Day 2

The picture is called History Lesson. It needs to ferment for a couple days. He thinks it is working, but he can't see it. He got up on a ladder...that's not good enough.

Day one

The Professor  has a bear on his hands. It has been 30+ years since he has done a large canvas. He said "I'm Never going to do a large canvas again. All I do is put them in storage." Well never say never.

He rolled it out on the table and jumped in...slowly at first. The task seemed a bit much but there was absolutely nothing to lose and he knows that he can make it work. And it started to come somewhat together after three hours. He is taking a break to eat and let the light change before working tonight. It's good times and the jazz keeps him company.

Sunday activity

After discovering his Navajo painting, the professor had  a thought about what to do with the culls from his past. He could tear them up and make collages of them and paint on them more. With slight nod to his friend Dick Wray he started to tear.

Using acrylic modeling paste he pasted them together.

He has no way to work on them in MM's studio unless he got a large table. They need to be worked on flat. He went to Home Depot and got a 4x8 sheet of plywood. The Temp out side is close to 100 and the plywood feels like 100 lbs...but it has to be so he draged it in and set it up.

It takes up a lot of space. He had no intension of of working like this, but just do it. He prepared 4 others

of smaller dimensions. The first was 5'x8', then a 4'x5' and a 4'x4' and two 16"x16". Modeling paste is a terrific glue. Everything is setting up for tomorrow.

The Professor got a call from the bookstore at the Menil Museum.

They were reoganizing and found a box full of objects that he had put on consignment with Sheila Rosenstien in the 90s. Totally forgoten, but here they are a nice time capsule of a dark creative period

in his life when he turned to ceramics for inspiration.

A Surprise from the Past

Many pictures have been rolled for 20+ years. The job is to unroll and re-catalog them. This is a BIG job. The storage space is  climate controlled but is very warm and one can only do  maybe 2 hours in the morning. There is no hurry. Most that are uncovered are recognized. This week he discovered pictures that were forgotten and lost . Three I968 pointillist pictures from a minimalist Tree/Landscape series were a real surprise.

The others  from this series  are buried under many other images; they can be known by the canvas size.  The real surprise is an unstretched painting from the 1974-75 Art History series. The Professor had just begun teaching  a survey of Art History class at the University of St. Thomas and did a series of Art history inspired paintings. Some of the series survives in one form or another. This one he called Navajo was a real surprise; it went on MM’s wall that day.

There is new work in the studio.

These have already changed. No work today, breakfast with the group and  busy work in the heat/humidity of Houston. Tomorrow with his daughter Chrissy to pick up Grandson Tavo from a week with his father.

 Here are three others unrolled/revealed from the past: Orestes, The Crossing and Cupid and Psyche.

Recent Events

The Professor is back at work. Here is his first painting in his borrowed studio.

       

Seeded Land 18x24

Then he started on another.

In 1972 the Professor was teaching at The University of St Thomas, Houston, Texas.

For an exhibition in the gallery called Camp Out. He made these Fu Dogs which were part of a his Art History Series. They are made out of Cedar logs collected on an Art Department camping trip in Flatonia, Texas. He wrapped them in cotton and held it together with barbed wire, then coated it with coat after coat of acrylic medium then painted then in pink and turquoise and finished them off with Christmas lights.

                              

 Fu Dogs 1972

They languished in storage until he dragged them out and restored them hoping to exhibit them. Alas no. So they were abandoned until he thought maybe they could spend their last day gently decaying in MM's garden. Here they are, without the lights.

When he brought his collected work from Santa Fe he was fortunate to find storage in a climate controlled empty office building. His work has never been in a controlled atmosphere. Now he is opening rolls of rolled canvases. Most have not been touched for 20 years. The process is to open a roll, photo the contents and re roll around a cardboard tube. Some do not stand-up and will be culled.

 ll

 

 The Bridge 1975  5' x 12'

Expulsion 1987

 

The Crossing 1986 

 

Orestes 1986

Europa Series 1981

And then a few Culls

The end of the road for these.

Many more to go.

New Studio ON Borrowed Time

The Professor is borrowing MM's studio for 6 weeks.First it had to be cleaned up. Note the Dick Wray in the lower right.

A two day endeavor that caused MM much stress, but treasures were found and everything found it's place. Now he is ready to get back to doing what he enjoys. New work will appear shortly.

“What are your plans for the summer?”

The summer session is over and he is at MM’s. She has agreed to lend him her studio for 6 weeks, two of which she will not be here. This is a big occasion. This is her studio that she built for herself and now she is letting him use it. In six weeks He will be back in Tomball.  It is all a delicate balance.

Delicate Balance 36x12

"Since I have no space in which to work, her space is to be my space for a while.

Lots of art shows in Houston in the heat of the summer. Most banal. But at Wade Wilson’s there is Harold Garde . Raw figurative expressionist works of the school of painting that is forever old and forever young. Unpretentious and seemingly effortless these works refuse to decorate. They proclaim their deep raw love of art and humanity. At the Art Car Museum there is the work of Barbara Jones a Houston painter who I knew nothing about. She recently died leaving a body of work that proclaim the joy she found in her private life, her Houston neighborhood and her friends. Richly painted with no attempt at “art smart”  the paintings tell of joy in her life and also the sadness of loss and injustices. A talent now silenced that got little exposure; I only guess that that is how she wanted it. The energy it takes to self promote takes away from the creating time. I heard an artist once say that you have to spend has much of your time on business as on creation.
Talk Self Promote Talk Self Promote Talk Self Promote
 In HIGH ACADEMIA the word play goes on. Like a dog chasing it's tail. On line I discovered an artist whose thing was to question what is art. EXCUSE me but did not Duchamp do that a 100 years ago and we got it  and kept making paintings. One of  artist's acts was to have a crane  lower a junked car into Central Park, that's in NY you know. That's something at which to marvel. Context is everything; do not try that in East Texas.

I went to more galleries where the work was let’s say undeveloped or derivative or all looked alike and was the same size. One exhibition was of a ex student of mine He only took one class and moved on, but I liked him. A smart ass who did every thing I asked as outrageously as possible, but he came to every class and that got my attention. I saw him as I was 50 years ago and I discovered we share a birthday. Now he has a graduate degree and is doing work that young people do. I trust he will improve. Too much causal photo stuff right now, but they have a dark beauty.
I visited an art gallery owner who had looked at  my work and said that we would do some kind of show. Now I got the run around..."well I don't know, I can't say, I have things scheduled for  9 months"...yes I understand just say yes of no..instead of I have to think about it.
I will keep doing what I enjoy and you can Think about that."

Two Islands 16x20