Out of Nowhere
Untitled, 2009, acrylic with oil and oil base pencil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm
The untitled painting illustrated here was an outlier when I made it. I've been living with it for about seven years now, and it's still growing on me. It reminds me of a song. This song.
This recording.
Butterfly Queen
In one of the most sublime locations in all of California, heavily repaired asphalt leads to a remote fire station behind the gas and oil facility at Mariposa Reina.
Click or tap on image to enlarge
Gas and oil infrastructure, railroad infrastructure, offshore infrastructure. Neither north nor south. Tar occurs naturally on beaches. Monarch butterflies are attracted to eucalyptus groves.
Neutral Palette
Five panels, 40 x 50 cm, acrylic on plywood. Studies or paint samples suggesting weavings, oceans, or heavy atmospheres, veils, waterfalls, draped views of distant and uncertain subjects.
As in Cassini footage, for example:
Film by Chris Abbas https://vimeo.com/cabbas/cassini found on Astronomy Picture of the Day
saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/science/index.cfm
Track: 2 Ghosts I, Ghosts I – IV by Nine Inch Nails
(Used under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution Share Alike license.)
ghosts.nin.com/
Related reading:
Ad Reinhardt's Black Paintings: A Matter of Time, Arden Reed, The Brooklyn Rail, January 16th, 2014
Between Worlds
A studio view from 2015. Pencil drawing, 2014, acrylic on plastic plate, 2013, square panel, date unknown
Looking at nature, looking at pencil marks, looking at paint. Looking out, looking up, looking around. Looking into imaginary space.
I heard the word, wonderful thing, a children's song
Small panels float on a wall. A night sky or watered surface, an overlay of starlike geometries, faceted figures for focusing on the invisible. Having nothing to go on but continuing forward without knowing. Again! Again! To defeat despair, make something. Like a diamond in the sky.
Reference materials
Inspiration:
The Pursuit of Beauty, Yitang Zhang solves a pure-math mystery, Alec Wilkinson, The New Yorker, February 2, 2015.
Tomoda Kimpei
In life I never was
among the well-known flowers
and yet, in withering
I am most certainly
Tomoda Kimpei.
Aru toki wa
hana no kazu ni wa
taranu domo
chiru ni wa morenu
Tomoda Kimpei.
I am myself at the moment of my death, and also now.
Seated Buddha
My friend Sandy got this one. It lives in Santa Fe, NM now, in good company among Sandy's many gems. Her little condo is like a treasure chest, so I'm very flattered she made room for one more painting.
Studio View
Remembering Eva Stewart Trevelyan Yakutis today. Born September 30, 1919. Died November 19, 1977. Riverside, California
Mariposa Reina
Make of it a wish-fulfilling gem
Study for Mariposa Reina, 2015, acrylic on paper
5.70
Regard your body as a vessel,
A simple boat for going here and there,
Make of it a wish-fulfilling gem
To bring about the benefit of beings.
This is, without question, the main point
Text from No Time To Lose, A Timely Guide to the Way of the Bodhisattva, available from the Pema Chödrön Foundation
RP 13-5
RP 13-5, 2014, charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 60 cm diameter (23 5/8 inches)
In Act I, Scene II of The Tempest, the "airy Spirit" Ariel is ordered by Prospero to lead the shipwrecked Ferdinand to him. She does this by invisibly singing to gain his attention and guide him by the sound of her voice. The second stanza is of particular relevance to Ferdinand since his father drowned. These are the lines that come to mind. Hark! I hear them --
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Mirrors, Moons, or Portals
Four round paintings, 2013, acrylic on canvas, 41 1/4 inches in diameter (105 cm)
Divers
2005-6, graphite on paper, 107 x 234 cm (42 x 92 in), Collection Rozann Newman.
Foreshadowing.
Faceted search
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Faceted search, also called faceted navigation or faceted browsing, is a technique for accessing information organized according to a faceted classification system, allowing users to explore a collection of information by applying multiple filters. A faceted classification system classifies each information element along multiple explicit dimensions, called facets, enabling the classifications to be accessed and ordered in multiple ways rather than in a single, pre-determined, taxonomic order.
Reference material:
"As We May Think" by Vannevar Bush from the July 1, 1945 issue of The Atlantic.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/07/as-we-may-think/303881/