Spring!!

My neighbor cut my front yard and so I stocked the beer fence.

Nest Tree

I received the dreaded notice from the health dept, to remove my brush pile. It's been 5+ years since my last notice, and this is the largest it's ever been (this sort of maintenance never seems to happen without prodding).

 I managed to break everything down in two days, into 3 wood stacks, a light crunchy scattering over the yard, an extensive and attractive garden border of twisted large branches, and this "nest tree" on the right.

 Mid-way through the pile, I found this old yard offering. The tree was still green from an artificial dye. It also had around 100 bendy branches that could not be snapped off, had to be clipped. I have a dead cypress in the yard, I've not yet removed. How funny to wedge this green dyed dead Christmas tree into the cypress' branches, making it look alive (and saving me a lot of tedious branch cutting).

 Before long I had an entire pile of bendy brush that would be hard to break down. Yep, I wove everything into the nest tree. Here's a detail. It has way more brush in there than it appears in these photos....way more.

I should mention that I almost hoard rotting wood. I really enjoy having it around, and even messing with the pile, digging through and finding the various stages of decomposition. Finding various fungus growth. The urge to build with it is strong too. I had to restrain myself from leaning the larger limbs onto other trees and building things. I would love to be able to engage in strenuous puttering like this all the time.

October News Brief

I'm preparing for a large series of paintings, where I plan on working within certain parameters. I plan on keeping a fairly consistent palette and work within a theme, and I'll be working with a surface that I don't plan on mucking up a lot, maybe just gentle scraping back. I'm going to treat it as a challenge to not rebel, but to find innovation and adventure from within this predetermined working structure. I may need to have a second group going, where anything can happen, just for sanity's sake.

I talked to two different people outside, while wearing this cicada shell on my lapel. Neither person mentioned it, and I continued to wear it for several hours inside the house. Then caught a glimpse in the mirror and it startled me.

I'm once again starting up the touchup service. I moved my sample making setup outside because of the fumes. Then I spent several hours online researching other, less toxic materials. The mosquitos are almost gone now and it will be nice to spend time outside again. This was an amazingly long satisfying summer, and now I feel like winter will be just a blip. It's usually the reverse.

I finally harvested my fancy carrots. They ended up being shaded by the tomato plants and were a tad dwarfed. I did go ahead and eat a few. They were excellent.

Myrna's continuing to be an absolute delight.


Felix and Sheila inherited a sleeping blanket. It crinkles, they like it.

Alan on the drop cloth pile. I better move those.

I will be leasing studio space starting in November at the Circle City Industrial Complex, home of Wug Laku and friends. I'm getting excited about some exhibition ideas I have for the space. More to come....

Asynchronous Salon - installation

Last weekend Mary Addison Hackett was in town to help install Asynchronous Salon, and to perform her wall painting. I put her up in my newly converted artist's studio fantasy suite, complete with cat, clamp reading light, and sweet scents of linseed oil.
The Marsh Gallery at Herron School of Art is a beautiful space. It's on the east end of the main hall, and this show will be up through August 26, with a closing reception on the the 26th, 5 - 8 p.m.



Steven LaRose's series "The Barely Comprehensible Realm".


*MAH photo
*MAH photo
*MAH photo Nomi Lubin's collages. More work at "Paintings" and "Not Paintings".

*MAH photo My recent shaped panels paintings.

*MAH photo *MAH photo Mary Addison Hackett's Pool Paintings from Fluid: The Elusive Chapters from the Passage of Time.

*MAH photo

Mary Addison Hackett's alla prima wall painting which she did while listening to Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs." The album is 64:07 in length, as is the painting, per MAH's pre-established rules. A videotape of the painting will run throughout the exhibition.

*MAH photo "The Suburbs, 64:07"

Spacial weirdness. Ahem...above.

Until next time......

Some days are more exciting than others

All before noon today:

1 - A plan for managing the confusing mix of multiple unrelated projects
2 - A big picture perspective, and plan, for dealing with a current small beans issue
3 - A one-liner rant about a current small beans issue (a different one), that seems funny to me now
4 - A pretty well fleshed-out idea for an exhibition of my work. Includes title and a good start in conceptualizing the idea and the actual language for describing the idea. It's looking more and more like "Spawn" paintings will be re-addressed from a different role of artistic authority.
5 - A pretty well fleshed-out idea for curating a group of work. Includes title and a good start in conceptualizing the idea and the actual language for describing the idea. I also know exactly who and where this show should be shown. It's an idea which I've been trying to distinguish for a few years. It still needs much work, but I now know how to pitch it in a way that preserves the integrity of the idea, and which will be understood by others.

Today I love this little pile of chaos.

Now go get dressed.

The Case for Obama | Rolling Stone Politics

A very favorable overview of Obama's presidency, thus far. Still, it's a reasonable assessment, and it's pretty impressive.

The Case for Obama Rolling Stone Politics

Iggy Pop and the Stooges - Mike Watts tour blog

Ha! I found this tour blog posted by bassist Mike Watts, who just now finished touring with Iggy Pop and the Stooges. He's been performing in a full leg soft cast, hobbling up and down from stage on crutches. Here's an excerp about the show I saw last Sunday at the Riviera in Chicago. To see the entire post go here, and then scroll down to August 29, Riviera.

Mary Addison Hackett in Nashville, TN

I had a wonderful visit with artist Mary Addison Hackett last weekend, and she's posted a great photo essay of the trip on her blog, Process. MAH recently moved to Nashville, TN from L.A., and we so we went gallery hopping on their artwalk night. I also had the pleasure of seeing her paintings in person.

Bird Bath B-day Gift

Rules

"Rules are for amateurs", declared my garden guru, Mary Yeager. This was years ago, and as is often the case upon hearing a vocalized Yeagerism, I found myself laughing without fully knowing why. It's so true, in the garden and in life.

I have always cut my herbaceous hydrangeas back, like we're supposed to. Last year, after my second burglary, and while the ruffians at 1659 Kildare were creating daily havoc, I just gave up and let it go. I did not cut back my hydrangeas. I noticed other neighbors were staying inside too. Anyhoo, the freakin hydrandea is the best it's ever been! Makes me wonder what more I could/should be neglecting in my life. Or at the very least, chilling out on a bit more.

Kudos to Indianapolis' City Services

...for clearing this mess within 24 hours of my call.

I shot this while the pile was still neatly stacked and condensed. Within a day it was blocking half the street and blowing into my yard. These neighbors sandwiched their move-in and their move-out with identical piles. The move-in pile festered in their yard for three months, blowing trash over the entire block...for three months. It was so depressing. So I got on this one fast. I called three different agencies on Monday, and by Tuesday this was entirely gone. Not a scrap of anything. Frankly, I'm stunned. All of my calls, one each to road hazards, mayor's action center, and health department were met by courteous, professional people, and I spent very little time being routed to them.

It's enough to make a person care.

Is This Blog On?

Chilling at my parents' in my new x-mas Snuggie, this one is called a Cuddlie though.


I found some excellent gifts this year. I should have photographed them. They were that good.

(small piece, in progress/process)

Back to abstraction. Back to the exciting world of making stupid, inelegant decisions, and then reacting to them. MW Capacity just linked via another link to this Time Out New York interview with Steve DiBendetto. His thoughts seem very in sync with how I approach these paintings.

My really bad neighbors rammed into their own house (right of door).........twice (wide area left of door, near shrub, )down low. This did not delight me to a senseless state of delirium. Nope, not me.

Later, gators.

Yard Offerings From Below

These are fairly early finds at 1650 Kildare, from a few years ago when I still enjoyed hanging out in my yard. I spent several years hand digging my garden. I've had people tell me I'm full of shit for thinking these are anything other than rocks...

I've thrown back the iffy ones and kept these two, because they are obviously human-made tools. It doesn't show, but the larger one has a very refined axe-end to it, with a very bulky front area. It appears the lower part of the axe-end broke and they tossed it aside. I would not have expected these to be made this way, refining an area before shaping the entire thing.

The cat tail in the last photo is from current times.

One thing leads to another

I have several small shaped panels, some have been painted, some have not. I'm not very committed them. I sanded this one down and repainted, specifically for an upcoming color-themed show (juried so I'm not officially posting this image yet).

I have a group of large shaped paintings which I'll be showing at the Harrison Center Gallery in April 2010. I'd like to augment this group with a subgroup, and originally had a plan to almost subvert my own work, by using the large shaped paintings as 'beings' in smaller narrative paintings. I'd have them comically running around or lying on the ground, shaped similarly to a pool of water. It cracked me up and also fulfilled my ongoing need to negate (partially anyway) what I've already done. Those paintings had become my "serious" work, and I needed to knock them down a bit. But I never applied the idea; maybe it's better as an imagined dalliance.

These smaller shaped pieces will work well. They'll relate to the larger work in a very real, nongimicky way. It will be good for me to work smaller and faster with the similar formal elements. These can make more cohesive statements, which will satisy something.

I also like being mentally into the next project before my opening on Friday.