...handed to me on a plate

"Peak" paintings by Julia Kuhl courtesy of frosch & portmann gallery........

"Mount" paintings by Carla Knopp.

Julia's are so beautifully distilled to the essence of their painted imagery.

Mine seem self-indulgent and lacking the confidence to be simple. ....or to simply be.

Lately I've been pondering the honesty of my work. It seems I'm still overly influenced by external considerations. I really do best when I go hyper-insular. That's where the beautiful shit is, and it's my job to go find it. It is not my job to make sure everyone appreciates it. It's not my job to limit my findings to that which can be easily consumed by a mildly engaged audience. It's not my job to devise social constructs under the guise of art.

Go see all of Julia's work. I really like it and it deserves to be presented as its own post. But it's also such a weirdly direct lesson for me, that I had to compare. It's both devasting and exciting.

Graphic Style Jungle Nursery

A really simple scheme, with nice dense colors, filling the entire room. My favorite approach for a nursery. This graphic style actually takes as long to paint as a more realistic style. The flat areas of color need two coats to look good. With more realistic work, I can often use glazes and washes and brushy strokes.

These are Cool

"Autumn Joy" Sedum

High-jinks

Several years ago I designed a stencil and paint scheme for these three adjoining offices. I just saw it again this week and shot some photos.

It cracked me up. I thought the motif was more integrated into the design.

I could see doing an entire line of designs which play off of this historical paint scheme look. I think it would be so cool for kid's rooms, or nurseries...with a more appropriate motif. Wish I had added a 1/4" line on that frieze.

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.

Lane Marker

21" x 31"

Some very unexpected imagery today. It blew my mind for most of the day, and now seems more ordinary, so I should just call it a quicky (two sessions) and hide it somewhere.