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......

Merit Pro, Indeed

I've lost her again.

visual clue:

Myrna's a trip.

The other cats don't even know there is a fourth floor.

Studio Alienation

I've not painted for about 3 weeks and it feels like forever. Top piece was painted with the cat toy underfoot, and this connection was noticed a week or so later. I photographed to post here a week after that, and am just now doing it, one week later. I have a to-do list jet stream overhead, countered by this seductive studio undertow.

Getting to know Myrna/After a week of docile sweetness, Myrna lets her freak flag fly

She digs plants

Hides pretty well

Is explorative

Prods me to fix things. My silverware drawer has been busted for over 5 years.

She's well-balanced

Plays hard

Follows up

(I had to grab pliers and quickly bend back those two nails once I noticed her in there. They were sticking straight out, and I had been reaching in and around them for over 5 years. That goes beyond mere procrastination)

Myrna's a demanding little sweetheart

The Bowels of My Studio

So I managed to lose my found kitten overnight. The studio door was breached by one of my other cats, and I could not find the kitten anywhere in the house. After a few hours, I decided she must have found an opening into the walls or under the floor. Luckily my floors have been sliced and diced already, so I just had to unscrew this plywood patch in my studio floor.

Yep, no real crawspace, just a half foot of a subterranean world.

I like to believe it's an unoccupied world.

There's no room for my head, so I place a light down there and angle my camera around.

No kitten here.

No kitten here........what the?

I have no idea. It looked like a bone with a dried rat face on the left.

It just looks like a rock now.

The kitten was just very well hidden in the upper world.

All is well.

The Best Yard Offering Yet

I found her an hour ago. She was just hunkered down in a snow drift next to the street. It makes no sense that she didn't seek cover at least in my wooded area or under/near a house. She didn't know what to do outside. I picked her up and she smells like she just left a house full of smoke and fried food. Her eyes are beautiful, but she blinked in every shot.

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.