories. Or Yahoo thinks they sell?

Ani Difranco, I love you. Some one made this wall paper taking the attractive images of you. Do visuals need to interface with aural grace? Not on my iPod which I never use for video.

Video killed the radio star. More than a song and the first video ever played on MTV.

05/17/2007 5:17 PM, AP
Nekesa Mumbi Moody

She was an "amazing talent," a young singer with a wonderful voice who wrote beautiful songs. But she was no beauty, plus flat-chested and overweight to boot.

Remembering the aspiring star, music executive Jody Gerson still feels terrible about thinking: "She's never going to get signed, even though she's fabulous."

Gerson might feel even worse after Wednesday night's exit of the matronly Melinda Doolittle from "American Idol." In today's music industry, Plain Janes need not apply. Sex appeal was once considered a bonus for a woman; now it's practically a requirement.

Doolittle and the heavyset, gap-toothed LaKisha Jones were widely considered this season's most talented "Idol" contestants. Yet both were eliminated from the final four in favor of Blake Lewis, who makes the teen girls swoon, and the long-locked, 17-year-old looker Jordin Sparks.

A quick check of the Billboard Top 40 turns up a list of candidates for "America's Top Model": Avril Lavigne, blonde stunner Carrie Underwood; tomboyish but sexy Ciara, fashionista Gwen Stefani and hip-swiveling Shakira (on a song featuring bootylicious Beyonce).

The only two in the Top 40 who might not be considered perfect 10s: Pink, who is still svelte and appealing; and multiplatinum Grammy-winner Kelly Clarkson, who got her break only through winning the democratically elected "American Idol."

When asked whether a female with so-so looks and sex appeal could get a record deal, Gretchen Wilson quickly replied: "They can't."

"I believe that very few will get through and they better be amazing," Wilson said in an interview. "The music is not about just music anymore, it's about the look, the 'it' factor if you will ... it's marketing."

True, looks have always been a part of the music business: Diana Ross played a model in the movie "Mahogany," Marianne Faithfull was considered a beauty, Tina Turner's legs were part of her sex appeal, Olivia Newton-John was the lovely girl-next-door and Stevie Nicks rocked teenage boys with more than just her guitar.

But there also were stars like wild-haired, pudgy Janis Joplin and Barbra Streisand, who challenged beauty standards with her protruding nose. Even curvy Aretha Franklin was known mainly for her one-of-a-kind voice.

Today, it's hard to find a singer larger than a size 6 and without a sexy look — all of which are played up with sensuous videos, modeling spreads and provocative magazine covers. Lavigne, who once scoffed at singers who stripped for the cameras, fronts the new issue of Blender topless save for a strategically placed banner that reads "Hell Yeah, I'm Hot!"

The hit reality show "Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll" is a striking example. In finding a replacement for current lead doll, stunner Nicole Scherzinger, the judging panel — which included the cosmetically enhanced rapper Lil' Kim — did talk about vocal qualities. But while a few contestants had strong voices, all were taut, toned and sexy, and the focus was more on their dancing and overall desirability. Which is to be expected from the group responsible for the anthem "Don't Cha" (as in, "don't cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?").

Even singers who are heralded for their talent are gorgeous, like Alicia Keys, Corinne Bailey Rae or Norah Jones. And while critically acclaimed Amy Winehouse may not win any beauty contests, her songs have a raw sexuality that give her that "it" factor.

Dolly Parton, whose buxom figure sometimes overshadowed her talent as a songwriter and singer, said being "a good looking woman certainly can't hurt you any if you're trying to make it."

"But I would like to believe that true and great and pure talent will rise above whatever else," the country legend said in an interview. "But certainly in music these days, the better you look, the more apt you're going to get a contract.

"It's a damn pity, though, that people have to judge real talent on looks."

Gerson says the way female artists look reflects our society, where women are constantly judged on their appearance and oversexualized. But she also says it reflects the way we listen to music these days — or don't listen.

"They have to look hot and sexy in these videos," says Gerson, who is credited with helping discover Alicia Keys, among others, and is now executive vice president of the U.S. Creative division of EMI Music Publishing.

"In the days of Aretha Franklin, people saw Aretha maybe a couple of times a year," she said, "but you listened to a record without a visual. You didn't watch it. Everything today, you watch it."

Gerson also agrees with Wilson about the marketing factor. With dwindling profits and budgets, record labels try to maximize artist exposure with clothing deals, cosmetic contracts, movie roles and modeling gigs.

"How many endorsements does Beyonce have? Do you think it's because she's the most talented person on earth or do you think it's because she's gorgeous? I think she's talented but she's also gorgeous," Gerson says. "I think you need the whole package."

And that notion, according to Wilson, "totally sucks."

"My favorite singers in the world were Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn, and Patsy was a large woman, and Loretta — she was never some kind of a supermodel, but they were the greatest female voices in country music, and they changed lives and they made a difference," says Wilson, who, although considered sexy, feels she doesn't fit today's beauty standards.

Where are the Patsy Clines of today? More often than not on smaller, underground labels, which putmore of a premium on talent. And with the devolution of today's music industry, Gerson says, small labels may be the best path to success for a woman who doesn't look like a mold of a Barbie doll.

So how would Gerson advise the flat-chested, overweight, amazingly talented singer to chase her dream? Put out her own music and promote herself on the Web.

"As far as we've come as women," Gerson asked, "where are we really?"

Link, for now.

New Prints, Music, Maybe, Always (Never Mind)

Picked up more 11 by 17 prints - look good. Need time to paint them up.

Been listening to music - best "record" I have heard in a while is Lucinda Williams "West" Great songs, lyrics, vocals, exact performances. The only thing I might fault it on is how good the musicians are - so perfectly polished that maybe it detracts ever so slightly because their polished quality and taste are so blatant. Like putting a tiara on a drop dead beautiful woman. Does she need it or does it distract attention form the miraculous?



Hell of a record. Hell of a band. Miss a random note on purpose, next time. We need to honor The Clash, everyday, somehow.

Also bought "B Sides" for two Moby CDs - "Play" and "18." Liked "Play B Sides" but less so "18 B Sides." Drums machines cannot be upfront - they lack soul, you have to hide them. On "18 B" they are front and center in the mix and their contribution, or lack there of, depresses me. Not enough vocals either on the B's - vocals bring humanity to Moby's electronic centered music.

I never want my images to be automated. I use MS Paint because it is crude and subject to human error. Better yet it can lead to the chance of miracle. I pray for the those little miracles. There aren't enough, maybe.

Maybe is an important word for me. Maybe and the word "always." I long for always. Settle for maybe.

Prefer always to never, most of the time. Maybe.

I never want to own a drum machine. Never. A bit about Natalie Merchant next time - did I spell her name correctly? But not about her art.

Another day, another....

Walked up again from Penn Station. Another glorious day, cooler and nice breeze. Takes about thirty five minutes for me to walk up - 25 blocks or so in traffic.

In Times Square men and women trying to get tourists to ride tour buses have replaced the pimps and hookers. Nice alternative, skin movie Taxi Driver to see how it used to be.

Walked in and out of skyscraper shade. Each time in the sun I felt alive. I'll take summer over winter anytime.

Noticed young tall woman walking with a delicate woolen shawl. The sight, her step, her hair moving in the breeze as she embraced her shawl and walked assuredly was the commute's most clear vision. Grace and taste and individualized style.

Need to find good book to read. I am a man of habits - call them temporary addictions, maybe better called obsessions. I have tried but I have not been able to change that. Defines me more than most other characteristics or traits.

Need to get the high end camera - then need time to do pictures.

" Beyond Sapphires"

Maybe I can lay it to rest....content.

Lucky chimp.

Beautiful Day

Took earlier train and did something have not done is a while - ran with the bulls and walked up from Penn Station past Times Square and Radio City to my office.

Perfect weather for the brisk walk and I was amazed how quickly some trim fit women can walk in four inch stilettos. I wondered what birds were in the park, warm days meant south winds which help migrating birds move north over night. I miss birding. Twelve years ago in Spring I was in Central Park every morning before work, possibly also in the evening.

The walk was good - I have not been exercising enough and not painting. Just dabbling on computer. Need to get fingers dirty and sweat a bit.

Finished a novel - liked it a lot. I do not read much for pleasure. Guess I read too much at work. Miss being in that world - book was slow paced but for me perfect and I was transported.

"Sampling, Waiting"

But, this is the best

"A Fine Merlot (Decanted)"

I love a full bodied Merlot. Best bang for the buck in a varietal red. Clearly the bottle in the image is not wine....irony, monkeys (chimp actually) and a beauty. A feeling of being slightly intoxicated.

Glorious, stunning - sometimes.

First Sips

I seem to be writing less. Have I gone dumb or am I letting the images speak for themselves?

I do feel in a slight rut. Am printing more and more and need to paint more real paint. Been going to bed early, last night before 10 PM. Fighting off a cold and fighting off whatever else.

Miss the crickets sounds at night at home - found out if the snake does not eat the crickets the crickets will eat the snake. Crickets are nasty critters, Disney and Pinocchio were wrong. Nasty.

Snake is eating earthworms - maybe three a day. He shed his skin which means he is growing. He (she) is less scared of us.

Final - "A Good Deal of the Moon"

No more doodling....but not particularly good.

Another draft ("Mirrors, Miracles")

Lightened pic using Photo Manager and now dabbling. Daylilly image used for yellow and blue grids.

Wedding Painting Update ("Gimme, Take Me, Love Me")

Gave commissioned work and the recipient, the gift giver, was delighted. I hope the married couple like it as well - I will know by early June, I hope. The painting was light in mood - almost decorative (help me), but still valid (not pretty just for prettiness's' sake).

While looking at drafts of wedding images, found another that is valid, in fact quite good. Altering images is a bit like playing a song - maybe a jam - you have got to know when to stop. With computer graphics you can "save as" to freeze a version before continuing - with real paint you cross ten thousand Rubicons without much of a safety net.

I crave a good safety net....oh well.

It would be great if we could do "save as" in our relationships to keep forever something pure and magical and hopelessly ephemeral.

Inspired, serene, hopeful (tonight)

"Blue Gray Grace"

Sometimes a "painting" guides itself. Like Moby sang, "You write your own songs."

Spring Fever, Spring Warblers

I will get me to Central Park in a few minutes - to see the spring flowers and possibly hear spring migrant song birds. This spring has been fairly quiet migrant song wise.

Wrong place at wrong time? Some warblers photos, my favorite birds, are posted below.

Worm Eating Warbler

American Redstart

Blue Winged Warbler

Click here for website of excellent bird photographer, Alan Murphy. He took the phtotos, above.

Dan Perjovschi at MOMA

Back to MOMA today. Spent time on second floor looking at prints and video then stumbled on something - four story wall of astute political cartoons on America, art, world peace and global warming, work, class struggle, so many things. Funny, on point and concise.

Projects 85: Dan Perjovschi
May 2–August 27, 2007

Click here for video of installation being painted. Man is not afraid of heights (I am).

Click here here to download newspaper for exhibit including many of the images on the crisp tall white wall.

Another post with no picture (almost)

The wedding painting of the couple looks good - not sure if composition is strong enough but picture has a Kadinsky-like happiness (cheerfulness) to it - bright colors and a small red valentine art bottom right. Blues and pinks and copper. Generally content but I always strive for better.

Some images paint themselves - this one has been harder and may be because not enough bones - strong larger elements within image.

Wish I had camera that could take images of paintings - a macro lens. Still have not purchased high end camera. Leaning towards Cannon.

Another issue with painting is use of soft pastels and varnish not working on fixing them. Internet Yahoo research identifies fixative for oil pastels put out by French pastel manufacturer. Guess I know what I am doing at lunch time tomorrow. Walking to art store...

So far this spring not heard many spring migrants. Heard yellow warbler yesterday leaving a soccer game. Maybe one redstart in the park.

Red buds are glorious as are the dogwoods. Daffodils a past their p[rime and lilacs have not come out.

Here is a red bud image:



I became enchanted with red buds because of older tree in Grammercy Park in Manhattan. The bare limbs were alive with purplish buds - as if on fire for a few days a year. Stunning.

I live to see things that are stunning, indoors or out.

Got prints back

Looked very good - brought home 11 by 14 to paint on - others will be gifts. Printed another 8 - all 8 by 10 and one 11 by 14, full frame.

After printing went to an art a show near Gramercy Park - saw promising work by children, one being five pictures done by a friend's son.

While looking at a pencil drawing done by this child I commented to his father regarding the son's courage not to be seduced by immediacy of color. Well done, James.

Looking at possibly joining, if allowed. Private club. I remember old Groucho Marx line about never joining a club that would have him as a member.