Sunday, August 31, 2008

Friday, August 29, 2008

Seeing, being

I've been working on portraits of friends and discovering the difference between painting a face you've been drawing and painting for decades and one that you recognise but haven't examined intimately. I went off to the Frick today to look at masterpieces of the genre: Titian, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Ingres, and Bellini.
Meanwhile my son has gone off to college and I am bereft of the face I have painted and drawn since he was two weeks old. Not to mention his company.
Looking at beautiful paintings is always good, but there are many ways to go wonky.
I've been reading Tim Winton. Not since Patrick White has someone quite managed to chord so many of my aesthetic and personal buttons.
Not to mention his deep appreciation for wonkiness.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Monday, August 25, 2008

Looking West

Light is the sculptural element. Here, where my eyes pass daily, is the reinvention of an odd space. The afternoon sun illuminates the lab lab plant taking over the window behind the lace, and just kisses the tops of the balls sequestered in and next to the Pilates table.



Sunday, August 24, 2008

Jewel Thief

This guy used to be dancing with my artist figure of a space alien up on the shelf with comics, children's books and poetry, but now is fishing from the side of the jewel canal.



Saturday, August 23, 2008

Luminance

So there you are with the 10 foot ladder out and your son holding it steady so you can go up and change a bulb in the track lighting. You eventually come down with a dead bulb. There is another from the kitchen, only slightly different. In your hand: two spherical cones of jeweled, iridescent metal.
So how dull can life be when changing light bulbs is like this?


Thursday, August 21, 2008

Central Wolffland

...new painting...
My son said it looked like a Dr Seuss landscape which I consider high praise.
There is a perfume bottle, a shackle, and a paisley scarf. In my time with the circus I developed a serious romance with shackles. It goes with the thing for translucency, curlicues, and distant vistas. You never know what will come riding (flying, floating, sprinting or in some cases swimming) over the horizon. But just in case you have a few things happy in the foreground-- to keep things going while you see what turns up.


Saturday, August 16, 2008

Friday, August 15, 2008

Wolff does Wolff

So this is what I worked on today...



Thursday, August 14, 2008

bottle face

Lacking a human I've resorted to glass. I've got two people lined up in the next few weeks who have agreed to sit for portraits. Till then its whatever I find around the house or I may have to resort to the mirror.


Tuesday, August 12, 2008

images from upstate

A week upstate amid thunderstorms, greenery and discovering wasps and a toad living in the car. I convince my son to sit for me and I paint like crazy to make this:




Where usually August is dry and plants are yellowing, this year the rain beat itself against the earth. The garden got ideas of its own and I just let it:




Sunday, August 3, 2008

Monsieur Leotard

Eddie Campbell and Dan Best's book: The Amazing Remarkable Monsieur Leotard has come into my grasp via Mr Campbell's visit and talk in NYC.
So what we have is a stone skip through history beginning with our hero's predecessor taking a huge dump before leaping off the trapeze and ending with our hero's demise (failing the catch after the leap off the trapeze). In between is a completely senseless and sense-full account of love (including inter species amour), daring, history and how to view life after living long enough to realize its foolish inevitability. The art is all over the place from scribbly vintage Campbell to wonderful loose watercolor extravaganzas. By the end laughter and love just scoot ahead of sadness and folly. May all our episodes be so.

Saturday, August 2, 2008

anteater's conversation with God


So I had this wonderful dream about an anteater and then I read M J Harrison's The Course of the Heart. That explains everything.