Highway 89 II… New Painting

"Highway 89 II" Oil/Panel 8" X 48"

Just finished this second piece from Hwy 89…SE Utah, a few miles north of the Grand Canyon.

Painting this in the studio re-kindles my desire to spend some extended time out there painting. The image is from three photos stitched together, with an obvious vertical band in the center with a darker exposure. Keeping this artifact of the photo is an obvious reference to the process, but I was simply enamored of the image, including the operatic bluster of the storm over the plateau. Really lapsing into the romantic rhetoric of the 19th C. landscape people…Bierstadt, Church, etc…

Here are a few details, to help you get a notion of the nature of the surface, and the way the information of cliff, cloud, sand and brush are cobbled together and made into an image. The process of making these daubs and marks is always a huge pleasure, as the problems of drawing and organization have been solved, and I can impulsively build the splotches and edges of color which builds a palpable presence and space. The paint occasionally seems to become stuff and light. The paint also remains, at the same moment, erratic blobs of pigment. I’m forever enamored making this transformation, and seeing the paint hover between illusion and paint.

Hwy 89 II, detail

Hwy 89 II, Detail

The huge continuing problem is to make work which speaks of being there, of the raw delight I find in simply being there on that immense stage, in that clear light, in that weather, with my eyes open. The history of the places there also intrigue me, from the geology to the ruins to the recent struggles of people to find ways of living there, but I’ve been very hesistant to deal with those things directly.

I think an extended stay out there, in comparative wilderness, will be an important thing to do. Grand Gulch, Comb Ridge, Waterpocket Fold, the whole damned Colorado Plateau is singing a siren song.

I intend to keep these entries more frequent; the past few months have been a bit chaotic, particularly with the Big Draw here in Ruskin and the Community Mural. Hoping to keep things simpler and a bit more focused.

Back from Utah

10" X 30" Oil/Panel, painted onsite

Panel in progress...10" X 30", Oil/Panel

Panel in progress, Oil 8" X 24"

Panel in progress, 8" X 24"

I worked pretty intensely for a week in Utah, at an invitational painting event, Maynard Dixon Country 2009. 30 or so western realist painters….and me. I was intensely involved in the painting, but was somewhat disappointed with the results. I like the pics of the works in progress, shot on the easel against the setting…..they have evidence of the process and the reference to the situation…the finished pieces seem s bit flat and dead. I got so involved in recording the information.. the stone cliffs, scattered trees, ragged brush…I think I failed to attend to the issues of color and light as overall conditions. I got them out of the box when I got home and think they are too damned close to old litho postcards.

I also know I don’t want to re-do romantic hazy shots of the glories of nature. I really can’t paint purple shadows….( wont)….so I need to find a way to be out there and looking as intensely as I can and get some images out that convey something of that process and experience.

I had little in common with the other painters…we didn’t share much in the way of common influences and goals. They were very adept with color and drawing and organization…but most of the work seemed out of another time and place.

The first night I arrived I wondered around and saw a beat up old garage…with an old VW van, trucks, farm debris…and thought it would be a great place to paint. I should have followed my impulse.

I have some time to consider it all…very immersed in planning the Big Draw and helping with the Mural now in progress.

Ruskin Mural, 2009, Begun!

The 2009 Mural project, part of the Big Draw here, has begun! Josette Urso met with over 50 (!!) people from the community on saturday to discuss her work and the project.  The first workshops were today, ending with the walls of the studio filled with collages! The groups, from kids to teens to adults, seem brimming with enthusiasm! I left feeling I had seen a master teacher in action.

The groups, of diverse experience, began with simple shapes pulled from small objects, cut into cardboard and foam and whatever, and pinned up all over the room. She simply jumped them way beyond the usual struggles with drawing and insecurities, and had the group immersed in composing with shape and color. AND….hugely enthusiastic!!

Josette will be holding numerous intense workshops over the next two weeks; the whole schedule and a description of the project is at: http://www.southshoreartscouncil.org/mural2009.html Setting up the whole Big Draw is so labor intensive… easels, materials, keys, cleaning, getting the power on……borrowing tables and chairs…and then getting them moved in. Those were my tasks today.

Other News….Framing of the RiverWalk Mural has been resolved….finally…and will be in place in 6 weeks. It’s a powder aluminum frame designed by Will Stack of stackDesign.com

I’m also going to paint in Utah next week; it’s an event at the Maynard Dixon property near Zion, with 25 artists working there for a week. Looking forward to it; I haven’t painted in weeks, as the Big Draw and the Riverwalk project have filled my time and my head! If I can get an internet connection there in Utah I’ll perhaps make a few posts. I’m taking some 10 X 36 panels, so I hope to make some big and open….exploratory …pieces. Those vast spaces really hover in my mind; the sandstone buttes which hover against those skies, 2000 feet high.

Distractions……

There has been so much going on that I feel very disconnected from painting. With the luxury of being retired, and having ALL my time to do whatever, I seem to have built a hamster wheel for myself. Going round and round. But it’s all from choice, and wanting to be engaged in a bunch of stuff. Maybe a horror vacuii…. fear of empty time, or more likely just my ADD.

There has been such a press of commitments, from the family re-union in Ca. to getting the RiverWall Mural installed to getting the planning for the “Big Draw” off the ground (see below), and this past weekend doing a four day trip to our place in N. Carolina to have the road graded…before it washed away, and fix a plumbing issue. Two days driving…600 mi., for two days there. I’m sitting here scratching the poison ivy souvenirs I got.

The panels of the RiverWall mural are installed; BUT there is still one with lamination problems! So I’m waiting to get a replacement from Seattle to install and FINISH! I got some pics today of people using the wall at night; apparently a place for shooting pics with cell phones! I want to get down and shoot some long exposures of people there making photos. Very gratifying to see a totally unexpected use!

Photo Ops at the RiverWall; 2:00 AM

The Big Draw Ruskin ( http://bigdrawruskin.org )is off and running…we’re in the midst of scheduling artists, planning the PR, updating the website…etc., etc.! Dolores (my wife, Dolores Coe the painter) is doing most of the work; she is so good with organization and details! The anchor event is the design and painting of a majot mural on a local building by a community group. Leading the group this year is an old friend and a distinguished artist, Josette Urso! She was chosen from a pool of applicants, and will be in residence here for 2 1/2 months directing the project.

Mary Martha House Building, Ruskin, Florida

This is an extremely challenging problem; to develop and paint a ‘mural’ which integrates with, and somehow involves, the whole building. We think Josette is the perfect choice of an artist, given here open ended approach to images and compostion, as evidenced in her collages and past Public Art Projects. See: http://josetteurso.com . There is a full apartment in the bulding, available to Josette for her time here, so it’s an artist in residence program as well as a mural project.

The “Big Draw” will be a mix of mini courses and workshops, taught by artists, addressing many aspects of drawing. We have a 7,000 sq. ft. studio, an empty huge storefront, which serves as our studio. We are partnered with the Tampa Museum, USF School of Art and Art History, Very Special Arts, and other organizations who will sponsor events here or at other venues. An extremely popular event last year was the Drawing Marathon, directed by Marjorie Green, which was an intense two day workshop in large scale drawing, modeled after the Marathon of the NY Studio School. Check the website for full info and schedule.

Last year the directing artist of the Mural was Michael Parker, who did an extraordinary job with the mural “Head, Heart and Hands”, celebrating our community, Ruskin Florida. He led a group of teens and adults through the whole process of conceiving, designing, and painting the piece.

"Head, Heart and Hands" 20' X 100' Clark Furniture Building, Ruskin. October, 2008

An Old Idea….

Polaroid of Painting, in progress '85, I made from the photos above.

I just came across this old Polaroid, on the top, from ’85 or so, which was an image that sparked a body of work, and is quite related to the RiverWalk Mural just installed. A very strange aspect of this photo is that I took it standing on a ladder, and the ladder exists in the bottom of the photo, but as a strangely ghostly, almost transparent, image. Go figure. Maybe THAT was the idea I should have grabbed……….

I had laid out a group of photos on a studio bench, thinking of possibilities for a new painting….always difficult back then, when I committed weeks to a canvas, when I was struck by the visual fact of the grid of images. The chance connections and disconnections, the animation of the arrangement as I browsed from part to part, and the play between surface pattern and the space of the images, all lit a big lightbulb for me. The simplicity against the complexity, the play between color as sky and color as flat swatch, all rang bells for me.

I’ve used the notion for years, in a wide variety of works. Here are a couple….

“Bay with Snapshots” Oil, 48″ X 60″ 1988

“Tryptch with Scattered Snapshots” Digital image, A proposal for an unrealized public project. 2003.

So; interesting how an errant notion, floating in through the window as it were, can be the catalyst for a quantity of work. It has happened occasionally, before and after this example, but it may only be an example of my limited imagination.

RiverWalk Wall  88″ X 40′  Tampa, Florida

Detail

The RiverWalk project is finally installed!  A year in process. There were construction delays and technical delays with the mural, so it’s a huge peasure to have it installed! The photos above are snapshots made on a rainy day; there is also the problem of the high gloss of the surfaces. I will post better photos shortly; I need a clear morning with the wall in full sun.

The Mural is a ‘quilt’ of 550 images of the Hillsborough River, printed in porcelain enamel on ten steel plates, each plate being 88″ X 48″. Porcelain enamel involves screening mineral pigments, in a matrix of glass, and then firing the plate to 1800 degrees. For the full color image seven separate firings were required. The process is proprietary to Winsor-Fireform of Seattle, who printed the project. It was a new process for me, and did not involve painting, except for the inclusion of many photo images of my paintings of the river, from over the years.

It began with a discussion with a group developing the RiverWalk Park, headed by Mr. Lee Hoffman of the City of Tampa. I had hundreds of photos I’d made over the years of the river and many photos of paintings I’d made of the river. I proposed the quilt of image ideas, and then found Winsor-Fireform who offered this process. I then proceeded to make additional photos, traveling the length of the River and, also doing night and aerial photos.

The photos were digitally edited and then were composed in a shareware Mosaic software program, ( http://www.andreaplanet.com/andreamosaic/ ), which allowed composing to an overall ‘master’  image. This served to provide some measure of order to the whole piece, as opposed to a random mix of images. The author of the software, Andrea Denzler, was immensely helpful in providing custom image sizes and technical assistance. He would write software ‘patches’ as soon as I requested them…often in the middle of the night!!

So; I first saw the whole composition together last saturday, when we completed the installation.  The contrast of the images, and the resolution, are both excellent! The mineral pigments, as opposed to CYMK inks, have produced some deviation from the color in the test proofs on paper. They were not visible in individual panels, but with the whole image up I see that the greens have lost some of their hue variation and some saturation. This occured even though I had a test plate made of four images, which was excellent, and which matches the color range of the final pieces. I think my test image lacked a full range of greens. I will include a full color test strip in any future projects.

The entire image is a trade off between the quality of the individual photos and the overall composition; for the sake of the composition many of the photos were purposely over or under exposed, and thus on an individual basis, are not of optimal exposure or contrast. This problem would have been solved if I had a database of  10,000 photos available. I would have also needed an additional year to produce and edit them! NOT likely.

So…there it is…I look forward to hearing responses from viewers…of all persuasions!

California

Pt. Lobos

Just back from a few days on the coast below Monterrey, where I was simply amazed at the look of the place. I grew up in California, and always loved the coast, but this trip simply hit me. The variety and diversity of the light/weather/ terrain/ trees/plants/ seemed like a deluge.  It was simply a barrage of images and contrasts. It seems corny to even talk about it, but I immediately felt that I had to spend some extended time there painting. I do believe it’s a direct result of painting onsite, and of being a bit burned out looking at Florida, in all it’s glorious flatness.

The centrl coast area seems particularly rich, with the ever changeable sun and clouds and fog, and the resulting high drama of the light and shadows sweeping across the place. The hillsides above, on an overcast morning, struck me as an incredibly rich flat pattern of ragged colors…almost an abstract expressionist canvas. Phillip Guston meets Franz Kline, circa  1950 or so. The colors laid so flat in direct observation, but now drop unfortunately into space as they recede. I need to do a quick revision in PShop. The upper left heather and yellow flowers need to be pumped up in contrast and saturation……here’s a crude edit…

Pt. Lobos, Flattened image....

On another topic…I’m doing some reading on Consciousness…..an old interest of mine. I’m beginning what seems like a fairly accessible book, “The Mystery of Consciousness”, John Searle, which promises a wide overview. For me it’s the old dualism problem…how do physical processes, such as impulses transmitted by nerves, become such seamless and palpable experiences?? How do the firing of neurons become the entire basis of our conscious life?!? The world is so present; my eyes are windows; I see the world seamlessly and continously, and instantaneously! The batter can see the ball hit the bat. (Or vice versa) .

I am intrigued and amazed at the complexity of the sensation/perception/knowing/remembering loop. Also mystified. Particularly if you throw in our desires and fears, our history and our values….it’s one hell of a stew simmering there.

I really have no hope of any, even partial, solutions or answers, but I love examining the problem, and reading ideas that have been advanced.

I think I’d be happy to find ways to simply make others more aware of the mysteries, and more aware of themselves in the act of being in the world. Robert Irwin and James Turrell have devoted their careers to these issues, bit I think there is plenty of ground left to plow.

I do know, much as I love doing it, that painting pictures of the landscape doesn’t quite get to it. Rackstraw Downes gets toward it, with his closely observed and miraculously seamless paintngs of places.

Brooklyn Overpass

Mnay ideas to develop here.

Joys of Public Art: 2

Phil and Steve installing Z-Bars...

So…at long last, after twice sending the mural panels back to Seattle for problems with the lamination, they were declared finished and shipped back to Tampa, scheduled to arrive today.  So we had prepared to install, had installed the ‘Z Bars’ for hanging the 48″ X 88″ steel panels, had the frame finished and delivered, and the decks clear to begin installation tomorrow, saturday, morning. BUT…tracking the shipment this morning I found it was still enroute to ATLANTA…and will be here monday or tuesday. The result being, as both I and Phil are leaving for California early next week, means that the piece will not be installed until June 26th or so.

Really the project from hell in terms of schedule; it was originally planned to be installed last November. The city had delays, and then we discovered the lamination problems. Such a huge difference workong with industrial process, and depending on the expertise and commitments of others. Almost all of my projects over the years have been paintings; large, done in my studio, then delivered and hung. I’ve never missed a deadline, and I have often recruited a friend or family member to drive with me to deliver the piece in a rented truck. The canvases have more than occasionally been wet, but they get there on time.

It’s academic right now….there are no projects on the horizon with the economy down. So I have a lot of time to follow my nose to the onsite projects and problems I’m pursuing. But; it’s odd about the way the details of installation this week become such a distraction, and how they seem to sap my energy and motivation.

I know that my best times recently, in terms of painting, have come from the week long trips centered on a place and on painting. The great luxury of being somwhere with no appointments or meetings or chores….to get up in the morning, have coffee, and get onto the problem of where to paint that morning. It’s best when I’m alone, no obligations beyond the panel on the easel. So…I look forward to many and more frequent trips.

I do have one possible studio project, for a friend who is just finishing a superb small house, and who pointed out a wall there to me today, with a suggestion for a piece. I might do a view through a thicket of bamboo….not nearly as corny as it sounds.

Going to our family re-union next week just south of Monterrey, at Asilomar. It is a conference center designed by Julia Morgan in 1913; she was the architect for W.R. Hearst’s San Simeon Palace….think Rosebud… The reunion should be memorable…my 4 sibs and myself in our  60′s and 70′s, telling stories and inflated memories to the kids and grandkids. It’s so sobering to have kids almost 50!!  My daughter is editing some home movies from the late 40′s and 50′s….which are beautiful in and of themselves, with the erratic exposure, faded color, and ‘firehose’ camera moves…they are behind a dense veil which is such an apt analog for the passage of the 50 or so years. It’s odd, and also a pleasure, to see and recognize that long lost child, yourself.

Color notions………

After some discussions on another blog,  Artand Perception.com , I am posting a few examples of some simple color exercises that can be useful in developing  color awareness and knowledge…These can all be done with colored papers, and can change one’s awareness of color distinctions. I think  the awareness can be hugely useful, as there is a constant flow in our every day experience of color mixes in shadows, reflections, windows, etc.

The first, above, is to find a color which will create an illusion of transparency…as with transparent sheets of colored glass or colored gels. Each ‘parent’ color, if it were glass, transmits only it’s color, and blocks the other colors. So…the overlapped color must be darker than either parent, and somewhere between them in hue. It’s fairly simple, and does not require a precise solution. An extreme example is the Red glass, over Green (Blue + Yellow), produces black. No color is transmitted.

This second example, above, is about creating the illusion of  ‘translucence’, the partial transparency produced by colored tissue or tracing paper. The ‘solution’ color is also between the two original colors in hue, BUT..also between them in value…i.e. it is darker than the lighter parent and lighter than the darker parent. The solution here can also be quite variable.

The third example is trying to create the illusion of colored light falling on different colored surfaces. The one on the left is meant to be a blue light..an oval, falling on the gray background, a violet sheet and a pale orange sheet. The one on the right is of a warm (orange) light,  falling on the gray background and also on a yellow green sheet and a darker blue-green sheet.

These are quick examples done in Photoshop…I couldn’t face getting out the color-aid paper and the x-acto knife and the rubber cement! I could imagine hours of fiddling around.

But, the illusion in colored papers is compelling, and feels to be far more amazing, when you see the bits of paper come together and make a bit of magic.

I have always thought of color in a systematic way, as opposed to a more sensory or associative way. I try to describe color, and I think about it, in terms of hue, value and saturation. I don’t talk about peach, or lavender, or olive drab or…..burnt watermelon? But rather as “A light, grayed red-orange, or a very dark and grayed yellow green, etc.

I paint with a simple chromatic palette; Cad Yellow Med., Cad Orange, Cad red light, Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine Blue, Thalo Blue, and Permanent green. No earth colors.

But; Ive always been a huge fan of the major colorists, Turner to Bonnard to Stella to Brice Marden, and know their thought ran in different and intuitive channels. I’ve been looking recently, a lot, at Peter Doig. An amazing painter, with a huge range of color, marking, and ideas for structure. All of his things have a vivid sense of specific places and people, percolating up through memory.

Website updated….

I spent the day adding a survey of the onsite work, from ’05 to now, on my website. ALL day! Such a drag for we amateurs! Take a look.. http://brucemarsh.net/OnsiteSutvey/Surveyindex.html

Yes…this is correct…I misspelled ‘Sutvey’ for ‘Survey’…early in the process…so it shall remain!

More soon.